I've been walking around with a black eye for the past few days, which has given me ample time to process what must be one of New York's most important lessons: Subway trains are big and hard -- don't pick fights with them.
Some background:
1. The N/W subway line in Astoria, Queens runs on an elevated track, which means that as I approach my customary stop (30th Ave and 31st St), I can typically see whether a train is coming with just enough lead time to sprint to the station and catch it.
2. I do this is willfull disregard of numerous helpful public service announcements placed around the station, warning that running for a train may result in dire consequences like tripping and falling.
Well, I didn't trip...
The N train did, however, have an unusually large jump on me Sunday afternoon as I was on my way into the city for church. Already late, and mindful of the N's often-spotty weekend service, I broke into a mad dash down the last remaining block to the station and made it to the platform just in time.
Unfortunately, the speed at which I bounded up the stairs greatly widened my turning radius as I attempted to dash through the still-open train doors, causing me to miss the doors entirely and instead bash my face on the side of the car.
That is, I ran face-first at full speed into the side of a motionless train. Which hurt.
I was a cause of general concern as I staggered, bleeding and increasingly dizzy, into the car, which I rode for four more stops before the conductor escorted me off and stayed with me on the platform until the medics came.
As did everyone else. For some reason, my medical "emergency" was grounds enough to clear the entire train and send it away empty. Someone actually announced over the intercom that all Manhattan-bound service was indefinitely suspended (this turned out not to be true). Fortunately, my throbbing headache helped numb the creeping social horror -- and gave me an excuse to keep my head down.
In actuality, though, something about my gaping head wound brought out the best in people. Two seperate people on the train offered me first a wad of paper towels for the bleeding, then a seat. When we all got off, a first-aid practitioner named Walter was there to make sure I didn't die, then ran to get me a bottle of water. The train conducter, meanwhile, regailed me with subway stories that put my adventure in proper perspective.
Good people, New Yorkers. Who says they aren't the salt of the earth?
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Homeward bound
Merry Christmas everyone!
My deepest apologies for neglecting my blogging duties of late -- it's been a crazy few weeks at work, and I still lack any internet connection at home. When that changes, I'll be much more prolific, I'm sure -- much to the detriment of any social life I may or may not currently enjoy.
In the meantime, praise the Lord for free wifi at the JetBlue terminal at JFK airport, and for the less-than-hellish bus-to-subway-to-airtran commute that allowed me plenty of time to enjoy same. Six months in, I'm really starting to get a knack for this whole getting-around-NYC thing.
Which reminds me: I've been thinking about this blog a bit, and I've realized that what's currently sorely lacking are more stories about the city itself. I've been somewhat embarrassed in this regard by the Great Greg Gallagher, whose musings on his German adventures make for a delightful read. I may not have his eye for the absurd, but at least I've got a lot more material to work with.
But for now, back to the world of letters. I came across a fascinating article by Joseph Bottom (of Weekly Standard/First Things fame) last Christmas, and I've been waiting to blog it ever since.
The subject is that iconic Christmas favorite (certainly mine), Dickens's "A Christmas Carol." Bottom's argument, briefly, is that far too many critics -- and cinematic adaptations -- get the story completely wrong by playing it straight. In other words, by focusing so much on Scrooge's supposed "transformation," they neglect to see that the story is a merry comic farce from the very beginning. Scrooge doesn't so much undergo some dramatic darkness-to-light redemption as simply come into line with the Christmas cheer that pervades the entire tale -- and that he even participates in with his own amusing brand of grumpiness.
My only quibble with the piece is that Bottom completely neglects the one screen version of the story that really does get it. I speak, of course, of "The Muppet Christmas Carol" -- my pick for the best Christmas movie ever made. Who better than the Great Gonzo and Rizzo the Rat to provide exactly the kind of mirthful narrative voice Bottom longs for? It's damn near perfect, really.
But you're free to disagree. If you hate Christmas.
