Thursday, January 29, 2009
Kirsten Gillibrand, surprise US Senatorial choice
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The 2008 election year and its aftermath have focused on women in politics. We saw the rise and fall of Hillary Clinton, and her revival as probably the most powerful woman in the world, charged with the restoring of peace in the Middle East. Sarah Palin also briefly skyrocketed to fame, with an equally sudden downfall. In New York’s Senatorial contest, Caroline Kennedy was pushed to be the presumptive heiress to the Kennedy dynasty, but wisely resigned.
Our own Congresswoman, Carolyn Maloney, also sought the Senate post, and offered her years of of committee work and successful representation of the 14th CD in evidence . However, it appears that the coalition- minded Governor David Paterson, who had recently used his upstate connections to regain control of his runaway Senate Democrats, needed a senator to represent major upstate constituencies. He had another exceptional candidate, middle-of-the road Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand, who successfully overcame an 80,000 primary-voting Republican majority to win the Capitol District’s 17th CD in 2006 and 2008 for the Democrats, and, per Paul Begala, might well be our first woman President.
To begin with, let’s talk about her 100% NRA rating. She represents a huge district of 10 counties, over 200 miles in length, from fairly urban Dutchess through the agricultural Columbia, Rensselaer and Saratoga Counties, to Lake Placid. She lives in Greenport, in industry-poor Columbia County, where many farm people depend on the deer-hunting season for their protein. These are marginal agricultural communities of family farms, where at least one member must have a paid job, to provide steady cash income, and, if lucky, even health insurance. All members of the families often buy deer licenses, and fill the freezers with “deer meat” (the expensive venison on city restaurant menus is farm-bred). Here voting for gun control is viewed as politically suicidal as well as a disservice to the needs of the community. As to the supply of deer, these are sparsely populated counties, the Bambies overrun the corn fields, and regular and controlled harvesting of them is a social and economic necessity, insuring both the deer and the farms’ survival.
Born upstate, in a political family – her grandmother Dorothy “Polly” Noonan was a feminist, founder of Albany’s Democratic Women’s Club and friend and confidante to Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd (for 40-plus years, until 1983, the boss of Albany’s Democratic political machine); her mother Polly Noonan is a lawyer and politician. Her father Douglas Rutnick, a Democrat and a former public defendant, is an influential lobbyist, particularly with the Republican administration, who after his divorce was for 12 years the confidant of Zenia Mucha, known as “the Karl Rove of Sen. Alphonse D’Amato” and subsequently the spokesperson of Gov. George Pataki. At 39 Kirsten Gillibrand defeated four-term Republican Congressman and former Executive Director of NYS Republican Party, John E. Sweeney, and at 41 the former NYS Secretary of State, a GE millionaire heir, Alexander “Sandy” Treadwell, having her 2nd son Henry born in May 2008, amidst the political rigors. In 2009 she will be the youngest US senator.
Born in Albany, she attended the Academy of Holy Names and the Emma Willard School in Troy, an all-girls’ high school in Troy. At Dartmouth, young Kirsten, then known as Tina, graduated magna cum laude in Asian studies (she learned to speak and write Chinese, and spent a semester in China), then took her law degree at UCLA, in 1991, interning with Senator D’Amato and clerking with Judge Roger Minor of the 2nd Circular Court of Appeals. Moving on to Davis Polk & Wardwell, as an associate during 1995-99 she documented the case of Philip Morris (now Altria) well enough to earn their employees’ $17K campaign contribution (in Congress she consistently voted for anti-tobacco legislation). After working as Special Counsel for Secretary of the HUD Andrew Cuomo during the late Clinton years, she became a partner in the Boies, Schiller & Flexner firm, a litigation powerhouse (US v. Microsoft, Bush v. Gore).
