Big Signs

Big Sign That You Should Get Out Your Vote!

2010-11-01T22:56:00.003-04:00

NEW YORK, Nov. 1 — Friends and fellow citizens, please vote tomorrow, Tues., Nov. 2, 2010. It's important, I promise.

Check your registration and polling place here: http://www.canivote.org.

Cast your ballot.

Report any problems by calling 866-OUR-VOTE or at http://www.866ourvote.org or via Twitter using hashtags #EP[your state]-ZIP Code (e.g., for Times Square, Manhattan, New York #EPNY-10036] and #EP2010 (instructions here: http://www.866ourvote.org/page?id=0057).

Polls in New York State are open from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Post your 2010 voting stories in the comments.

Big Apple Musing: Big Sign that it's a Terrible Day for a Bike Ride (TERRIBLE!)

2010-08-30T00:58:00.001-04:00

NEW YORK, Aug. 29 — A scene (and yes, he was making a scene) in Riverside Park, West 91st Street and Riverside Drive, 3:40 p.m.

Young girl, maybe 10 years old, rides a bike south on the park-side sidewalk of Riverside Drive, 10 or 15 yards ahead of a mother and son, also with bikes. They’re walking, not riding. Girl is maybe the daughter/sister. Her eagerness for a ride—on her bike and out in front—plus a lack of any other supervision in sight, says yes, definitely. This is Eager Sister’s ride.

But her brother is protesting.

“This was a terrible idea! A TERRIBLE! IDEA!” he wails, bringing up the rear, just behind Mom. Mom ignores the rant as tears stream down his freckled face, red hair matted under a blue bike helmet.

“Do you want to ride now?” Mom asks, not even a whisp of frustration in her tone. Clearly, this behavior is nothing unusual from her baby boy, Angry the Red.

“NO!!!” Angry retorts, drawing out the “oh” sound so it’s crystal clear to Mom that riding would only make things worse. Why in the world, his tone asks, would an 8-year-old boy want to ride a bike when he could be inside playing Wii?

“It’s TOO”—sob—“HOT!”—sob—“for a bike ride! It was a terrible, TERRIBLE! idea to go for a bike ride TODAAAAYYYY!”

It must have been Eager Sister’s idea. No way Angry’s buying what she’s selling. Ninety degrees, breezy, cloudless sky of brilliant Columbia blue. End of summer perfection on the Upper West Side.

But without a doubt, a terrible, TERRIBLE! day for a bike ride.

Are Torturers Above the Law? Or Can They Be Sued?

2009-10-16T15:05:00.003-04:00

By Brendon Fleming

[Cross-posted from Our Rights, Our Future, the blog of the National Campaign to Restore Civil Rights]

Nearly 20 years ago, Ali Samantar left his native Somalia, then a country tumbling deeper and deeper into chaos. After years as a general in the Somali army, as defense minister, and finally as prime minister, Samantar fled Somalia and eventually settled in Virginia. His past, however, eventually found him in the United States.

In 2004, a group of Somalis sued Samantar in federal court in Virginia, alleging that Somali agents under Samantar’s control had tortured them and committed other human rights abuses against them in the 1980s and early 1990s, before Samantar fled the country. Those suing wanted to see Samantar held responsible for the torture and abuses, asking he pay them monetary damages.

After five years winding its way through the federal courts, the U.S. Supreme Court will now hear the case. At the core of Samantar v. Yousuf, is the issue whether or not Samantar is immune, as a former official of a foreign government, from being sued in the United States for alleged human rights abuses that occurred on his watch in Somalia in the 1980s. The suit claims Samantar and those in his command were responsible for killings, rapes, and torture—including waterboarding.

The plaintiffs, five Somali survivors of torture, sued Samantar under the Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victim Protection Act. The Alien Tort Statute (ATS), a federal law that has been on the books since 1789, allows non-citizens to sue their abusers in federal court for human rights abuses that violate international law. The Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA) allows victims of torture carried out by agents of a non-U.S. government to sue their torturers for monetary damages in federal court. The ATS and the TVPA are doors into U.S. courts for victims of torture and human rights abuses suffered abroad, at the hands of despots and tyrants. The laws allow a day in court for victims who might otherwise never have one in the United States, in their home countries, or anywhere else.

But the Supreme Court could close those doors, at least to some plaintiffs, with this case, depending on its reading of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). The FSIA is a law that governs when and how foreign countries may be sued in American courts. FSIA makes foreign countries immune from certain lawsuits. In this case, the Court will decide whether the ATS or TVPA allow lawsuits against foreign officials—individuals with state power, rather than merely a state itself—for alleged human rights abuses committed in their official capacity. Put another way, the Court will decide whether FSIA immunity extends to individuals acting as officials for foreign governments, including former officials, or whether it only immunizes foreign states themselves and their government agencies.

The Supreme Court must decide which is right: allowing the case against Samantar to proceed under the ATS and TVPA, thereby giving the victims of alleged torture their day in court, or using a federal law that was designed to facilitate diplomacy by protecting foreign governments instead to protect an alleged torturer and perpetrator of vast human rights abuses.

The ATS and the TVPA are important because they are an acknowledgment by the United States of the existence and enforceability of international human rights law. They recognize that some abuses are so flagrant that they violate the norms and rules accepted by the international community as the law of nations—international law. Allowing a suit such as this one, against Samantar, would be a significant step forward for the international rule of law—a resounding statement that individuals who torture for their governments or take official action that violates international human rights norms cannot hide behind their government’s immunity.

If the Supreme Court allows the case to proceed, a lower federal court could then determine that Samantar is liable for the alleged abuses, an outcome that the plaintiffs and many Somalis would no doubt applaud. But a court could instead, based on testimony and evidence, find him not liable, which would likely disappoint many who already believe Samantar is responsible for the abuses. As important as the outcome of the case is, it is equally important to allow the court to hear the case through to completion, without cloaking it with official immunity and stopping it in its tracks.

Somalia has been without a stable functioning government since 1991, when its government collapsed and Samantar fled. Regardless, U.S. courts can and should still provide a day in court for these Somali survivors.

(Photo by Javier Kohen.)

Permalink from Our Rights, Our Future.

Remembering Sen. Ted Kennedy: Big Sign that friendship and political civility help us all

2009-08-29T10:48:00.001-04:00

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Aug. 29 — As the dignitaries, friends, and Kennedy family members gathered today in Boston for the funeral mass of Sen. Ted Kennedy, the liberal lion of the U.S. Senate who died this week, CNN video from Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica, prior to the service, reminded the world of what may have been Sen. Kennedy’s greatest quality, not only as a legislator, but as a man: he was a friend.

The scene, as shown through CNN’s camera lenses:

In an empty pew almost an hour before the service, Senate rivals Sen. Chris Dodd, the Democrat from Connecticut, and Sen. John McCain, the Republican from Arizona, deep in discussion, smiles and camaraderie broadcast to the world.

As the service draws nearer, Vice President Joe Biden turns around in his seat, chatting to a smiling former President George W. Bush. Moments later, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton sit down beside Bush and his wife, former First Lady Laura Bush. The shot cuts away to the arrival of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, and then back to Hillary and W., turned toward one another, all smiles, chatting away.

The leaders gathered in Boston are, of course, some of the most partisan players in modern American democracy, and Sen. Kennedy long held a place at the same table. The politics of healthcare reform have seized the summer, and they will seek out September, but today, the politicos and partisans pause, remembering and sharing the friendship and civility that Sen. Kennedy brought to the issues, along with his passion.

Coverage throughout the week has noted repeatedly how Sen. Kennedy touched so many lives through his legislation and through his willingness to reach out — to his Senate colleagues across the aisle, to his constituents and average Americans, and even to his enemies.

He was a masterful legislator and politician in large part because he liked and respected his colleagues, regardless of whether they shared his ideology and convictions. Consequently, his fellow senators, the rest of the Washington elite, and many (if not most) Americans liked and respected him, even when they disagreed with him.

Such humanity is sadly too often missing now from the Senate and our harsh, hard-edged politics. But today in Boston, friendship, or at least civility, and a great love for Teddy, rules the day, and I pray that it continues upon the political scene’s return to Washington.

As we go forward, let Teddy’s memory guide our leaders toward legislation to complete what he called the cause of his life, healthcare for all, and other critical legislation, using his lessons of friendship and civility, not as a crutch, but as an inspiration for and engine to drive reform and recognize our collective humanity.

We miss you, Teddy. May you rest in peace.

Big Sign that Libya doesn’t understand compassion or suffering, or that it understands and doesn’t care: An inappropriate hero’s welcome

2009-08-22T23:31:00.000-04:00

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Aug. 22 — After I got the news of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds, I tried to accept it for what it was, or purported to be—a showing of compassion—whether I agreed with it or not.

I was and am conflicted by the release, as I noted Thursday. Compassion to end the suffering of one man and his family, yes. But such compassion at the expense of increasing the suffering of the relatives of his hundreds of victims?

Hoping for the best—for lightness from the dark, I saw the move initially and optimistically as a way forward from tragedy; a Scottish acknowledgement that while Al Megrahi is a horrific, convicted murderer, he is nonetheless human, ostensibly with a family who have not themselves been convicted of such atrocities, and who want to say goodbye in person and at home before he dies. An acknowledgment that while Al Megrahi ripped precious lives from the earth and brought unspeakable grief to countless friends and relatives, Scotland would not continue the cycle of suffering.

While I hoped for the best, a text message from my longtime friend in Lockerbie brought back the harsh reality of the criminal case—one for which Libya refused for years to extradite Al Megrahi. He has always maintained his innocence, and Libya, while paying billions of dollars to the victims’ families, has denied culpability for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103.

The text message shook me from a hopeful fog of peacebuilding and reconciliation: “I fear he will get a hero’s welcome in Tripoli,” my Scottish friend wrote.

A punch to the gut. “Would they dare?” I naively asked myself.

Sadly, they did, despite British and U.S. efforts to discourage a hero’s welcome.

I was sick when I saw the crowds gathered, flags waving at the airport, greeting the bomber as he exited Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi’s plane, in a neatly tailored suit—quite a contrast from his covered face and track suit as he boarded hours earlier.

Libya, Gaddafi, and the bomber clearly missed the boat on the compassionate release. It was inevitable that compassion to decrease suffering of one terrorist and his family would increase the suffering of his victims, dredging up grief and anger that never disappeared but that has perhaps not been so strong for many years as it is this week.

Libya could have tempered that suffering by making the homecoming a quiet one, not a hero’s welcome, and Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill could have, as a condition of the release, ostensibly demanded that Libya prevent a hero’s welcome. (Enforcing such a condition would, of course, have been another challenge in itself.)

The hero’s welcome, and the U.S. & UK failures to prevent it, taints the Scottish act of compassion (which surely would have angered some regardless of the bomber’s reception, and which still troubles me).

The hero’s welcome reminds me that an act of humanity and healing is not necessarily sufficient to overcome a dictator’s arrogance and a terrorist’s inhumanity, as much as we might wish it is. Someday, I hope it will be enough, but this week, it was not.

Big Sign of Compassion: Scotland releases Pan Am 103 bomber to die in Libya

2009-08-20T14:37:00.001-04:00

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Aug. 20 — The text messages trickled in as I began my day here, more than 3,000 miles from Lockerbie, Scotland, where Pan Am flight 103 came to rest after blowing up in the skies above on Dec. 21, 1988, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 Lockerbie residents on the ground.

“Scotland’s Justice Secretary orders release of Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds,” the message, from a friend in Lockerbie, began.

I read the message a second time, and then a third time, along with the other messages that accompanied it—it’s hard to convey such big news in the 160 characters of a text message.

Eight months ago, I was on the ground in Lockerbie, walking the neighborhoods and fields where pieces of the jumbo jet, the Maid of the Seas, had rained down like fire from the sky 20 years before. I stood solemnly with friends in Dryfesdale Cemetery and the Garden of Remembrance as we remembered the lives lost 20 years before.

I didn’t know anyone aboard the Maid of the Seas or in Lockerbie at the time of the crash. I didn’t know anyone from Lockerbie until I started college at Syracuse University and met a student who was at Syracuse for a year as a Lockerbie-Syracuse Scholar, one of many connections forged between the small Scottish town and the large Central New York university, which lost 35 students aboard flight 103.

Today, as Scotland released convicted bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi and returned him to Libya, the connection between Lockerbie and Syracuse pulses stronger, the connection among all those touched by this terrorist act and other violence and terrorism grows deeper.

I am quite conflicted about the bomber’s release. The man is dying of prostate cancer, and Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill showed remarkable mercy in granting Al Megrahi’s release — mercy that many would not, could not show if facing a similar decision. I don’t know what I would have done had I been in MacAskill’s shoes, but now that it’s done, it is what it is, and I hope it will end in a convicted killer’s quiet reflection with his family before he dies himself and not in raucous celebration in the heart of Libya.