My deepest apologies for neglecting my blogging duties of late -- it's been a crazy few weeks at work, and I still lack any internet connection at home. When that changes, I'll be much more prolific, I'm sure -- much to the detriment of any social life I may or may not currently enjoy.
In the meantime, praise the Lord for free wifi at the JetBlue terminal at JFK airport, and for the less-than-hellish bus-to-subway-to-airtran commute that allowed me plenty of time to enjoy same. Six months in, I'm really starting to get a knack for this whole getting-around-NYC thing.
Which reminds me: I've been thinking about this blog a bit, and I've realized that what's currently sorely lacking are more stories about the city itself. I've been somewhat embarrassed in this regard by the Great Greg Gallagher, whose musings on his German adventures make for a delightful read. I may not have his eye for the absurd, but at least I've got a lot more material to work with.
But for now, back to the world of letters. I came across a fascinating article by Joseph Bottom (of Weekly Standard/First Things fame) last Christmas, and I've been waiting to blog it ever since.
The subject is that iconic Christmas favorite (certainly mine), Dickens's "A Christmas Carol." Bottom's argument, briefly, is that far too many critics -- and cinematic adaptations -- get the story completely wrong by playing it straight. In other words, by focusing so much on Scrooge's supposed "transformation," they neglect to see that the story is a merry comic farce from the very beginning. Scrooge doesn't so much undergo some dramatic darkness-to-light redemption as simply come into line with the Christmas cheer that pervades the entire tale -- and that he even participates in with his own amusing brand of grumpiness.
My only quibble with the piece is that Bottom completely neglects the one screen version of the story that really does get it. I speak, of course, of "The Muppet Christmas Carol" -- my pick for the best Christmas movie ever made. Who better than the Great Gonzo and Rizzo the Rat to provide exactly the kind of mirthful narrative voice Bottom longs for? It's damn near perfect, really.
But you're free to disagree. If you hate Christmas.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Popery for the People
It's official: Pope Benedict XVI will be coming to New York in April. On the itinerary: Addressing the U.N. (4/18), Mass at St. Patrick's (4/19), and an afternoon mass at Yankee Stadium (4/20 -- a Sunday, by the way).
Speaking of Yankee Stadium: It's been noticed that, while Benedict is visiting New York and Washington, he'll be skipping Boston. Some in the press have made the connection to Boston's status as the center of the recent sex-abuse scandals. This may be true, but I'm not convinced. It's been fairly strongly established, consider, that the Boston Red Sox are no longer playing under the Curse of the Bambino. My question: How did they get it lifted -- and is there something the Vatican knows that would make the Pope loathe to say mass at Fenway Park?
One minor disappointment: Benedict won't be saying mass in Central Park, as John Paul II did in 1995. Is Yankee Stadium really that much better of a venue? Or did the Church have to answer to an, um, higher power? Mayor Bloomberg, after all, is especially fond of grass.
Speaking of Yankee Stadium: It's been noticed that, while Benedict is visiting New York and Washington, he'll be skipping Boston. Some in the press have made the connection to Boston's status as the center of the recent sex-abuse scandals. This may be true, but I'm not convinced. It's been fairly strongly established, consider, that the Boston Red Sox are no longer playing under the Curse of the Bambino. My question: How did they get it lifted -- and is there something the Vatican knows that would make the Pope loathe to say mass at Fenway Park?
One minor disappointment: Benedict won't be saying mass in Central Park, as John Paul II did in 1995. Is Yankee Stadium really that much better of a venue? Or did the Church have to answer to an, um, higher power? Mayor Bloomberg, after all, is especially fond of grass.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Those classy NY Republicans
When I was briefly flirting with registering to vote as a Democrat (I didn't, by the way), I mentioned that of the 51 members of New York's City Council, only three were Republicans, and one of them had just been indicted for rape. Well, here's one of the others -- the minority leader, in fact -- reacting to a hapless Norwiegian Ali G wannable. It's worth watching -- as long as there aren't any children in the room.
UPDATE: My colleague Tom Elliott -- who, as you'll see, has some more personal experience with the good councilman -- puts a Churchillian spin on the outburst. I guess I should have thought of that in the first place, but I do appreciate the shout-out.
