Dear Congress: Stop messing around already!

Dear Congress,

All I want to do this week is fill up my car with gas, go to work, make enough money to pay my bills and buy groceries and maybe save a little for my children's college. To do this my employer needs credit, especially from our customers. That will be a little hard if the credit markets freeze. Companies require credit to conduct their business, which is most of them. A lot of non-banking companies out there, even with good credit, may soon not need the money they need to conduct business as the banks either don't have the money to spare or they are too scared to lend. The thought of 700 billion dollars churns my stomach, but I think in the long run the economic fallout from bank and business failure will cost more than $700B.

At this point I don't really care who is responsible for this mess, I just have this horrible feeling that we're making a bigger mess by not fixing it now. I know its an election year and you have to posture against Wall Street and make sure Main Street is taken care of, but I worry you're really taking care of MainStreet in a bad way. Sooner or later the rest of the world is going to write us off as a bad debt and then where will we be? I understand you don't want to vote for it, because it's politically unpopular, despite being the smart thing to do. Some analysts think that we may even make a profit from this (of course that assumes that less than 50% of the bad mortgages fail), as we have in the past.

Just because the unwashed ignorant masses, which is pretty much most of us, think they'll be sticking it to Wall Street fat cats, doesn't make it so. Yes, some of those businesses made some bad decisions and they deserve to fail. But do we want to see them fail at our expense? Without the bailout, there might not be jobs for any of us to work as credit dries up. Look I don't like the bailout/investment of those who got us into the mess, which includes you for taking away the regulations that could have prevented this mess, but I like sleeping on the street even less. Just take your pound of flesh and move on already. Nationalize the banks if you have to. Take equity in the banks. Whatever. Just stop farking around and get to work.

I don't know if this plan is how to fix our markets or is just the delaying the inevitable. I'm not an expert on financial markets or monetary policy and this whole rush to pass the bill feels like the runup to Iraq all over again. But I think if we just stick by our laissez-faire guns, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. We've made our bed with the housing bubble and all the leveraging. Now we need to sleep in it. Stop digging in on principals before more people lose their jobs or houses. Don't make this an an ideological issue; put the good of the country first. And then, tomorrow, or next week, work on our 10 trillion dollar debt before the dollar is worth no more than monopoly money.

I remember reading in an FDR bio that in the last weeks of the Hoover administration the economy essentially stopped as banks stopped lending money as they waited to see what FDR would do. This had the immediate effect of increasing unemployment as business stopped as they became unable to pay payrolls, hire new employees and buy supplies. Farmers were unable to afford seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides for the next year. I really don't want to see the GreatDepression renamed World Depression I.

Next time on a very special episode of John & Sarah ...

I don't know whether to be amused or sad that the McCain/Palin campaign want to rip off the plot of The Birdcage and have Gov Palin's teenage daughter marry her baby daddy just before the election for ratings. Of course it will be a shotgun wedding as Gov Palin has already admitted she shoots things.

Me thinks this campaign has jumped the shark. You can always tell the ratings are tanking when producers go for the wedding, though they at least shook things up by having pregnancy episodes before the wedding episode. And of course Sarah will have to cut time out of her schedule for important things like security briefs and interviews with the press to plan the wedding and decide what lipstick to put on. I wonder what hijinks they have planned to go wrong that day for the traditional cold feet scene.

I think the season will end as a cliffhanger with Palin's son being shipped off to Iraq & the daughter going into labor. Left unanswered will be the important questions: Did Sarah or Todd have an affair? Is John ill? Did Sarah abuse her power? Will Levi be written out? What about Trigg? There is a real danger we won't find out what happens next if John & Sarah get canceled by voters in November, so vote McCain if you want to keep this soap opera running.

Caribou Barbie

Did you see the interview Sarah Palin had with Katie Couric on CBS? Yikes!! No wonder the McCain campaign is keeping her from the press, which finally seems to be waking up to this problem. More disturbing though is the thought she could be President one day. While I don't expect her, a governor suddenly thrust onto the national stage to be as well versed in national issues as Senators McCain, Obama and Biden after just a few weeks, I would expect her to at least be able to answer a question with a rudimentary, basic answer. That she can not disturbs me. It is not so much that she didn't know the issues facing this country that bothered me as her seemingly inabilityto still understand them. She is not qualified to run for the second highest office of this land.

Being governor of Alaska, a state with a population smaller than Brooklyn, is not the same as being a governor of New Jersey, Texas or Arkansas. She basically has the same executive experience as one of the many mayors of New Jersey's small towns. My father in law has executive business experience running his small radio communications company, that doesn't mean he has the skills to suddenly run CBS tomorrow, even though he watches the network on a regular basis. If Governor Palin can't handle Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric or even her own supporters throwing softballs, how can she handle Putin when he bombs Georgia again? How will she work with foreign leaders who already see her as just eye candy like Pakistan's leader did?

I'm not a Dick Cheney fan, but I wouldn't be too worried if he was suddenly President. He has been engaged in national and international issues for decades and would be an adequate President. Same for Al Gore if something had happened to President Clinton. Even Dan Quayle, who was also thought to be a lightweight, had some experience with national issues and, as I recall, was at least able to answer reporter questions (though not spell potato). But Governor Palin? Maybe 8 years from now, but not today. And, after this last round with Couric I think I am being generous.

Whether you agree with her or not is not as important as whether she can actually be President. Her running mate is a 72 year old former POW cancer survivor running for the most stressful job on the planet? Will he still be here in 4 years? What happens if we really do get a President Palin. As I said before, picking Palin was a great political move, but is it good for the country?

Yes, the role of the VP, which constitutionally is just to make sure the President is breathing and break ties in the Senate, doesn't require much, but when there is a chance that VP may be President, it is time to worry. And, as the recent financial meltdown has shown, we will need a leader who is not only engaged but also can understand what is going on. Senator McCain is intelligent and knowledgeable, Palin is not. Governing a nation such as our requires skills and an ability to make the right decision based on an understanding of the facts to make complex decisions, not just simply doing what your advisers tell you to do because all you are is an empty figure head. It requires a leader prepared to understand the issues facing him or her, able to partake in serious thought. I have yet to see a view from Governor Palin that would convince me she has these skills.

