Tuesday, January 08, 2002
Friends, neighbors, good strangers, we salute you!
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
A paean of peace
This column offers its New Year respects, salutations and greetings to the neighbors, friends and strangers who come to mind at year-end. Many more greetings to come, God willing.
First and foremost, our respects to the 3,000 neighbors, including the 400 firemen, policemen and officers who were murdered by the kind of wanton villain the world has never seen before, and to President George W. Bush, his Washington command and the members of our Armed Forces who are making sure that we will never experience such villainy again.
To Rudy Giuliani, whom we hated to love, but ended up admiring. Be our worthy hero, continue to make us proud of you.
To the new NYC administration, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Public Advocate Betsy Greenbaum and Comptroller William C. Thompson. I have admired the inventor of the Bloomberg Box ever since I discovered one in my employer's Investment Department and was given the use of it after hours, for audit work. It was then a fantastic stepup from the simple electronic stock ticker, it offered stock and bond prices, histories, analyses and projections, a miracle of its day. Now we can get some of the above free of charge, for personal use, through Yahoo and other Internet services, but then... A man who could walk the idea of his invention out of Solomon Bros, implement it and sell the machines back to Solly will certainly be New York's Mayor for all seasons. Particularly in the season of the $4 billion crisis we are facing.
To Nicholas Scopetta, who at age 69 and after five hard years as the Commissioner of Administration for Children's Services will take on the task of rebuilding the terribly destroyed Fire Department, stay strong.
To Henry Stern, Commissioner of Parks and Recreation for 15 of the past 19 years, seven under Mayor Koch and eight under Mayor Giuliani. Happy landings, Starquest, you will be remembered.
To Dr Allen Chartock, Chairman of the WAMC Northeast Network, who forecasts that Rudy will form his own independent political party and win the 2004 Presidential election over Bush and Gore. He also predicts that Andrew Cuomo will see the inevitable and gracefully accept the designation of Lieutenant Governor candidate, leaving the top spot to Carl McCall. He is also big on put-ons.
Th Martha Stewart, who stacked up quite well in the battle of wits with the Car Talk boys (Tom and Ray Magliozzi) on Public Radio, offering tongue-in-cheek advice to callers, on such topics as ecologically sound decorations for wedding getaway cars (stick with the tin cans, rice on the road may be bad for the birds, might cause roadkill), use of the gas filter as a pastry flour sifter (no way), broiling chicken on a car manifold (it will work at fast speeds, over the distance of Las Vegas to LA, don't forget to split the bird to expedite the process, wrap it in vellum paper before the aluminum, to lessen the chances of Alzheimer's), and use of Mexican tile to decorate your dashboard.
To the workers at Ground Zero, and to Arlene Harrison and her stalwarts from Gramercy Park Block Association and everywhere else (Claudia Mayer, Lisa Anastasia, Jennifer Campbell, Katharine English and Kathleen Scup, to name a few), who have been feeding them, policemen, firemen, Ground Zero volunteers and now the Emergency Squad #1, ever since 9/11. Nearly 50 neighborhood restaurateurs have volunteered food, such as Beppe's, Mumbles, Sal Anthony's, Adriana's, the four Danny Meyer's places (some day I will mention you all, God bless), also the local churches, synagogues, Edwin Gould Foundation, CVS, Gramercy Park Hotel and more - you are all great.
To Rabbi Emeritus Irving J. Block , who pioneered in the fostering of coexistence between Muslims and Jews by having the late Imam Seif Ashmavy speak at the Brotherhood Synagogue during the first Intifada.
To New York Times, who as of 1/1/02 have turned the sports section right side up. I was getting a crick in the neck. Unlike their former Chief Editor Joseph Lelyveld, I cannot speed-read upside down.
To Vanity Fair magazine of the elegant prose, for eschewing the supermarket weeklies' topics, such as the misadventures of wealthy New York kid druggies who max out their indifferent parents' credit cards. Since 9/11 VF has concentrated on adult material. And to the New Yorker, who always had adult text; all they need now is greater cartoons.
To WNYC, New York's Public Radio station, who we hope will collect enough funds to revive its FM music station, which currently has taken over the afternoon air. WNYC's talk show afficionados are getting worn out by esoteric music. I'm sure the FM fans are equally bothered by our beloved politico-lit chatter. Love you anyway. LOL, :)
Finally, to Wystan Hugh. Auden (1907-73), who, 62 years ago, sitting in a dive, uncertain and afraid, cried over the expiry of the clever hopes of a low dishonest decade. He feared the arrival of waves of anger and fear, obsessing our private lives. As the odors of death offended the September air, and important persons spoke windy words, he saw hope only in loving one another. Men and women crave not universal love; they want to be loved alone. Under the ironic points of light through which the Just communicate, our poet wanted to show an affirming flame. Not a bad ambition, for all of us. The paraphrased words are from W. H. Auden's poem "September 1, 1939."