UPDATE: My colleague Tom Elliott -- who, as you'll see, has some more personal experience with the good councilman -- puts a Churchillian spin on the outburst. I guess I should have thought of that in the first place, but I do appreciate the shout-out.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
A Village surprise
One finds all kinds of wonderful things while wondering around New York. Take the following quote, from a monument in, of all places, Greenwich Village's Washington Square Park:
"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the event is in the hands of God."
That's from George Washington, addressing the Consitutional Convention of which he was just made chairman. What I love about this quote is what one might call its steely hope. Any venture, no matter how well-intentioned, Washington says, may certainly fail, but this is no reason to sacrifice principle to convenience. It is possible to build something both noble and lasting, as the Founders were trying to do, and their hopes are founded upon the kind of people it can rally and inspire.
Or maybe those aren't the right words. I especially love Washington's use of the word "repair," which evokes images of rest or renewal. In other words, the standard Washington wants to raise is not just a cause for which the wise and honest can recognize, fight for, and get worn out, but a cause based on a principle that somehow refreshes the soul.
Worth pondering, for sure.
"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the event is in the hands of God."
That's from George Washington, addressing the Consitutional Convention of which he was just made chairman. What I love about this quote is what one might call its steely hope. Any venture, no matter how well-intentioned, Washington says, may certainly fail, but this is no reason to sacrifice principle to convenience. It is possible to build something both noble and lasting, as the Founders were trying to do, and their hopes are founded upon the kind of people it can rally and inspire.
Or maybe those aren't the right words. I especially love Washington's use of the word "repair," which evokes images of rest or renewal. In other words, the standard Washington wants to raise is not just a cause for which the wise and honest can recognize, fight for, and get worn out, but a cause based on a principle that somehow refreshes the soul.
Worth pondering, for sure.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Humility is harder than that
Gov. Spitzer delivered a strange speech last week on "The need for both passion and humility in politics."
It's rather long, but you can get a good sense of what he said from the relevant editorials in the NY Post and the Daily News.
It's rather long, but you can get a good sense of what he said from the relevant editorials in the NY Post and the Daily News.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Making an ass of myself
It's time to register to vote -- and that presents me with an unexpected dilemma.
It's no secret that I'm a fairly solid conservative, and nothing about living in New York for the past two months has done anything to change that. Nevertheless, I've received the strong suggestion from several sources recently that I consider registering as a Democrat.
The rationale is that New York City doesn't have much of a Republican Party to speak of. Of the 51 members of the City Council, only three are Republicans. Of those three, two represent Staten Island -- the small, residential, middle-class "forgotten borough" -- and the third was indicted last week on rape charges.
That means that the elections that matter are the Democratic primaries, which often feature mostly reasonable candidates running against demagogues and crazies for the right to rout whoever the Republicans put up in the general election. (Nothing, of course, would necessarily prevent me from voting for that Republican anyway.) Fr. Richard John Neuhaus of First Things fame, for instance, is a Democrat for precisely this reason.
I haven't made any decision yet -- I'd have to weigh this against my desire to vote in the Republican presidential primary, among other things. But go ahead, let the jokes begin.
That said, for anyone who's curious, I figured out all my elected representatives this morning.
U.S. Congress: Democrat Carolyn Maloney, 14th district
N.Y. State Senate: Democrat George Onorato, 12th district
N.Y. State Assembly: Democrat Michael N. Gianaris, 36th district
New York City Council: Democrat Peter F. Vallone, Jr., 22th district
Sigh.
It's no secret that I'm a fairly solid conservative, and nothing about living in New York for the past two months has done anything to change that. Nevertheless, I've received the strong suggestion from several sources recently that I consider registering as a Democrat.
The rationale is that New York City doesn't have much of a Republican Party to speak of. Of the 51 members of the City Council, only three are Republicans. Of those three, two represent Staten Island -- the small, residential, middle-class "forgotten borough" -- and the third was indicted last week on rape charges.