I like John McCain, though not his campaign (which reminds me of Gore's 2000 campaign filled will missteps because the handlers wouldn't let the candidate be himself). If he had won the nomination in 2000, I may have voted for him over Gore, but then I may not have. Though there were polices of his I disagreed with, I never doubted his ability to be President then. However, it is now 8 years later. He is 72 and has had health issues. While his mother is still around, both his father and grandfather died at much younger ages. While though those could be blamed on the stresses of WWII and Vietnam, both the stresses of our financial mess and Iraq will not be going away anytime soon and I worry about a President McCain making it to 2012.

There is a reason why some of the left leaning blogs came up with the nickname Caribou Barbie for Governor Palin (I think, I'v heard it many places). These are dangerous times, we can't afford an incompetent person running the show. As long as Governor Palin remains on the ticket, I will not vote for McCain. There are many competent conservatives who, while I may not agree with politically, are competent to step into the role of President if the need should sadly arise.

Mommy track

I was reading an article in the NY Times about the mommy penalty, though not necessarily from anti-mommy discrimination, working mothers face in pay and compensation. The article contained a section for readers to comment. Of course, the first one blasted working mothers for not working weekends or until 8 at night.

Even before I had children I never would take a job that required me to work weekends or stay late on a regular basis (I exclude from this the hour or so I take some Sunday evenings to clear out my email). Of course, that means my pay is lower (I’m an attorney earning nowhere near the salary I could if I had chosen a more stressful path) but my life is my own, something even more important to me now that I have children. I don’t know where some of these people with the insane hours work or what they do but it sounds unpleasant. One of the benefits in obtaining the skills to work in a high paying job is also the benefit of finding a position where I am able to work for less money but much more flexible time.

I work in an office that offers the same benefits to parents and non-parents alike (flex hours, telecommuting etc). It also offers the same pay. I’ve never noticed parents getting special breaks, if you have to leave early for an appointment, whether its for yourself or a child, doesn't make a difference. As long as the work/project is done when due, all is well. Instead of whining about the mommies leaving early, maybe those people should be considering a job that doesn’t require crazy hours.

While I do work at home half the time, the rest of the time requires me to work in an office over an hour from our home. My wife, on the other hand, works in the adjoining town, 10 minutes from home. So, on the days I'm in the office and an emergency arises with one of my children, my wife is forced to leave work early. Of course, left unsaid, is my wife is using up her sick or vacation time for these events. Like many families with both parents working, we haven't had a long vacation in many years, mostly because we have to use our time off at small chunks. She also does not stay late as my commute gets me home after the after school care programs are done for the day and we really don't feel like finding out what the child abandonment laws in NJ really are.

No complaints, it is the life we chose, but I really miss two week vacations, going to shows on weekends and having money to spend on ourselves. And, once the children are grown, I will happily work during school vacation weeks again. I loved those nice quiet weeks in the office, catching up on paperwork while the phones and email fell quiet, and then taking a nice cheap trip in the fall when all the families are stuck home due to school schedules.

Shea hey, goodbye Yankee Stadium

Well, in a little while, the House that Ruth Built will host it's final baseball game as baseball's cathedral gives way to the House that George Built, with taxpayer help of course. In a week, hopefully more, Shea Stadium will host its final baseball game and make way for CitiField. As a life long New Yorker, living in the city and the suburbs, I'm sad to see both go. Shea Stadium may be a toilet but, as a Mets fan, it is my toilet. Yankee Stadium to me is Cooperstown South and I'm major league annoyed that it is being torn down to put up a parking lot.

Growing up in the 1970s I went to many Mets games, not only because we lived in Queens, but because the Mets had horrible teams in those years and my dad's office had field level box seats customers did not want. It was a horrible day in 1985 when I had to watch my first baseball game from the upper deck. I had seen a NY Jets game from there before, against the Baltimore Colts, on a cold November day (Shea Stadium in late fall, with the wind whipping off the waters is not a pleasant place) but never a baseball game. It was that day I understood why the football/baseball stadiums of the 1960s stunk. Although we froze in the upper deck, we had a great view of the football game, if but from afar. Baseball was little harder to watch, especially when the ball traveled out of view.

My memories of Shea, which I visited for the last time a week ago, and taught my son why it is best to leave before the 9th, when the Mets bullpen takes over and blows the lead, are many. There are too many games my father took my brothers and I to to remember with specificity. Same for games I went to with friends, including a few girlfriends who were also Mets fans. I'll have memories of moving down from the cheap upper level seats, including climbing the wall between mezzanine and field where the seats are right next to each other, to sitting in a box seat adjacent to the field at the end of a losing season during Keith Hernandez's and Gary Carter's last season with the Mets. I'll remember the double header I went to when we were sitting in the right field mezzanine seats and, after Howard Johnson got hit by the pitcher, looking down at the bullpen, watching John Franco pump his fist, a few times and yelling to him "you know you want to!" just before he ran out of the bullpen for a fight at the plate (I'm sure he didn't hear me, most likely he was waiting to see if a fight was about to break out). It is kind of sad I can't remember the games with my dad in detail, but those happened when I was younger and were more frequent so I don't remember them as anything special.

I suppose I will always remember the first Mets game I took my son to, which was just last year. You see last year was the first year he was old enough to really be into baseball. I tried to get him into baseball, taking him to Lakewood Blue Claws games, a single A game team of the Philadelphia Phillies, before, but he wasn't interested. Finally, when he turned 6, he became interested in the Mets. So the following season we went to our first game. The Mets kicked butt. My best story of Shea Stadium, and my first visit, more or less, comes from my mother. My parents and god parents scored opening day tickets to the 1968 season. My mother, was a rabid Brooklyn Dodgers fan and adopted the Mets as the Dodgers successor in interest (though she also started following the Yankees, she liked Micky Mantle). Actually she still defines herself as a BROOKLYN Dodger fan. She has never forgiven O'Malley for moving the team to LA.

In 1985, my dad had a business trip to St. Louis, where the Dodgers were playing the Cardinals in the playoffs and my mom went with him for a little teenager free weekend. My dad got tickets to a game so my mom borrowed my brother's baseball cap with a Cardinal with wings to wear. The Cards won and as my mom gleefully walked down the ramps with her cap she was seen by NBC; they got her on camera and asked her if she was a happy Cards fan. Her reply: "No. I'm from Brooklyn, NY and I came to root against the Dodgers." The next day at school was not good for my brothers, sister and me. Anyway, I degress.