"Our justice system demands that judgment be imposed but compassion available," MacAskill said, according to CNN’s report. Al Megrahi met the criteria for compassionate release, with only three months to live, and MacAskill, In granting mercy, seems to have followed the rule of law. "Our beliefs dictate that justice be served but mercy be shown."

Mercy to our enemies, to those who have ripped life from the world, taken friends and loved ones before their time, is, some might say, the most challenging kind of compassion to show.

This mercy—Al Megrahi’s release—nonetheless may undermine justice; he was sentenced to life, which under Scottish law meant he was to serve at least 27 years in prison, running from his April 1999 extradition from Libya. See Kirsty Scott, Lockerbie Bomber to Appeal, THE GUARDIAN, June 1, 2004.

Some victims’ families are outraged at the Scottish government’s showing of compassion after Al Megrahi showed none himself for those he killed in planting the flight 103 bomb.

Other victims’ families have suggested the wrong man was convicted and Al Megrahi’s imprisonment was a miscarriage of justice.

Through the years and senseless acts of terrorism, including Pan Am 103, countless families have been deprived the love and lives of their loved ones, and of the chance to say goodbye.

Today, the Scottish government released the bomber not because he is innocent—he is not; the conviction stands, and he dropped his appeal as part of the deal that set him free.

The Scottish government set Al Megrahi free not to right a wrong, but perhaps to prevent another family from having the opportunity to say goodbye to a loved one—regardless of the heinous acts that person committed.

U.S. President Barack Obama said the release was not “appropriate” and that the United States has contacted the Libyan government with the hope that Al Megrahi be placed under house arrest upon his return to Libya.

The mother of one victim described the release to CNN as “misplaced compassion.” Misplaced or not, the release was a remarkable act of compassion, shown toward the individual convicted of the deadliest act of terrorism in UK history.

And that compassion, difficult as it is to accept, let alone understand, is a powerful act of humanity and empathy. The word compassion, its etymology revealed by Google, comes from the Latin “to suffer” or “to suffer with.” See, e.g., Empathy and Compassion, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF DEATH AND DYING. In this release, the Scottish government recognized the suffering of a dying man and his family, and sought to lessen it incrementally, even if that meant redistributing suffering around the world, among his victims’ friends and families. Right or not, it was an act of compassion.

“Mr. al Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power,” MacAskill said, CNN reported. “It is one that no court, in any jurisdiction, in any land, could revoke or overrule. It is terminal, final and irrevocable. He is going to die."

I hope that Al Megrahi will now go home to a quiet reunion with his family before he dies, not a hero’s welcome in the streets of Tripoli, for that would slap compassion in the face.

And I hope that this compassion, justified or not, will foster more compassion and empathy, so that people and governments the world over may better understand one another and value life, despite our vast diversity and differences, and that we may be spared future tragedies of terrorism like the bombing of Pan Am flight 103.

Big Sign that We're Back from the Bar. No, not that bar.

2009-08-07T12:32:00.001-04:00

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Aug. 7 — First post since the inauguration is a big sign that we're back. After a serious hiatus from the blog, on account of the last semester of law school and studying for and taking the bar exam, we're back. Let's rock.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Live Blogging the Mall

2009-01-20T10:33:00.002-05:00

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 — The view from the jumbo-tron; not much but cool to be there.

Members of the House arriving now.

Live Blogging the Mall

2009-01-20T07:05:00.002-05:00

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 -- Our vantage point on the Mall, with the masses.

Twittering the Inauguration

2009-01-19T21:52:00.002-05:00

WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 — We didn't end up with tickets to the cool kids section for the inauguration tomorrow, but we'll be there with the rest of the throng. Follow us here and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/bigsigns.

Former Sen. John Edwards spotted in DC, buying a grill at Glover Park Hardware

2008-09-13T18:46:00.006-04:00

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 — Former Sen. John Edwards, Democrat from North Carolina, who was noticeably missing from the Democratic National Convention last month after news of his extra-marital affair broke in early August, was spotted in DC's Glover Park neighborhood, loading a huge, gas grill into his Chrysler crossover at about 6 p.m. today.

The grill, ostensibly purchased at Glover Park Hardware on Wisconsin Avenue just moments before, seemed to fill the entire cargo compartment of the crossover.

Sen. Edwards was accompanied by his daughters Cate and Emma Claire and his son Jack, along with another guy we didn't recognize, who climbed in the Chrysler's passenger seat as Sen. Edwards pulled away from the curb, and Kate, Emma Claire, and Jack headed back into Glover Park Hardware. (Maybe for the propane tank or grillin' accessories?)

Big Signs kind of laments being so paparazzi-ish today, but hey, we've been curious where Sen. Edwards has been since the sad news broke, and we thought you might be too. We wish the Edwards family all the best in what we imagine has been a rough few weeks.

The Scene: Obama and McCain at Columbia University

2008-09-11T19:20:00.001-04:00

NEW YORK, Sept. 11 — Columbia University's campus is locked down as tight as — or maybe even more tightly than — it was a year ago for the Iranian president's visit to campus, and the Low Plaza (Columbia's quad) is packed with students awaiting the simulcast of the ServiceNation forum where presidential candidates Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama will appear tonight.

Security is tight, with campus police and NYPD having shut down all but two gates to campus — one each at 116th Street and Broadway, 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Near Lerner Hall, the building housing the auditorium where the candidates are to speak, West 114th Street is closed entirely to vehicular traffic between Broadway and Amsterdam, and foot traffic is limited to the south sidewalk.

Heavily armed NYPD convoys are patrolling the neighborhood in motorcade like formation. As one rolled by me headed south on Amsterdam Avenue, windows down, instead of seeing the candidates, I spotted two officers in body armor, carrying automatic rifles.

Welcome back to Columbia, Senators.

Also spotted strolling on Amsterdam Avenue: pundit David Gergen, looking quite tall and distinguished himself in his dark suit.

The walks and steps surrounding Low Plaza are packed wall-to-wall with students awaiting New York Gov. David Paterson to warm up the crowd before the main event. The plaza itself is full of lounging students, cheering randomly every few minutes, perhaps out of boredom, perhaps because they've spotted themselves on the jumbotron slide show.

Big Sign that NOLA's Rough Road Continues: Hurricane Gustav

2008-09-01T11:58:00.003-04:00

NEW YORK, Sept. 1 — CNN reports that there may be a breach of the levee on the Lower Ninth Ward side of the Industrial Canal, with correspondent Gary Tuckman, who had just fled the scene, reporting that water is rising around stop signs.

There seems to be no official confirmation of such a breach yet, but there is at least overtopping of the levees. Other reports suggest that there may be a water-main break that is causing the water spurting some have observed.

Gustav is yet another test for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Since Katrina, it's been a tough place to live, and it's tougher place to leave, as so many residents — the bulk of residents, it seems, thankfully this time — have over the past few days.

Say a little prayer for New Orleans and the whole Gulf Coast.

Live Blog: Nobel Peace Prize Winner and former Vice President Al Gore

2008-08-28T20:45:00.006-04:00

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Aug. 28 — Former Vice President Al Gore took the stage tonight at Invesco Field ahead of Barack, leading off by arguing the 2000 election did matter, and that if he'd won, we wouldn't be bogged down in Iraq because we would have pursued Bin Laden until we caught him.

8:47 EDT — On McCain's recent shift to supporting Bush policies: "The same policies? ... I believe in recycling, but that's ridiculous."

8:50 EDT — On Global Warming: "We are facing a planetary emergency, which if not solved would exceed anything we have experienced in human history."

Gore also drew attention to the crisis in the Arctic, noting that the polar ice cap may be totally melted in summer during the first term of the next president.

8:56 EDT — On the similarities between Obama and Lincoln: Gore noted that before President Abraham Lincoln took office, his experience was eight years in the Illinois state legislature, and one term in Congress — equal to that of Barack Obama.

"Inconvenient truths must be acknowledged if we are to have wise governance."

"His life experience embodies our motto: E pluribus unum — out of many, one."

Live Blog: Barack Surprise

2008-08-27T22:56:00.002-04:00

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Aug. 27 — In Denver, Barack surprised and delighted the Democratic National Convention, showing up after Joe Biden's acceptance speech.

"At the start of this campaign," Barack said, "we had a very simple idea, which is change in America doesn't start from the top, down, it starts from the bottom, up."

Live Blog: VP Candidate Sen. Joe Biden (Go Orange!)

2008-08-27T21:32:00.006-04:00

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Aug. 27 — Sen. Joe Biden, Democrat from Delaware, took the stage in Denver tonight to accept the nomination as the Democratic candidate for vice president. It's a good choice — for Delaware, for the Orange of Syracuse, and for the country.

10:34 PM EDT — Changing the Tenor of the Vice Presidency: "Let me make this pledge to you right here and no... no longer will you hear the the eight most dreaded words in the English language: 'The Vice President's office is on the phone.'"

Repeated throughout — Tag line: "That's not change, that's more of the same."

Live Blog: Former President Bill Clinton (a.k.a. Hillary's Husband)

2008-08-27T21:08:00.002-04:00

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Aug. 27 — Former President Bill Clinton, following in his wife's footsteps after her speech in Denver Tuesday, committed himself in his speech to doing everything he can to elect Barack Obama as our next president.

9:16 PM EDT — Responsible Exercise of Power: "People have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."

Live Blog: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Convention

2008-08-26T22:43:00.004-04:00

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Aug. 26 — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in what was to be her coronation as the nominee, instead seems to be channeling Otto the Orange — a good thing, in my mind.

Bright orange pantsuit, and Central New York is running through her veins, or at least her closet.

"Now is the time to unite as a single party, with a single purpose," she said.

"We are on the same team, and none of us can afford to sit on the sidelines. This is a fight for the future, and it is a fight we must win together."

"No way, no how, no McCain."

Nice. Bring it HRC, bring it. The senator from Arizona doesn't know what he's gotten into now.

Live Blog: Former Gov. Mark Warner's Democratic Convetion Keynote Speech

2008-08-26T21:42:00.013-04:00

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Aug. 26 — Former Virgina Gov. Mark Warner took the stage in Denver tonight to give the keynote address at the convention — succeeding Barack Obama in the role. He describes this campaign as "the race for the future."

"The race for the future is on, and it won't be won if only some Americans are in the running," Warner said.

Running for the Senate, Warner suggested that President Bush has failed to tap into the nation's most valuable resources — it's human resources.

9:49 PM EDT — Challenge as an opportunity: "America has never been afraid of the future, and we shouldn't start now. If we choose the right path, every one of these challenges is an opportunity." Energy is an example -- suggesting that within 24 months, with the right investments, we can have a 100-mpg hybrid vehicle.

9:50 PM EDT — Science: "In just four months, we will have an administration that actually believes in science."

9:52 PM EDT — Leaders and Bipartisanship: "We need leaders who see our common ground as sacred ground. We need leaders who will appeal to us ... first and foremost as Americans. . . If an idea works, it really doesn't matter is it's got a D or an R next to it."

This election is "about the future versus the past."

9:54 PM EDT — Obligations: "We're blessed to be Americans, but with that blessing comes an obligation to our neighbors and our common good."

"We're all in this together. That's what this party believes, that's what this nation believes, and that's what this nation believes, and that's what Barack Obama believes, and that's what Joe Biden believes."

10:00 PM EDT — Closing: "The race for the future will be won when all partisanship gives way to new ideas, when solutions replace stalemate..."

Out of Africa, but still at Cape Town International

2008-08-15T13:45:00.000-04:00

CAPE TOWN, Aug. 15 — I’m at the end of my visit here, and I’ve technically departed the country already, having cleared passport control. I write as I site at the wi-fi hot-spot in the international terminal at Cape Town International.

Surprise, surprise, my flight to JFK via Dakar, Sengal, is delayed. Scheduled time, in South African time format: 18h00. Now estimated time of departure: 21h15. Could be better, but it could be much worse.

The international terminal is, like so much of Cape Town and the surroundings I have seen, a study in contrasts. Townships with tin-roofed shacks line the main route to the airport, but the government plans to build high rises along the road to hide the crumbling homes from view in time for the 2010 World Cup. Who knows whether they will make it with that goal, along with others in preparation for hosting the world. But I digress.

The terminal itself is gleaming and beautiful, with construction going on all around to make more space, also in preparation for the World Cup. I’m sitting just across the white-tiled concourse from the Out of Africa shop, which carries a lot of tourist-trap items, but some nice local crafts also. Just down the concourse is the sport shops selling Springboks (the national rugby team) gear, and a handful of other shops, including a book shop with a couple shelves labeled “Africa.” Bob Marley’s “Buffalo Solider” plays over the Out of Africa shop’s stereo. It followed “You Can Call Me Al,” Toto’s “Africa” and an assortment of more local, or at least African, music.

