In spite of the corporate nature of the photo (Mr. Chrysler just HAD to have the tallest building in NY – so much so, that he kept the top hidden and a secret until the very last minute, so that it would not be outdistanced and so that it would amaze. It did amaze, but shortly after, it was outdistanced anyway, by the Empire State Building), I have to go on the record and admit that which I am sure has not yet become apparent: I love the “L” word! [And it angers me to hear this contempt for it, as reported on the news last night: “GWB is swinging away at Kerry for being a liberal” and on CNN: “Kerry is losing ground now because of Bush’s successful use of the liberal label on the campaign trail.”]

And so now I just have to lay down my cards and say it like it is. When I hear the word “liberal,” my heart soars and flutters with happiness.

Thus on the sweet sixteenth day before the election, let me take this blog into places on 16th street that celebrate the Left.

There is, for instance, the block between fifth and sixth avenues. Here stands the home of Alexander Trachtenberg, an American Communist who was indicted for publishing subversive books and pamphlets; his defense committee included Paul Robeson and W.E.B. DuBois. In general, this block was something of a “Lefty-Red” neighborhood in the 1940s and '50s.

In the next block you’ll find the New York City Free Clinic (run by NYU). I suppose this could be used as a model of health care delivery for the future. Who needs health insurance, let’s all just rely on the liberal lefties to jump in and do some direct servicing for the uninsured, the underinsured and the never-to-be-insured-under-the-GWB-next-4-years.

Then, we come to Union Square Park. The first Labor Day Parade took place here in the XIX century. Emma Goldman was arrested here in 1893 for telling the unemployed to steal bread. A funeral march was held here for the executed Rosenbergs the year I was born.

More? You want more? Corner of 16th and Irving houses the magazine the Nation, that leftie rag!

I could go on. Know where my heart is. With the “L” crowd and I am SO proud of it.

(*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of post title)

Minding my “Ps”

Politics

I have to hand it to the NYTimes. The Magazine cover story today is the most thorough indictment of the Bush presidency I have read in a long time. Anyone with any commitment to reason over extremist faith-based leadership cannot read it and comfortably remain an advocate of GWB. What bothers me most is that this administration’s supporters, knowing what they know about Bush’s incompetence and unwillingness to base decisions on facts or reason are choosing to remain silent and to be in complicity with the president. Being a child of post-war Poland, I am too familiar with shrouds of silence – one that preceded the invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939 comes to mind.

Predictions

I have reason to believe that: 1.there will be more snow in Madison this year than we’ve had in a long time; 2. Althouse will not abandon Kerry-bashing in her blog before November 2nd (does she worry what fodder will feed the Instapundit links after the election? A Kerry win would, sadly, keep the doors open for continued commentary of the type we have been reading this past month); 3. The leaves in my yard will not get properly raked this fall; 4. L’Etoile will not be the L’Etoile we know and have grown accustomed to by year’s end. I will consider bets on any of the above, though interested parties and those who know me well are not permitted to play.

Polishness

You know, I just get embarrassed for my countrymen and women when I read interviews such as the one with the Polish Foreign Minister (NYT Magazine today). Highlight: NYT: Have you been watching the televised debates between President Bush and Senator Kerry? Cimoszewicz: I will not comment on the present position of the leading contenders. [nc: an overwhelming majority of foreign leaders have endorsed Kerry; not Poland! Ever hopeful for that investment of American capital, can’t it recognize that even after blindly counting itself as part of the coalition of the damned willing, no such investment is forthcoming?] Any high points in that interview? And admission that more than 70% of Poles, lovers of all things American that they are, now strongly oppose Poland’s support for the American invasion of Iraq. Is Cimoszewicz a fan of life in this country? He likes Central Park, George Gershwin, and a real American steak – though 'once a year' is enough for him. I guess it could have been worse. He could have said he favored Dallas for vacations and preferred a visit to Crawford over a stroll through Central Park. The steak, I'm thinking, is a nod toward the Lone Star state.

Seventeenth street pre-election diary*

17th and Irving Place 

Seventeen days.

Washington Irving: a lawyer, writer, traveler.