The Mets home opener of 1968 coincided with my due date. My mother wasn't going to let that stop her and off she went. My godmother asked my mother what would happen if I decided to make my appearance during the 7th inning strength. Her reply, "We'll name the baby Shea." Though we're not Irish, we lived in an Irish neighborhood so the name Shea wouldn't have been a major problem for a boy, except if I was a girl and, perhaps, with the rabbi and, for sure, my father's parents. Fortunately I was a boy and more fortunately I was born two weeks late.

I have different memories of Yankee Stadium, mostly because, as a Mets fan, I went there less frequently. The first game I remember (I was taken to the older version of the Stadium but don't recall it) was during the 1977 season. My friend's father got a hold of some free left field Con Ed bleacher seats. I recall it rained, we were annoying the visiting team's bullpen and Lou Pinella won the game in extra innings (I think with a homerun). However, the first game I remember with my dad was better. It was 1978, the year the Yankees came back from 14 1/2 out. It was September, and the Yanks were either in first, or just about to get there, and my dad got 4 upper deck tickets for my brothers and me. Awesome tickets at that time. One problem, we were Jewish and it was Yom Kipper, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. My dad had grown up in a religious family. I don't remember who won, or even who the Yankees played. What I do remember is my dad telling my brothers over and over "Don't tell grandma we went to the game."

Other than that, my memories of the Stadium are more generic. I've been to many games with friends. I remember the first time I went by the 4 train and the subway emerged from underground to stare at the Stadium face to face. I remember going to a Mets Yankees game there and being very quiet, less I get killed as a Mets fan (those were the days the bleacher creatures would strip down a Red Sox fan and surf him over their shoulders around the park). I remember cutting out of work to meet my wife and her office somewhere in the upper deck. I remember my first visit to Monument Park, which wasn't open to the public when I was younger, and wondered why I ever needed to visit Cooperstown again. I think that is why I'm more bummed about the Stadium closing than about Shea. All that history - gone for something new and sexy.

Anyway, tonight is the night to Shea goodbye to our Stadiums. Next year we will be in new, more expensive ballparks. Though we'll move there, we will leave a part of ourselves behind.

The stress of teaching

If it's September, it must be time to bash teachers. This week's bashing is brought to you by Fark, where various people commented about an article on stressed out teachers looking for a relief. Can't say I blame the teachers. I'd hate to have to deal with politics, standardized testing, parents who think their child is over entitled etc. Aside from the vacation, there is no way I'd want to be a teacher.

My mother was a NYC teacher in a working class neighborhood through the 1970s - early 90s. Though the school wasn't that great, it wasn't horrible either. That changed by the late 80s, NYC was in recession and all the kids who were in private school were crammed into her over crowded school and quickly consumed by the wolves (those who came to learn got their butts kicked).

She was old school and that didn't play well by 1990 when parents of children who refused to behave got mad at the teachers because their children were screwing up. One parent was upset that my mother couldn't do more to control her child in school. At that point, the child had been sent to the dean, been sent to detention, had a parent called etc (corporal punishment was illegal). Calling the parent was the final step -- it was supposed to be the part where the parent actually parented and tried to get their child back on the right path. For various reasons, that didn't happen in that neighborhood. If a teacher had told my parents I was misbehaving like some of her students were, I would have been killed, literally. Not so in her school, there the parents blamed the teachers.

All around she saw fail. Junior high kids getting pregnant, and happy about it. Parents who seemed ok that their lack of involvement was dooming their children to careers at McDonalds because they wouldn't sit their kids down and demand that they behave in school. Out of date books. Classes meeting in bathrooms due to lack of space. Pretty sad when you think about it. The school was so bad that a book was written about it.

By the end, the stress was so great, she was on tons of meds. One day, she just mailed in her keys and quit. She wasn't that far from a full retirement but she didn't care. She was able to retire on disability (her health had been declining the previous few years which didn't help in a school where the strong preyed on the weak) & was off her meds in about a month.

Somehow or another children did graduate from that school and have successful lives (I've worked with a few over the years who remembered my mother). They were the ones who had parents that worked with the school. Unfortunately they were the minority.

Granted, this was almost 2 decades ago, but I imagine that the same situation exists today. The son of a friend recently started teaching in an inner city school and is already ready to quit. It's not so much the kid who got expelled for selling drugs in school still showing up everyday to visit his clients before and after school, it's the children too tired to stay awake in class after working two shifts the night before or skipping school to work that morning, dooming their futures. I couldn't go to work and see that amount of fail every day for all the tea in China.

Should an ill child die over money?

I saw this story last night on one of the websites I frequently visit. The poster's son has been diagnosed with a very rare form of brain cancer. There is only one hospital that can help the boy, Sloan-Kettering, in Manhattan. According to the father they have been doing a study with this treatment for the cancer (Neurocutaneous Melanosis with Leptomeningeal Melanoma), and it has shown a lot of promise. But, because it is a But, because it is a clinical trial, funded by a grant from the National Cancer Institute, insurance won't pay for it; no exceptions, not even in life or death situations.

The boy did qualify for the study in New York but because of the Medicaid/insurance issues he couldn't be transferred there. According to the father, Sloan was excited to have his son come up to the city for treatment, but changed their tune once they found out there were money issues. The treatment will cost $100,000, which the family does not have. So, since they have been denied the medical treatment they need by virtue of a lack of financial resources, they are seeking donations, hoping to get 100,000 to donate $1 each. According to the website they are about a third of the way there. I know I'm not going to miss the $10 I threw into the pot.

I'm not going to rush to judgment on the hospital's reasons, primarily because I haven't seen their side of the story. Also, I'm sure emotion is playing a part in the father's fact pattern. It could very well be the father is grasping at straws to save a doomed child and this is his last hope, whether it is realistic or not. Still, as the parent of two children, and growing up in a family where a child died before adulthood, I could easily put myself in his shoes.

