BACK TO POLITICS AND SPORTS
It would be hard to find someone who didn't think the Supreme Court's last ruling on eminent domain (ok to seize private property at sub market rate to give to other private interests) is the worst decision since Plessy V Ferguson or Bush V Gore for that matter. But -- wotta surprise -- Mayor Mike is out there touting the new eminent domain rules as being necessary for "cities to survive". In English, this means it's necessary for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project to be as huge as possible and who gives a fuck if it renders another couple of thousand homeless. Wasn't home ownership supposed to SOLVE the nigger problem in Republican fantasy-world?
So, Kelso sez "great." What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. There is a very fine burger chain out West called "In-N-Out Burger." It's a family-owned company and Kelso believes the family holds most of the franchises. Should they ever cross the Mississippi and being selling franchises in New York City, any franchise holder is likely to make a mint. When this happens, Kelso suggests that Mr. Bloomberg's Manhattan residences be seized by eminent domain, he be compensated at around $1mm per residence, and some In-N-Out Burger restaurants be put there instead. The "economic benefit" of those restaurants, after all, far outweigh Mike's occasional use of the spaces.
And speaking of our glorious Mayor, we note that he's trying to revive the gun-control issue with other big-city mayors as he readies his presidential bid in the (likely) event that Giuliani blows up. As readers of the Nuts know, Kelso is a left-libertarian and has no particular problem with the NRA interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. An otherwise solid left-winger in the blogosphere took issue with Kelso's viewpoint, so here's the Kelso defense:
We have the privilege of living in New York City which by and large has very little gun violence per capita as big cities go. And it's certainly not the laws here or Bloomberg's posturing that has brought this about. The etiology of that is a whole other argument (suffice it to say I give Giuliani NO CREDIT WHATSOEVER). So, it is possible that my viewpoint is colored by this state of nature. NYC just has never had a gun culture. My understanding is that New Jersey receives most of the guns from Viriginia up the I-95 pipeline.
If I lived in Newark, JC, Camden, Perth Amboy, Elizabeth, Rahway, Red Bank or Trenton, I might feel differently.
As far as hunting goes, I really don't have a problem with it, although I personally wouldn't hunt.
Anyone with a shred of common sense knows that things can go wrong at the drop of a hat especially when alcohol is involved. So, if a person is so stupid as to have a gun around, that's his or her problem not mine. And if I ever lived in the suburbs and Kelso, Jr., had a playdate, I would sure as shit ask the parents if they had guns and if so, were they under lock.
Politically, I think Howard Dean was absolutely correct on this issue and it may be the only way to crack the Republican stranglehold on the country. The argument would go something like this: "for you, guns are a matter of choice constitutionally; for us abortion is a matter of choice constitutionally. Now, let's shake hands on that, and vote our economic interests." I have no idea where Alexander Cockburn stands on guns, but he has made one very piercing point for liberals: The left has to realize that they have many friends on the right; they just have to find a way to agree. That makes a lot of sense to me. And as odious as the White Separatist movement is, I fear them a lot less than I do the U.S. Dept. Of Justice.
Finally, I believe that the Bush administration has given us a small taste of what a Nazi state might be like. And if I'm ever stuck fighting the Battle Of Lodz or Warsaw v2006 in lower Manhattan, I'd like to know I could get some guns. It would be either that or you know what. Let's just say it involves yellow Mogen Davids and nettle soup for dinner.
And on to sports. Suppose the Preakness is first and foremost in peoples' minds. Kelso is looking for Barbaro to bounce, but it's kind of hard to isolate another key. Possibilities are LIKE NOW, SWEETNORTHERNSAINT, BERNARDINI and -- maybe -- BROTHER DEREK. LIKE NOW will be the big price of the bunch but is probably the most speculative. Nice to see the Mets on top of the pile and lots of grumbling in RUDY GIULIANI'S GIRLS-LAND. Girls' fans: note well, Hideki Matsui's injury is not the problem. Any plus his hitting was giving you was taken away by his atrocious fielding. Your problems now are three-fold: Sheffield's injury, the starting pitching, and any game in which Bernie Williams takes the field. Sayonara Suckers.