That means that the elections that matter are the Democratic primaries, which often feature mostly reasonable candidates running against demagogues and crazies for the right to rout whoever the Republicans put up in the general election. (Nothing, of course, would necessarily prevent me from voting for that Republican anyway.) Fr. Richard John Neuhaus of First Things fame, for instance, is a Democrat for precisely this reason.
I haven't made any decision yet -- I'd have to weigh this against my desire to vote in the Republican presidential primary, among other things. But go ahead, let the jokes begin.
That said, for anyone who's curious, I figured out all my elected representatives this morning.
U.S. Congress: Democrat Carolyn Maloney, 14th district
N.Y. State Senate: Democrat George Onorato, 12th district
N.Y. State Assembly: Democrat Michael N. Gianaris, 36th district
New York City Council: Democrat Peter F. Vallone, Jr., 22th district
Sigh.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Big News
As of today, I officially have a full-time job and a kick-ass apartment.
First, the job. I'm staying on at The Post, basically doing the same thing I've been doing, except now I have health benefits and a sweet-sounding title: Associate Editorial Page Editor. Along with that, however, I suppose this is as good a place as any to state for the record that the opinions expressed on this blog are entirely my own. At least the ones that might reflect poorly on the page as a whole.
And now the place--a near-miracle really. Within a period of five hours yesterday evening, I found, visited, and secured a room in an amazing apartment. I'll be moving into a 3-bedroom apartment in the Astoria section of Queens. It's only a 30-minute commute (10 min. walk, 20 min. subway) from Midtown Manhattan, and it's plenty big, with lots of bright windows and access to a roof with a sweet view of the Manhattan skyline. And the roommates seem pretty cool too. I'll post pictures of the view when I can. But for now, here's an article from the indispensable City Journal about Queens in general, which is by all accounts a very nice place.
First, the job. I'm staying on at The Post, basically doing the same thing I've been doing, except now I have health benefits and a sweet-sounding title: Associate Editorial Page Editor. Along with that, however, I suppose this is as good a place as any to state for the record that the opinions expressed on this blog are entirely my own. At least the ones that might reflect poorly on the page as a whole.
And now the place--a near-miracle really. Within a period of five hours yesterday evening, I found, visited, and secured a room in an amazing apartment. I'll be moving into a 3-bedroom apartment in the Astoria section of Queens. It's only a 30-minute commute (10 min. walk, 20 min. subway) from Midtown Manhattan, and it's plenty big, with lots of bright windows and access to a roof with a sweet view of the Manhattan skyline. And the roommates seem pretty cool too. I'll post pictures of the view when I can. But for now, here's an article from the indispensable City Journal about Queens in general, which is by all accounts a very nice place.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Am I Cursed?
Something about me just seems to push governors over the edge. Consider my record:
August 2003: Start college in Claremont, CA.
October 2003: Gray Davis recalled.
May 2004: Return home to Connecticut for the summer.
June 2004: John Rowland resigns, sent to prison.
May-June 2006: Spend two weeks at my folks' house in Virginia. There for less than a week when George Allen (a former gov) goes macaca.
And now there's this. Needless to say, it's been a busy day at the office.
August 2003: Start college in Claremont, CA.
October 2003: Gray Davis recalled.
May 2004: Return home to Connecticut for the summer.
June 2004: John Rowland resigns, sent to prison.
May-June 2006: Spend two weeks at my folks' house in Virginia. There for less than a week when George Allen (a former gov) goes macaca.
And now there's this. Needless to say, it's been a busy day at the office.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
A Greyhound on the Hudson River line
It's time for another post. I know I've promised a discourse on the philosophical significance of The Great Gatsby, and I also still need to explain how my reflections on the end of John's gospel disprove the Protestant Reformation. But those are fairly weighty subjects, and I appreciate your patience.
For now, it's come to my attention that I haven't blogged at all yet about New York itself--this city that I've already come to love. I've had the opportunity this weekend to see a bit more of it, so this seems as good a time as any. The following observations have no particular unifying theme, and I promise that any prescient nuggets of sociological or philosophical wisdom that may emerge are completely accidental.