From the various threads I read, this doesn't feel like a scam, it feels like a dad desperate to save his child. I don't know these people, nor do I need to. Their son has a rare form of brain cancer and due to circumstances beyond their control they cannot afford the $100K treatment that their insurance company wont pay for. My wife and I are lucky enough that we could sell our house or take out a loan to cover the cost, and worry about paying the credit card bills and keeping our house later, many are not.

You can argue that the real tragedy here is not the fact that this child is terminally ill, but that we live in a country where we have the resources, the money and the power to prevent such things from happening but choose sit back and count our money like Scrooge instead (which I did - zing). However, this isn't about politics, it's about a dying child. Even if all I did was pay to finance hope, so be it. If you feel like contributing the link is above. And if not, we all know somebody who has cancer or had a relative die of cancer -- maybe you can throw a few bucks at your favorite cancer charity instead.

To boldly go where few gay men have gone before

Star Trek's Mr. Sulu, George Takei, married his longtime partner over the weekend, with best lady Lt. (or whatever her rank is now) Uhura, Nichelle Nichols, and Pavel Chekov, aka Walter Koenig. Yep, another Star Trek wedding. Nothing unusual about that except for one thing -- Sulu's partner is also a man. Another gay marriage and, aside from the Mets bullpen blowing another lead, nothing disastrous happened. The world did not stop spinning. The sun didn't explode. That weird snow cone shaped planet eater from some second season episode of Star Trek did not come to Earth and go all "nom nom nom nom" on us. All was well, unless you worked for Lehman Brothers or Merrill Lynch, but that's another story.

However, there are those to whom this weekend's events spell the end of civilization as we know it (ignoring that civilization as we know it always seems to be evolving anyway), so they can force their views onto others. Hogwash. Why is it anyone's business what two consenting human adults who love each other do? If they want to get married, let them get married. Let them suffer all the joys and sorrows like the rest of us. No need for all the hate. If you don't want gay married couples in your life, you are perfectly free to exclude them from your day to day activities. Just as it is easy to find religious organizations that welcome diversity, it is even easier to find those that are much more traditional. No one is forcing you to play well with others who are different.

Still, even the hating is progress, to an extent. 40 - 50 years ago, the photo below, from Mr. Takei's wedding, of a "negro" woman, a "jap" and two other "white" men would have been blasted for the mixing of races in many parts of the country. And forget about the idea of an aisan and white marrying. Today, not a peep about their different backgrounds, aside from the homosexuality. It just doesn't seem to matter to most people these days. It is no one's business but the happy couple's. Perhaps one day we'll think nothing more than fun party where all had a good time when we hear the term "gay wedding."

If pigs could fly and put on lipstick

The last few days, where the GOP has attempted to Swift Boat Obama have been fun but the GOP needs to be careful. They need to change their tune soon and get back to the issues. I can't believe I'm not the only one who is noticing that the GOP hasn't said anything substantive of late as they pander to the low hanging fruit.

I want to hear about how McCain's policies will be different than Bush. I want to hear about nation building here at home where we have crumbling infrastructures that will need investments. I want to hear about how our veterans will get the care they need and have earned. Are we really going to keep focusing on the superfluous, rather than anything of substance, for the remainder of this election? It's obvious McCain's people hope we do, but I don't know.

While this does seem like his campaign strategy, I wonder if this will backfire. Sooner or later someone will notice all they are really doing is tearing down Obama to McCain's level without building up McCain to Obama's level. Already, to me, McCain is making Obama seem like the better leader, or at least the more mature and level headed of the two. All I'm hearing is Obama wants to discuss issues and McCain wants to talk about gaffe's Obama makes. 7 weeks is an awfully long time for people not to realize that McCain hasn't said anything about his health, tax and economic policies differ from Bush's or are at least better than Obama's.

Of course, few have ever gone broke under estimating the stupidity of the American voter. Fewer still have won elections taking the high road and remaining above the fray, at least lately. Too many of us believe whatever a political operative will tell us to believe instead of taking the time to judge the facts for themselves. Denigrating the intelligence of the party that hates science, supports Creationism, thinks the War on Iraq is God's work, and gay marriage will destroy America? Not a problem as long as you have some cosmetic issue to turn that around on as your defense. As has been shown in the past, taking the high road and sticking to honest politics will not get you elected.

I won't be surprised if Obama is dammed when he fights back, and is portrayed as an angry black man as only Republicans are allowed to defend themselves against smear attacks, or dammed if he remains above the fray and is deemed another John Kerry who is too much of wimp to fight back. Obama probably wouldn't have brought up the subject of McCain's houses if he were not attacked for being an elitist by an elitist. I also won't be surprised if McCain is portrayed as just another old, angry white man afraid of real change, with a reminder that wars aren't won by those not fighting, like dead soldiers or POWs, they're won by those doing the fighting, by the Democrats. I'll be sad, but not surprised.

We keep buying the same story, vote the same way and then act surprised when the expected different outcome doesn't occur. If this keep up, the only loser will be us, the American people, as our future challenges get put off for another 4 to 8 years. You can put lipstick on a donkey but it's still a jack--- (well, I'm sure you know what I mean).

7 years already

Knock, knock. Who's there? 9/11. 9/11 who? You said you'd never forget. Well, it's been seven years...

Doesn't it feel like yesterday? A beautiful late summer day. Sun shining. Mild temperatures. Children back in school. Normal school year and commuting routines starting to get back to normal. Yankees and Mets fighting for playoff spots. Jets and Giants off to another season of aggravating football fans in the NYC area.

That entire day seems fresh in my memory. I was in my office listening to the radio, doing my emails, when the morning guy broke in that there was a fire at the trade center. I went to the employee lounge which had the view of lower Manhattan and watched the smoke pour out of the building. I went back to my office and soon my radio said the second tower was on fire. As I went back to the lounge to see both building burning I think I realized that it was an attack. I don't know why, but I do remember replying "what do you think?" when someone wondered how both buildings could burn.

Next was total confusion in the office. Rumors were flying. The White House is on fire. The Mall is on fire. The Pentagon is on fire. There are still missing planes. I remember sitting in front of my radio, still on the music station which had gone all news, wondering "what the heck was going on?" We eventually all convened in the lounge and watched the buildings burn, and then fall, one by one, pretty much in shock.

