Yes It’s All Connected: “Rejecting The Politics of Deceit,” “ Repudiation of . . The Politics of Fear, Intolerance and Disinformation”

It expresses an opinion. . .

    . . . It favors “rejecting the politics of deceit”

    . . . It endorses “repudiation of . . . the politics of fear, intolerance and disinformation” . . .

    . . .repudiation of “trickle-down economics” . .
   
        . . . It acknowledges that a significant preponderance of the voters believe “taxes should be raised either on the rich or on everyone.”

Is it Norman Oder’s Atlantic Yards Report?  Perhaps specifically his “Atlantic Yards and the Culture of Cheating” series?

Certainly sounds like that could be the case and it so easily could be. . . But that’s not what it is.

What it is, is the editorial run by the New York Times, which the Times itself likely considers one of the most important it runs, one that runs every four years, the editorial commenting on the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential election, the year titled “President Obama’s Success” (November 6, 2012) and, in the print edition, subtitled “A victory based on jobs, spreading the tax burden and rejecting the politics of deceit.”

This is just to say, once again, what I keep trying to remind people of: That everything is connected and that the New York Times’ good reporting about so much else is undermined and misses comprehensive perspective when its reporting about the scandals of the Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly is biased, incomplete and poor.

In the larger scheme of things it’s all part and parcel of a much bigger story.

Here are links to a few of the past Noticing New York articles making connections:

•        Thursday, November 8, 2012, What’s In A Name?:The “Barclays” Name, As In “Barclays” Bank and “Barclays” Center Gets Some New Negative Associations

•        Wednesday, October 24, 2012, Most Important Thing About Economy + Central Issue In Election: Obama On Jon Stewart’s Daily Show Rejects Ratner/Prokhorov “Barclays” Paradigm

•        Sunday, August 21, 2011, Heritage of "Journalistic Enterprise and Courage" Duly Noted: The Modern Day New York Times Meets and Likes Its Boss Tweeds

•        Monday, September 17, 2012, NY Times Runs 3rd Article Mentioning That, Given Scandal, Promotionally Naming Subway Stations & Arena “Barclays” Is Problematic

•       Sunday, June 26, 2011, “Page One: Inside the New York Times” Reviewed; Plus The “New York Times Effect” on New York’s Biggest Real Estate Development Swindle

Appearing teasingly is a search of the Times site, words that were were the editorial's subheading don't appear in the editorial itself on the Times website

But wait. .  Maybe the Times election outcome editorial doesn’t actually endorse “rejecting the politics of deceit” or repudiating “the politics of fear, intolerance and disinformation.”  The style of the editorial is an unusual one that can only be employed at election time: Whatever may be implied and unusual though it may be, at no time does the editorial say what the Times as paper of record thinks. . .  It is only recites in favorable-sounding terms what the voters decreed as their state of mind.  Something else that is interesting: the subheading in the print edition, “A victory based on jobs, spreading the tax burden and rejecting the politics of deceit,” doesn’t appear as part of the online editorial; you can only find it on the web in the teaser summaries leading to it when you search the Times site.  That deletion of a reference to deceit is a little like the way we can find ghostly remnants of the article the Times recently deleted that reported criticism of the Ratner/Prokhorov “Barclays” arena when it opened.

What’s In A Name?:The “Barclays” Name, As In “Barclays” Bank and “Barclays” Center Gets Some New Negative Associations

Above (click to enlarge), the Barclays subway station as we'd like to see it, with a poster quoting Tuesday's New York Times article

Coming back to New York Tuesday evening from Philadelphia I finally got a chance to settle down with the New York Times on the train.

"Heavy Scrutiny article in DealBook column- In background is HSBC Bank criminal money laundering article

There in the business section in the DealBook Online column there was a one-paragraph article remarkable in its succinct indictment of the character of Barclays Bank, the same financial institution the name of which our local public officials have deemed fit to promotionally burnish by naming after it two local Brooklyn subway hubs and the Bruce Ratner/Mikhail Prokhorov arena that was deeply financed by the public.  The article, (see image above) headed “Heavy Scrutiny” reads as follows:

HEAVY SCRUTINY   Barclays seems to be facing the wrath of several regulatory agencies in the United States according to White Collar Watch.  Four months after reaching a $453 million settlement with regulators over manipulating the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is seeking a $435 million civil penalty over accusations that the bank manipulated energy prices.  The bank has also disclosed that regulators are examining whether payments related to raising capital from investors in the Middle East during the height of the financial crisis violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

The DealBook Online column alerts readers of the print edition to articles that can read in the online edition of the Times.  The full online article can be found here: A Triple Whammy for Barclays, by Peter J. Henning, November 5, 2012.

Going back just a few days the Times ran three other articles on Barclays' most recent additional reputational woes during the preceding week, an October 31 article about how with the addition of the two new investigations Barcalys has suffered losses and its shares are declining and, on November 1st, another pair of overlapping articles (with conflicting information about possible fines for Barclays?) about the energy market manipulation.  See below and click on the links for further information:

•    Facing New Legal Worry, Barclays Reports a Loss, by Mark Scott  (“The British bank Barclays faces more legal trouble after disclosing two new investigations by American authorities, clouding already weak ...”) Excerpts below:

The British bank Barclays disclosed on Wednesday that it faced two new investigations by American authorities, including one examining whether the company had violated anticorruption laws in its capital-raising efforts during the financial crisis. The news further hurt the share price as the bank reported weak third-quarter results.

