That’s what streeteasy.com suggests in a recent posting.
I’m all for it, since I still have allegiance to the area. But I also have my concerns. I wrote my proposal for how New York City could make Jamaica more attractive to people who might be drawn to the area. Yes, it involves one of the worst mistakes of the Bloomberg era – the killing of the great beacon on the hill, Jamaica High. Please read my essay on streeteasy.com: http://streeteasy.com/blog/how-nyc-could-really-revitalize-jamaica-queens/ Comments are welcome on that site. GV I see the latest Star Wars movie is out. I didn’t understand the first one in 1977 so I doubt I would understand the latest.
I remember taking our son, who was nearly 8, and sitting in the dark and wondering what was happening. “Why is the human allied with that furry guy?” I asked, and he shushed me. Was some of it symbolic or allegorical? Did it refer to our own foolish wars, past or present or future? What were their motivations? I didn’t know. Still don’t. I could figure out some kind of oedipal tension between the old human and the kid, but the only person I could relate to was the Harrison Ford character, named Han Solo. In this huge universe, aren’t we all Han Solo? I also liked Ford in “The Frisco Kid” (1979) about a Polish rabbi and an outlaw and some even worse outlaws in the west. The hairy creatures were real. The rabbi (Gene Wilder) asked the Han-Solo outlaw (Ford) what he was going to do next, and Ford replied in lascivious and bigoted language. This was before Ford’s features became frozen permanently between fear and anger. He was young then. Star Wars did have some sex appeal. We got a report about The Empire Strikes Back (1980) after our younger daughter went with friends from high school. Apparently, one of the human characters was about to be killed in some outer-space way, and one girl shouted at the screen, “You can’t kill Billy Dee Williams! He be the sexiest man in the galaxy!” I love some supernatural touches: Emma Thompson as the merciful angel, Meryl Streep as the spirit of Ethel Rosenberg, in “Angels in America.” Generally I favor movies with reference to some moral code -- Orson Welles lurking in the shadows, Tony and Maria seeing each other across the gym, Clint avenging his buddy’s death in a “shit-hole” bar. Movies have gotten away from me. Zombie films and Harry Potter films and extra-terrestial films. Who needs new monsters? Trump and Cruz scare me enough.
It’s bad enough to have nihilists around the world blowing things up after their own systems failed. But what accounts for apocalyptic behavior in the United States? This is no news that Donald Trump is proposing things right out of the dictator playbook, even citing the one really unpleasant thing Franklin Delano Roosevelt did – internment of Japanese-Americans. Trump doesn’t even know how widely that is condemned, by people who admire FDR. He doesn’t know much, which is his appeal to a generation dumbed down by reality shows with sneering hosts. I grew up near Trump in Queens. People tell me he was a nasty little kid. Still is. But he has terroristic help from the Republicans he scorns: Carly Fiorina made public comments about dissecting embryos for “baby parts.” This has been proven untrue. Tell that to the crazed hermit who killed three people at a Planned Parenthood site in Colorado. I haven’t heard Fiorina apologize for inciting the brute. The main New Hampshire newspaper endorsed Chris Christie in that state’s primary. At least it wasn’t Trump. But I heard the paper’s editorial writer explaining what a fine leader Christie is. He had no idea that New Jersey is doing terribly financially, and he did not seem to know about the bridge scandal -- people in Christie’s circle backing up the George Washington Bridge. Isn’t that terrorism? What would happen if Christie were elected – from the clink? Finally, Lindsey Graham is urging Republicans to take back their party from the unwashed interloper. That’s nice. But Graham and the “establishment” is coming off nearly seven years of overt sabotage to the President and the government. The motivation was more than politics. It was racial. They could not stomach a smart man with African-American roots as President. Graham and his pals facilitated Donald Trump. Isn't that terrorism? This just in: a sweet example of Graham saying nice things about Joe Biden, as forwarded by my political friend, George Mitrovich: * * * https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mitrovich-baseball-notes/HGgHFL8Cq5U * * * Here’s a song from the Prophet Iris -- Iris DeMent: "Wasteland of the Free:" Doug Logan, who is 72, recently slogged 22 kilometers with 22 kilograms in his backpack on a group run by military veterans. That number stood for the 22 vets said to commit suicide every day. The 110 men and women ran in silk skivvies, some