After the second tower fell, the lounge was packed but silent, except for the radio and some people crying. I remember one manager with his head in his hands and a completely devastated look on his face. We could hear the fire engines roaring past our building headed to the city (I guess). Soon we were evacuated and I remember standing in the street in a suit, sweating and thinking "now what?" "Fortunately" my office had recently moved to the Jersey side of the Hudson and I was able to get home before too long. It was very strange going down the Garden State Parkway and seeing nothing but army and emergency vehicles headed north. Same for seeing all the trucks just parked on the side of the road by the Outerbridge approach to Staten Island.

It seems like yesterday, but I've noticed that the shock and raw grief are long gone for us, which is interesting considering my wife and I had lived in Brooklyn Heights, just across the East River from the Twin Towers, for many years until 2000 when our son was born and my wife wanted to live near family in Central Jersey. I still think there is something missing when I look at lower Manhattan, though I can at least look at lower Manhattan again and not feel sad.

As to other changes, I hate the way the home of the brave has become the xenophobic land that is scared of our own shadows. For example, if I ride the subway I may have to consent to have my bag searched just so somebody in the middle of the country will feel more secure. Same thing for other public events: when I take my son to his final Mets game at Shea on Sunday, I either have to plan to arrive early so we can wait on long lines while our bag is scanned or plan on buying him food when we get there. Feel good measures that accomplish nothing.

Though we still fight the war on terror, the events of 9/11 are now in our past. Memorabilia from the day is in museums. A new generation of children is growing up with little or no first hand knowledge of the pre 9/11 world. The pain is mostly gone and we are a different people, and not necessarily for the better.

We've come a long way since then. The country is now deeply divided. Hopefully, Senators McCain and Obama's trips to NYC today will remind us of a time when America was united.

Knock, knock. Who's there? 9/11. 9/11 who? You said you'd never forget. Well, it's been seven years...

Doesn't it feel like yesterday? A beautiful late summer day. Sun shining. Mild temperatures. Children back in school. Normal school year and commuting routines starting to get back to normal. Yankees and Mets fighting for playoff spots. Jets and Giants off to another season of aggravating football fans in the NYC area.

That entire day seems fresh in my memory. I was in my office listening to the radio, doing my emails, when the morning guy broke in that there was a fire at the trade center. I went to the employee lounge which had the view of lower Manhattan and watched the smoke pour out of the building. I went back to my office and soon my radio said the second tower was on fire. As I went back to the lounge to see both building burning I think I realized that it was an attack. I don't know why, but I do remember replying "what do you think?" when someone wondered how both buildings could burn.

Next was total confusion in the office. Rumors were flying. The White House is on fire. The Mall is on fire. The Pentagon is on fire. There are still missing planes. I remember sitting in front of my radio, still on the music station which had gone all news, wondering "what the heck was going on?" We eventually all convened in the lounge and watched the buildings burn, and then fall, one by one, pretty much in shock.

After the second tower fell, the lounge was packed but silent, except for the radio and some people crying. I remember one manager with his head in his hands and a completely devastated look on his face. We could hear the fire engines roaring past our building headed to the city (I guess). Soon we were evacuated and I remember standing in the street in a suit, sweating and thinking "now what?" "Fortunately" my office had recently moved to the Jersey side of the Hudson and I was able to get home before too long. It was very strange going down the Garden State Parkway and seeing nothing but army and emergency vehicles headed north. Same for seeing all the trucks just parked on the side of the road by the Outerbridge approach to Staten Island.

It seems like yesterday, but I've noticed that the shock and raw grief are long gone, which is interesting considering my wife and I had lived in Brooklyn Heights, just across the East River from the Twin Towers, for many years until 2000 when our son was born and my wife wanted to live near family in Central Jersey. I still think there is something missing when I look at lower Manhattan and I hate the way the home of the brave has become the xenophobic land that is scared of our own shadows.

Though we still fight the war on terror, the events of 9/11 are now in our past. Memorabilia from the day is in museums. A new generation of children is growing up with little or no first hand knowledge of the pre 9/11 world. The pain is mostly gone and we are a different people, and not necessarily for the better.

We've come a long way since then. The country is now deeply divided. Hopefully, Senators McCain and Obama's trips to NYC today will remind us of a time when America was united.

Set sail on the vomit comet

Many years ago, I was on a cruise that had to be diverted from a port of call due to a potential hurricane. Instead of stopping at St. Martin, the ship docked overnight in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where we had been scheduled to only spend a few hours the following day. To compensate, the cruise line arranged for buses and cabs to various shows, casinos and bars (I went to a show and while waiting for the doors to open, sat down at a slot machine at the adjacent casino, threw a quarter in and promptly won $50) for the night we were in town. Judging by the hangovers the next morning I'd say most of use were happy.

Yet, even though the captain had saved his ship and passengers from bad weather, there were still passengers upset we were missing St. Martin. You see St. Martin was (and is I guess) well known for it's nude beaches and people had brought film to photograph the scenery.They really flipped when the storm only sideswiped St. Matin and, the weather was going to be half decent the day we were supposed to arrive (forget that the hurricane was still between us and the island). While we were waiting on line to get our tickets for one of the San Juan shows, they were really letting the cruise director have it when one older woman said something like "I'm sure all the women are going to stop cleaning up from the storm, run to the beach and takeoff their tops just because we're sailing into port." That pretty much ended the mutiny and the woman got her tickets for one of the shows.

I was reminded of this when I read an article about passengers upset because their cruise was detoured thanks to Tropical Storm Hanna.They were aghast that the captain, doing his best to avoid running into a storm, forced the ship to make less than perfect stops. Yeah, it sucks that the ship made stops in untourist friendly areas, but I think they'd have been even more upset to find themselves barfing all over the midnight buffet when the ship hit rough waters. Here's a suggestion, if you want to make sure your cruise ship doesn't get detoured by a hurricane, don't cruise during hurricane season.

Other than that, unless you have a direct line to God and can get him to change the weather, tough. Weather happens. It is part of life. The captain is not going to harm his multi million dollar ship so you can see topless women on the beach.When life hands you lemons, make lemonade ... or head to the casino and try your luck.