The new joint investigation from the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission on the bank’s capital-raising efforts follows similar efforts by British regulators. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is also investigating the past energy trading activity in the bank’s American operations. The commission’s staff on Wednesday recommended taking action against the bank and levying a $470 million fine.

•    The Latest Headache at Barclays, by William Alden (“Barclays faces accusations that it manipulated California energy markets.”) Excerpt below:

Federal regulators are seeking $469.9 million in penalties from the bank, and $18 million from four former traders.

Regulators, relying on e-mail evidence, claim that four traders at Barclays manipulated energy prices to profit on swap contracts. One trader said a particular strategy was “fun,” while another said he was “trying to drive price” in his swap bet, according to messages cited by Reuters.

•    How Barclays Allegedly Took Losses to Make Bigger Gains, by Peter Eavis (“In outlining its accusations of market manipulation, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission contends that Barclays traders were prepared ...” ) Excerpts below:

In an order filed on Wednesday against Barclays, the commission says some of the bank’s energy traders manipulated electricity prices from the end of 2006 to the end of 2008. In a regulatory order, the commission is demanding Barclays pay a $435 million penalty and disgorge an additional $35 million.

        * * * *

The commission lays out how it thinks the alleged manipulation worked. It says Barclays put on trades that were intended to skew the prices for electricity in what the industry calls the physical market. Those allegedly skewed prices then affected the value of other bets on electricity prices, in the so-called financial market.

The Barclays traders, the commission says, were prepared to take losses in the physical market to move the prices of electricity there.

The physical bets were “not intended to get the best price on those transactions and was not in response to supply and demand fundamentals in the market,” the commission wrote in its order.

Those allegedly manipulated prices lifted the value of the financial bets Barclays had placed, according to the commission. It also argues that the gains in the financial bets were greater than the losses on the physical trades, effectively leaving Barclays with an overall profit during the period when the manipulation is alleged to have occurred.

  If you go back a few days more to October 18th you come across another article about more improper behavior by Barclays separate and apart from these other three focused upon scandals, how the bank is having to set aside “an additional £700 million ($1.1 billion) related to the inappropriate sales of insurance to British customers.”  (See: Barclays Sets Aside $1.1 Billion More for Insurance Claims, by Mark Scott.)

The article concludes:

In the wake of a number of banking scandals, British politicians are examining ways to improve the culture inside the country’s financial services sector. A parliamentary commission is expected to offer suggestions for new legislation by the end of the year.

With all this new material, the guerrilla political street artists who are stealthily modifying the MTA’s Barclays branded subway pillars to say things like: “Barclays always has the best fixed rates” and other interesting variations of criticism of the bank are going to have to crank out new editions of their work if they are going to keep pace in educating the subway-riding populace about what they need to know about the multiplying misdeeds of Barclays.

Notwithstanding that the real news about Barclays Bank is universally very negative right now, if you go to the Times site and do searches for “Barclays” you will find that the bank's name is busily being burnished at the Times site, see images below (click to enlarge).  Searches for “Barclays” pull up listed article results that are preceded by paid advertisements for Barclays Bank.  The listed articles themselves are mostly reflective of all the practically full-out positive hype the Times has been giving the opening of the “Barclays” arena including silly and biased Bloomberg administration-assisted stories (at the top of the list) like how the arena is bringing more yellow cabs to Brooklyn (not mentioning the failure to properly handle the black car problems brought to the area by the arena.

"Barclays" search- no date limitation

"Barclays" search for last 7 days

Even an article that hints at some possible controversy (Sports of The Times: Packing Brooklyn’s Arena and Packing Away Discord, by William C. Rhoden, November 4, 2012) is uninsightful and in the end dismissive of the multiple scandals associated with the arena’s creation itself.    

The Times has basically buried the scandal about how the MTA gave away the right to brand Brooklyn subway hubs with the name of the bank, never adequately explaining to the public that those rights were given away by the MTA virtually for free.  Glaringly, the Times has only three times mentioned the anomaly of devoting vastly valuable public resources and assets to subsidize the promotion of such a questionable bank.  I’ve suggested that the mention of this anomaly should be almost routine in the many articles the Times runs effectively hyping the bank’s name.  Instead, those articles, like the direct advertising from Barclays you see on the Times site;  never mention or hint at the awkwardness.

Norman Oder has these two articles available that provide much assessment focused on the Times  recent hyping of the arena while its coverage of the related real significant news events languishes: (City Journal) The Barclays Center’s Media Enabler: From the start, the New York Times was reluctant to challenge Brooklyn’s new arena, November 6, 2012 and (Atlantic Yards Report) Wednesday, November 07, 2012, My City Journal essay on the New York Times's record covering Atlantic Yards: "The Barclays Center's Media Enabler".   

Concludes Mr. Oder in the first of those two articles:

“You’re not buying news when you buy the New York Times,” the late publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger once said. “You’re buying judgment.” When it comes to Atlantic Yards, you’re not getting enough.