Kelso's Nuts love you.
20 comments:
glad to see you brought up the atlantic yards project. that whole project is truly becoming one nasty urban nightmare and bruce ratner's ultimate wet dream come to fruition. one does not need a degree in architecture or urban planning to see how thoroughly misguided the entire development is.
the people in my neighborhood (prospect heights), as well as park slope, boerum hill and downtown brooklyn are truly up in arms. the local politicians are not much help. borough prez marty markowitz is, not surprisingly, entirely "on board." it seems the only local pol who is in any way speaking out on behalf of the residents is councilperson tish james, but it's felt that she's only doing that because of term limits and she wants to be the next council speaker. so, in general, it seems the community has no say at all with regard to that monstrosity, 'ratnerville' ...
the really sad part is that the developers are selling this to the minority community as a huge opportunity for jobs jobs jobs. sure there will be set-asides, as there are with all public projects. but the kicker is that this is primarily a housing development, but not affordable housing, just luxury housing, so there will be permanent displacement of middle and lower middle class families as a result of this development.
where IS that affordable housing that bloomberg promised? didn't he talk about affordable housing at the wtc site? i don't see it there.
anyway, short-term, construction duration jobs will not compensate for the destruction of existing affordable housing.
Anita:
It has gotten to the point that I cannot read about that project without becoming apoplectic.
Development and urban renewal are not ills in and of themselves, but this is MONSTROUS SHIT, and if I'm not mistaken everything is "as-of-right". urgh
Ya know, Matsui has a name that probably means "stupid little kid who likes dropping silkworms in the well". I'm not sure that helps.
I always pay close attention to the girls - meaning Yankees. Growing up with 4 sisters, each of whom has the personality of a Hollywood shark, has made it very easy for me to ignore or to deal with the gluttonous female appetite for satisfaction. It seems to me that people like Damon, Jeter and Steinbrenner prefer to be swept away in that avalanche of emotional greed. All it takes is a Smiths cd and a little speech prepared about how "women need billionaire genius celibate gay entertainers like Morrissey to maintain their correct emotional health, and you better grab on to this cd because I sure ain't it".
Freaking Yankees.
Rodriguez, too. Is his wife the basis for the character of "Swiper the Fox"? Ha ha. When I saw the pictures in the Post the day after he got signed....
Well, I'm sitting here at 5 am because I am watching Chinese TV, and playing poker. And not very well, I feel like a No-Limit Stingray in the Limit Hold-Em world. And I'm moving on from sports to the politics in the article.
Atlantic Yards is a good name, prima facie, but it ends there, I guess.
Wouldn't the New Jersey Nets, who have relied on Jason Kidd's performance and New Jersey-like personality, suffer in popularity if they became The Brooklyn Nets? The word "Brooklynettes" makes it sound like Harvard Ratner is "tossing a bone" to the sex industry, of all things, if one pardons the expression.
And, what does the project get from the NYT Book Review reading community in cachet, from the Don DeLillo "Ratner's Star" connection. To put Harvard, Brooklynettes and Ratner's Star together with a reading of DeLillo's "Libra", which featured a recurring theme of a Harvard man who slept with Lee Harvey Oswald's mother and then ditched her, it doesn't seem like there is much cachet happening here at all. If I were an intellectual I would use this opportunity to accomplish two goals:
1 Move copies of Ratner's Star
2 Try to stop the project by being vocal about the book. Its a really good book.
But what are DeLillo's politics about this sort of political development? And why is Ratner the developer trying to be a Hong Kong big boy by imitating their real estate development process? That part of it seems so obvious to me.
As usual, a lengthy and moderately ridiculous set of suggestions and observations from an out-of-towner. I feel like a newbie kangaroo at this point in the conversation.
Big Mac:
Finally got around to checking out your blog. Fine stuff. You have great musical and sports tastes. Why aren't I surprised?