I want to vote for someone better than me

I've heard many reasons for why some people are now supporting McCain/Palin, who weren't for McCain before: she's more conservative, both socially and fiscally, she's anti-abortion, she's pro-religion; all good reasons if that is what floats your boat. However the dumbest thing I've heard has been people saying they will vote for Palin because she is just like them, a hockey/soccer mom. Not to insult hockey/soccer moms but "WHAT"? That's the reason they feel she is qualified from being a heartbeat away from being one of the most powerful people on the planet? Are these people on dope or are they just dopes?

This doesn't apply to every hockey mom, who sees themselves in Ms. Palin's harried life but still disagree with her stance. I'm also not talking about those you generally agree with Governor Palin's views and are thrilled that she is a hockey mom like them too. I'm talking about those who think that just because she is a hockey mom she deserves to be Vice President. My children play sports so I know many coaches and parents. Most of them are great folks to hang around with. They're pretty much like me. That doesn't mean I think they are qualified to lead the US, much as I don't think I'm qualified to lead at this point in my life and if I ever vote for a President or Governor based on whether I'd like to hang out with him, than I hope the Board of Elections revokes my voting rights (I make an exception for local offices, with such small towns I may very well be having a drink with my Mayor).

With the energizing of their base, I can now see a certain logic for picking Palin, even if she is obviously unqualified for the national stage at the moment (I hope the campaign includes a crash course in federal government). And I guess time and investigations will tell whether any of the potential scandals are real or just part of the usual political garbage and presumptions and lies we get this time of the year. Hey, the job is to get elected first. And if you correctly judge that more voters vote with their heart and not their brain, you might as well go for it. It doesn't mean I think much of those voters. They're the ones who got this country into the mess we're in in the first place -- voting for the incompetent they thought was like them and not the better choice.

Yes, that's right. I'm talking to you voters who voted for Bush over McCain in the GOP primaries in 2000. Thanks for handing the keys to an intellectually incurious former drunk, who seems like a nice guy, over a maverick who, usually thinks for himself.

The hypocrisy reeks

Well the media has had its fun with Republican Vice President nominee Sarah Palin, the Governor from Alaska, a state with a smaller population than Brooklyn, NYC, and her family, including her pregnant teen daughter, redneck future son in law, drunk driving husband and questions about the divorce of her husband's business partner. It's been an amusing sideshow but it also led the public's attention away from Palin's social conservatism, her views on Alaskan independence, troopergate and her general lack of experience. Forget her conservative views for a moment and look at her resume - a little weak don't you think? It makes Obama's resume look much more impressive. We're expected to be believe that a 2 year chief of a small, rural organization is qualified to run a trillion dollar operation? These are the issues we should be discussing.

While the job of the Vice-President is basically to make sure the President is still breathing, I am a little more concerned about who is warming up in the bullpen when the President is a 72 year old cancer survivor. But hey, don't let that worry the Republican party. The GOP has an election to win in November and another President and Vice President to inaugurate on January 20th.

I'd like to have someone competent on the 21st on January. Unfortunately too many voters think character issues are important when you're about to entrust someone that amount of power, as if the "nice" guy is so innocent. They'd rather have the hockey mom over the "elite" Senator from Chicago because she is more like them. That kind of thinking is what got this country in so much trouble. We wasted tons of resources basically investigating Clinton's sex life then elected an inferior candidate because he seemed like a nice guy.

I don't want a leader who is like me, my friends or family. I want someone who is better than us. I don't care who a leader sleeps with or prays to. I don't care if he/she is a nice person or a total jerk during off hours. I do care about what he or she will do on the job. Give me a slut who is an intelligent leader over a tea sipping fool who doesn't know what he is doing any day. What happens in a leader's bedroom (or whatever bed he or she is in) is none of the public's business.

Personally I don't care that the potential future Vice President has a teen daughter about to give birth to a baby out of wedlock. What I do care about is the Governor's competence. However, it's all about power and keeping it, not what doing what is best. What I'd find really amusing, if the situation wasn't so serious, is how the GOP went from Dan Quayle bashing Murphy Brown for having a child out of wedlock 16 years ago to how wonderful that the Palin family is not having an abortion, who cares about a 17 year old being pregnant. And of course, their own little pitbull, Bill O'Reilly, who so upset that Britney Spears 15 year old sister was pregnant this past spring has changed his views to Palin's becoming a grandmother is a private family issue. Personal responsibility? That's not for Republicans apparently.

Still, you have to admire a party with so much chutzpah that they can go for jugular of a person from "the other side," but then cry foul if their person is attacked for the exact same thing. It's bad when the other side has sex out of marriage or nominates a candidate with little experience, it's ok when we do it. The hypocrisy reeks.

How about MYOB?

In last week's NY Times magazine, I read an article about narrow reporting, in which an amateur reporter pursued a local story that the main stream media avoided. Long story short, there was a violent death in the writer's neighborhood and the local Mrs. Kravitz/ yenta, upset that there was no coverage in NYC's major newspapers as the death was a suicide of a family man, which the media generally avoids as suicide is a private matter, had to resort to local outlets, such as the neighborhood newspaper, that might mention such news. Still not satisfied with that miniscule coverage, she then felt compelled to write about the suicide in the NY Times magazine, thereby ensuring this family's grief received a wider audience (and which I realize I am contributing to by blogging about it). The article angered me for two reasons.

One, is that the author almost gave the identity of the suicide victim away, or at least made it more likely that people who hadn't heard about it would find out about it. Years ago, I used to live in the neighborhood the author and suicide victim lived in. The local paper she mentioned was generally distributed free in my building's lobby and I usually read it. She named enough streets and landmarks that I was able to surmise the block the suicide happened on, enough so that I looked up the article to make sure it wasn't an old friend who lived on that block (it wasn't and the victim lived around the block). The name was dully reported in the local paper but, as I no longer read that paper, I was unaware of the suicide until I read the Times and I think that was what really annoyed me: the local paper has an audience of several thousands; the Sunday NY Times has a circulation of about 1.5M. That is a lot more people who now know of this family's tragedy than did before. This brings me to my second point.