Having one's bank's name on Brooklyn subway hub stations is not a guarantee of good advertising 100% of the time.  Monday around rush hour, just after 5:00 PM, I was headed back to Brooklyn from Manhattan’s West Village on the subway when I was subjected to the following announcement: “Because of an investigation at Barclays the following trains are not running to Brooklyn, 2, 3, 4 and 5.”  Given that the superstorm Hurricane Sandy had still shut down many other lines (the N, R Q, W etc.) the announcement suggested that the one way to get to Brooklyn that evening was to take the D train. Downtown 2 and 3 trains were being taken out of service when they reached 14th Street.

I took the number 1 train down to its current last stop at Chambers Street and walked across the bridge.  On my long walk home I couldn’t help thinking how appropriate investigations of “Barclays,” in fact, would be, including investigation of the political confections between the developer/subsidy collectors for the “Barclays” arena and the Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly, which the arena spearheads.  Unfortunately, I knew that the investigation going on at Barclays that evening didn’t involve our local politicians ( Mayor Bloomberg, Brooklyn Borough President Markowitz, MTA and ESD Officials, etc) and Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov.  We can hope that they do in the future.

Meanwhile, until we rename the “Barclays” arena and Brooklyn’s subway hubs now christened “Barclays” some other name more appropriate than “Barclays,” negative incidents like that evening’s bad commuting news will be outweighed buy all the positive hype from Times and those constant reminders on the subway as you hear (or see) the publicly paid-for promotions of the nefarious Bank with announcements like, “Next stop, Barclays Center.”

Once more (click to enlarge) the poster we'd like to see in the Barclays subway stations

 

Criticized For Prioritizing Now-Cancelled Marathon Sports Event Bloomberg (Still Looking Forward To Barclays) Side-Steps Informational Hurricane Updates

Bloomberg at virtually secret Saturday evening press conference where a question about his bad judgement about prioritizing sports events over hurricane recovery inevitably came up 

When you are mayor of New York bad news can make for a good personal news cycles, except when you blow it.  Mayor Michael Bloomberg was getting a straight set of predictable kudos for his theoretically no-nonsense handling of the superstorm Sandy disaster.  That was until the conversation started shifting to the fact that, despite the advice of all his top aides, Bloomberg was indulging himself in some nonsense: Bullheadedly deciding he would proceed with the city’s annual marathon despite the schizophrenic drain on city resources and commitments it would entail.  Bowing to the weight of public opinion the marathon was eventually cancelled Friday evening, hours after the mayor had again staunchly supported proceeding with it.

Upon examination, it looks like that when the news turned bad for Bloomberg, Bloomberg decided that he would hide out, manipulating the news cycle by deep-sixing the very same regular set of hurricane aftermath update press conferences through which he had been garnering his kudos during the long week of disaster news.

And there is more that could have motivated Bloomberg to play with the news cycle: Despite the week’s challenging hurricane disaster and recovery events, Bloomberg was looking forward to the inaugural basketball game of the Nets at the “Barclays” Center. When the marathon was cancelled, the “Barclays” game was scheduled for Saturday night, just twelve hours before the morning of the marathon.  Because of hurricane relief efforts and mass transit disruptions the previously scheduled Wednesday and Thursday night Nets games at the “Barclays” arena were cancelled, but before they were cancelled Bloomberg  embarrassed himself by saying, in the thick of early hurricane recovery efforts on Tuesday, that he not only hoped the Wednesday Nets game would proceed but that he would take a personal break from hurricane recovery to attend it.

Given the equivalencies that were in play, any traction the marathon cancellation story got was likely to lead to questions about, and pressure on the administration to postpone or cancel, this third Saturday night basketball game as well.  The mantra explaining cancellation of the marathon being repeated on all the networks was that at this juncture a sports event could not take precedence over the recovery efforts.  The basketball game at the 18,000-seat “Barclays” arena, though a smaller event than the marathon, was, because of recovery challenges in the storm’s aftermath, going to require a specially superintended support effort by Bloomberg administration.

Because of Bloomberg’s commitment, the marathon was on all week until the sudden, about-face cancellation on Friday at about 5:30 PM.  The Bloomberg administration was holding regular updating midday press conferences about hurricane recovery measures and the last mention of the plans to proceed with the marathon was when Bloomberg was questioned about it at the press conference on Friday afternoon at about 1:33 PM.  The exchange went like this:

Female reporter: Surely you've heard and read some of the comments from people on Staten Island who feel that it's insensitive to hold the marathon and wonder how it can be said that no resources are being diverted it to it. How many city employees are working to support the marathon?
   
Bloomberg: Well, for example the police department right now has to be at most of the intersections where there is no lights. Lights are gonna be back on tonight.  Mass transit solves a lot of other problems where the police provide those traffic control resources.  It does use some resources, but it doesn't use resources that can really make a difference in recovery and that sort of thing. It's a different group of people.  It's a relatively small amount of the sanitation department's resources.  And we have to have a city going forward.

I don't think there's any question but we have. . . There are New Yorkers who have lost loved ones and nothing's gonna ever replace that.  People who have lost their homes: we have to make sure that we do everything we can to help them recover.  We have to work around the clock for people to get through this thing and I assure you we' re doing that.  And, if I thought it took any resources away from that, we would not do this.  But we have plenty of police officers that work in areas that aren't affected. We don't take all of them and move them into areas that are affected. There will be no diversion of resources. There will be no redistribution of our efforts, no diminution of our efforts.

