The Morning After

August 28, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston

When Norman Mailer ran for mayor of New York in 1969, he proposed “Sweet Sunday.”  On one Sunday each month, powered vehicles would be banned from the city.  No cars, no buses, nothing. 

Today, we’re getting a sense of what that would be like.  The hurricane has pretty much passed through the city, but subways and buses are still out of service (they were shut down at noon Saturday).  A few cabs cruise the streets, but almost no cars.  Broadway in the 60s and 70s is usually full of cars, even on Sunday.  Not today.

Here is West 72nd looking west from Broadway towards the Park (the famous Gray’s Papaya is at the right). 

As a result, the scale of city life has been reduced.  People are out, and they walking in their own neighborhoods.  The restaurants and shops that are open are the small independents.  The large chains – McDonalds, Starbucks, and the like – are closed. 

But it’s the non-commercial areas, the parks, that seem to be attracting the most people. 

Above is the pier at 70th Street.  Of course, in New York, each zip code is its own UN. 

Not all were locals.  The World Police & Fire Games are in town, and apparently the Hong Kong and Swedish teams are staying in West Side hotels.

The hurricane was exciting, and it did some serious damage, especially outside the city.  But the West Side was spared.  Somewhere, Norman Mailer is smiling (and maybe sharing a drink with Jane Jacobs.)

Calm Before the Storm

August 27, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston

With eight hours to go before things get really rough, New York seems to be taking the approaching hurricane in good humor. 

The Town Shop, which has been selling women’s undergarments since the 1880s, remained undaunted.

(Click on an image for a larger view.)

Even the headline writers at the tabloids seemed to be working in tandem.

Fairway never closes – on Christmas and New Years, through heavy snows – but it closed its doors at 10 a.m.  With the subways and buses shutting down at noon, their many, many employees would have no way of getting home.

But the West Side Market stayed open, and people were lined up waiting to get in.

Trader Joe’s closed.

So did most of the national chains – all of the many Starbucks, Staples, etc. But many of the independent cafés and restaurants are open, So is the tiny Westsider Book shop across the street from Barnes&Noble, which is closed. 

And if you want to get your shoes repaired during a hurricane, no problem.

The Social Journalist

August 22, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston

Henry Tischler, sociologist and a friend of mine, took this picture at the Aspen Ideas Festival  last month – a gathering of hundreds of heavy hitters, many you haven’t heard of , many you have.  (No, Henry was not on the program.)

David Brooks (on the right) having breakfast with Alan Greenspan.

When Henry showed me the photo, I thought of what I.F. Stone once said.

Once the secretary of state invites you to lunch and asks your opinion, you’re sunk.

I.F. Stone was the classic outsider journalist.  He had no inside sources.  Nobody, Democrat or Republican, was leaking ideas or information to him.  Instead, he relied on official government information – documents, Congressional testimony – and on press reports to find out what was really going on. 

Stone didn’t have to worry about offending people.  He didn’t have to worry about being played by important people in government.   He didn’t have to worry that his relationships with the people he wrote about were influencing what he wrote and what he thought.*

David Brooks is a journalist who talks regularly to politicians and FED chairmen.  He sees them at dinner parties and at breakfasts in the Rockies.  Does that affect how tough he is on them in print?  Here’s the opening of a Brooks column of a week ago.

Very few people have the luxury of being freely obnoxious. Most people have to watch what they say for fear of offending their bosses and colleagues. Others resist saying anything that might make them unpopular. 

But, in every society, there are a few rare souls who rise above subservience, insecurity and concern. Each morning they take their own abrasive urges out for parade. 

The rest of the column is about Donald Trump.  But Jonathan Chait at The New Republic  thinks that this opening is really how Brooks feels about his colleague Paul Krugman.  Regardless of who is in that obnoxious “very few people” category (Trump, Krugman, whoever), it seems clear that Brooks counts himself among “most people” –  the ones who have to fear offending both their colleagues and those with more power, the ones who can’t afford to be unpopular.  (Brooks was at Aspen to talk about his book The Social Animal.)