There other reason the article bothered me: the death, assuming if it was ultimately ruled a suicide was a private matter and really no one's business. Over 20 years ago I had a 15 year old brother die in a car accident. Basically, he blew curfew and was car surfing (sitting on the hood of a moving car while the driver tried to shake the passengers off), fell, landed on his head and ultimately died of complications from a fractured skull. The police investigated as there was a delay from the time of the accident to when our doorbell was rung, and, because a child died. Though it was almost a quarter of a century ago, the details are quite fresh in memory, from the VCR clicking off at 1AM, after taping the Honeymooners and Star Trek off of channel 11 as we answered our door to find the driver telling us to come down as my brother had fallen and wouldn't wake up all the way through to hours later as my father cried on the couch like a baby, just before sunrise, inconsolable, saying nothing would be "all right again" as I sat quietly on the floor of the couch while he cried to at least be there for him.

Even now, all these years later, I'm still learning new details about that night. Last week, while having drinks with an older cousin, the topic drifted to my brother's death, my father's death not long after and how we've rarely talked about it over the years and it was only in the last 5 years or so we've really all made our peace with what happened. While talking my cousin mentioned how horrible it was for my brother to have died in my father's arms. What was interesting was that was not the chain of events as I remembered them or as my parents told us. For one thing, I was present when my brother stopped breathing in the driveway behind our apartment building as we waited for the ambulance; we got him going again with CPR. For another, my dad mentioned that he knew it was over when, while following the ambulance to the hospital, a second ambulance pulled over so they could assist in working on my brother. All these years, I thought my parents just sat in our car and watched in disbelief along the side of the highway as my brother was worked on: now I realize that my parents went to the ambulance and were there when my brother died. In one way, it's nice to know he wasn't alone with just the medics, in another, though it explains why my mother, outside of a haiku she wrote for her school's publication, has rarely said a word, letting her grief ravage her body (though she has had moments of happiness, such as weddings and grandchildren over the years, I can't really recall her laughing at anything in the last 20 years, aside from a sarcastic chuckle now and then) and why my father, a 35 year smoker down to less than half a pack a day quickly shot up to 3 packs a day until he died of a broken heart a few years later.

As I implied, all this is deeply personal. Even writing this all these years later still brings tears to me, but, as it is now over half a lifetime ago, distance allows me to talk about it quite freely. However, I can't imagine how much more hellish the whole experience would have been if local bloggers had been around back then to ask us what happened. My brother's death was never reported in the major media nor the local neighborhood papers which generally concentrated on user supplied articles. Outside of an essay I wrote on the matter for a college class, which I found therapeutic at the time, few outside our circle of friends, co-workers (of my parents) and family, knew of his death. Having once been to a funeral covered by the media (mother of a friend killed in a bus accident on the way to Atlantic City about a decade ago which made the news due to puclic interest), I find the thought of our family having to share our grief back then with strangers unnerving. This brings me back to the NY Times article.

In concluding her essay, the author lamented few journalists did any reporting on her neighbor's death, even though there was a surfeit of interest, judged by the gossip she heard around the neighborhood. I suggest that one, most of the people who were interested were probably the type of neighborhood gossips who would want to know this type of information anyway. A second thought is that most people know there is no story of public interest here; it is just a family tragedy not to be shared with the world at large unless or until the family is ready to share. Although, I am writing about it, my brother's death is still rarely discussed amongst my surviving brother, sister and our cousins, aside from when the memories overwhelm me now and then and I share my sadness with my wife (which usually leads me to write something in my personal journal, or, now in the 21st century, on a blog -- as I said before, I'm fine once I get it out and don't really mind sharing). It is our story. It belongs to no one but ourselves. Those who know us will know who this article is about; those who don't will have no clue. On a side note, I ended up with many of my brother's old class photos and recently posted them on our elementary school's Facebook page. It has been nice to see the comments from my brother's old classmates who also still remember and miss him.

The writer justifies her nosiness as one of a concerned neighbor. I classify it as someone who not only does not know how to mind her own business. Worse, she turned one family's tragedy around and made it all about herself and her failure to be Mrs. Kravitz and ask the police what happened on the day of the death. I think that is what really disgusted me. You may be curious about what is happening with your neighbor, it doesn't mean it is any of your business.

Over the Brooklyn Bridge

There was an article in this weekend's NY Times about the sale of the Moonstruck brownstone (the setting for the 1987 movie starring Cher and Nicolas Cage) in NYC's Brooklyn Heights neighborhood. For those not familiar with the area, Brooklyn Heights is a mid 19th century neighborhood of brownstones adjacent to the Brooklyn Bridge and just across the East River from downtown Manhattan. Back in 1965, it was also the first neighborhood in NYC to be declared a historic district. While the article focused mostly on how the long time owner fought to save the neighborhood from development when he bought his home almost 40 years ago (back then urban renewal meant ripping everything down and starting anew as opposed to the rehabbing popular today, there was one or two lines near the end that struck a chord: the part where the old owner, while enjoying his retirement, started missing the old neighborhood after a few weeks. I feel his pain.

The first apartment my wife and I had was in the area, basically on the border of Brooklyn Heights and downtown Brooklyn, adjacent to the Brooklyn Bridge. We lived there for over 5 years, leaving only when it became clear that a one bedroom and a baby wasn't going to work for us. We loved the area, we still have many great memories: walking around the scenic brownstones and promenade in the evening with our dog, going out to the dinner or drinks at a moments notice, not caring if we got too drunk to drive because we walked everywhere, all the interesting shops in the neighborhood and, of course, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge most mornings in lieu of taking the subway into Manhattan for work.

Though we've driven through the area over the years, we never really revisited. Part of it was my wife's reluctance to go by our old apartment building and look out over Manhattan and see what wasn't there anymore (we had a great view of the Twin Towers from our kitchen window). Part of it was we and our friends were also suburbanites now, busy raising our young families outside the city, our partying days drifting to our past, and had no great need (or time) to go back.

However, this past spring I went back for the first time. Our eldest is into trains, my wife jokes it was from all those months when he rode the subway in the womb, and NYC has a subway museum several blocks from our old apartment. Like the former owner of the Moonstruck house, I missed the old neighborhood, despite not having lived there in over 7 years. So, since I knew I could get free parking on our old block, I parked in front of our old building and walked my son through his old baby haunts. Long story short, you really can't go home again.