We have a 24/7 operation going which I am confident we're going to do.  We have to do everything we can to help people and when power returns over the next day and then, mass transit, more people are able to go to homes, that's going to make a big difference.

But as Rudy Giuliani said to me this morning, he said,`You know right after 9/11 people said exactly the same thing: New York has to show that we are here and that we are going to recover and that we can,’ while we help people, still help companies that need the business,  still generate a tax base so that we have the resources to help people and give people something to cheer about and what's been a very dismal week for a lot of people . . . And he reminded me also there was a demand from people that we close. . . Cancel the New Year's Eve celebration because of a snowstorm.  Uhm, I think Rudy had it right: you have to keep going and doing things and you can grieve, you can cry and you can laugh all at the same time.  That's what human beings are good at.            

When news came at 5:30 PM that the marathon was being cancelled nonetheless, the news networks were saying to expect a press conference about it at City Hall shortly afterwards.  Those led to believe that this meant that Bloomberg would shortly be appearing to address the cancellation were wrong: In lieu of a personal appearance to address the issue his office simply issued a short statement of the mayor (and the New York Road Runners) in the form of a press release (November 2, 2012- according to the Times it was released at 5:21 p.m. EST):

The Marathon has been an integral part of New York City's life for 40 years and is an event tens of thousands of New Yorkers participate in and millions more watch. While holding the race would not require diverting resources from the recovery effort, it is clear that it has become the source of controversy and division. The marathon has always brought our city together and inspired us with stories of courage and determination. We would not want a cloud to hang over the race or its participants, and so we have decided to cancel it. We cannot allow a controversy over an athletic event –– even one as meaningful as this –– to distract attention away from all the critically important work that is being done to recover from the storm and get our city back on track. The New York Road Runners will have additional information in the days ahead for participants.

Almost immediately the Times was reporting the story as being about Bloomberg’s poor judgment and stubborn pigheadness: 

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, facing criticism that he was favoring marathon runners arriving from around the world over people in devastated neighborhoods, reversed himself and canceled the New York City Marathon.

    * * * *

For days, the mayor, who is often reluctant to abandon a position of his, insisted on going ahead with the race, saying it would signal that the city was back to normal.

He changed his mind as opposition became nearly unanimous.

    * * * *

Within the mayor’s inner circle, though, there were concerns. Some advisers worried that the criticism could steal the focus from Mr. Bloomberg’s well-received performance during and after the storm, and could damage his legacy in the way that the city’s botched response to a blizzard had done in 2010.

Behind the scenes, there were also concerns about what the world would see: images of runners so close to neighborhoods that had been battered by the storm, at a time when gasoline remained in short supply and mass transit was still not fully functioning.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Deputy Mayors Howard Wolfson and Patricia E. Harris all argued for calling off the event.

(See: Hardship Strains Emotions in New York, by James Barron and Ken Belson, November 2, 2012.)

If this was the story that was going to get traction, wasn’t it inevitable that the press was going to ask about the special support the city was mustering for proceeding with that other highly-hyped sports event, the Nets “Barclays” basketball game?  Especially, since Bloomberg has already laid the overly-enthusiastic bad-judgment connection by saying, the day after the hurricane, that he wanted the Wednesday basketball game to proceed and that he personally planned to attend it?  And if the press has asked about still-pending Saturday basketball game there would have been pressure to also cancel it, together with the special support the city was mustering to make it happen.

By lying low and not allowing the marathon story to get attention and traction Bloomberg therefore also forestalled having to address controversy over the specially assisted Bruce Ratner/Mikhail Prokhorov “Barclay” arena sports event.  But to do so Bloomberg’s strategy had to, at the same time, sacrifice the regular press conferences Bloomberg had been holding to keep New Yorkers up-to-date about the disaster recovery events.

As noted, Bloomberg did not come out on Friday evening to personally update the public when he cancelled the marathon.

Some might think, like I originally thought,  that Bloomberg did not hold a press conference about hurricane recovery on Saturday.  The expected press conference did seem to vanish from the news cycle but he actually did hold one.  What assured that this press conference was not covered in the news cycle was that it wasn’t held in the morning or midday like others; he delayed holding it until late Saturday afternoon.  Ironically, what then worked synergistically to assure that it would get no coverage is that he held it at a time when all of the local stations had cancelled their evening news for football events.  (Was taking advantage of this conscious on Bloomberg's part?)  Up until this preemption by the sport of football the networks had been obsessing about the hurricane’s aftermath with a lot of special coverage.

Do you wonder whether the cancellation of the marathon came up at this very next below-the-radar and under-reported press conference?  You bet it did, but being held in the evening there would have been no time to discuss any cancellation of the “Barclays” Nets game and Bloomberg cleverly controlled the question and answers to dissuade and prevent any possible follow-up questions about that “Barclays” event.  Here is the question and answer at that press conference with respect to the marathon:

Reporter: Can you just explain what happened between early Friday when the marathon was on, and later Friday when it was canceled.  And what would you say to some of the runners saying they wish it was canceled earlier so they didn't have to come.