From my various perches today, I’ve encountered chatty Americans, also traveling on my delayed flight, a handful of very eager service personnel, most of whose services I’ve declined, save the gentleman who seems to have taken it upon himself to lay out paper towels in the men’s room for each hand washer. I handed him a couple rand as I left the toilets (the men’s room) because it seemed unavoidable and rude not to give him a little something. I think his counterpart in the arrivals hall, before passengers claim their bags and change dollars, euros, pounds, and other currency to rand, is likely to bring in more income — I gave him two American dollars on my way out when I arrived, which is the equivalent of about 15 rand.

The flight is delayed not because of any problem on this end, as far as I understand, but because of weather in New York. My New York travel travails follow me to Africa.

There’s an expression I’ve heard frequently during my brief stay in the Mother City (one of Cape Town’s nicknames), used to explain delays, frustrations, foibles, and the like here: “This is Africa.” It’s often abbreviated TIA. Maybe it’s offensive, maybe it’s too blunt, but it’s said so often, maybe it’s accurate.

New York, in my experience, needs a comparable expression. Capetonians I’ve met seem to handle the blips and cock-ups of everyday life in a major city better than New Yorkers do. Instead of fuming into a rage, as I often do when the subway makes me crazy with its “track work,” Capetonians might shrug their shoulders and say, “This is Africa, it’s a different place,” as one driver told me this week. (He happened to say it in the context of the country’s presumptive future president, Jacob Zuma, now president of the African National Congress, ANC, facing possible criminal conviction but remaining THE contender for the country’s top office, but that’s another story — one to be told on my return to the States.)

So, without further delay (except for my flight delay, which I hope isn’t any longer either), here is a new, or perhaps recycled, expression for New Yorkers, in the hope that they too might shrug off the blips on the radar screen when necessary. “This is New York” ¬— to be abbreviated TINY.

So, I’m going to shrug, and sign off, explaining this flight delay to myself by saying This is New York (or at least its fault), and in the meantime, This is Africa, so enjoy it for a little while longer.

Stay tuned for more, including highlights of my African stomach bug and visits to a game park and Robben Island, upon my return to the States.

Up in the Clouds, At the End of the Earth

2008-08-09T17:22:00.000-04:00

CAPE TOWN, Aug. 9 — I asked a cab driver today, “What is your favorite part of South Africa, besides Cape Town?” He cut me off before I could spit out the modifying clause, exclaiming, “Cape Town!” He’d only visited a handful of other places, but he also had little desire or need to see much else, he said — Cape Town has, at least in terms of landscape, anything that visitors and residents alike could want.

An older, white South African woman on my flight from New York shared similar sentiments as we both paced the aisles during our stop in Dakar, Senegal.

“We’ve traveled a lot,” she said of her and her husband, explaining that they were avid hikers. “But every time we fly in to Cape Town, we’re glad to arrive, and we see again why it’s home.” She lives on the mountain above the village of Simon’s Town, a bit south of the city on the Cape peninsula, she said, but she can walk down to the beach in 10 minutes.

Today, I saw the evidence that supported the claims from these and other Capetonians. Early-ish this morning, we called a cab (Excite Taxi — reportedly, according to the Obs crew, the cheapest and most reliable fleet — enjoy your free ad now before I start charging!), and jumped in with our jackets packed.

“Dispatch, dispatch,” the cabby called over the radio, “pickup in Obs, headed up the mountain.” Cruising along Lower Main Road through Obs to Main Road, we hit City Bowl at least twice as quickly as we did in the kombi on Friday.

Then, up the base of Table Mountain we headed, to the lower cable station, at approximately 300 meters, for the five-minute ride up the to the top at about 1,000 meters.

On our arrival at the upper cable station, the temperature was considerably cooler, at about 45° F, and I pulled on both a fleece jacket and a skullcap.

We picked this morning because the skies in Cape Town looked clear from Obs (and our vantage point of Lion’s Head, a 600-some meter outcropping adjacent to Table Mountain, and before our ascent, the mountain was clear. Almost as soon as we exited the cable car, however, almost as if we were dinner guests arriving for the party, the mountain began to retreat under its Table Cloth, a blanket of cumulus that forms atop the mountain when the warm air off the southern Atlantic hits the cool temperatures at altitude and condenses.

A few shots into our photographic record of the visit, the clouds closed in, and we were all but shrouded in mist. A walk around the plateau at the top nonetheless revealed a handful of remarkable views before the clouds cut visibility to zip, including a couple guys preparing to repel, or abseil, as is the local parlance (I overhead one watcher say that Table Mountain is the highest commercial abseiling site in the world), from the top, seemingly into thin air, with the city behind them 1,000 meters down.

The flora are stunning, even in winter, and the fauna showed themselves a couple times, with a little chipmunk-looking creature darting behind a rock after I photographed him, and a pair of birds hoping for Starburst from my girlfriend as we sat on a stone step to write a postcard, before depositing it in the post box outside the mountain-top gift shop for transit to the States.

After chilling ourselves almost to New-York-winter temperatures, we headed down, and the mountain, as if it knew some of its guests were leaving the party, began to remove the Table Cloth, clouds parting for our final glimpses as we headed for the cableway, and out of the clouds.

Back at the lower cable station, we called a Rikki for the trek to the end of the earth — Cape Point (here’s another free ad — Rikkis is a company that provides cabs by the hour instead of by distance-time meter, and they have 16 London-style black cabs, some of which are decked out in Rikkis’ decals and World-Cup preparatory ads). Our Rikki driver, whose name we never picked up, unfortunately, shared his stories of life in Cape Town — born and raised there and never spent much time outside it, he said — as we headed south to the capes.

Yes, capes, plural. At the southern end of the Cape peninsula are Cape Point, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet, and the Cape of Good Hope, the southwestern most point of the African continent. The drive down to the capes is itself spectacular and warrants an essay unto itself, but time is short and the Internet here is painful, so I’ll give you the highlights.

Cape Point is marked, at its most touristed spot, by a lighthouse, and a view of the point itself, after which the next land is Antarctica. Awe inspiring, to say the least, and neither words nor photos do it justice.

In a small-world moment, after asking a tour guide to take our photo, one of the guide’s tour-group members asked if we were Americans, surely based on our accents. Yes, we said, we are. Turns out she lives on the Upper East Side, and her former husband is an adjunct professor at Columbia Law, and I heard him speak not too long ago. Almost 8,000 miles away, and the City lurks.

Back in the Rikki, we made a quick stop at the Cape of Good Hope for some more spectacular views and photos at the end of the earth. (Either spot is arguably the end of the earth, and they’re only a mile or two from one another, so really, the point is somewhat moot.)

On our return to the park’s main road from the point, we spotted a gang of baboons hangin’ out by the side of the road. Baboons, just chillin’, except for the one eating popcorn from a bag, while guarding a bag of clementines.

If you told a South African about the baboons, he probably wouldn’t be too surprised — they’re around the capes often, especially on warm, sunny days like today. But if you told a South African about the popcorn and clementines, then you might get a classic quizzical response, “Izit?” — as in, is it true? Really?

Yes, really, it is.

A Combination of What?

2008-08-09T12:09:00.001-04:00

CAPE TOWN, Aug. 8 — Take a New York City Transit bus, add a New York City cab, preferably of the mini-van variety, throw in a pinch of dance remixes from the late 1990s, an incessantly hooting hooter (yes, hooting hooter — it’s not a honking horn here in Cape Town), and about 15 people, including a crazy driver and a “caller” hanging out a special side window, and you get a minibus taxi.

The minibus taxi, or kombi (possibly also spelled C-O-M-B-I) is a kombi-nation of eccentricities, all brewed into one* of the most commonly used forms of public transportation here in Cape Town.

Callers, who sit in the seat closest to the sliding, curb-side door, often hanging out the window (or half-window that has clearly been designed into some models for this purpose) whistling at and calling to potential passengers, are apparently unique to Cape Town, but “this whole concept of transportation in that form is African — it’s certainly not anything we have in the States,” my girlfriend explained.

The caller works for passengers, works the door, and sometimes works the money, except for the occasions when the front-middle-seat passenger gets stuck playing change maker.

From what I’m told, one doesn’t really “get” the kombis until riding them, or at least one. So, without further delay, a brief riff on my first kombi trip today.

Walk up the hill from Obs to Main Road, careful to look right when crossing the street. (Main Road, as you might figure, is the main surface road running into Cape Town, and the kombis run both ways, hooting all the way, crossing multiple lanes of traffic to pick up of and drop off passengers. I tend to look both ways as an extra assurance against being flattened by a stray vehicle, but I’ve still had a couple close calls.)

As we hit Main Road, the hooting starts, or, rather, the callers eagerly seek us out. “Wynberg, Wynberg?” one asks before we even cross the street to the lanes going out direction. He’s inquiring whether we want to jump in the kombi on the corner bound for Wynberg, at the other end of the line (if you can call it a kombi route a “line”). No thanks, she says, shaking her head, and we dart across the street to the opposite corner, just below the Grute Schur hospital, home of the first heart transplant, and still a transplant center for Africa.

Several kombis roll by, and she waves them on. “Too full,” she said of the first couple. “Too empty,” she said of one with no passengers. “It’s no fun if there is no one in it!”

Five to seven minutes later, a bright yellow model with tinted windows rolls up, and before I realize what’s happening, we’re boarding. “This one’s a nice one,” she whispers over her shoulder. The passenger closest to the curb-side door in the second row of bench seats, the seat over which everyone must climb to get to the two back rows, climbed out, and we climbed in, headed for the back two middle seats.

Wallet safely secured in the zipped, inside pocket of the messenger bag, along with the nice sunglasses and the cell phone, which I’d been warned against having accessible during the ride, I fished a five-rand coin out of the coin pocket of my jeans, and passed up the rest of the money, enough for three to Cape Town, including our seat mate in the back.

Dance remixes vintage 1997 blare through the relatively nice sound system. “Do you want it all, or nothing at all…” The LCD screen in the front of the passenger section is dimmed, but I half expected it to light up and for a strobe and disco ball to drop from the kombi’s ceiling. Songs continue, “… it’s now or never …”

Bombing along Main Road, the caller, head and left arm hanging out the half-window, whistles, calling to potential passengers, “Cape Town! Cape Town?!” A black woman shakes her head no, ignoring the driver’s hoots. At this point, I realized the hooting and calling are not at all coordinated. The caller calls somewhat routinely, but the driver hoots randomly, sometimes to help passenger recruitment, other times to warn pedestrians and other vehicles on the road that he’s about to cross three lanes of traffic to load or unload.

A passenger disembarks from the front seat, and jump-seat man, the one in the second-row-door seat, jumps out and into the front so he can avoid climbing out and back in every time we pick up a new rider. We cruise a few more blocks as the dance remix fades from one dated song to another — I know they’re dated because I know all of the songs (if not the remixes), and I know I’m not up on current music, nor have I consistently been since the late ‘90s. Jump-seat man, bald head and all, jumps out of the front a few blocks later, and a black woman with braids hanging to the bottom of her shoulder blades jumps in, riding for a few blocks before bailing and hiking up a cross street.

Soon enough, it’s clear that we’re close enough to city centre that no more guests will join this kombi party. The party-goer to my left is wheezing and hacking, not quite in time with the music, and I’m clutching my messenger bag on my lap, hoping it’s not something contagious.

We pass through some of downtown Cape Town, and onto the roof of Cape Town Station, the train station. The minibus taxi terminus in the City Bowl, as downtown is also known, is on the roof, overlooking the train yard and the Golden Arrow bus station (more on the buses to follow). To appreciate the kombi station, it helps to imagine the yellow cab holding lot at JFK — hundreds of cabs and their drivers waiting for a dispatch to the airline terminals for the big $45 fare to Manhattan, hoping not to get screwed with a short fare to Queens or Brooklyn. The Cape Town kombi terminus is comparable. Replace the yellow cabs with minbus taxis of all makes, models, and colors — Toyota and VW seemed to be the most prevalent. There was even a fuschia-colored kombi with a Reebok decal in the back window. Somehow I don’t think that means Reebok was once in the vehicle-manufacturing business.

Over some speed bumps, rather roughly, especially in the seats over the back wheels, and into a clusterfuck of kombis, passengers, drivers, and attendants (although it was entirely unclear to what they were attending). There are some stalls off to the right, perpendicular to the entryway where we’re stuck, where the kombis queue for the return-trip from Cape Town to all points outside town, and they sit queued until they are full. My girlfriend always opts for a sedan cab back to Obs from the City Bowl instead of waiting in the madness.

Finally, the door pops open, and passengers poor out, into a gap maybe two-feet wide between our ride and the kombi chillin’ against the curb. We quickly snap a photo or two, deftly stepping around the man who’s decided to relieve himself along the concrete barrier marking the edge of the lot. From there, we cross a pedestrian bridge whose metal panels give a good three inches toward the street every few steps we take, and we head down some rusting metal steps, past the bus station and into the bustle. This is Africa.