Washington Irving High School (at the corner of 17th and Irving Place): the school rated as the most dangerous in all of Manhattan (it was ranked this year as almost ten times as violent as the average New York City School – razor blade slashing, for instance, are common, as are high suspension rates – the highest in the city, and low attendance rates – not surprisingly, the lowest in the city).

Under the federal “No Child Left Behind” law, this school has been identified as “in need of improvement.” However, from what I have been reading, at Washington Irving, the only resource that has been thrown at the school is an increased number of police officers.

on 17th: a school in trouble 

In a moving endorsement of Kerry, the NYT editors write the following today:

We look back on the past four years with hearts nearly breaking, both for the lives unnecessarily lost and for the opportunities so casually wasted. Time and again, history invited George W. Bush to play a heroic role, and time and again he chose the wrong course. We believe that with John Kerry as president, the nation will do better.

How can it be that anyone would still believe otherwise?

(*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of post title)

Market watch on a blustery day

the leaves are still now, but wait 'til the tempest passes through

The wind this morning was unbelievable! Not only was there an occasional sprinkle, but the gusts tore at the Market tents with such force that many sellers had to hold poles firmly in place or they’d be swept away with the tempest.

This, of course, did not keep me home. But it was discouraging to come to L'Etoile and find a note asking me to, on top of everything else, pick out some five varieties of apples, totaling to maybe 80 plus pounds. And it was discouraging to have Chef O be in such a peppy chatty mood as she joined me on one of my rounds. It took the two of us two hours to circle the Square (can one really circle a square? I’m getting dangerously close to making an orange an apple here). I finally abandoned her at a cheese stand. Clearly she’s operating with different heat moments than I am.

So how cold, dark and wet was it? Note the seller at Harmony Valley (photo below) warming her hands in the heat of the lamp – which itself is on so that customers can see the vegetables in the dark, early morning hours.

Working both sides of the fence

I am not now, never have been, nor will ever be part of the management team at L’Etoile. But right now, neither am I exactly wage labor. It’s more like I’m a contracted service provider. And so I get to tune in to stories from both ends: from labor and from the boss. And like the true two-faced person that I am, I am openly sympathetic to both.

I am also sometimes the keeper of secrets for both. For instance, today, I asked Chef O how her day had gone yesterday (it had been her birthday – she is exactly half a year older than I am). Terrible! She tells me. She had bounced in for the staff meal, excited and ready for some tiny celebration on her behalf and there was…none. It kind of broke her heart. [People: you need to start taking the birthdays of others seriously. Presents, cards, the whole works. And never, ever take seriously such statements as “oh, don’t bother doing anything for me.” Nobody means that. Ever.]

Plagued by guilt and pity I went out and found the biggest bouquet I could get at the Market and passed it on to her. One day late, but what can you do.

However, in chatting to ‘labor,’ I found out that in reality, a bash is in the works for her, scheduled for our staff meeting this coming Monday evening. Of course, I can’t tell Chef O that.

Conversely, I cannot tell ‘labor’ that management has a stunning announcement to make on that day. While everyone is busy busy readying the place for a celebration, management is busy busy with its own little surprise.

So here I am, anticipating a tempest and a celebration. How will it all end? Tune in Monday evening. My lips are sealed until then (to my knowledge, no one from L’Etoile tracks this blog; but I am taking no chances).

this morning, even wooly mittens didn't keep the cold out 

This may well be the last bouquet I bring home this year 

Eighteenth street pre-election diary*

an 18th street story 

Eighteen days...

At the corner of 18th and Irving Place you can find Pete’s Tavern, the oldest continuously operating tavern in New York. (During the Prohibition it disguised itself as a flower shop.) Sometimes called O’Henry’s place (he frequented it as the turn of the century), it is indeed a landmark. Even though the original Pete (Pete Belles) did not want to be famous back in 1864 when he opened the place. He just wanted his own tavern.

Tick tock, tick tock, 127 years later, Ruth MacLeod is at the Tavern. It is a nice summer evening and tables are set outdoors, inside a guard-rail. Ruth is there, so is a group of waiters and customers. She needs to pass through, but the waiters are chatting up the customers and so she needs to step around them, outside the guard rail. There is an indentation in the sidewalk. She stumbles and falls (Torts class! An open and shut slip & fall case??). She sues Pete’s. The issue becomes whether the tavern's duty of care extends beyond the guardrail.