Bloomberg: Well I wish we didn't have a hurricane and that we could have had a great event.  So, you know. . . could have, would have, and should have isn't something that I deal with. What simply happened was it became a source of dissension and we don't need that right now and hopefully next year we'll have a great event where people can come to the city and enjoy what the city has to offer and compete and participate and the spirit of the race is to bring people together.  When that became a divisive issue I just made the decision that it should not go on. the good news is that the supplies for the marathon have been donated to communities that need them, something like 600 medical blankets delivered directly to residents of Midland Beach by volunteers who went door to door with them and some 10,000 cases of water were sent to a central distribution center in Floyd Bennett Field.  Other supplies are being sent out now so you know the situation changes shame that it had to happen but we've got to do the right thing at each time and I am looking forward to I'm sure all about those runners too, to coming back next year. 

How did Bloomberg assure that there were no follow-up questions about this or the “Barclays” event?   When he first called on the reporter asking about the marathon he told the reporter that, because he was prioritizing hurricane recovery events over other matters (like sports), he would only take such a question at the end.  It was clever: because he was prioritizing hurricane recovery efforts he would not take a question about his misplaced priorities relating to sports events.  The exchange whereby Bloomberg deferred the marathon question went like this:

Reporter: On the marathon, can you explain…

Bloomberg: Let's just stick to this for the time being then we'll come back. I'll be happy to take a question.  This is a little bit more important: We're trying to talk about people getting their lives together.

Bloomberg next deferred as being similarly off-topic a question about preparedness of the Board of Elections for the Tuesday presidential election.  When in short order there were no more questions about anything else, Bloomberg took the Board of Elections question saving the marathon question for the very last. Then, upon providing his answer to marathon question, Bloomberg quickly segued to end the press conference with a reminder about how important it was for the stricken population in the city to take appropriate measure to shelter from the cold.

I still don’t know whether Bloomberg went to the Nets game that night where the Nets introduced their new mascot, BrooklynKnight (BrooklynKnight is a Brooklynite- get it?) being promoted as a mythical defender of Brooklyn.  As late as the Saturday evening press conference was there would have been just enough time for the mayor to get to “Barclays” arena before the game started.

Do I really think that Bloomberg manipulated this news cycle? 

Normally, the mayor’s press office puts up video of the mayor’s press conferences on its web page.  One indication that Saturday’s press was intended to be low profile is that no video of it was posted.  Instead, there was only a press release transcription of the mayor’s prepared remarks (Mayor Bloomberg Updates New Yorkers on City Response to Hurricane Sandy).  The transcription was minus the question and answer exchange with the press.  As you might infer from this Noticing New York article that the question and answer period of any mayoral press conference is often the most important part of any such event, zeroing in on issues of controversy rather than the official story packaged for distribution. Video of the next mayor’s next press conference updating New Yorkers on Sunday went up without Saturday’s ever being put up. 

Another way that helped ensure that Bloomberg’s Saturday press conference was as safe and friendly as it could be was to include Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan who came out of the Bloomberg administration and who gets favorable press. (The city is estimating that it is going to have to find housing for 30,000 to 40,000 families dispossessed by the storm.)  Secretary for Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney were also at this little-reported press event.

The way I was able to find video of the event (embedded below) and verify that it had actually occurred was by going to the New York Times hurricane update blog and scrolling backward to 5:07 PM Saturday.



Yes, it is to be expected that a mayor will try to control the news messages out there about him.  Here is something scary to think about: In the course of researching Bloomberg’s storm-related press conferences one of the top hits I got in a Google search was video of his November 2, 2012 press conference on his private self-promoting MikeBlooberg.com site.  This site acts in 1984 style as a faux news press release site to promote the news about himself that Bloomberg likes.  That day there was a transcription of the Friday, November 2, 2012 press conference.  Since it didn’t include the questions and answers that followed, it had nothing about the marathon or Bloomberg saying then that it should not be cancelled.  In any event it is all gone now, replaced by the favorable news that Bloomberg’s site administrators are choosing to feature on that site now.

Is there a more innocent explanation for why Bloomberg personally absented himself from the news cycle from midday Friday until Saturday evening?  Did he zip off to Bermuda in that space of time for a shorter version of his regular weekend trip?  There would have been enough time for him to do so.  Maybe he did, but I suspect that bottom line is he simply didn’t want stories about his bad judgment with respect to sporting events getting traction.

BREAKING NEWS: Bloomberg Administration Cancels Hurricane-Controversial Marathon- Creates Extra Pressure For Similar Nets Opener Postponement

As of about 5:30 this afternoon the Bloomberg administration succumbed and cancelled the New York City Marathon in order to end the controversy about holding the marathon while the city is still straining to devote the resources it needs to recover from superstorm Hurricane Sandy.  Given the equivalencies in play that now puts a lot of extra pressure on the administration to postpone or cancel the Saturday night basketball game as well for which appreciable public resources are also being specially devoted at this time.

Moments before the announcement of the cancellation I had put up an article raising the question of whether because of comparability between the events the Nets and Barclays owners would be asked to contribute to hurricane relief as the marathon runners had been requested to:  Friday, November 2, 2012, Bloomberg Asks Runners In Now Controversial Marathon to Donate To Hurricane Relief: Will Similar Request Be Made Concerning Nets Game?