*There seems to be some debate about whether the kombis or the Golden Arrow buses carry more people to and from work in Cape Town on a daily basis. One of my girlfriend’s colleagues at the NGO where she worked suggested that despite the buses’ larger capacity, the kombis probably carry more people daily because there are many more of them than buses. Another took the polar opposite position, suggesting that the capacity of the buses must more than make up for the greater number of kombis. If you’ve got more insight, please share. As for me, I’d like to throw another wrench in the gears of this transportation question. What about the trains, which run up and down the peninsula and from the Cape Flats, the areas where the townships area, into Cape Town Station? They surely bring people to work and return them home in the evening, but I’m not sure proportionally how much traffic they comprise.

Big Sign that “reconciliation” is part of the lingo, even when used trivially

2008-08-07T05:53:00.003-04:00

CAPE TOWN, Aug. 7 — After resolving my first traveler’s dilemma upon landing in Cape Town, and setting off in a cab for Obs (short for Observatory, as in, the neighborhood where lots of young people and students live, not a building housing a telescope), a sign with the word “reconciliation” caught my eye. It turned out to be an ad for tax or accounting services, from what I imagine is the South African equivalent of H&R Block, seeking customers in anticipation of the upcoming filing deadline.

Somehow, despite the accounting connotation of the word “reconciliation,” the usage didn’t seem quite appropriate, given the starkly different, and probably more frequently used, connotation of the word here in South Africa — as used in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the process it fostered.

But perhaps the word’s mere inclusion in the vernacular — in a billboard ad, and splashed across the inside pages of the Mail & Guardian and The Cape Times ¬— suggests that it is ingrained enough to be trivialized. While I suspect that few South Africans, if any, would claim that post-Apartheid reconciliation is “complete,” and in that respect trivializing the process with an ad arguably hurts it, anything that keeps it at the top of people’s minds are perhaps not all bad.

Welcome to Cape Town

2008-08-06T07:10:00.003-04:00

CAPE TOWN, Aug. 6 — After more than 10,000 miles and more than 48 hours of traveling, including a brief overnight stop in New York to shower, sleep, and repack, and after risking my luggage for my own stupidity, I arrived in Cape Town on Monday afternoon.

First impressions are telling, unfair, and subject to change, but they're at least a starting point, so here are a few.

Cape Town International Airport is surprisingly small for a city of about 3.5 million people. The airport is growing, with major construction ongoing now in anticipation of the 2010 World Cup and crowds the tournament will draw to the city and the rest of South Africa. For now, however, the limited capacity means that our Delta flight landed at a distant edge of the runway, and shuttle buses carried us to the terminal. Passport control and customs were relatively empty and moved quickly.

In my haste to get out of the airport and to Observatory, the neighborhood where my girlfriend has been living since June, I forgot to change my American dollars, and I jumped in a cab without any South African rand. Before the driver pulled away, I remembered I needed cash, and I asked him to wait, creating the first of what might be many traveler's dilemmas on my first African trip.

My bags, save my carry on with my laptop and most important essentials, were already in the back of the station wagon cab, but I needed cash before I could leave the airport. So, choose your own adventure: you can either leave your bags with the driver, hoping he won't drive off, leaving you will no clothes and only the bare essentials for two weeks in Cape Town, OR you can rudely ask the driver to open the trunk, drag the bags out and back into the terminal, and find the currency exchange.

I stupidly but politely opted for the former, almost pleading the with driver, whom my instincts said were trustworthy (but those instincts have failed me before), to stay and wait for me, as I raced back into the terminal for cash. I even asked him where the currency exchange was. "The bank," he replied. Of course. The bank. I should have known.

He could sense my nervous, I'm sure, and as I headed back to the terminal, glancing over my shoulder every few seconds, praying he wasn't racing out of the airport taxi lane, he climbed out of the cab, locked it, and followed me to the terminal. Intentionally or not, he reassured me, and I quickly found and ATM, and told the cabby, "I'll just get some here." I withdrew some rand as he waited, and we headed back to the cab.

"Observatory," I told the cabby, pronouncing it ob-zerv-a-tree, as I'd been instructed.

Relieved my bags were still intact and ready for a ride, I relaxed as we pulled away from the curb, riding toward Cape Town.

More to follow...

Ice Cream Thought: Cones Triumph Over Dishes

2008-04-30T23:40:00.002-04:00

NEW YORK, April 30 — When ordering ice cream or comparable frozen treats, B.S. recommends getting it in a cone, especially if someone other than you (or us) is scooping or running the soft-serve machine.* Face it: ice cream is a kid's treat, and we enjoy it because we are kids at heart, and when appropriate, kid-like in as much of our behavior as possible.

And kids like ice cream, and we would argue most enjoy it especially from cones.

Ice cream cones over dishes, people, it's the side you know you want to support. The cone helps you eat it more slowly, so you can enjoy it for longer, and it's really just much more fun. (Case in point — a cone of vanilla from Tasti-D with mini Reeses Pieces. The soft-serve operator put in in a dish, after putting it in a cone, but I insisted on using the cone as designed, so I walked across campus, Reeses Pieces dropping here and there, but having a thoroughly good time.)

*If you're scooping or soft-serving, and you can pull it off well, more power to ya; we often end up crunching the cone or with soft-serve all over our hands — knew we should have taken that job at the ice cream parlor summer after freshman year of college.

Big Apple Musings: On the Phone or Just Off His Rocker?

2008-03-31T00:29:00.001-04:00

NEW YORK, March 31 — Walking home from the library at midnight, down the block from my apartment, there was a crazy New Yorker talking to himself. Dark trench coat, scruff, babbling about how he had said he'd do something at the beginning of March. Crazy laugh follows.

Now, this observation certainly isn't an original one, and I'm not sure to whom the credit goes, but it's an example of the observation that technology has changed how New Yorkers view one another. Twenty years ago, maybe even 10 years ago, the guy would have been written off as potentially certifiable.

Tonight, however, I paused, and I thought, he's probably on his phone. I didn't see the receiver in his ear, or a microphone cord, but enough observation of crazy and just regular (if bizarre) New Yorkers has taught me that more often than not, these days, the crazy guy talk to himself on the corner, or walking down the street, or riding the bus, is actually talking to another crazy guy on the other end.

Curious if anyone out there in the blogosphere knows who first observed and recorded this phenomenon; it's not me, but trench-coat-scruff-crazy-laugh man was just about the epitome of it tonight.

Big Sign that the Water Crunch Isn't Going Away: Lakes May Dry Up!

2008-02-13T23:19:00.002-05:00

NEW YORK, Feb. 13 — As it poured felines and canines today here in New York, The Christian Science Monitor reported here that "Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which supply water and power to millions in the American Southwest, stand a 50 percent chance of running dry by 2021."

Upstate New York — lots of water and low cost of living. Let's go. Until then, start catching rain in your cisterns, and figure out a way to not lose so much runoff to the asphalt jungle.

Barack 'n Bloggin': Snowin' in New York, but Rollin' in the Potomac Trifecta

2008-02-12T23:48:00.002-05:00

NEW YORK, Feb. 12 — Trucks, vans, and pedestrians slipped and slid up and down Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway in Morningside Heights this afternoon and evening as snow accumulated and turned to sleet, or even the ambiguous, mysterious "wintry mix." Some 300 miles south, however, the Barack and Roll was booming across the Potomac, all the way out the the Chesapeake as Obama swept the DC, Maryland, and Virginia Democratic primaries.

Unabashedly, enthusiastically, yes, we can. I'm fired up and ready to go.

With the hope of encouraging turnout today, I logged on to facebook last night to check onthe status of my DC-area friends. Happily, most of them are pretty savvy and engaged, being DC young professionals or students. One old friend, a Christian conservative, expressed in this status message dismay with his choices, suggesting his vote would be either an anti-McCain vote or an anti-Hillary vote.

Virginia doesn't require specific party registration of its primary voters, so this old friend was choosing between the donkeys and the elephants. I felt compelled to make a pitch for Barack, and as it turned out, my buddy ended up voting for him. Who's to say if my message made a difference or sealed the deal, but it points at least to Barack's cross-over appeal.

In this speech tonight at a Madison, Wis., rally, Barack humorously acknowledged that appeal. The Obama-cans, Republicans supporting him, often whisper to him as he works the rope line, shaking hands before and after his stump speech. As he tells it:

"Barack!" they whisper, "I'm a Republican, but I support you!"

It's OK, Obama-cans, you don't have to whisper, we're all friends here, we don't bite, and you're all welcome, anytime. And if Barack becomes president, maybe a year from now the whispers that indicate cross-party cooperation and friendship will begin to grow a little bit louder, until we, as Americans rather than donkeys and elephants, are throwing our hands back, and shouting, "Yes, we can! Now we will!"

He's raising our spirits, and he'll raise the debate, as he helps us raise ourselves and the country, restoring and improving the American reputation and fostering the American dream.

Ed. Note: BS notes the unusual editorializing and blatant propaganda of this post. Even though we usually try to present a somewhat objective picture of events, it's tough to do it in this case — we think Barack is just that good, and he inspires us like few, if any, others have previously. If you strongly object, let us know; we're considering a post on journalistic objectivity, or the impossibility thereof, in covering politics for the near future.

Blogging Super Tuesday: Morning GOTV in Morningside Heights

2008-02-05T13:11:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK, Feb. 5 — Obama volunteers are out in force this Super Tuesday. I spent an hour and a half this morning at the northwest corner of W. 113th Street and Broadway in Morningside Heights.

I hit the ground at 10:45 this morning, meeting Obama campaign volunteer coordinator Dan in the Starbucks on Broadway between W. 114th and W. 115th Streets, where he had set up camp. The morning rain tapered off as I arrived to replace two other volunteers.

"Don't forget to vote today," and "Be sure to vote" were the phrases of choice, calling to passersby, while waving an Obama '08 sign covered in Vote Obama stickers, plus another sticket on my hat.

Many pedestrians responded that they'd voted already or were headed to vote as they passed; of that, a substantial majority gave a thumbs up or otherwise expressed their support for Obama:

Here's hopin'!

Obama's my boy!

He's already got my vote!

They were old-time New Yorkers, new citizens, nannies, stay-at-home moms, retirees, Columbia students and employees, a cross-section of this diverse neighborhood, of this city, of this country (with a stronger Democratic tilt than this purple nation).

A particularly memorable pedestrian, wearing a Giants' coat, hood up, on this day of the Giants' victory parade and party, carrying a busting full garbage bag, called back to me as he crossed 113th Street headed south: "Obama's the man! Unfortunately, I'm a convicted felon, so I can't vote for him."

It was at once an interesting commentary on the cross-cutting support for Obama, and also a sad statement on felon disenfranchisement, even for those back on the streets, apparently rehabilitated and engaged.

More from the field later.

Big Sign that You Should Vote Today: It's Super Tuesday!

2008-02-05T09:23:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK, Feb. 5 — Polls are open here in New York, and will be until 9 p.m. EST, in a presidential primary being echoed across the country today, with 24 states holding either a primary or caucus for the Democrats or Republicans, or both in what the media has labeled Super Tuesday. (Ed. Note: B.S. previously called today "Tsunami Tuesday," reserving "Super Tuesday" for the more traditional, early March primary day, but in deference to common parlance and to prevent confusion, we'll use "Super Tuesday" to describe this primary day.)

I voted 40 minutes ago, and the polling place was busy, if not yet hopping, despite the before-work crowd. Campaigns are out in force to get out the vote. The Barack Obama campaign has listed 19 staging sites for GOTV in Manhattan alone.

I won't presume here to know everything about all the candidates, but I will say I voted for Barack because I think he has the right stuff to turn this country in a new direction, the best chance to win the general election, and a he gives Americans hope that they can be a part of the change.

Whatever you do today, for whomever you vote, if you're in a Super Tuesday state, do your civic duty and vote.

Spinning the Wheels – Campaign 2008: Iowa's over, rolling on to New Hampshire

2008-01-06T10:50:00.000-05:00

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — From my seat here, sitting on my parents' couch during the last day of my visit here, the 2008 presidential landscape is shifting quickly.

"Romney's going to crash and burn," my dad, political scientist and poll watcher extraordinaire, says. "Huckabee's going to burn himself out."

Guiliani might never ignite, and McCain may surge, but I've been wrong before. Thursday night, out to dinner here before the Iowa caucuses, I predicted Barack would roll, Edwards would surprise with his experienced Iowa caucus-goers, and Hillary would fall short of expectations. All proved true.

And then there were my Republican predictions, which proved absolutely wrong. Huck, I'd said, would end the evening disappointed, his poll numbers not bearing out the surge they indicated. Of course, I was wrong.

