In a recession that won’t say die, words like “underemployed” and “underpaid” take on a life of their own. They also consume some people’s lives. City resident Brent James knows this. A single parent, he works two part-time jobs; each pays around $6 an hour, he says. One of these jobs is […]
Jack Bradigan Spula
Posted inNews & Opinion
State of the bunion
One day last week, Albany and Washington tag-teamed for a pair of events. And it sounds like little will be done to heal America’s injuries. That’s the message that came wrapped in George Pataki’s 2004 state budget address and George W. Bush’s annual State of the Union speech. If you listened to both […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Kodaked again
It was the fall of 1965, and a busload of us freshly-minted college kids passed through the gates on Ridge Road and into another dimension. The tour guide said Kodak had everything for everyone, not just company bowling lanes and such, but something we youngsters barely grasped: lifetime employment. And the plant was so […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
King, death, regression
Just after Abraham Lincoln was killed in Washington in April 1865, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton said the famous words, “Now he belongs to the ages.” Lincoln’s birthday became a national day of commemoration, and he became an icon for Americans of all races and ethnicities. Stanton faded away, though his defense of Reconstruction, which […]
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Governor Talkative
Governor George Pataki began his State of the State with a mild joke on himself. He warned that people “who have sat through the previous 9 hours and 46 minutes” of his SOTSs “know they tend to be long.” No kidding. This year’s masterpiece ran way past 8,000 words. The guv could have […]
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Titanic Tuesday: campaigns sink or swim
To state the doubly obvious: The national Republican Party is united around its 2004 presidential candidate, George W. Bush, who may be elected or re-elected, depending on how you look at it. And the national Democratic Party is divided nine ways as the primary season opens, with (in alphabetical order) Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, John […]
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Erie Canal: going with the cash-flow
Just a few years back, it seemed the Erie Canal was going through its most boosterish phase since 1825, the year the pioneering waterway opened. The old canal ditty that advised “Low bridge, everybody down” was rewritten as “High fives, everything’s looking up.” Now some booster bubbles have burst. But developers’ hopes still sail […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Backwards and forwards
The best you can say about 2003 is that it isn’t 2004, the year the far right will gorge itself on power, while liberals-moderates will choke on their own shortcomings. For the moment, however, the realities of 2003 are all we’ve got. And as I look back over America’s recently traveled roads, it looks […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Not at liberty Big Brother turns PATRIOT
When Americans talk about “the usual suspects,” the reference comes with a built-in nudge and wink. It’s like what has happened to the once-threatening accusation “politically incorrect” — a phrase now so transparently ironic, even Sgt. Joe Friday would crack a smile. When the going gets rough, though, America can be humorless, even merciless. […]
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Fair for the most foul
What a “two-fer” — starkly asymmetrical stories that raise the same moral question about ends and means. Number one is Dick Cheney’s participation in a “canned hunt” in Pennsylvania that bagged hundreds of game birds. Cheney shot 70 pheasants all by himself. How sporting. But some bloggers wonder if donating the birds to soup […]
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Gas prices: The heat’s on
Americans can wax nostalgic about the occasional energy crisis — What did you do in the Embargo, Daddy? — but frequent repeats get old fast. California knows this all too well, of course. But other states are getting in line. One big hint of this came recently: The price of natural gas in spot […]
Posted inNews & Opinion
Border wars revisited
Three years ago, American writer James Howard Kunstler sat down with famed urbanist Jane Jacobs in her Toronto home. Kunstler asked her why she’d settled in Toronto. “We came in protest of the Vietnam War,” said Jacobs, who grew up in Scranton and came into her own in New York City, struggling against a highway […]