Riverside Park: Probably my favorite place in the city. My apartment is on the far west end of Manhattan island (around 63rd street), so I have a very nice view of the Hudson River when I stick my head out my window. I'm a short walk away from Riverside Park (the park along the river, if you haven't figured it out), which is a wonderful place to go for a stroll, especially around sunset. Stroll out on one of the piers, and you have a clean view of the George Washington Bridge to your right and downtown Manhattan to your left. It's just sweet.
Although maybe I misspoke. Riverside Park is best known as the place where all the beautiful liberal yuppies on the Upper West Side go to walk their dogs and push their strollers. It's a wonderful park, to be sure, but it technically only starts north of 72nd street. The area I'm more stricken with is the Hudson River Park, which stretches intermittently along the river from 72nd street down to lower Manhattan. I haven't explored the length of it, but at least the part near my place has a more, well, romantic quality to it. It's still pretty and safe (so far as I can tell), and there's lots of nice places to sit and look at the river, but there's also more of a gothic element. There's the waste treatment facility right next to the old creepy-looking parking garage, the basketball hoops and bike path directly underneath the raised highway, and a decaying wooden half-sunken structure of some sort sticking out into the water. I just wish the benches weren't so new.
Governor's Island: May give Riverside Park a run for its money. I just visited today for the first time. It's a national monument on the site of a former fort, military barracks and arsenal about 800 feet southeast of Manhattan island. It's also the best view you can find of the lower Manhattan skyline, the Brooklyn Heights skyline, the Jersey City skyline, and the Statue of Liberty. And it's completely free, including the ferry to get there.
Currently only the top half of the island is open to the public, but the city recently decided to develop the rest into some kind of recreation area. They've narrowed the proposals down to five, some of which look really weird.
A side note: even though I grew up in Connecticut, today was the first time I'd ever seen the Statue of Liberty. It actually gave me goosebumps. My only previous experience with Lady Liberty had been through movies about turn-of-the-century immigration, notably The Godfather, Part II and An American Tail. There's something both comforting and challenging in realizing that she's still there.
Speaking of which, here's an article by the beautiful Peggy Noonan on her family's immigrant experience. For all her weaknesses in straight punditry--or perhaps because of them--this is the kind of piece that Peggy can write as well as anyone else alive.
And speaking of the lower Manhattan skyline...
I've had a few opportunities to pass by ground zero in my comings and goings around the city. It's a strange place, and I think it would do me good to linger and pray there one of these days. Quite soon after it happened, I filed 9/11 away in my mind as a significant historical event, but it's hard to escape the physical reality of what happened when you're standing right next to a big pit. Hmmm. There used to be two giant towers here.
It's especially good perspective given what's been going on in Britain recently. I may be in the news business, but it's so much more that just news. This is a perspective I've sensed in some of the real New Yorkers I've gotten to know, especially at the Post editorial page, and it says something about journalism as a vocation. Perhaps more on that later.
Also relevant to the physical reality of ground zero is that it's still right in the middle of the downtown financial district, so there's thousands of people passing by every day just in the normal course of their own business. And there's finally construction going on there--and just in time, because downtown is booming and it needs more office space. Which seems appropriate, although I'm not going to pretend I can speak to how until I've lived here a lot longer.
But one final comment on ground zero. So far as I understand it, there's really no good reason why construction of the new tower couldn't have started years ago, and I've heard it suggested that the delays and all the fights about memorials and the new tower's design and such have gradually transformed ground zero from a monument to American heroism and toughness into a monument to American bureaucratic incompetence.
I don't know about that. I'm reminded of one of my many favorite lines from my favorite movie, Casablanca. The evil German Major Strausser and the unscrupulous Vichy French police chief Captain Renault are in Renault's office talking about Humphrey Bogart's Rick Blaine and the stolen letters of transit they know he has. Renault tells Strausser that Rick is far too clever to let him find the letters. Strausser disagrees: "You give too much credit to this Mousier Blaine. My impression is that he's just another blundering American."