This post is a scatter-shot of initial thoughts on the '08 campaign, and with the snowball beginning for Barack, as my dad has suggested, I'll try to keep up. Hillary is running scared, Barack is riding high, Edwards is hanging on, and Richardson is glad to still be around.

I'm disappointed Biden is gone — he had all but locked up my vote before he fizzled in Iowa, with his sincerity, intellect, and experience (which, contrary to Barack-speak, isn't always a bad thing). Whoever the Democrats' nominee is would do well to pick Biden as the veep nominee.

The Republican field is a mess, with scary prospects and no one who seems promising, and but one, John McCain, who seems tolerable. (Disclaimer: This analysis is from an unabashed, if moderate and independent-minded Democrat.)

Romney doesn't want it from the heart. My best evidence comes in a quote from Romney in this Washington Post story by my college buddy Eli Saslow. Said Romney: "I'll make my message loud and clear. Of course, to be elected president would be an enormous honor. But not to be elected would be an enormous relief."

More on the candidates in posts to come, I hope, but for now, I'll leave you faithful readers with some thoughts on the process.

The 2008 presidential campaign began earlier than any other in my memory, at least in December 2006, with Edwards announcing his candidacy from my-then city of residence, New Orleans. The New York Times has labeled the campaign "The Long Run" in a series of candidate profiles beginning in early 2007. The long primary run has been underway for more than a year, but the general election campaign is shaping up to be the longest in history as well.

If Tsunami Tuesday, Feb. 5, goes as it could, and as I think it will, strongly for one candidate in each party, we could have a presumptive nominee then, with 24 states voting that day, and the snowball carrying the big winners to the conventions. If not Feb. 5, March 4's Super Tuesday could seal the deal. In either case — nominee by Feb. 5 or March 4 — we'll have a long general election campaign, eight or nine months. I expect that long run to produce the lowest voter turnout in American history, as a result of sheer boredom and frustration with the campaigns after about mid-April.

Big Sign that it's the end of the year

2007-12-23T01:33:00.001-05:00

Rochester, N.Y., Dec. 23 — It's about 1:30 a.m. EST, Sunday morning, and I'm blogging. This entry will be a brief one, merely to acknowledge my dreadful lack of blogging during the past couple months and to suggest a turn around is in sight, I hope. It's been a blur of a couple months, but there's been a lot of blog-worthy news; many big signs to share and dissect, put the B.S. spin on, if you'll drift with me.

In Orange news, the Orangemen of the court beat the Cornell Big Red Saturday night, 80-64, in cool, relaxed, easy-going, and enjoyable fashion in front of 19,000-plus at the Dome.

Today, a hop down the Thruway in the other direction, Bills face the Giants in at Rich "B.S. won't call it Ralph Wilson" Stadium, 1 p.m. EST. Meaningless, more or less, after last week's loss to the Browns, but perhaps it'll be a good show, a big sign of what's to come.

As for what's to come from B.S., stay tuned.

Big Signs Reminds You to Vote Today

2007-11-06T13:03:00.001-05:00

NEW YORK, Nov. 6 — It's election day, and while it's an off year and the media is already consumed with the big contest a year from now, your local elections may actually affect your day-to-day lives a lot more than the POTUS and other national elections. Think about it. Then go vote.

Big Sign that the Water Crunch is Real: Three NYT Stories in Three Days

2007-10-23T09:58:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, Oct. 23 — In a sign that some will argue is a key indicator that the water crisis facing the United States — from Oswego, N.Y., to Atlanta, to the parched western states, The New York Times has, in the past three days, run three major stories on different aspects of the problem.

Sunday the Times Magazine had this story, "The Future Is Drying Up," on the remarkable water shortages in the west, including a striking image of Lake Mead, behind the Hoover Dam, showing the recently exposed, bleached white 100-foot high section of vertical shoreline left exposed by receding waters.

Monday, the Metro Section reported from Oswego on a three-inch drop in Lake Ontario's water level in October alone, in this story, "Inch by Inch, Great Lakes Shrink, And Cargo Carriers Face Losses."

Today, on the front page, the Times reports in "New to Being Dry, the South Struggles to Adapt" from Atlanta on the seemingly most urgent aspect of the crisis, in the southeast, where the reserves in Atlanta's main source of water, Lake Lanier, "could reach the bottom of its storage reserves in about four months." More troublesome, the state, residents, and visitors alike are only now thinking about how to address the problem.

Case in point: my girlfriend visited Atlanta this weekend. As I pondered the water issue with my mother while I was in Rochester (which, incidentally, my mom thinks is poised for a renaissance resulting from the water crisis, and which I tend to think is correct, but more on that another time), I sent my girlfriend a text message asking, "Are you thirsty yet?"

She called back confused, but she did then confirm that she'd had to ask for water at breakfast out Saturday morning, instead of it just showing up with the silverware.

The Times has a great section on its Web site cataloging its water reporting, here. Check it out, and then, ponder some ways to save some. How about this one to start: will NYC Council Member please introduce a bill that bans sidewalk spraying as a cleaning method, or at least limits the frequency?

"Seinfeld" fans may remember the idea from an episode that first aired Dec. 14, 1995, "The Gum," in which Elaine, blouse open as she walks down the sidewalk, has to tread carefully past a florist shop where the owner is hosing down the sidewalk in front. From the script:

A cop stands a little further down the street. Elaine approaches him.

ELAINE: Officer. Officer, is there some reason this man has to always be using a hose? I mean, he's flooding the sidewalk. It's a waste of water. Couldn't he just use a broom?

The cop stares at Elaine's breasts the whole time she's talking.

COP: Lady, you sold me. (strides toward florist) Hey, you with the hose.

Elaine looks confused about his attitude. She glances down, and notices her blouse wide open. She quickly pulls her coat closed, to hide her embarrassment, and hurries away.

Well, Elaine solved the problem with some cleavage, at least until later in the episode, when the hose returns, but maybe the City Council could now consider a more comprehensive approach.

What would you do to save some water?

Big Sign that New York City Council Member James Oddo has a dirty mouth

2007-10-10T09:46:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, Oct. 10 — The Staten Island Advance is reporting another of New York City Council Member James Oddo's episodes of entertainment. Oddo, a Republican from Staten Island, blew up at a Norwegian comedian, Pia Haraldsen, who tricked him into a prank interview about the 2008 U.S. presidential election.

See the video here on YouTube for yourself, but the lowlights begin with Haraldsen asking how Sen. Barack Obama is allowed to run for president because she suggests Obama is 1) not a citizen because he is African-American (and 2) unable to run because he is African-American. The second (better?) half of the 96-second video is Oddo's F-bomb-laced rant, first to his staff about how the Norwegian crew got time with him, and then at the crew to get the F out of his office.

Oddo reacted to the video in an interview with the Advance, whose audio is posted here. "Do I regret demonstrating a very limited vocabulary?" Oddo asked rhetorically. "I absolutely do. Am I embarrassed for my mom and my girlfriend and some of my constituents? Absolutely. But I took great offense that they were there to mock me, to mock me, to mock Sen. Obama, to mock the Clintons, and in essence really to make America. And I told them in no uncertain terms to get out. And they wanted reality television, and the reality is that you're gonna come in and waste my time and sort of goof on all of us, then you have what's coming to you. Emotionally, that was the right sentiment. Intellectually, it could have been worded better, but I've said it from day one, and I'll say it again: I'm not a terribly good politician. I'm like any other Staten Islander, and it showed."

Couple thoughts: Pia, funny concept that you had, poor execution. Probably not the best way to ingratiate yourself to the American people and a Republican politician by pandering to racist, pre-Civil War ideology for a laugh. Jimmy, right reaction, wrong words, funny nonetheless, and thanks for standing up for equality and respectful treatment of American legislators across party lines. But did you have suggest that all Staten Islanders express themselves primarily through four-letter words when angry? Some do, sure, and I know a fair number of them, but probably, on the whole, Staten Islanders don't react as such any more than other New Yorkers, Americans, or even Norwegians, I'm guessing.

Blogging NYT: Singing Staten Island's Praises

2007-10-07T23:34:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, Oct. 7 — The New York Times City section today has a huge piece on the hipster-ization of Staten Island's North Shore. The piece, here, by Cara Buckley, a metro reporter, paints a rather idyllic picture of an emerging arts and underground-music scene on the island.

There remains, however, the inescapable sense of being far away (how about 5.2 miles) from "the City," as most of my S.I. acquaintances (and many other outer borough friends) call Manhattan. Having spent 13 months of my (working) life on the Island of Staten, working to keep people moving between it and the City, I'm not sure what I think of this takeout from the piece, but I'm quoting it here because it's worth it, positively or negatively.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle between Staten Island and coolness is the most obvious and intractable one of all: the ferry. No other direct transit link with Manhattan exists, and the half-hour ferry ride cements the separateness.

“There is nothing worse than it being 4:29 a.m. and you’re in Manhattan and drunk and running for the ferry,” said Tim Duffy, a 25-year-old islander and lifelong ferry catcher. “Because if you miss that, you’re waiting till 5:30 a.m.”

Yet despite the ferry, or because of it, a thriving and tight-knit group of homegrown indie and hipster types has germinated on the North Shore.

Staten Island is a world apart from Manhattan, but it's worth a visit, or at least a ferry ride there and back. If you're on the boat, be sure to tell Capt. José that I said hi.

Big Signs Blogging Bollinger

2007-09-24T20:13:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, Sept. 24 — Also on CNN tonight, Columbia University President answered some questions about his introduction of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which Ahmadinejad himself called insulting.

"It always risks that when you have something like this that it will degenerate into a bland conversation," Bollinger said.

"It was very clear that the only way this would happen was for me to use very sharp questions," he continued. "These are very serous beliefs... the only way to have a discussion like this is to make sure it's a full, robust debate.

"I had things that I wanted to say, and I wanted to say them in my own words...

"He was very stony... so I really don't know what he felt.

"I think it's better to openly confront your adversaries and enemies to express your views."

Trump on Ahmadinejad

2007-09-24T20:06:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, Sept. 24 — On CNN tonight, Donald Trump told Wolf Blitzer that the visit was a good public relations move for Columbia. "It's very good for Columbia because, right now, everybody's talking about Columbia," Trump said.

Big Signs Notebook: Ahmadinejad Visits Columbia, Campus and Community Fired Up

2007-09-24T16:11:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, Sept. 24 -- The din of the day is fading, but with the Columbia Coalition, a loose collection of student groups denouncing the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the university, some excitement is surely still in the tanks.

On the most frenetic day of the semester so far, I bounced to midtown around 10 a.m. for an interview and to take in the insanity of east midtown as it welcomed the United Nations General Assembly. On my return to campus, the event was well underway, and I caught the last few minutes of the speech simulcast to the giant viewing screen on the south side of College Walk.

Here are a handful of observations from the scene. Photos to follow later.

10:10 a.m., leaving the main gate at 116th Street and Broadway, a short, bearded, Jewish man was chanting, "Death to Ahmadinejad, the Hitler of Iran!" and giving out fliers calling on Columbia alums to cut off their donations as a punishment for Bollinger inviting the Iranian president. Inside campus, the "Press Pen," set up on Low Plaza, remained empty.

11:30 a.m., from the 61st floor of the Chrysler Building, 42nd Street leading to the United Nations is blocked off at First Avenue by dump trucks filled with sand, and lined west of First Avenue with NYPD vehicles and trusty orange traffic cones.

2:50 p.m., on return to the Morningside campus, one of two stairwells exiting the subway at 116th Street station is closed, guarded by a white-shirted (higher-ranking) NYPD officer. Another white-shirt and a regular P.O. circulated through the station. The protest was in full swing on both sides of Broadway, with police barricades restraining the crowd.

There were at least four satellite trucks up and running and another three or four microwave trucks along Broadway, beaming content to their stations. Just north of the protest scene, on the west side of Broadway at 118th Street, in front of Barnard College, a coach bus idled, perhaps awaiting protesters, perhaps bringing tourists to spectate.

A sampling of the signage: a professionally printed banner reading, "Charge Ahmadinejad with incitement of genocide," on one side of the barricades, and on the other, a handwritten poster board that said, "Free speech in USA."

A sampling of the chants: "Shame on Columbia!"

Entering campus from the 117th Street gate, and weaving through the smattering of students meandering about the north side of campus, it seemed tranquil, as if perhaps the event had ended. On reaching Low Plaza, however, the sea of students showed itself set up on the south lawn, transfixed by the speech simulcast to the super sized screen. There were at least 3,000 people covering the southeast corner of the quad.

Catching the tail end of Ahmadinejad's remarks, as I squinted to see the screen from an angle off to its left, he asserted, through a translator, that Iran's nuclear program "operates within the law."

Protesting students held a massive orange banner, so large it reached the chin of one standing, female protester, which read, "Ahmadinejad = Bad/ Bush = Worse/ No War on Iran" and called on students to join in a protest of U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday when he speaks at the United Nations.