did, to attract attention, not raise money. Logan wore red. Logan was the only runner who served in Vietnam -- 13 months as a forward observer with the 101st Airborne in 1966-67, earning two stars. Vets tend not to tell stories but I have heard a few allusions to the horrors of that mission, plus the challenges of returning to civilian life. Logan now runs a program for the homeless – many of them veterans -- near his long-time residence of Sarasota, Fla. I got to know him when he was the first commissioner of Major League Soccer in 1996, a bilingual sports executive (from his family roots in Cuba) who gloried in Valderrama and Etcheverry and Campos of the first years. Journalists are not supposed to be friendly with the people they cover – ask him about my snide remarks about low attendance and wretched teams in the early years in New Jersey -- but after Logan left that job we stayed in touch. So, yes, he is a friend. A year ago a city official in Sarasota proposed a job that Logan could never have imagined – come up with housing and programs for the homeless. After careers in entertainment and sports and other businesses, he was commuting to be an adjunct professor at New York University and loving a few days a week in the city, but the offer from Sarasota touched a nerve. “The best speech ever given is contained in two chapters of Matthew: the Sermon on the Mount. In those principles I hear the call to spend a part of your life doing good,” Logan told me. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” – Matthew 5-7. Some residents of Sarasota fretted about Logan’s hiring, asking, are there not local people with proper degrees in social work? Others have questioned Logan’s departure from the national track and field federation but as a journalist I watched him try to abolish all drug usage, a sure way to become unpopular in that sport. As for his service in Major League Soccer, I could make the lame joke that anybody who took in itinerants like the ill-fated Nicola Caricola of own-goal MetroStar fame was practicing social work even then. But this is serious stuff. Logan is living up to the best lesson I remember from college ROTC: “Get the troops out of the hot sun.” That’s not in the Sermon on the Mount, but could be. The latest output from the family is by David Vecsey, who normally spends days and nights editing others but occasionally exercises the writing part of the brain.
David made a journalistic foray into the heart of darkness known as sports fantasy gambling. He emerged with his shirt still on his back, plus a story describing mood swings based on the doings of athletes, some previously unknown until he drafted them. His article on Gothamist: http://gothamist.com/2015/11/30/daily_fantasy_sports.php Then there is my wife’s cousin, Paul Grundy, MD and MPH, IBM's Global Director of Healthcare Transformation. He and two colleagues have written an entry-level primer on the mysteries of health care including trends toward industrial-size health complexes, concierge doctors and the vanishing of the actual family doctor. (You noticed.) The book is: Lost and Found: A Consumer’s Guide to Healthcare by Peter B. Anderson, Paul H. Grundy, MD, and Bud Ramey (contributor). Next is Laura Vecsey, former sports columnist and political columnist, currently covering the U.S. women’s soccer team, World Cup champs, on their victory tour of America, for Fox. Her latest article on Carli Lloyd’s candidacy for player-of-the-year: http://www.foxsports.com/soccer/story/carli-lloyd-and-jill-ellis-have-chance-to-make-more-history-for-uswnt-113015. The family legal wing is in Pennsylvania, where Corinna V. Wilson is the energy behind the consulting firm Wilson500. Corinna helped write the Pennsylvania right-to-know act of 2008, and she flexes her writing skills when that important law is threatened by nervous politicians: http://pafoic.org/2015/02/commonwealth-court-decision-in-psea-case-eviscerates-right-to-know-law/ Finally, my book that has done the most good for others has been revived. I helped Bob Welch write “Five O’Clock Comes Early: A Young Man’s Battle With Alcoholism,” first published in 1982 soon after Bob’s return from a rehab center, to be a star pitcher for more than a decade. My friend Bob passed in 2014 – a lot of us are still reeling from it – but his book, updated, is a handbook for anybody, particularly the young who cannot believe they are powerless over addiction. I’ve heard from people who say Bob's book helped save a life. The new e-book version is from Open Road Media: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/five-oclock-comes-early-bob-welch/1120190861#productInfoTabs Fortunately, some of us also have visual talents. Marianne Vecsey is a painter (above) and Anjali takes photos with her smartphone (below) |
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