Right now in connection with the cancellation of the marathon people are saying that a sports event cannot take precedence over the recovery efforts.

Bloomberg Asks Runners In Now Controversial Marathon To Donate To Hurricane Relief: Will Similar Request Be Made Concerning Nets Game?

Mayor at this afternoon's press conference where he said marathon runners should donate to hurricane relief efforts

(Added 5:34 PM: Note Breaking news addendum about marathon cancellation at the bottom of this post.)

At his mayoral press conference this afternoon on the measures being taken to put New York City back on its feet after superstorm Hurricane Sandy Mayor Bloomberg addressed the controversial decision to go ahead with the city’s annual marathon, as scheduled, starting Sunday morning.

At his mayoral press conference yesterday Bloomberg linked discussion of proceeding with the marathon with plans for the scheduling of the Nets inaugural basketball game at the so-called “Barclays” Center.  That opening game, which was postponed, is now being held the Saturday night before the marathon.  Bloomberg had originally wanted the opening Knicks vs. Nets game to be held Wednesday night, even without working mass transit and even though it was hard on the heals of Monday’s storm.

At this afternoon’s conference Bloomberg told everyone that the marathoners participating on Sunday morning were being asked to contribute $26.20 each toward hurricane relief, apparently as a measure to make proceeding with the marathon more acceptable despite the fact that, inevitably, some public resources will have to be diverted into the marathon while the city, particularly Staten Island where the marathon starts, is still dealing with significant storm recovery efforts on multiple fronts.  (The amount of $26.20 was chosen to represent the 26.2 mile length of the Marathon.  The mayor says he hopes some marathoners will contribute more.)

The city will also be diverting appreciable resources in support of Saturday night’s basketball game.  Will the Nets and "Barclays" arena owners (Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov) similarly be asked to make special donations toward hurricane relief to offset likely public irritation about public resources being diverted to their enterprise while hurricane relief is still so importantly underway?  Maybe.  The thing is that the diversion of public resources into the Nets and the “Barclays” Center is already way beyond outrageous and that is why Noticing New York publicly urged that Barbra Streisand write a check for $700,000.00 to the public (or whatever part of that amount her conscience dictated) as reparation for the vast amount of public subsidy that can be attributed as the public cost of her two concerts performed at the “Barclays” arena.  See: Friday, October 19, 2012, Political Thoughts In Her Email Aside, Streisand Owes Response To Community Letter Asking “Why Play Barclays?” Plus Maybe A $700,000 Check!

The "Barclays" Center advertising oculus showing Barbra Streisand, one of the singers who has not answered an open letter from the community questioning why she was performing at the Ratner/Prokhorov arena 

If the Nets and “Barclays” owners write a check will the amount begin to cover the subsidy poured into the arena?

Also at this afternoon’s press conference the mayor itemized a credited list of contributions toward hurricane relief from firms like Goldman Sachs and real estate firms upon whom Bloomberg has gone out of his way to confer benefit.  The list was like a commercial for those firms.  Will the donations be in any way equal to the public cost of benefits Bloomberg has conferred on such firms during his tenure as mayor?

I doubt it.

Addendum, at 5:34 PM:  Note the following breaking news: The marathon has just been cancelled (shortly after this post went up) by the Bloomberg administration.  In terms of the equivalencies in play that puts a lot of extra pressure on the administration to postpone or cancel the Saturday night basketball game as well.  Right now people are saying about the marathon that a sports event cannot take precedence over the recovery efforts. 

Despite Expected Kudos, Bloomberg Tires of Hurricane Relief Administration Role: That, Or He Tremendously Disrespects Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano

Nice day for helicopters?

Despite receiving the predictable kudos for his high-profile mayoral role in the storm relief administration efforts following Hurricane Sandy, Michael Bloomberg seems to be getting rather bored with it all . . . Either that, or he has a terrific disrespect for Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano, who was here in New York on behalf of the federal government to assist with the delivery of FEMA aide.

Yesterday Bloomberg and other local New York politicians, Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York Assembly Leader Shelly Silver included, stood with Janet Napolitano as she described the measures being taken the by federal government to aid New York City and the rest of the afflicted region.  The other elected officials were stoicly attentive to her words in the typical fashion to which we have all become inured.  Bloomberg, standing only two feet behind Secretary Janet Napolitano, could not have been more conspicuously disengaged.

This is my best profile, Mr. DeMille

Bloomberg bounced up and down on his feet.  He looked at the sky, this way and that.  He looked at his shoes.  He stared off sideways into the far distance, presenting his visage in complete profile.  With a big grin he made conversation with what appeared to be another more junior federal official standing with him behind  Napolitano.  He made strange faces, squinting and rolling up his eyes.

Grin, trading a few jokes

Maybe Bloomberg didn’t think that the federal government’s delivery of FEMA aid to the stricken city and region was a big deal.  Maybe Bloomberg didn’t think that the local NBC station was going to feature coverage of the delivery of that aid, running this video clip during their extended special coverage of recovery related events.