On appeal, the court said no and the complaint against Pete’s Tavern was dismissed. (Properly, don’t you think?)

Compare and contrast:

Tick tock, tick tock, a year later (in that most publicized of cases, so think about it, this is the most debatable jury award), 79 year-old Stella Liebeck sustains 3rd degree burns, requiring hospitalization and skin grafts, after she spills coffee purchased at McDonald’s. Does McDonald’s know the coffee is too hot to serve or drink? Yes, having had 700 recorded severe burns in the decade prior to this case, they knew. Were they willing to reduce the temperature (that was held at nearly 50 degrees above the industry standard)? No, that would have reduced the optimal brewing capacity of every last grind. What would get them to reconsider? A large punitive damages award (large in a manner of speaking; the jury award, reduced considerably afterwards, was equal to two days’ worth of coffee sales for the chain), shifting the cost-benefit calculus, so that it no longer paid for them to serve dangerously hot beverages. Was Stella thinking of lawsuits as her son pulled out of the drive-up the day she opened the cup to put in the cream and sugar? No, she just wanted a cup of coffee.

Litigation, regulation… I heard GWB last night speak to a crowd in Wisconsin about the dangers of both. About the need to free companies of regulatory restrictions and free each and every one of us from frivolous litigation. I wonder what the hell he was talking about?

(*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of post title)

A cautionary tale about ham

I want to give a deferential nod to the power of lobbying efforts. You always imagine that in the higher echelons of the legislature, reason will prevail and no lobbyist will be able to convince a decision-maker that an apple is really an orange. But we should heed the lessons coming to us from Italy. Because there, it has been officially proclaimed that prosciutto (or for that matter its variations: prosciutto cotto (cooked) and crudo (raw), coppa, cotechino, guanciale, lardo, lonza, mortadella, pancetta, porchetta, salsiccia, salumi, spalla and speck) does not belong to the meat group. It stands alone, it is a category in its own right, it is a protected local product, enthusiastically handed to vegetarians requesting a meatless dish. (Read about it in the International Herald Tribune, here.)

If the Italians can convince each other that Parma ham is not a meat, then I fear we are nanoseconds (JK rules in his choice of words!) away from allowing ourselves to be convinced that GWB is indeed a steward of the land. The world is becoming a very complicated place indeed.

Nineteenth street pre-election diary*

19th and Broadway 

Listening to the news today, nineteen mornings before we hit the voting booths, I was dumbfounded to hear the Republican desperation as they cling still to an “L” theme (choice for today: Lesbian). I thought I myself had beaten the “L” issue to death in my most recent post. Indeed, GWB’s team is abandoning Love for Laura as, in spite of her strength as a woman, she appears not to be a strong enough ace in the deck to knock the wind out of the Kerry kitesurf as he stunningly careens his way to the lead after the last debate. Thus the search continues for an “L” replacement and for now, as panic sets in (you ‘lost’ three debates in a row, how could you lose three debates in a row??), the crazed desire to change the post-debate spin is ON!

Nineteen days and I am reminded of the lyrics to a Stones song. Were they anticipating this moment in time when indeed, the GWB campaign would lose it?

When you were a child
You were treated kind
But you were never brought up right.
You were always spoiled with a thousand toys
…
You better stop
Look around
Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, here it comes
Here comes your nineteenth nervous breakdown!

And what’s with the Fishs Eddy banner in the photo above? It’s a delightful store on 19th street (named after a small flyfishing town in the Catskills), selling American-made china, often salvaged from ocean liners, restaurants, or airlines, sometimes creatively designed just for today’s quirky buyer. They have an interesting home page on their website. Seemingly bi-partisan (but not really if you read it carefully -- and I apologize, I have yet to figure out how to phtograph a computer screen with a sharper resolution), they do indeed get their message across, in big bold orange blocks (lost in the photo is the line right below which reads Election Day is Tuesday November 2, 2004. MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!):

(*see “forty-second street pre-election diary” post, September 22, for explanation of post title)

Fishseddy.com: they want your sale, they also want you to vote