"One musn't underestimate American blundering," Renault coolly replies. "I was with them when they blundered into Berlin in 1918."
Casablanca is a movie about the American doing the right thing--after he's exhausted all the other options. And as frustrating as it may be to the rest of the world (as it has been in the past), there's something fundamental about the American character there. We may try our best to slink into ignobility, but we also refuse to let the sins of our past hold captive our aspirations to goodness and greatness. There's a persistent sense of youthful innocence about America, and that comes, I think, from an understanding of itself that transcends history.
Ground zero is being rebuilt, which is as fitting a monument as any to what happened there. Ten years from now, no one will care whether it was a few years late in coming.
For now, it's come to my attention that I haven't blogged at all yet about New York itself--this city that I've already come to love. I've had the opportunity this weekend to see a bit more of it, so this seems as good a time as any. The following observations have no particular unifying theme, and I promise that any prescient nuggets of sociological or philosophical wisdom that may emerge are completely accidental.
Riverside Park: Probably my favorite place in the city. My apartment is on the far west end of Manhattan island (around 63rd street), so I have a very nice view of the Hudson River when I stick my head out my window. I'm a short walk away from Riverside Park (the park along the river, if you haven't figured it out), which is a wonderful place to go for a stroll, especially around sunset. Stroll out on one of the piers, and you have a clean view of the George Washington Bridge to your right and downtown Manhattan to your left. It's just sweet.
Although maybe I misspoke. Riverside Park is best known as the place where all the beautiful liberal yuppies on the Upper West Side go to walk their dogs and push their strollers. It's a wonderful park, to be sure, but it technically only starts north of 72nd street. The area I'm more stricken with is the Hudson River Park, which stretches intermittently along the river from 72nd street down to lower Manhattan. I haven't explored the length of it, but at least the part near my place has a more, well, romantic quality to it. It's still pretty and safe (so far as I can tell), and there's lots of nice places to sit and look at the river, but there's also more of a gothic element. There's the waste treatment facility right next to the old creepy-looking parking garage, the basketball hoops and bike path directly underneath the raised highway, and a decaying wooden half-sunken structure of some sort sticking out into the water. I just wish the benches weren't so new.
Governor's Island: May give Riverside Park a run for its money. I just visited today for the first time. It's a national monument on the site of a former fort, military barracks and arsenal about 800 feet southeast of Manhattan island. It's also the best view you can find of the lower Manhattan skyline, the Brooklyn Heights skyline, the Jersey City skyline, and the Statue of Liberty. And it's completely free, including the ferry to get there.
Currently only the top half of the island is open to the public, but the city recently decided to develop the rest into some kind of recreation area. They've narrowed the proposals down to five, some of which look really weird.
A side note: even though I grew up in Connecticut, today was the first time I'd ever seen the Statue of Liberty. It actually gave me goosebumps. My only previous experience with Lady Liberty had been through movies about turn-of-the-century immigration, notably The Godfather, Part II and An American Tail. There's something both comforting and challenging in realizing that she's still there.
Speaking of which, here's an article by the beautiful Peggy Noonan on her family's immigrant experience. For all her weaknesses in straight punditry--or perhaps because of them--this is the kind of piece that Peggy can write as well as anyone else alive.
And speaking of the lower Manhattan skyline...
I've had a few opportunities to pass by ground zero in my comings and goings around the city. It's a strange place, and I think it would do me good to linger and pray there one of these days. Quite soon after it happened, I filed 9/11 away in my mind as a significant historical event, but it's hard to escape the physical reality of what happened when you're standing right next to a big pit. Hmmm. There used to be two giant towers here.
It's especially good perspective given what's been going on in Britain recently. I may be in the news business, but it's so much more that just news. This is a perspective I've sensed in some of the real New Yorkers I've gotten to know, especially at the Post editorial page, and it says something about journalism as a vocation. Perhaps more on that later.