A "did-you-really-say-that?" startle

Maybe Bloomberg was noticing and was judgmental that when Secretary Napolitano delivers information that has been prepared for the public’s consumption she doesn’t race through a reading of her words at a fast rate similar to the mayor’s own that helps communicate the fabled businesslike efficiency he promotes as his métier.  Maybe Bloomberg is just impatient when he has to stand by and listen, surrendering the stage to someone not officially on his payroll.  Certainly it couldn’t have been that Napolitano is a woman: Bloomberg has hired many women and even promotes them to high positions.

Squint

Was it that on Saturday, the day before the storm, Bloomberg had told FEMA the city would not need FEMA help?: The mayor grew testy during the question and answer segment of at his afternoon press conference today when asked about that, saying that the city could rely on its own NYPD police and NYFD firemen, notwithstanding that several times during the press conference Bloomberg did refer to FEMA help that had been necessary in a number of other respects.

As Bloomberg repeatedly swiveled his attention heavenward I couldn’t help wonder what he might be looking for or thinking about.  His helicopter?  Was he thinking that this was one exceptional week he wouldn’t be able to scoot out to the airport and fly his private plane for one of his regular extended weekends at his Bermuda home?  But if he went to Bermuda this weekend he’d miss the Nets basketball game opening the "Barclays" Center he promoted at three successive hurricane relief press conferences.  That opening game was postponed until this Saturday night although Bloomberg had originally wanted the opening Knicks vs. Nets game to be held Wednesday night, even without working mass transit, hard on the heals of Monday’s storm.

As can be seen, Bloomberg has been very good at racing through the statistics concerning the services the city officials under his command are admirably providing.  It remains, though, that sometimes Bloomberg is not busy reading from these prepared scripts for which he is getting accolades.  Then his actions disclose that maybe his mind is often somewhere else.  Maybe part of all that racing through things, together with Bloomberg’s infamous impatience, is about something other than just business efficiency. . . his personal concern with wanting to get on with other very different things.

Tilting my head far enough this way who can I see over Janet's shoulder?

I can just picture it. . .

Furrowed

Hey, Mom, I Won’t Be Home Tonight: The Parks Are So Dangerous They Say They Can't Let Me Out And I Have To Spend The Night In Them

Parks Department employees telling two of a whole string of bicyclists that they can't leave the park because it would be too dangerous to let them enter the park 

Admitted, after a superstorm of the magnitude of Hurricane Sandy there is a lot for everyone to do, dealing with and making sense of, things afterward.  By and large I think our government and emergency workers are doing their very best and acquitting themselves well.  I am sure that most everyone is earnestly doing the things they think they ought to do and I’ll endorse this as a time for us all to pull together.  But that doesn’t mean that when you see something supremely silly it should be off-limits to comment on it.

Coming down the Manhattan’s West Side bike route along the river today I saw New York City Parks Department workers at 59th Street cordoning off a section of that route because it was “a park” and they were therefore not going to allow people to cross their erected cordon and enter.  They were doing this despite the fact that the section of park they were closing off was heavily occupied and the bike traffic coming through the park along the bike route, arriving from the north (and already in the "park"), was much higher then usual, maybe five or more bikes every minute.

The Parks Department workers were busy more impressively fortifying parts of the cordoned off entrance with more tape and some newly arriving wire fencing.  The bikers arriving in a steady stream at the still not very effective barrier were being halted and told that they could not cross any of the tape demarcations being set up.  The bikers were told that the park was being closed because those were the orders the Parks Department employees had received (because the park was theoretically dangerous) and therefore the bikers, would not be permitted to pass through or go around the tape demarcations of the barricaded entrance in order to leave it.  When the bikers asked what they should do (most of them were impatient) they were told to go find another entrance/exit to leave the theoretically dangerous park.  The workers suggested that bikers should leave the park the same way they had arrived.  But, as was pointed out, if park workers were closing off egress around the entire perimeter of the theoretically dangerous park that wasn’t going to be a possibility.

Other people enjoying the park on the hill in the background- Click to enlarge

Since I had originally come down from the north I knew that the boundaries of the park were probably still as entirely porous as they had been shortly before: You could find your way into the park confronting no barrier at all or, other places, entrances of the park showed tattered shreds of tape evidencing that at one time during the Sunday/Monday storm the park had been declared off limits. These vestigial pieces of history were being ignored by women pushing baby carriages and all sorts of other New Yorkers, which is why the park was so chock full. Nevertheless, all these citizens would wind up being locked in the park for night if the Parks Department succeeded in delivering enough wire and manpower to secure the perimeter.

The good news was that this was Thursday afternoon and, just hours before, Mayor Bloomberg had announced at an afternoon press conference that as of Saturday morning he deemed that the danger in the parks would be over proclaiming that all the New Yorkers who had been cooped up for a week could then come out and play communally in the parks as the weekend arrived.

I don’t mean to disparage the legitimate danger of trees or of parks, especially when they get subjected to any kind of storm, but none of this makes sense.  Obviously, what would have made sense is for the Parks Department workers to allow people to go past the barriers to leave the “dangerous” park while telling them they were not welcome to return until Saturday AM.
 