Can't see DeLillo being any sort of Ratner fan, but who knows? Once someone reaches a level of fabulosity, you are closer to the other fabulous than maybe your own family. So, why shouldn't DeLillo be down with Ratner? For that matter it sure wouldn't surprise Kelso if Jonathan Lethem were down with Ratner as well.
no no no ... sorry. i must step in here. neither delillo nor lethem would be down with ratner on a social basis. in terms of fabulosity, ratner has absolutely none of that. i actually worked briefly for his firm, FCR and know him to be a pretty boring guy for the most part. the only fabulosity in his world might be his daughter, who is a writer for the NY Observer.
He's standard issue ego-maniacal developer with really bad judgement with regard to aesthetics and I actually think he believes his own hype. I'd like to put a microscope in his brain and figure out how it works and do an interventional corrective.
Anita:
TY. You are always on point with the 411. If what you say is true, then his daughter, Lizzy, I'm guessing, is not only a writer for the NY Observer, she was also once a producer of Democracy Now! With Amy Goodman, which is probably the most left-wing program in all of media.
Ironic, but hardly surprising. I'll also bet Ratner is as you say a "standard-issue ego-maniacal developer" whose personal politics are probably far from the worst. The leaf does fall far from the bough,to be sure.
In 20 years time they may be saying the same things about Kelso and Kelso, Jr.! Velly, velly hard to make a private fortune with perfectly clean hands.
Yes, Lizzy is the spawn of Bruce.
Interesting as well what you say about "private fortune." As Shakespeare would say, 'there's the rub' ...
Look at someone like Rory Kennedy, RFK's daughter. She is a well-respected independent filmmaker who focuses on documentaries about poverty in America, AIDS and all kinds of social justice issues. She's kind of a quietly shining light in the midst of all the Kennedy scandals, as well as a beneficiary of some of the ... how you say, 'ill-got gains' of her grandfather and other forebears.
PS ... velly velly glad to see you're out and blogging and taking care of yourself and Kelso Jr. I'm sure it's been quite difficult.
Well, in Hong Kong, the government doles out one or two megaparcels a year for development. One of the 5 or 6 big real estate companies bids the highest for the project and then the government moves on to figuring out what the next megaparcel will be.
I haven't actually ever set foot in Hong Kong or the New Territories, but from watching movies I am guessing that there is a lot of space to build, between Hong Kong proper and the Shenzhen border. Since Shenzhen is China's new megacity, there is a lot of excitement in the air.
Which helps point to my idea that FCR, in this instance of the Atlantic Yards, is somehow drafting on the HK energy during the commission of this development. It just seems that way to me. To make a long story short, it seems like the first attempts of American corporations to use Japanese factory quality methods. This is just my feeling about it. To continue the transpacific real estate seminar, there would have to be drafted a long list of comparative points having to do with the extant differences between HK and NYC real estate, but here is a place to start: Confucianism, or Kung Fu Thought.
Fabulosity comes from somewhere. A person as successful as Lizzy couldn't really be bucking the trend against her powerful and effective father, in this case, broadly speaking. So, one surmises that Bruce said to his daughter one day by the side of the pond in Vermont, or something, "Liz, you will be the fabulous person I Bruce Ratner never actually became" and "Please, you know best, what my best wishes are; you must say something about the politics we know to be so true and important for the city and the world" and "Unfortunately, I have to go back and continue building the city. You of all people understand what a difficult prospect that is. Let's hope for the best, let's hope for the future."
Atlantic Yards, Winnapasaukee Terrace, Burlington Towers, Lake George Harborview, etc. It's always so nice to start at Confucian level, always so cozy and warm. And true. In fact, its so good that one can trend mildy sarcastic and then mildly oversentimental, in the description of the obvious kind of conversation, described above, that everybody knows and loves, because its so durable and effective.
Rory Kennedy sounds like a great filmaker. I can add that as for TKJR, of the Kennedys, I lived in a big house with him for one semester at my school. I would vote for him; he seems like a good politician. I have read that he is definitely linked to Ned Lamont now, in Connecticut, socially.
