About This Blog This blog is about politics, which, according to Aristotle, a truly veteran scribe, is the result of humans being the only herd animals capable of speaking to one another. Or shouting at one another, or giving to each other the ol' bazoo, for all of that, although there is no translation for "bazoo" in the ancient Greek. Thus, for our purposes here, this blog will be about politics in its most basic form to wit, how we speak to each other for the purposes of governing, or choosing not to govern, ourselves as a small-r republican political commonwealth. It will be the policy of this blog not to treat ignorance with respect simply because that ignorance profits important and powerful people. ... Continue reading →
Jeremy Hobson: The uncertainty in the markets is not what concerns our next guest -- she's got enough to deal with. Sister Albertina Morales is a nun with the Sisters of Social Service order here in Los Angeles. She helps run a community center called Regis House, which moved 5 years ago from West L.A. to a more troubled neighborhood near downtown L.A. As part of our coverage of Wealth and Poverty, I stopped by Regis House for a visit. Albertina Morales: Before, it was a check-cashing, money wiring place. And people still walk by, looking for it. 'What happened to King's Express, and do you cash checks?' No, we don't. We don't wire money, we don't cash checks. They haven't been here, honestly, for ... Continue reading →
Sad news out of New Orleans: last night, the New York Times reported that the Times-Picayune looks set to face severe cuts, including the loss of a daily edition. Gambit covers the reaction here. This is depressing for a whole hosts of reasons, not least because the paper, in one form or another, has been a vital part of city life (and literature) for 175 years.Starting life as The Picayune, the paper was founded in 1837 (on the brink, ironically, of an international depression) by George Wilkins Kendall and Francis Asbury Lumsden, a pair of publishers who had learned their trade in New York and Washington. (It wouldn't become the Times-Picayune until 1914, when it merged with its rival, the Times-Democrat.) The first issue went ... Continue reading →
It's never going to stop raining and we're never going to see the blue skies again and your shoes are never going to dry and we're going to be drenched in our own sweat from the 100% humidity forever and ever—so just listen to the depressing version of Blind Melon's "No Rain" and deal with it. If it makes you feel better, you can click through and look at some photos of an old New York City being belted with equally bad weather. We've survived the storm before, people... and just look at how noir it all was. Continue reading →
Photo by Jen Carlson/Gothamist Instagram (Taken around 8:15 a.m. in DUMBO) We've been staring into the cloudy abyss of fog all week, and are beginning to feel like we're living in an episode of Mad Men, or maybe that Stephen King movie. Either way, it's FEAR WITHOUT END... but it's also kind of pretty, albeit dreary. So send photos of this beautiful nightmare to photos@gothamist.com and we'll compose a gallery. You can also hashtag them #Gothamist and #Fog on Instagram, or tag them "Gothamist" and "Fog" on Flickr. Feel free to include a line of prose, it's what Sylvia Plath would have done. Continue reading →
Are your taxes too high? When Gallup asked that question in April, tax month in the United States, 46 percent said they were. An additional 47 percent said their taxes were “about right.” Just 3 percent said their taxes were too low. This campaign season reflects that result. Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, is offering a 20 percent tax cut for everyone. Given the mood of the conservatives in the United States today, that may not surprise you. But even President Barack Obama, who is routinely described as a socialist by his opponents, is peddling a plan under which 99 percent of Americans would pay less than they did under the last Democrat in the White House, Bill Clinton. This bipartisan agreement that the overwhelming ... Continue reading →
Apple CEO Tim Cook is proving himself as much a master of employee and investor relations as he is of operational efficiency. His decisions to create a charitable matching program for Apple employees and to grant a long pined for dividend to company’s shareholders have won him a lot of favor among both groups, while putting his own stamp on Apple. And now he’s made another move for which he’s likely to win accolades. Cook is forgoing a $75 million dollar dividend to which he’s entitled. In a Thursday SEC filing Apple announced plans to award a $2.65-a-share quarterly dividend on restricted stock units held by its employees. It’s a nice — and unusual — perk to offer (and one certain to cement employee loyalty ... Continue reading →