A paean of peace
This column offers its New Year respects, salutations and greetings to the neighbors, friends and strangers who come to mind at year-end. Many more greetings to come, God willing.
First and foremost, our respects to the 3,000 neighbors, including the 400 firemen, policemen and officers who were murdered by the kind of wanton villain the world has never seen before, and to President George W. Bush, his Washington command and the members of our Armed Forces who are making sure that we will never experience such villainy again.
To Rudy Giuliani, whom we hated to love, but ended up admiring. Be our worthy hero, continue to make us proud of you.
To the new NYC administration, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Public Advocate Betsy Greenbaum and Comptroller William C. Thompson. I have admired the inventor of the Bloomberg Box ever since I discovered one in my employer's Investment Department and was given the use of it after hours, for audit work. It was then a fantastic stepup from the simple electronic stock ticker, it offered stock and bond prices, histories, analyses and projections, a miracle of its day. Now we can get some of the above free of charge, for personal use, through Yahoo and other Internet services, but then... A man who could walk the idea of his invention out of Solomon Bros, implement it and sell the machines back to Solly will certainly be New York's Mayor for all seasons. Particularly in the season of the $4 billion crisis we are facing.
To Nicholas Scopetta, who at age 69 and after five hard years as the Commissioner of Administration for Children's Services will take on the task of rebuilding the terribly destroyed Fire Department, stay strong.
To Henry Stern, Commissioner of Parks and Recreation for 15 of the past 19 years, seven under Mayor Koch and eight under Mayor Giuliani. Happy landings, Starquest, you will be remembered.
To Dr Allen Chartock, Chairman of the WAMC Northeast Network, who forecasts that Rudy will form his own independent political party and win the 2004 Presidential election over Bush and Gore. He also predicts that Andrew Cuomo will see the inevitable and gracefully accept the designation of Lieutenant Governor candidate, leaving the top spot to Carl McCall. He is also big on put-ons.
Th Martha Stewart, who stacked up quite well in the battle of wits with the Car Talk boys (Tom and Ray Magliozzi) on Public Radio, offering tongue-in-cheek advice to callers, on such topics as ecologically sound decorations for wedding getaway cars (stick with the tin cans, rice on the road may be bad for the birds, might cause roadkill), use of the gas filter as a pastry flour sifter (no way), broiling chicken on a car manifold (it will work at fast speeds, over the distance of Las Vegas to LA, don't forget to split the bird to expedite the process, wrap it in vellum paper before the aluminum, to lessen the chances of Alzheimer's), and use of Mexican tile to decorate your dashboard.
To the workers at Ground Zero, and to Arlene Harrison and her stalwarts from Gramercy Park Block Association and everywhere else (Claudia Mayer, Lisa Anastasia, Jennifer Campbell, Katharine English and Kathleen Scup, to name a few), who have been feeding them, policemen, firemen, Ground Zero volunteers and now the Emergency Squad #1, ever since 9/11. Nearly 50 neighborhood restaurateurs have volunteered food, such as Beppe's, Mumbles, Sal Anthony's, Adriana's, the four Danny Meyer's places (some day I will mention you all, God bless), also the local churches, synagogues, Edwin Gould Foundation, CVS, Gramercy Park Hotel and more - you are all great.
To Rabbi Emeritus Irving J. Block , who pioneered in the fostering of coexistence between Muslims and Jews by having the late Imam Seif Ashmavy speak at the Brotherhood Synagogue during the first Intifada.
To New York Times, who as of 1/1/02 have turned the sports section right side up. I was getting a crick in the neck. Unlike their former Chief Editor Joseph Lelyveld, I cannot speed-read upside down.
To Vanity Fair magazine of the elegant prose, for eschewing the supermarket weeklies' topics, such as the misadventures of wealthy New York kid druggies who max out their indifferent parents' credit cards. Since 9/11 VF has concentrated on adult material. And to the New Yorker, who always had adult text; all they need now is greater cartoons.
To WNYC, New York's Public Radio station, who we hope will collect enough funds to revive its FM music station, which currently has taken over the afternoon air. WNYC's talk show afficionados are getting worn out by esoteric music. I'm sure the FM fans are equally bothered by our beloved politico-lit chatter. Love you anyway. LOL, :)
Finally, to Wystan Hugh. Auden (1907-73), who, 62 years ago, sitting in a dive, uncertain and afraid, cried over the expiry of the clever hopes of a low dishonest decade. He feared the arrival of waves of anger and fear, obsessing our private lives. As the odors of death offended the September air, and important persons spoke windy words, he saw hope only in loving one another. Men and women crave not universal love; they want to be loved alone. Under the ironic points of light through which the Just communicate, our poet wanted to show an affirming flame. Not a bad ambition, for all of us. The paraphrased words are from W. H. Auden's poem "September 1, 1939."
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 4:29 PM 