He had a group of friends he spent a lot of time with off campus. I do remember one occasion a friend and I tried to explain punk rock to him.....
Big Mac:
You spilled the beans, finally. You know who I am, and obviously we're talking about the same house and the same TK, so I'm going to take a wild guess here and say "Hello, Dan McGuire". Maybe you're DeWeaver, but as I recall he went native and lives in Guangdong or Inner Mongolia or somesuch. You're too lucid to be O'Toole or Cloud. Am I right? As for that punk conversation, I may well have been in on it, what with TK playing the Grateful Dead and all and us playing X-Ray Spex.
And it gets curiouser and curiouser. Did you know that Anita shared office space with John Moynihan?
Well, enough Irish Geography. I think that you, Anita and I are all dancing around the American class conundrum, and god knows I've had this discussion with my commie thoroughbred racing partner (U of Chicago, NYU Law) ad nauseum. He always said that I had a good sense of the political struggle. And I always said "Bullshit...I grew up a child of privilege, so I got to LEARN all that stuff (while living in the big house with TK)...you don't have to reach me..."
The Lizzie Ratners, Anitas, Kelsos, and McTrixies know chapter and verse about Marx, Marcuse, Genovese, and I'll give my partner credit for trying to actually ORGANIZE telephone workers back in the day, but there's a huge cultural gulf which keeps allowing shit like gay marriage and abortion to be more important than the march of big-time corporatism.
But as we're all still capitalists, I'll make one comment about something I know. Japanese corporate factory methods were yesterday's heroes. You know, kan-ban and all that crap. Microsoft Project does it 1000x better at a fraction of the cost without all the regimentation, which is why as fucked up as the US economy is, it beats the crap out of Japan on about every level.
Well, I was writing to my doctor in New Haven, keeper of the class notes, and I was feeding him information from Done Deal, the site that lists all the script sales in Hollywood. It now costs $24.00 per year; I will probably pay up; its listings are extensive and its production value is cheerful and sincere. Akiva Goldsman's company, Weed Road, is doing a lot of business in Hollywood, its one of the 5 or 6 busiest on the listings. They buy and sell 4 or 5 scripts per month. I will have to email the good doctor to let him know that I am not monitoring the list; I had taken it upon myself to be the "go to guy" for this part of Alumni Notes background information.
He's the one who tugged my coat to The Nuts, if you'll pardon a Dylanism. That was like a month ago.
It's so unfortunate; Dan McGuire has no idea what's in the Chinese paper. Which is too bad; he tends to express a mild anti-Chinese sentiment that he duncishly believes reflects a valid criticism on the part of the Indonesian people. Still, he loves Indo so thoroughly; he is a great ambassador of the Javanese people.
As far as I am concerned, I remember in late 1992 when the Indonesian government legalized public display of Chinese words, in signs and in newspapers and magazines. Kind of like if the Quebecois gave preference to English in their signage and daily news sources. Its a difficult situation fraught with a history of social instability. And, it has a lot to do with The Rule of Law, one of my favorite topics.
So as far as the Rule of Law is concerned, E-Z Eminent Domain may be part of a functionally correct urban planning vision on the part of aesthetically challenged planners with gifted daughters, but what actually happens when - how many? - 1,000 families? 10,000 people? have to move their house. I have been reflecting on what it would be like for me to be similarly relocated. It must get awful complicated, is what I think.
Well, I will definitely tell the Doctor that "Kelso's Nuts" has really provided a lot of energy to my comparatively moribund life, and that I really like its link to the city and all its events, goings on, and important political personalities. 3 Cheers for Kelso's Nuts.
The next time the Kennedys come up in conversation, there will have to be an exposition of the political aims of the producers of The Simpsons, vis a vis the character of Mayor Diamond Joe Quimby, a character that seems to have something to do with Massachusetts' First Family.
And Anita, what did you think of John Moynihan? Did you know in his house in Boston he had a shrine to William Shatner, composed of news clippings and original artwork, on the back of a bookcase in his living room? I was there at his house two or three times while I was living in Boston, and the time I was there with DeWeaver he spent an hour or two explaining it while we sipped Guiness. It was Friday night; we had no work the next day. Since McL had grown up in Maclean, he had a lot in common with DeW, and seemed to favor him in conversation.