Ahmadinejad condemned Iraq's use of chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq War, and he concluded by reciprocating on Columbia's invitation to him by inviting students and faculty to Iran.

"I invite Columbia faculty members and students to come to Iran to speak with our faculty and students. You're officially invited," Ahmadinejad said. Perhaps backtracking from the broad invitation, he suggested that Columbia could pick the students, possibly from student government, to make a trip, and that Iran would supply a list of its 400-some universities that the entourage could visit.

As he ended his remarks, Ahmadinejad said to the audience, "Best of luck to all of you."

More to follow -- covering the media covering the events, counter-speeches, overheard student reactions.

Pitt at Grant's Tomb, Secret Service at the Gates

2007-09-24T09:56:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, Sept. 24 -- Brad Pitt is in Morningside Heights this morning, just north of the controlled chaos at Columbia, shooting scenes for "Burn After Reading." Photos to follow later, but the crew filmed Pitt screaming "FUCK!!!" (yes, with three exclamation points) as cars (with Beltway plates) passed and one sped off in front of him, at least a dozen times this morning just after 9.

Grant's Tomb is acting as the Department of the Interior building, from what I could tell, and Riverside Drive is downtown Washington. Interesting premise.

Just south, as 117th and Broadway, four Secret Services agents from the diplomatic protection side of the house (think Sean Penn in "The Interpreter") hovered around an auxiliary gate to Columbia, earpieces, suits, sunglasses, and all the trimmings, along with several Columbia public safety officers. Interestingly, while I noticed Secret Service on campus, I didn't notice them at the 116th Street main gates, either at Broadway or Amsterdam Avenue.

Perhaps Ahmadinejad will enter that way and head to Bollinger's office in Low Library before his talk, or perhaps it's diversion. While Secret Service was absent from the main gates, the gates were on all-but-lockdown, with only one of three open in either direction, and swarms of public safety officers checking ID (entry with CUID only).

Big Signs that Morningside Heights is the Place to be Today

2007-09-24T02:12:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, Sept. 24 — Between the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Columbia University later today and the filming of the Coen brothers' "Burn After Reading," in Sakura Park just up the street from my apartment and a few blocks from campus, Morningside Heights may be as hopping as the United Nations today.

While the U.N. General Assembly gets underway in east midtown, Ahmadinejad's visit is riling up mid-Mo-Heights, and "Burn After Reading" stars George Clooney and Brad Pitt are heating up the north end of the neighborhood. Reports (and NYPD/NYC Office of Film, Theatre and Broadcasting parking signage) indicate that Pitt and Clooney filmed in the park just south of International House (my former residence) on Sunday and will be back today, apparently pretending that the heights are Georgetown, D.C. I have spent considerable time in both neighborhoods (including Sunday, in fact, having left Georgetown at 4 p.m. and arrived back in the heights by 8:30 p.m. thanks to the Amtrak Acela), and I'm not sure that the two are much alike, but an early morning visit may prove otherwise.

Meanwhile, back on College Walk at Columbia, the plans continue. The university has already placed a large viewing screen on the south side of the walk for the overflow crowd to watch the Ahmadinejad event (some might call it a spectacle, debacle, embarassment, or intellectual exercise; I'll have some thoughts later).

A closer examination of the fliers yielded the following: the flier upon which we previously reported actually reads, "Bollinger/ Too bad/ Ben-Laden/ is not available// You could have presented him with some tough questions too..."

A similar letter-sized flier read, "Bollinger, while you're at it, why not invite the Ku-Klux Klan," and in a smaller, parenthetical in its bottom margin alleges that infamous KKK member and white-supremacist (not to mention frequent candidate for public office, including for governor of Louisiana) David Duke was an honored guest at Ahmadinejad's conference denying the Holocaust.

Yet another flier quotes the Iranian president saying, "We didn't have a revolution in order to have democracy."

As this reporter strolled back toward Broadway along college walk, at midnight, he overheard five or so organizers of the protest rally discussing the plans. One young woman expressed her concern about the content of the fliers, agreeing that they were well intended but sharing her concern that the "national media" expected on campus to cover the day's events may distort their meaning and portray the fliers as inflammatory.

Big Sign that Lee Bollinger Loves the Spotlight: The Ahmadinejad Columbia Visit

2007-09-23T21:22:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, Sept. 23 — With Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad slated to speak at Columbia University on Monday, the university's campus is already buzzing with Ahmadinejad-related activity on the eve of the speech.

Walking to campus from my apartment just a few blocks north at about 8:35 p.m. tonight, I counted two satellite trucks parked on Broadway and a crowd of students circled around a TV stand-up report in front of Columbia's main gates. Walking by the crowd as I entered the gate to cross campus, I spotted the one and only Geraldo Rivera interviewing students.

Walking across campus from Broadway to the law school, across Amsterdam Avenue, I observed College Walk, the university's Main Street, all but plastered in fliers related to the visit, mostly in opposition and offering details about the planned protest. Almost every fence post along the western half of the walkway had a flier taped to it, and a carpet of fliers taped to the walk itself connected Broadway and Amsterdam.

One flier read something to the effect of, "Bollinger, too bad Ben-Laden wasn't available. You could have asked him provocative questions too."

Stay tuned. More to follow. Big Signs will be live-blogging (at least parts of) the day Monday.

Frank-ly Blogging: Today Show Nathan's Redux, The Science of Competitive Eating

2007-07-05T08:05:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, July 5 — NBC's Today Show this morning reported Joey Chestnut's historic win in Wednesday's contest and previewed a National Geographic special on the science behind competitive eating. Of competitive eating note, Tim "Eater X" Janus, put down 10 donuts in a minute as a demonstration. He didn't reach his goal of 12 donuts.

Of further note, Today Show Host Meredith Vieira claimed, "The scary thing is, I probably could eat 12."

Big Apple Musing: Powell Green

2007-07-04T13:29:00.000-04:00

B.S. editor's note: Here we begin an occasional series of Big Apple Musings, comments and observations on the crazy, fantastic city where we have lived before and are now living again. This first post is more than a year old, but it's worth a read.

NEW YORK, March 22, 2006 — This afternoon, I was about to leave Duane Reade #131 after picking up my prescription refill (note for the New York un-savvy: Duane Reade is the leading pharmacy in the city, with what I would describe as an almost-monopoly on the market — think CVS on South Crouse within walking distance of campus and multiply it by the Big Apple and you've got Duane Reade and its couple hundred stores with lousy service and long lines; and they are all numbered). As I headed from the exit after coming up the escalator from the basement level pharmacy section into the convenience-store part of the store, I encountered an individual who in ferry-speak and law-enforcement-lingo might be referred to as an "EDP": emotionally disturbed person.

Now, EDP is typically reserved for those folks who the cops or our security personnel think are real threats to themselves or others (read: they might jump off the boat just out from Governor's Island or hurt someone). The individual I encountered today at Duane Reade #131, just up Whitehall Street from the ferry terminal, however, was a more mild EDP. Maybe just an emotionally confused or impaired person. Or maybe he was drunk or high or just starving and cold. It happens in Lower Manhattan — we have a growing homeless "problem" at the Manhattan terminal.

As I headed for the exit, Mr. EDP was coming in through the opposite door, and he looked at me, before I looked at him, and called out to get my attention.

"Big man!" I looked his way. He was a black man, probably in his mid- to late-40s, and while he was tall enough that some might consider him big, I was, as it happened, taller than him. He was, as our competing heights would have it, correct in calling me big man.

"Powell Green!" he exclaimed, using his emphatic, if indoor, voice. "Powell Green, Powell Green."

Confused, I kept moving toward the exit, and I mumbled, "I'm sorry," thinking that he could be only asking for money, or that I had no idea what he wanted because I couldn't figure out his cryptic message.

"A'ight," Mr. EDP replied, and I headed out the door toward the #1 train.

As I walked to the train at Rector Street, I puzzled over what EDP could have possibly meant. Who was Powell Green? Did he think I was Powell Green? Is Powell Green even a person? Was he possibly saying "power of green," with it coming out as "pow-a-green," and me mishearing him? Is "power of green" a street phrase referring to the importance of money? Why did he ask me?

Wikipedia doesn't know Powell Green. Google doesn't do much better. Power of Green returns mostly clean energy sites. Do y'all know either of them? Maybe EDP was Powell Green lookin' for some Power of Green.

That's the end of B's Big Apple Musing for today.

Frank-ly Blogging: “Chestnut is the champ.”

2007-07-04T13:02:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, July 4 — American Joey Chestnut, 23, ate 66 hot dogs and buns today at the 2007 Nathan’s Hotdog Contest to win coveted Mustard Belt, the greatest prize in all of competitive eating.

Chestnut defeated six-time reigning champ, Takeru Kobayashi, 29, of Nagano, Japan, who put away 63 dogs and buns.

Both Chestnut and Kobayashi shattered the previous Nathan’s record of some 53 dogs and buns and eclipsed Chestnut’s world record of some 59 dogs and buns. Chestnut reigns as Nathan’s champion and world champ.

More details here in our liveblog of the competition.

Frank-ly Blogging: 2007 Nathan's Hotdog Eating Contest

2007-07-04T11:59:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, July 4 — "My jaw has refused to fight anymore," Takeru Kobayashi, the reigning, six-time Nathan's Hotdog Contest champion, has been quoted as saying in recent days. The world shall soon see whether he can fight through the pain or whether newbie, American Joey Chestnut, can bring the Mustard Belt back to the States.

We were going to watch the competition live at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues, but with a threat of showers and a late-rising blogger, we opted to liveblog this famed contest from the Manhattan Valley, in the relative comfort of the apartment. The view will probably be better from here anyway, thanks to our friends at ESPN.

Without further adieu, let the liveblogging begin.

12:07 Kobayashi is on scene, after reportedly receiving some last-minute acupuncture to relax his arthritic jaw and arriving in a private car with a petite Japanese girl in tow.

12:15 ESPN commentators are estimating that there are more 30,000 spectators at Surf and Stillwell. Patrick Bertoletti reportedly beat Joey Chestnut in a jalapeno-eating contest and could be a threat to win today. Eater X, last name Janus, is also a contender, ESPN reports.

12:19 ESPN filler about Coney Island — As you may know, this is “the last summer” of Coney Island, with a luxury residential development slated to go in starting in fall 2007. More on that from your faithful blogger here at B.S. after a visit.

12:22 Joey Chestnut is the world champion in gyoza eating (Japanese dumplings). 212 in 10 minutes. We’re full after six.

12:24 ESPN cuts to commercial, promising introductions upon return, and noting their reporters have not been able to find Kobayashi in the last few minutes.

12:28 Introductions have begun: wild-card Tim Brown, burrito specialist; former-baloney eating champion of the world; Dale “Mouth of the South” Boone, reindeer sausage-eating champion and direct descendant of Daniel Boone; Crazy Legs Conti, from the Lower East Side of Manhattan; Juliet Lee, 11 slices of pizza in 10 minutes; Erik “The Red” Denmark, world fry bread champ; Patrick Philbin, 360 pounds, four pounds of corned beef in 10 minutes, 27 hot dogs in previous competition (ESPN commentator: “They call Iverson the answer, I call this guy the question”): Arturo Rio Jr., a rookie; guy who ate 23 grilled cheeses in 10 minutes; “Humble” Bob Shoudt, who only eats in sanctioned competitions and only eats meat in competition (vegetarian otherwise); Rich “The Locust” LeFevre, birthday-cake eating champion, 63-years old; Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas, eats 10-percent of her body weight, and jambalaya-eating champ of the world, among other titles; Chip from Birmingham, Ala., ; Tim “Eater X” Janus, 2004 rookie of the year, claiming that Hermione dies in Harry Potter VII; Patrick Bertoletti, 177 jalapenos in 10 minute; Joey Chestnut, the new threat; and from Nagano, Japan, the six-time reigning champion, Takeru Kobayashi.

12:38 With the competition to get underway shortly, our prediction is that we’ll be able to tell within the first few minutes of eating whether Kobayashi will be able to continue his reign as champ. We, and the world, will be watching his pace closely. More to follow.

12:41 And they’re off.

12:43 Chestnut is at 10 dogs in 50 seconds.

12:44 Two minutes in: Chestnut 20; Kobayashi 18.

12:46 Four minutes in: Chestnut 35; Kobayashi 29.

12:48 Half-way through the eating: Kobayashi is pulling closer; Chestnut 43; Kobayashi 41.

12:50 Four minutes left: Chestnut 51; Kobayashi 49.

12:52 Two minutes left: Chestnut 57; Kobayashi 56. The entire free world is watching, ESPN reports, and Bertotletti is dedicating his eating to Nicky Hilton because she lives in Paris’s shadow, while Bertoletti eats in the shadow of the champ.