The neighborhood looked the same, but wasn't. Part of it was the increased police presence on on our old block. As it is essentially the service road for the Brooklyn Bridge, the police pay a little extra attention these days to that particular area (hopefully that also means that cars are not broken into on a regular basis by the subway station at the end of the block anymore). At the time I wondered if this meant that cars were being broken into with less frequency. However, I also just read an article in the NY Post about a blogger catching a car thief in DUMBO. When we lived in the area, every now and then, as we headed to the subway stop, we'd see a series of cars on our block broken into. This would go on for a few days, stop for a period of time, then restart. It got to the point where we joked that whoever was doing it must be in/out of jail again. I now wonder if it was the thief mentioned in the article. Anyway, Idigress.

Another part of it was the doorman to our old building had retired and none of the maintenance staff remembered us (but the mailman did). The diner on the corner was still open, but the very small grocery store in one of our complex's buildings had recently closed. But that wasn't all. There was also more pedestrian traffic. When we left, the adjacent residential area now known as DUMBO was just beginning to be redeveloped from abandoned warehouses into loft apartments, making the area sort of SoHo east. This meant there were many more pedestrians on our block, wandering from Brooklyn Heights to DUMBO. But there was more that was different.

When we lived there, the neighborhood was well to do, for Brooklyn. This time it felt like the way Manhattan's Upper West Side used to feel. Many more upscale shops, squeezing out the mom and pop places that had hung on since the 1950s and 1960s, were in place. Though some of the old places we liked were still around, there were a lot fewer of them. But I also nannies dragging children around on a Saturday, something I never noticed when we were there in the 1990s. The neighborhood had always been family orientated but it felt like it had lost a little of that.

When my son and I left that evening, I realized that for the first time since we left, I no longer missed the neighborhood. Life had gone forward and it no longer felt like home. Hopefully the former owner of the Moonstruck house will soon have the same feelings as he settles into his retirement.

They usually know how to campaign

Senator Obama recently noted, "the Republicans don't govern very well, [b]ut, they know how to campaign," recent events notwithstanding, such as the interesting events surrounding Gov. Palin and the federal government's apparently decent response to Hurricane Gustav. By that he was implying that the Republican party is very good at talking people into voting against their own best interests, such as voting for the party that wants to keep health insurance in private hands by implying people have a choice in their care (as if, even for the middle class realistic choices are few) that they wouldn't have under socialized medicine. As evidenced by many events of the last years, one could argue that the GOP seems to want incompetent people running government so they argue that government is so bad that voters will demand that there be less of it.

Of course, what Senator Obama failed to point out is that the campaigning by the GOP doesn't stop with the election. They keep on going. The GOP has been excellent in getting the public to ignore that the Bush administration has greatly expanded the federal government in budget, departments, people, and intrusion into average Americans lives while increasing the nation's debt by hiding behind his social conservative views, such as his love of the religious right (his base), anti-abortion stance and privatizing social security. Of course, the Democrats don't exactly have clean hands over the last 8 years. The Patriot Act was voted in almost unanimously without even being read. Under pressure from the GOP, most of the Democrats in Congress abandoned their jobs and just let the executive branch roll over them. This continued even after they got control of Congress. Whether that is the Dems being weak or the GOP being strong, with that record, it is hard not to admire the Republican party. And if it weren't for the federal government's failed response after Hurricane Katrina 3 years ago, their dreams of a super majority may have continued.

Still, the last few days have been amusing as more comes out about Governor Palin. From what I read, she seems like a nice, bright person whose qualification for being vice president seems to rely on the Constitution and views that appeal to conservative right. In fairness, the role of the VP is basically to go to funerals, breaks ties in the Senate and to make sure that the President still has a pulse so in that regards, she is fine. However, as McCain is a 72 year old cancer survivor, I worry that she may not be qualified to step in as President if something happened to a President McCain. I imagine most of Vice President Cheney's detractors would admit that Cheney has the experience and ability to run the country if something were to happen to President Bush. It seems, in an effort to break away from the "corruption" that has overtaken the GOP over the last decade or so, that McCain has thrown out the baby with the bathwater -- throwing out the good campaigners along with the Washington insiders that has broken the system.

Personally, I don't really care about labels. Give me a socially liberal/fiscally conservative candidate willing to re-evaluate our entitlement programs, make proper investments in our future, which includes understanding that our borrowing from the Chinese to pay the Arabs for oil needs to be addressed ASAP and I'll be happy. Whether that person is a Democrat or Republican is besides the point. I just want a leader who will put this government back on the right track.

Goodbye summer our old friend

Well this is it. The last day of summer, despite temperatures forecasted to be in the low 90s here in NJ when school reopens this week. The pool closes for the season today but wasn't it only yesterday that I was whining about the water temperature at the pool club being only 56 on Memorial Day weekend? It seems like summer goes faster and faster every year.

Oh there have been signs of summer's coming to close. The days have been getting shorter: no longer is the sun already shining when I get up for work and the late evening walks with my daughter have gotten noticeably earlier. I see a few glints of yellow in some of my trees and a few leaves are now littering my backyard, a warning shot to my back that it has two months to go until .... ugh, I hate even thinking about raking! And, despite this week's forecast, it has been a tad cooler as of late. The other morning I wore sweats in lieu of shorts for the first time since May when I gave the dog his morning walk. And of course, the back to school racks at the stores, seemingly up since 4th of July, have been well picked through.

Though it has been many years since September first meant back to school for me personally, my children do go back this week. Like most of us, summer just means getting up for work in daylight and not having to wear a jacket in the morning, except, perhaps, a few weeks when we go on vacation. Long gone are the endless weeks of being happy and free (though it was nice to come home, grab my suit and hop in the pool after work in July when the pool stayed open until 8PM). For the children though, Thursday will be a rude awakening.

Fortunately for me, I will be long out of the house by time they rise -- Thursday will be my first day back at the office in almost two weeks. It won't be long until we fall back into our usual school year routines ans summer becomes a distant memory as we look forward to various holidays. Already I see a few Halloween shops getting ready to open and mums for sale at the local farms. And in a sure sign that fall is near, a family of wild turkeys just paraded through my yard, reminding me that it will be Thanksgiving before long.

Well, off to the pool and then the store to get burgers for the BBQ tonight.