Also relevant to the physical reality of ground zero is that it's still right in the middle of the downtown financial district, so there's thousands of people passing by every day just in the normal course of their own business. And there's finally construction going on there--and just in time, because downtown is booming and it needs more office space. Which seems appropriate, although I'm not going to pretend I can speak to how until I've lived here a lot longer.
But one final comment on ground zero. So far as I understand it, there's really no good reason why construction of the new tower couldn't have started years ago, and I've heard it suggested that the delays and all the fights about memorials and the new tower's design and such have gradually transformed ground zero from a monument to American heroism and toughness into a monument to American bureaucratic incompetence.
I don't know about that. I'm reminded of one of my many favorite lines from my favorite movie, Casablanca. The evil German Major Strausser and the unscrupulous Vichy French police chief Captain Renault are in Renault's office talking about Humphrey Bogart's Rick Blaine and the stolen letters of transit they know he has. Renault tells Strausser that Rick is far too clever to let him find the letters. Strausser disagrees: "You give too much credit to this Mousier Blaine. My impression is that he's just another blundering American."
"One musn't underestimate American blundering," Renault coolly replies. "I was with them when they blundered into Berlin in 1918."
Casablanca is a movie about the American doing the right thing--after he's exhausted all the other options. And as frustrating as it may be to the rest of the world (as it has been in the past), there's something fundamental about the American character there. We may try our best to slink into ignobility, but we also refuse to let the sins of our past hold captive our aspirations to goodness and greatness. There's a persistent sense of youthful innocence about America, and that comes, I think, from an understanding of itself that transcends history.
Ground zero is being rebuilt, which is as fitting a monument as any to what happened there. Ten years from now, no one will care whether it was a few years late in coming.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
The Gray Lady flashes her colors
When I was soliciting advice a few weeks ago about my tentative decision to intern for the New York Post this summer, Professor Jack Pitney paid the Post a compliment that, like the best compliments, was meaningful because it was descriptive. Sure, he said, the Post may go for the flashy headline, but it's also "gritty" and "real." This, I'm learning, is what distinguishes it from certain other newspapers, which one can only describe as unreal.
Here's what I mean. I started my internship on Monday, and one of my main tasks for this week has been to read all the big New York newspapers--the Post, the Daily News, the Sun, the Times, and the Wall Street Journal--to get a feel for the style of each and for what's been going on around the city.
One of the big recent stories, I discovered, concerned two separate incidents in which police had detained members of the street gang called the Latin Kings. In the first, a large group of Kings were allegedly being disorderly on their way to a funeral for a slain comrade; in the second, a crowd wearing the Kings' gang colors was arrested at New York's Puerto Rico Day parade. There, the gang had been denied its request to participate, and the police were concerned that they would attempt to crash the party.
The New York Times, however, determined that the story needed some, uh... broader perspective. Apparently "many New Yorkers" are under the impression that street gangs stopped existing when West Side Story left Broadway. Gang colors, the author helpfully explains, are just like Gucci "horse bits" or children's soccer referees' uniforms in Riverside Park--they help you express your identity.
Or maybe they're just like the uniforms of that other street gang, the NYPD. At least, so says "Almighty Sire," a member of the Kings that this reporter interviews for her story. Sure, she eventually gets around to talking to the police, who present a very different view of what the gangs are and what they do, but nothing in the story indicates that she takes them any more seriously than the Kings themselves.
I guess this reporter would tell you that she was just being "objective." If so, it's a mighty strong indication that "objective journalism" simply doesn't exist, or at least that it shouldn't exist. All journalists should be fair, which often involves admitting that there are things they either don't or can't know. But they should also acknowledge that even when the truth doesn't come down clearly on one side of an issue or the other, it comes down somewhere.
This "he said, she said" blather that passes for journalism at the New York Times, however, isn't fair or good. It may be "objective," but it's also a blatant shirking of a journalist's first responsibility, which is to figure out what's going on. Meanwhile, this reporter lets her own cultural background and biases shine through as if they were completely normal.
Read the two columns linked above, and then tell me what should be New York's "paper of record."
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