Was the heavily visited park dangerous this afternoon ?  Arguably It was maybe slightly dangerous but if there was danger it would have been from a tree and it’s a fairly new park so almost all the trees are of the smaller variety.  There were so many bikers on the bike route going through it for an important reason: With so much mass transit out of commission in the city due to the storm biking was very likely the most attractive and efficient transportation alternative there was.  The West Side bike path along the river was especially attractive for biking because the electricity being out in lower Manhattan meant that traffic lights were out.  The riverside bike path makes it possible to avoid dealing with all but a few traffic lights.  Yes, it's true that traffic lights were working up north at 59th Street but once you’ve embarked on such a good route is one then inclined to detour, heading out into car traffic?  Riding through the park may have been the safer thing to do.

The fact is the likelihood of any serious risk in the park (and similarly walking much of the rest of the city in general) was pretty minimal and well worth taking.  By announcing that the city parks were closed, the city may hope to avoid legal liability if anything happens in this space of time.  Will the parks suddenly be significantly safer as of Saturday morning?  Not likely.  Another approach to avoiding city liability way would be for the city to caution people that there are dangers and that the city can’t assure that the parks are safe as might normally be hoped.

No doubt, when big storms hit it is important for everyone to stay conscious that storms change the environment rearranging, the typical equation with respect to danger, but when things get tipped who knows exactly where or what the danger will be.  I have tried to be conscious walking all the city streets this week: A weakened tree or masonry could fall on any city street.  Telling the public at his press conference that the parks are dangerous so that they should not yet go out into them, Bloomberg offered as a confirming illustration an incident of two children who died in the days following the storm when, staying home and not venturing outside, a tree fell on their home.  (That unfortunate incident happened in North Salem, New York.)  Suggestions tendered in retrospect are never truly helpful, but perhaps venturing outside to assess the situation might have altered fate’s course in that instance.  It's horrible to think, but you never know.

The mayor has sometimes addressed New Yorkers during this crisis as if they are absolutely incapable of being responsible for themselves.  At one press conference he advised New Yorkers not to take the initiative to deal with downed trees and tree limbs on their own: To “leave it to the professionals.”  Do we, by living in the city, become incompetent to deal with matters of nature?  I’ve spent a lot of my life in rural environments and the idea people there would be advised never to pick up a chain saw or clear their own land of limbs and branches seems absurd.  Isn’t it enough to remind New Yorkers that trees can be heavy (as the Mayor actually said) and tell them that if they have not dealt with such things before don’t assume they know as much as they need to know to take on these tasks?  (Obviously, stay away from any downed electric wires if you are in an area of the city where electric wires are above the ground.)  But at the same time certainly a lot of New Yorkers know enough to competently take on some of these tasks! 

Must everything be handled with corporatist nicety by personnel trained and certified and working for some large organization to whom an exclusive franchise has been handed over?

I went out after the height of the storm when the winds were down to seventeen miles an hour, though gusting occasionally higher.  By that time the storm was nowhere near as bad as many storms we regularly experience.  The police, shooing me away with a recorded announcement, didn’t want me to view the East  River from the foot of Remsen Street (a perch of high vantage) “because it was not safe.”  But I was not under a tree or anything that could fall on me and there was little wind.  I had hoped to get a good picture for Noticing New York of the not yet receded storm surge waters still in Brooklyn Bridge Park.  Why?   Because seeing is believing and without images and pictorial evidence we may not believe in global warming.  If we all have to go indoors whenever nature is being nature, and come out only a week later when the authorities have cleaned up afterwards we may even cease believing in nature altogether.

Park patrons ignoring the yellow tape and barricades to keep them out

As it was, I went through much of New York today and New Yorkers were consistently ignoring police tapes and filling the city’s parks.  In doing so they were not only getting out for sorely needed respite in a time of stress, they were also informing themselves about their city’s relationship with nature and the harbor waters that surround it.

Strollers in the park

City Hall Park, one Park that was locked safe and secure, with Bloomberg's City Hall in background

Entrance to Brooklyn Heights Promenade: Brooklynites broke through replaced yellow tape so many times you can no longer count the remaining scraps

So much has been said about Bloomberg’s paternalistic approach to the citizens of New York that I am hardly adding anything to note it too.  I myself have interventionist tendencies and am known to make it a point when I find friends and acquaintances smoking to tell them that they really need to consider how bad bad it is for them and that my cousin, a smoker, died of lung cancer at thirty-five leaving behind her two young sons.  I also wish that people would limit the volumes of sugared soft drinks they consume, believing that it is one of the worst things they can do to themselves.  I am therefore naturally sympathetic to the idea of making large bottles of the stuff illegal even if I have qualms about whether I think that is a good idea.

My own paternalistic urges aside, in some cases, like with these Parks Department workers who decided they must trap New Yorkers in a New York park because it would have been too unsafe to allow them to enter in the first place, Bloomberg’s paternalism simply provides examples of Bloomberg’s inferior judgement being substituted for our own: I am thinking of another case in point that arose during this hurricane crisis. At the same time Bloomberg was instructing that New Yorkers should all stay out of the city parks until Saturday morning he was telling the populace that would listen that he thought it would be a great idea, despite the hurricane crisis, for everyone, including himself, to figure out how to make it to the Knicks vs. Nets night basketball game that was supposed to have inaugurated the basketball season at the “Barclays” Center yesterday.  The game was called off when people realized what bad judgment that would involve and that, besides, the police probably have better things to do.