12:53 One minute left: Chestnut 60; Kobayashi 60.

12:54 And the winner is: too close to call.

12:55 The winner is up in the air. Joey Chestnut had 63 at the close, and Kobayashi seemed to have put 63 in his mouth, but there may have been what the competitive eaters call a “reversal” at the last second, with Kobayashi spitting out some of his consumed food. The champ had his hands over his mouth during the alleged reversal, and the crowd could see water come out through his fingers, but it’s unclear if he lost dogs and buns too.

12:57 Unofficial results: Joey Chestnut, 66 dogs; Takeru Kobayashi, 63 dogs.

12:58 “In first place, with 66 hotdogs and buns, Joey Chestnut.” The announcer could be seen saying to Chestnut, just before announcing him as the champ, “Put the flag up,” handing him an American flag. Joey says to ESPN, “If I need to eat another right now, I could.”

ESPN commentators: “It’s just an emotional day for Joey, a great day for America.”

Final Notes:
When it was clear that Joey Chestnut had an edge and could bring home the Mustard Belt, ESPN commentators declared it would be “the greatest moment in the history of American sports, if the belt were to come home to Coney Island.”

Continuing, ESPN’s commentators said, “He may indeed have changed the course of this nation. He is a true American hero.”

Blogging NYT: (Good?) News from NOLA

2007-07-03T08:18:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, July 3 — The New York Times had a pair of stories yesterday about New Orleans nearly two years after Hurricane Katrina. More analysis to follow, but our initial reaction, mostly based on the headlines, is that NYT finally has moved forward on its NOLA coverage, with the stories' headlines, Patchwork City: Largely Alone, Pioneers Reclaim New Orleans and Aching for Lost Friends, but Rebuilding With Hope, showing that the Times maybe understands that for all the negative news out of NOLA, there is also some optimism and hope. More later, we hope.

Tragedies, New and Old

2007-06-28T23:49:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, June 28 — Tonight we were going to write about the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the school integration cases decided today, which is, in many ways, a striking national tragedy. It deserves more complete treatment than we can give it now, and two other tragedies have gripped our minds today as well, compelling more immediate thoughts. So, for now, let me point you to The New York Times coverage of the schools decisions here and The Christian Science Monitor's coverage here.

Now, however, we must turn to the new tragedy — five stunning, brand-new high school graduates killed in a fiery crash half an hour from their homes two towns away from our hometown. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle has comprehensive coverage here and The New York Times ran covered the sadness on the front page of the metro section, here.

We saw the news first on the D&C's site yesterday, shortly after it broke. Read the NYT story this morning at work, online, without opening the print copy until moments ago, greeted by the nearly half-page spread with the victims' photographs from their yearbook and their Fairport, N.Y., friends locked in a grief-filled embrace.

It never makes sense when a teenager dies. Last week this time, they were celebrating their proudest moment together, graduating high school. A week later, the principal of Fairport High School, told reporters that instead of their five graduation parties, he'd now be attending their five funerals. It didn't make sense when Melissa and Jason died 10 years ago. Their deaths make no more sense now, as we wrote here last week.

Hannah, Bailey, Meredith, Sara, and Katherine were headed to a cottage on Keuka Lake for some summer fun in the sun, the papers reported, but they never made it. Their deaths don't make sense now, and they probably won't make sense in 10 years, or ever. They're gone, and but for the grace of God it could have been any of us, any of our friends, brothers, sisters, loved ones. And so our hearts go out to their friends and families, with deepest sympathy.

Turning to an old tragedy, another too close to home, which ripped from life 270 souls, including 35 Syracuse University students, one of whom grew up in Webster, just north of Fairport. We write, you may know, of the Pan Am Flight 103 tragedy. On Dec. 21, 1988, a bomb ripped apart the 747 Maid of the Seas over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all aboard — 259 passengers and crew — and 11 on the ground below.

In the years since, a Scottish court has convicted Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence agent. Now, as the NYT reports here, a review panel in Scotland has concluded that Megrahi may have been wrongfully convicted. We have yet to read the story closely, and it's no doubt more complicated than a headline and lede can express, but it provokes in us questions of whether we should let it go and whether we'll ever know even most of the truth about what brought down that plane.

At Syracuse University, 103 is part of the student experience; not just with a memorial at the heart of campus, but with an annual Remembrance Week, full of active engagement of the issues and ideas surrounding the tragedy.

We're admittedly too close to it to examine this most recent development objectively, but a simple conclusion jumps out: if the conviction was a miscarriage of justice, then let's examine it to figure out the real story. If it was not, let's examine it anyway, as painful as it is, to make sure we got the real story right the first time.

A Moment for Jason and Melissa

2007-06-21T08:30:00.000-04:00

It’s been 10 years since we lost two Friends, Jason Pollack and Melissa Klotz, killed in a tragic train accident on a trestle over the Erie Canal in Pittsford, N.Y. Jason and Melissa are always on our minds, always remembered, but today, the tenth anniversary of their deaths, I wanted to take an extra moment for them.

I wasn’t very close with either Jason or Melissa, but in a tightly knit community like Brighton, we were all friends, and Jason and Melissa brightened our lives with their smiles and laughter. Their closest friends and relatives miss them most, I know, but everyone else felt the loss, still feels the loss, will always feel the loss.

Their deaths were, in the most basic sense of the word, great losses. Losses of life, losses of laughs and smiles. We all have less laughter for having lost them, but the memories I have of them are vivid and bring a smile every time they cross my mind. Here are some of those memories of Jason and Melissa, for Jason and Melissa.

Jason cutting up during our middle school football team photograph — an eighth grader then, me a seventh grader, lined up next to him, trying to hold a straight face as Jason cracked one joke after another. I don’t remember the jokes, or our coaches’ responses, but I distinctly remember how he seemed to put everyone at ease. Coaches loosened up, teammates smiled, and as a seventh grader who’d been mildly intimidated by my older teammates, I relaxed, realizing at least one of them, Jason, was harmless, just a big goofball who loved to laugh and make his teammates laugh.

Melissa returning to school in second grade after a month or so out sick with pneumonia, I think. This memory is fuzzier — longer ago — but I seem to remember her return as triumphant, and everyone — 7-year-olds and teachers included — smiled when she came back. As youngsters, we’d been mystified by her being out of school so long, sick with something none of us could pronounce. While the memory is fuzzy, I know Melissa returned with a huge smile, glad to be back, like she’d been gone only for a few minutes to swing on the playground.

Jason, again hamming it up, a high school sophomore, riding on the back of the school’s Zamboni-like floor-waxing machine on the freshman side of the cafeteria, after having snagged it from behind the backs of the unsuspecting maintenance staff, I’m sure. Like any good Zamboni driver, Jason entertained his crowd with silly antics as he rode the machine, until a stern faced teacher on cafeteria duty spotted him and ended the fun. I remember his closest friends watching the whole episode, doubled over with laughter, and the whole cafeteria brightened up thanks to the rebellious clowning.

Melissa, as a freshman, shivering in her cheerleading uniform on the sidelines of a JV football game, on the road at Bishop Kearney. From the sidelines, in a break from playing, I must have glanced at the bleachers searching for my family, and I noticed all the cheerleaders but Melissa had their warm-up suits on. I never asked her about it, but she must have forgotten hers warm-up suit that game. She cheered on just the same, hands balled tightly in the ends of her sleeves when not clapping, I’m sure. I don’t think we won the game; that season was a rough one, but Melissa and the other cheerleaders never gave up on us.

Ten years has gone fast — in Brighton and the world — considering all that’s happened since June 21, 1997, when that freight train took Jason and Melissa. But we remember them and their smiles, and we will always remember, today, and always.

Win a Trip Essay, Finally

2007-05-25T07:41:00.000-04:00

NEW YORK, May 25 — After much delay, through finals and not realizing Nick Kristof had already announced that he is taking a medical student from Washington University in St. Louis on his trip to Africa, and not me, here is my entry essay, written seven weeks ago, April 6. Enjoy, comment, be merry. —B.S.

New Orleans, my home for eight months now, scares America. It shouldn’t, but it does. The city is a mess, with its iconic streetcars seldom running, traffic signals out or missing, and potholes growing into craters, but it shouldn’t scare people.

Anderson Cooper and The New York Times love to announce in primetime and on page one that murders are up, long-time residents are staying away, and flooded neighborhoods remain devastated. Do-gooders and positivity abound, but America doesn’t notice, except during Mardi Gras.

As the second storm season after Hurricane Katrina approaches, America still wonders whether New Orleans will sink or swim, and many Americans are too scared to answer that question by visiting. They are Americans like my father, a worldly, if absent-minded, professor, who, when I call home nightly from NOLA, always has yet another sad story to share about this city. After endless bad news, I finally limited the nightly rehash by requiring him to share a positive story for every negative one. The flow has trickled to a slow drip.

Upon moving to the bayou, I expected to watch New Orleans rebound, but I’ve seen more change in myself, adjusting to a new normal that includes flooded, empty store fronts and drenching humidity. New Orleans is, appropriately, the City that Care Forgot. In observing it as I live here and share stories of its good, I’m hoping it won’t become the City that Americans Gave Up On.

The green light at Oak Street and Carrollton Avenue is out, but it doesn’t stop me from driving that route, the only way to the post office. Thugs murdered a member of the Hot Eight Brass Band days after Christmas, but it doesn’t keep me from grooving to NOLA’s notes. I came to New Orleans to learn the law — a long and laborious process — but I’m also here as the eyes of scared Americans, seeing it to show them it’s worth saving.

New Orleans frightens Americans so much they won’t visit now. They’re immobilized like a bitterly cold winter freezing Lake Erie. Africa shocks Americans into near-permanent paralysis, like Vonnegut’s illusory ice-nine. Hurricanes and murders are frightening. AIDS, malaria, and genocide are dazing, stunning, overwhelming.

A friend in Manhattan recently shared a dating debacle, whose critical character is African. Bobbi, a bubbly 20-something grad student met a seemingly nice, dinner-worthy, Wall-Street type, WST. After a couple dates, they were out again, strolling through the Village, when they passed an Ethiopian restaurant. WST nodded, acknowledging its presence to Bobbi. She replied enthusiastically, sharing her love for the cuisine and suggesting they eat there. WST scoffed, appalled.

“Ethiopian food!?” he retorted, his tone conveying his sense the concept was an oxymoron. “They don’t eat! They’re starving over there!” South Park’s Starvin’ Marvin apparently taught WST all he knew of Ethiopia.

Americans misperceive Africa, but only in part due to apathy and ignorance. To them — or, perhaps “us,” because while I care, I don’t yet “get it,” having never traveled there — Africa is apartheid and “Heart of Darkness.” Deserts, Darfur and Hollywood’s “Congo.” (“There are two countries named Congo? No way!”). It is a far-off fantasyland, veiled in dreams of the Nile and savannah-scapes, drowned out by nightmares of famine and genocide.

Journalists can’t make Americans care or “get it,” but if we don’t try, we’ve already failed. The Times tries and often succeeds, but its readership and perspective limit its reach. I’m ready to take a shot — to be an American who cares and gets it, and acts as the others’ eyes and ears, sharing some stories to shake their catatonic states and show them they can help, bit by bit — or, to borrow a title phrase from Anne Lamott, bird by bird.

Law school — the work, the competition, the distance from home — has humbled me, the institution’s process grinding me down systematically, as I struggle daily to restore myself. Africa, I know, will shatter me — not slowly and methodically, but haphazardly and unexpectedly, all at once. And I’ll rebuild myself, opening new eyes to share its stories with the world.

When’s our flight? I’ll meet you at JFK.

Journalists Mostly Rise to the Challenge

2007-04-19T16:07:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS, April 19 — In this week of stark tragedy, growing, it seems, by the day, our journalists — several of them my friends and former colleagues — have risen to the challenge of painting the picture of the devastating Tech rampage. With the possible and debatable exception of NBC airing video from the killer — effectively giving him what he wanted — journalists have, I believe, used remarkably good judgment in reporting and sharing a remarkably difficult story.

In my journalism life, I've reported some tragic stories, but largely after the fact and well removed from the scene of the losses. These journalists are on the ground in one of the most intense tragedy stories in American history, trumped only in recent memory by 9/11, arguably. They've done a remarkable job to date, and I'm proud to say I've worked with them and to call them friends. They've kept Americans, myself inlcuded, in the loop and on the ground with them as we all struggle to understand and come to terms with Monday's shocking events.

A couple pieces of work particularly worth your time: Chico Harlan's Virginia Tech Journal for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, at http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07108/779020-84.stm and the on-the-ground reports from staff at The Chronicle of Higher Education, particularly Eric Hoover's second-day reports setting the scene on campus. The Chron is at http://chronicle.com and — with this content posted free of the normal subscription requirements.