Does Brooks’s sociability affect how he writes about newsmakers?  Guess who wrote the following: 

Alan Greenspan continues his efforts to cement his reputation as the worst ex-Fed chairman in history. 

(Hint: it’s not Donald Trump.  Answer here.)

In fact, the only Brooks mention of Greenspan I could find in a quick Google search was a column suggesting that Greenspan might have had some “misperception,” but hey, as Brooks explains, we all make perceptual errors.  You can’t blame a guy for being human.

I haven’t read The Social Animal, but I would expect that Brooks discusses how our perceptions and judgments can be influenced by our social ties to others.  Or maybe not.


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 * Stone’s independence was a virtue born of necessity.  He was a radical, a socialist.  In the fifties, amid the anti-communism phobia, nobody in Washington would be seen with him.   He could never question them directly.  The Sunday morning shows like “Meet the Press” no longer put him on their panels.

Civility and Weaponry

August 20, 2011
Posted by Jay Livingston

I concluded the previous post by asking for civility from commenters.  Instead, I got the all too familiar belligerence (“if you dared to tell the truth,” “Instead of ‘thinking’ why not actually do some research, eh.” “Shoddy research, insinuations and obvious bias.”). 

I said I would delete comments that violate common norms of civility.  Any maybe I should have done that and moved on.  But I’m responding and letting the comment stand  just because it’s so fucking stupid  because it includes two relevant facts:

• The UK has a higher rate of violent crime than does the US
• Chicago has a high murder rate because of the many gang-related killings.

These both support the idea that more guns make for more murder. 

On the first point: Start from the essential fact that the murder rate in the UK is a fraction of the US murder rate.  That might be because the British are just a less violent society.  But no.  According to the commenter the UK is more violent, not less (I’ll accept his assertion, though I haven’t checked the data).  How can Britain be more violent and yet have less murder?  The obvious answer is that their violence is not lethal, and it’s not lethal because the weapons they have at hand are less deadly. The British are concerned about knives – knives, not guns –  presumably because guns are not so prevalent and hence not so much a problem.

On the second:  The Christian Science Monitor quote provided by the commenter says,  

Chicago's gang problem is greater than that in either New York City or Los Angeles, according to Philip Cook . . . . 81 percent of [Chicago] homicides in the first seven months of this year were gang-related, which Mr. Cook says confirms his research that despite policing efforts, gun access is flourishing among Chicago’s gangs.

As I said in my original post, US cities, even those with a thinner gang presence than Chicago, have higher murder rates than London.  Los Angeles, the city mentioned in contrast to gang-ridden Chicago, has a population half that of London.  Yet it had more than four times as many teen murders from guns alone, making its rate of teen murder nearly ten times that of London.

Also, note why, according to Philip Cook, a gang problem makes for higher murder rates:

gun access is flourishing among Chicago's gangs

New York has a lower rate of teen homicide because it has less of a gang problem.  Cook’s argument is

•     Less gangs, less guns
•     Less guns, less teen homicide

I don’t know why the Second Amendment boys get so annoyed when someone points out that guns are far more powerful and deadly than other weapons.  If they weren’t, why would it be so important to preserve the absolute right to have them? Try telling the NRA members that they could just as easily defend themselves and their property, and protect their families if they armed themselves with knives or baseball bats. You would be greeted with anger and derision. And rightly so. The idea is preposterous. 

The gunslingers are arguing that guns in the hands of someone with good intentions make it easier for him to achieve good ends (all that defending and protecting).  But it’s equally true, probably more so, that guns in the hands of a person with bad intentions make it easier and more likely for him to achieve bad ends. Like murder. 

That was my point in the original post. The London chavs and other blokes may be as numerous and vicious as the nasty youths in our cities, maybe more so.  But they don’t have guns.  Therefore, London has a much lower rate of teen homicide.