politics – Page 14 – I Ain't Marching Anymore

20 years later, and remembered for what?

My admiration for Hendrik Herztberg knows few bounds. But I really wish he’d returned to Rustin at the end, to make clear that he was dealing in two contrasts: a fractious but supportive community and a real leader with a moral message versus a sad, conflicted charlatan.

all those remote corners

Looking into Mr. Beyer’s work, I found out that he was one of those Columbia J-school golden children, graduated in 2007 winning every award possible and publishing in the Times while still in RW1 (Reporting and Writing 1).. I also learned that Beyer, whose pieces often adorn the paper’s The City section, had a wonderful affinity for historical material and a tight, elegant prose style. I thought, Oh, OK. He’s good. It might not be the skanky real estate story I’d feared (like this 2005 piece by Patrick Healy, “The Art of Persuading Tenants to Move”)

tangled webs scooping up veterans' lives

Take the Walter Reed scandal, cross-breed it with the U.S. Attorney scandal,and you end up with this. A man who secured VA disability benefits for PTSD, after a long struggle, now sits in jail for receiving those benefits. (Warning: the link, like many/most VA stories, can drive you a little nuts.)

tangled webs scooping up veterans' lives

rape dimly recalled but not so gray

Carl raped me one lazy Sunday morning, as I shut myself down rather than wake the landlady’s kids. He turned out to have some other name entirely, which I only learned after I’d made a key for him.

too many stories, too little time

Their story combines elements of better-known sagas like the Hotel Chelsea , with its community of artists, and 47 East 3rd Street, the tenement whose new owners want to turn into a private house.

the words of young men sounding old

I saw this op-ed piece, entitled “The War As We See it.”

If you didn’t notice from the bylines that the authors were active-duty sergeants, you’d know it from the measured, carefully damning opening.

"rent-seeking?" is that like "morphine-seeky?"

I know rent-seeking is an actual economist’s term, but as a metaphor for what it identifies, I can’t but adore it. (Or maybe I’m just writing too much these days about landlords , most of whom have nothing to do with the term. Except in the Dantean sense.)

a few notes to start

I’d sworn off blogging after this graphomaniac exercise, but here we are. Today is typical. As I sit here, trying to sort out today’s work, between the transcription I need to finish for next week’s stories at the paper and my trip today to NYPL’s Schomburg Library, news old and new shouts for attention: TheContinue reading “a few notes to start”