As many know, I’ve kept poking around at the high school story I wrote about last month. And I’ve complained more than is probably seemly about the angst of it all – about how tiring it is to meet with numerous scared sources, dig through raw data, the tricky task of presenting the results inContinue reading “valuable lesson for investigative reporters”
Category Archives: journalism
Updated: When Wall Street uses Google for evil
Well, now that the investor-landlord meme I wrote about last week has finally caught on, the Village Voice and the Times note a brilliantly evil use of “the Google ” by these new owners, They find someone with a similar name somewhere else, and claim that the rent-stabilized apartment is not a tenant’s primary residence.Continue reading “Updated: When Wall Street uses Google for evil”
reasons to go get an MBA
Today, the NY Times’ business section finally noticed something that’s been glaringly obvious for some time, at least if you’d paid any attention to the past few years of landlord-tenant strife. No longer are tenants fighting the traditional landlord, who is penny-pinching to keep his profit-over-expenses margin healthy. Now, they’re facing companies with names likeContinue reading “reasons to go get an MBA”
"the intervention that makes change possible is love"
About two weeks ago, I offered a few thoughts on the latest work by Jeanette Winterson, offering one sideline smart passage while mostly urging you to seek out the book itself. Whether you did or not, I advise you to check out this review + interview in Gay City News. (One of the perks ofContinue reading “"the intervention that makes change possible is love"”
gentry less faded, more "ified"
I’ve loved my neighborhood since before the realtors renamed it “Hudson Heights”; my best friend has lived in various corners thereof for 20-some years, and I soon knew both the assets and the liabilities of this small town at the top of the island. But by the time we moved up here five years ago,Continue reading “gentry less faded, more "ified"”
Groundhog Day, with a few more clues
Then as now, there sat the opposition, renegade transit planners and passenger organizations with their own quixotic-seeming quest to remake the project.
In the interim, NJT had revised its plans significantly, but not to respond to the critics. Instead, the plan had diverged even further from its original concepts. There went those critics’ hopes to integrate the tunnel station with a regional rail system, as in Paris or Philadelphia.
the machine that goes ping!
Like a lot of people, I’ve been thinking a lot about the upcoming primaries in Pennsylvania. On a separate stream, I’ve watched in train-wreck fear the wave of voting-machine failures, from Florida to Ohio. Thus, this report from the Star Ledger (ht: Raw Story) is particularly unsettling. The voting machines just subpoenad in New Jersey,Continue reading “the machine that goes ping!”
the kid gets an award
Just got word from colleagues ar Community Media that my series on illegal hotels (see Selected Articles, or just google my name and “illegal hotels”) was given an award for “in depth reporting” by the New York Newspaper Association. The citation read: “These stories were well written as well as rich and informative–putting a consistentlyContinue reading “the kid gets an award”
rashomon, via NYC schools
This past Tuesday, I sat in a windowless classroom on my beat, getting yelled at by a principal, four assistant principals, and a handful of teachers and students from a local high school. Many of their sentences began: “Do you even know..?” Did I know that their math team had done well? That their mediaContinue reading “rashomon, via NYC schools”
I Ain't Marching Anymore 