Sadness Still Too Similar

2007-04-17T13:17:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS, April 17 — It took insidehighered.com to remind me of the obvious. The tragedy at Tech is all too close to home because it mirrors, in sheer number of fatalities if not in method to the madness, the Pan Am Flight 103 tragedy that took 35 Syracuse University students, my predecessors as Orangemen and Orangewomen, from life.

I'm shaken by the sad similarities. Tech will be recovering from this from now until forever. And it struck me today that the 19th anniversary of Pan Am 103 is approaching rapidly, which puts us closer to 20 and still remembering, recovering.

The insidehighered.com article is at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/17/syracuse.

Too Familiar a Tragedy: Mass Shootings at Virginia Tech

2007-04-17T00:11:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS, April 16 — Eight years ago this week, an editorial board member from the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle called me, seeking a young voice to comment on the Columbine High School tragedy in Littleton, Colo. My piece ran with others two days after the massacre, under the banner, "Rampage at a Colorado School."

Tonight, I'm sad to note, not much has changed but the date, the numbers, and the geography. CNN's site carries the banner, "STUDENTS SLAUGHTERED," and they were today at Virginia Tech. Thousands of miles from Littleton, 20 more killed than in that tragedy, and I find my old words ring too true.

As a newly minted 17-year-old budding journalist, I wrote, "As I watched the story unfold live on the cable news stations, the horror became increasingly evident to me." Tonight, with my 25th birthday tomorrow, the words carry more tragic weight. I've since left high school, finished college, worked, and started law school, but the tragedies of this week — in 1999 and 2007 — throw the fragility and trauma of life and death into sharp relief.

I can't help but wonder if there's something about this week that begets tragedy. Columbine, now Tech. Before them, Oklahoma City and Waco.

"I was struck by shock and utter disbelief," the 17-year-old me wrote. "A wave of numbness swept over me. As the hours progressed and information continued to be revealed, the numbness grew. Any tragedy of this magnitude is too close to home."

Today, the numbness and shock returned on hearing 27 shots ring out in a grainy video captured by cell phone. And my heart wrenches for the Virginia Tech community, and it wrenches again for academia, knowing it easily could have been here in New Orleans, or up at Columbia, or in Syraucse or Rochester.

I don't have the answers, only some questions. Let's find the solutions together to grieve and grow from this tragedy with hope that we'll never bear another like it.

Tonight, we are all Hokies, and we are with y'all at Tech.

Come visit NOLA. You'll survive. I promise.

2007-04-07T23:25:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS, April 7 — PBS's American Experience episode on New Orleans, airing as I write this post, says NOLA was once in the top five list of must-visit cities for the American wealthy. Where is it now? Probably not high.

It's probably not high on your list either, I imagine, but it should be. I could laundry list the reasons why, the sights to see, the music to hear, the food to eat, but other bloggers will give you that in more luxurious detail.

Instead, I'll tell you why you aren't already here, and why I think you won't visit. I hope you'll prove me wrong.

So you're scared of being shot? (Scared of jazz and gumbo?) You don't want to see the devastation? (You should see it, but there's a lot of city that wasn't flooded.) You don't like swamp weather? (Get here fast then, it's 43 degrees and rainy right now; 70s and sunny next week; 90 and sweaty in a month.)

I'm torn on my experience in this city. New Orleans now is remarkable — more unique, historic, and important than ever. Law school in New Orleans, however, keeps me from most of the magic, most of the time. That said, I value the time I've had here, and if I stay or if I go, New Orleans holds a special place in my soul.

"For most of its history, New Orleans had a reputation of one of the most unsanitary cities in the country," PBS American Experience says. (It's cleaner now, I promise. There's a new garbage contractor — twice weekly pickups resumed this week for the first time since Katrina.)

Eyes in New Orleans, Eyes on Africa

2007-04-06T23:18:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS, April 6 — B.S. wrote a 700-word essay today for The New York Times "Win a Trip With Nick Kristof" Contest, and it's a good piece of non-law writing, which we haven't had time to do much lately. It turned out better than B.S. expected it would, and B.S. the journalist was ready to post it here for your reading pleasure. Then B.S. the law student returned and realized the Times might acquire publication rights by its contest rules, so before posting it here, we're reading the contest rules closely to be sure we won't forfeit the trip by posting the essay. More to follow.

Wet Newspapers: Not Like Snowy Newspapers

2006-10-18T01:50:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 18 — Two days of rain here, or rather, two overnights into early mornings, and our newpapers weren't readable. Fortuneately, NYT does us the great favor of letting us report when we our papers are wet. Supposedly Sulzberger and company will credit our account for the lost reading pleasure. We'll find out.

We like two days of rain much less than two days of snow. Snow we can brush off of our papers and continue reading, while rain makes them sog-a-log-dog-hog and fragile.

Blogging NYT: Baghdad Garbage Man = Deadly Job

2006-10-13T17:35:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 13 — In an enlightening article, "Even Picking Up Trash Is a High Risk in Baghdad," A1 in today's New York Times, Michael Luo and his reporting partners spotlight the harrowing job of being a Baghdad sanitation worker. From roadside bombings to killings by militants trying to protect their roadside bombs, hundreds (probably — the story isn't totally precise on the figure) of sanitation workers in Baghdad have died from the violence since the war began.

It's an important look at the untold and unforeseen consequences of the American takedown of Saddam Hussein and the following occupation and insurgency. Basic municipal services are all-but nonexistent, Luo's piece suggests. The reality is a stark commentary on the fragile nature of cities and how easily they can fall to pieces in the midst of what many would call a good thing, the toppling of Saddam.

Bollards aren't boring.

2006-10-09T12:43:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 9 — Since 9/11, physical security barriers have sprung up around the United States, multiplying like rabbits.

In New York City, particularly in Manhattan, "setback" from the street and "target hardening" were already buzzwords by the time I started working for the NYC Department of Transportation two years ago last week.

Now, knock on wood, the City has decided many targets are sufficiently hard without adding unsightly barricades ringing their perimeters, as you can note in Cara Buckley's piece in Saturday's New York Times, "Security Barriers of New York Are Removed."

While I was at DOT, I worked with the developers of the Time Warner Center — the mall at Columbus Circle whose bollards are pictured in the Times piece — to ensure their scheme (or any changes to it, really — still none made, as far as I know) were sufficient to "harden" the building and that they were easy enough on the eyes to appease the Art Commission.

I'm glad to see the City and my former colleagues at DOT are making progress in keeping Manhattan secure while making it useable for the peds — that's transportation speak for pedestrians.

From NOLA, the land of few bollards and many potholes,
B.S. out.

I enjoy writing, legal or illegal. It's satisfying.

2006-10-09T00:48:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 8 — So, continuing on the law school kick because I spent 12 hours today doing law school stuff — reading, copying and pasting (a.k.a sloppy, first-draft outlining), study grouping, briefing, and freaking out, a brief comment on the most important, yet so more least useful, class of the first year of law school: Legal Research and Writing, LRW for short.

Legal research and legal writing are admittedly different than academic, journalistic, governmental, or goof-ball-ish research and writing, all of which I've done. That said, once you learn the distinguishing charactertistics of legal research and writing, they become one of the crowd. The unique characteristics are somewhat boring: an obsession with citation, in frequency and form; a dearth of creativity, in structure and style; and an unhealthy obsession with page limits.

Once I know the confines within which I'm writing, I'm usually set (*knock on wood* or tomorrow I'll get writer's block that sticks for the rest of the semester). Now, last week in LRW, we turned in our first assignment, a "closed" memo about something (I dare not divulge any more for fear of violating the somewhat sensible, somewhat Draconian and impractical honor code — more on that another time). It was more interesting than expected, given the topic, and it was a satisfying experience to bring the project to fruition. Not as satisfying as this post or even writing reports for Mayor Bloomberg in the Big Apple or articles for publication, but satisfying in the meaningless, pathetic, irrelevant way many aspects of the first year of law school are satisfying.

So, given that satisfaction (cue the Stones, cue civil procedure professor singing this hit in class, forever attaching it to the search for "satisfaction," or execution leading to payment, of a court judgment), you might imagine how disappointed (relieved?) I was when I opened my LRW text book (the only class for which we have a "text book" with largely meaningless reading) to read the following:

A fair number of lawyers and judges profess to like writing and even say that they find the process satisfying. If you are in this fortunate group, this chapter is not addressed to you. (p.555 The Legal Writing Handbook: Analysis, Research, and Writing, 4th Ed. Oates, Laurel Currie and Anne Enquist. Aspen: New York, 2006.)

I promptly put the book down and started writing this post, seeking satisfaction, as the Stones sing you to sleep.

A Late Show List: Top 10 Things I Learned in My First Semester of Law School, Part 2

2006-10-08T21:22:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 8 — In reviewing my torts notes while preparing my torts outline (more on that painful process later), I found this gem from my German torts professor (no, not German Torts, just American ones, taught by a German), from 01-September-2006.

He referred (I would say refers, but I don't think he's said it again yet) to American football, the game for which tailgaters live, “the land acquisition game.” Go figure.

More on figuring when I get to his comment about the metric system, which I know is much closer to the present in my notes, so at the rate I'm going on this outline, it could be a little while, but I can guarantee it will be before my practice exam on Tuesday 17-October-2006.

Back to Civil Procedure. Let me know if you have questions on personal jurisdiction, because that's eesentially all I know about procedure so far. After this reading I should be able to tell you something about service of process. (Can I get a "I'll serve your process!" joke? Anyone?).

B.S. out.

A Late Show List: Top 10 Things I Learned in My First Semester of Law School, Part 1

2006-10-08T18:56:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 8 — A running list, with numbers to be assigned later. Here's the best one I've encountered so far, give or take:

Merely soliciting a woman to illicit sex is not an assault or any other tort because "there is no harm in asking." (p. 60, fn 1, "Prosser, Wade and Schwartz’s Torts: Cases and Materials," 11th Ed. Schwartz, Victor E. et al. New York: Foundation, 2005)

He can't be our congressman.

2006-10-08T11:58:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 8 — No, we're not talking about Rep. Mark Foley, but we are talking about a shocking Republican, if not as sick and twisted at Foley.

Rep. Randy Kuhl, the Republican who represents New York's 29th Congressional District, where my parents live and where I grew up and where I hope to live again one day, made some rather unpleasant comments about the effectiveness of the federal government's response during Hurricane Katrina. More on the significance of these remarks and my reaction to follow, but for now, just putting the transcript out here in the blogosphere to go along with the video.

Straight from the congressman's mouth: "And you can see, that when in fact this government needs to react, like it did in Katrina, with immediate appropriations to help out people who were dying"— crowd laughter interrupts Kuhl — "now you can laugh..." Kuhl trails off as video ends.

Permalinking past 0100

2006-10-08T02:18:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 8 — In an effort to get this Permalink tag working right, we're posting again when we should be getting to sleep. More outlining law school tomorrow. Blllechhhh, like my reaction to Screech's sex tape.

Big Signs goes live on the bayou.

2006-10-08T01:37:00.000-04:00

NEW ORLEANS, Oct. 8 — Here we are, diving back into the blogosphere from the bayou after a significant hiatus, and migrating from Excess Flem here to Big Signs and from New York to New Orleans, the Big Apple to the Big Easy, the City That Never Sleeps to the City That Care Forgot (more on that in upcoming posts).

We're blogging as a law student now, rusty, having been out of the reporting game for (yikes) two years, one month, and a few days now. Nevertheless, our trusty AP Stylebook (2000 edition -- I blame that on law student budgetary constraints) remains close at hand, and Strunk & White have yet to give up on us, so we'll push forward, trying to offer some thoughts of life in the Crescent City, as compared to Gotham, and perhaps a tirade or two about their relative functions and dysfunctions, along with other musings.

While we're writing this as an escape from the rigors (note the effort to remain value-neutral) of law school, we're sure that some of y'all out there in the real world will be curious about the life of (or more appropriate, the lack thereof) a first-year law student in Flood Town, USA, so we'll throw a few bones your way too.

Also, please note that while we are in fact only a staff of one lonely reporter, that being me, we will continue to post in the first-person plural because it's a little more fun than singular, and all our other work is singular. Try 10 hours in the library a day singular. (Ick, yes, we know, 10 hours, get a life, but on occasion, gotta do it. And we treated ourselves to ice cream and SNL afterwards).

Also, a note on datelines used here at B.S. (note also that we're aware of how our initials may otherise be construed; after all, our personal first and middle names share the ones). While we're based in New Orleans now, life as a law student and 20-something is so fluid that we might be in New York next week or Nashville next month (especially until the end of hurricane season, at which point the semester will be almost over, so a move would be warranted anyway), so we'll use a dateline in every post, despite the AP Style convention to only use datelines when filing from the road, just to add another dash of context to the content. And to ground ourselves.

Over and under from NOLA,
B.S.