I was kind of concerned to learn that apparently John had decided to join the Merchant Marine. He is two years older than I, I believe.
And Anita, I am trying to look for you on Google. Are you "The Heretik"? Or are you in Texas, on "Race Horse or Sedative?"? Its just not perfectly clear, which one is which. I hope you can help me out with this.
mctrixie, how funny. no i am not "The Heretik" ... and while I'm not "Race Horse or Sedative" there are times when I certainly wouldn't turn down a horse tranquilizer!!!
i can be found at "anitasnewblog":
http://anitasnewblog.typepad.com/
and re John Moynihan, what a classic, classic story the william shatner tale is!!
john and i shared very flimsy wall that separated our two offices on broadway in tribeca and so we both were always aware of what was going on in each other's spaces ... pretty boring in mine, but certainly a lot of excitement in his! among other things, he would have the occasional battle with pirates and such, which was a bit alarming and disconcerting for me, but fascinating at the same time. except when file cabinets would fall down and it would feel as if the building was being blown up!! not good in downtown nyc in a 9/11 world!! he also regaled me with some fascinating stories of traveling, in his teen years, in china with the bushes (including our own dr. demento preznit, "W" ...). and while he was not exactly a fan of any of the bushes, he generally liked GHW and GW, however, seem he found the motherlode, barbara, a tad loathesome.
before he moved out of his space, he left me with a lovely painting he had done of a desert scene, which he gave me because, he said, he felt bad he was such an annoyance ... which he certainly wasn't. but that just shows the humble kindness of john moynihan.
Yeah, at his home, in Dorchester, he had a collection of toy guns and lots of other fake gear, which were used in re'enactments of current events. The man loved to express some of the most difficult elements of the government (like the CIA, the Green Berets) in an over the top theatrical trans-1960s manner.
He and a housemate there, who had multilple sclerosis, I think, played a drinking game with the radio on, while playing cards. So simple, every time the radio experienced a burst of static, one would have to drink, depending on "whose fault it was". Hilarious.
I almost always think of Moynihan in his spending 3 or 4 years in India with his father, who was the ambassador there.
He inspired a confident, solid well-being feeling in me, an ability that is definitely not shared by everybody! I remember him taking us out to a long long liquid lunch with his people in Dort at an Indian restaurant in Harvard Square that isn't there now. That was the day I learned the phrase "Black is Beautiful", in relation to Guinness Stout.
I wonder sometimes who could carry on with his tradition. And I wonder what Desmond Dermot, mustaschioed billionaire architect of Dublin's new skyline and part owner of Guiness, Man Utd, and owner of Celtic FC in Scotland, thought of him or his father. I see similarities.
Celtic FC was the first ever site I visited and signed up to on the internet. I was interested in Dermond Desmot - I mean Desmond Dermot - from reading and tv.
it seems that somebody really should write a book about JM. he was, and i mean this absolutely and entirely affectionately, and with a sense of both awe and irony, an extraterrestrial.
kind of like kelso ...
;)
Mac:
I had dinner and a couple of beers with your Doctor and Larry a couple of weeks back. Verrry nice.
You know that old joke about taking possession of an indigent's body so long as one had the proper embalming lotions and so forth came up -- in what context I forget, may have been some weird news item.
Moynihan's memorial last year was one of the truly great nights...One could expect nothing less.
Fuck Celtic FC sideways. Hibs, Jam Tarts, Huns or fucking Dunfermline if I must.
I don't know, Kelso, they have that kelly green color format. I think you are right, though; I think the kelly green hides a true hot pepper nature.
I'm not trying to be ridiculously didactic; I am preparing a Michelle Malkin-based item for mctrixie.blogspot based on the hot pepper. It has to do with:
So I Married An Axe Murderer
Salt n Pepa
The Rezillos "Flying Saucer Attack"
Chandler Bing and
Less Than Jake.
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