Her NRA rating has earned her the opposition of Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband and son died in gun violence, but she has the approval of Sen. Schumer, another NRA opponent. Pres. Barack Obama, Secretary Hillary Clinton and Majority Leader Harry Reid support her appointment. As a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, she voted against the bank bailout but supported the GM/Chrysler package, and may have to compromise her principles in voting for the Obama economic stimulus package (she has already expressed approval of the NYS relief part).
The Senator is married to Jonathan Gillibrand, a venture capitalist who is British, and also has an older son, Theodore, age 5. She was on the Armed Services and Agriculture Committees, the latter particularly important for her constituency. I was impressed with her material, received from her office, when I inquired about her sponsoring wideband services for the Hudson Valley, important for small-scale technology and industrial development.
The 2008 election year and its aftermath have focused on women in politics. We saw the rise and fall of Hillary Clinton, and her revival as probably the most powerful woman in the world, charged with the restoring of peace in the Middle East. Sarah Palin also briefly skyrocketed to fame, with an equally sudden downfall. In New York’s Senatorial contest, Caroline Kennedy was pushed to be the presumptive heiress to the Kennedy dynasty, but wisely resigned.
Our own Congresswoman, Carolyn Maloney, also sought the Senate post, and offered her years of of committee work and successful representation of the 14th CD in evidence . However, it appears that the coalition- minded Governor David Paterson, who had recently used his upstate connections to regain control of his runaway Senate Democrats, needed a senator to represent major upstate constituencies. He had another exceptional candidate, middle-of-the road Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand, who successfully overcame an 80,000 primary-voting Republican majority to win the Capitol District’s 17th CD in 2006 and 2008 for the Democrats, and, per Paul Begala, might well be our first woman President.
To begin with, let’s talk about her 100% NRA rating. She represents a huge district of 10 counties, over 200 miles in length, from fairly urban Dutchess through the agricultural Columbia, Rensselaer and Saratoga Counties, to Lake Placid. She lives in Greenport, in industry-poor Columbia County, where many farm people depend on the deer-hunting season for their protein. These are marginal agricultural communities of family farms, where at least one member must have a paid job, to provide steady cash income, and, if lucky, even health insurance. All members of the families often buy deer licenses, and fill the freezers with “deer meat” (the expensive venison on city restaurant menus is farm-bred). Here voting for gun control is viewed as politically suicidal as well as a disservice to the needs of the community. As to the supply of deer, these are sparsely populated counties, the Bambies overrun the corn fields, and regular and controlled harvesting of them is a social and economic necessity, insuring both the deer and the farms’ survival.
Born upstate, in a political family – her grandmother Dorothy “Polly” Noonan was a feminist, founder of Albany’s Democratic Women’s Club and friend and confidante to Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd (for 40-plus years, until 1983, the boss of Albany’s Democratic political machine); her mother Polly Noonan is a lawyer and politician. Her father Douglas Rutnick, a Democrat and a former public defendant, is an influential lobbyist, particularly with the Republican administration, who after his divorce was for 12 years the confidant of Zenia Mucha, known as “the Karl Rove of Sen. Alphonse D’Amato” and subsequently the spokesperson of Gov. George Pataki. At 39 Kirsten Gillibrand defeated four-term Republican Congressman and former Executive Director of NYS Republican Party, John E. Sweeney, and at 41 the former NYS Secretary of State, a GE millionaire heir, Alexander “Sandy” Treadwell, having her 2nd son Henry born in May 2008, amidst the political rigors. In 2009 she will be the youngest US senator.
Born in Albany, she attended the Academy of Holy Names and the Emma Willard School in Troy, an all-girls’ high school in Troy. At Dartmouth, young Kirsten, then known as Tina, graduated magna cum laude in Asian studies (she learned to speak and write Chinese, and spent a semester in China), then took her law degree at UCLA, in 1991, interning with Senator D’Amato and clerking with Judge Roger Minor of the 2nd Circular Court of Appeals. Moving on to Davis Polk & Wardwell, as an associate during 1995-99 she documented the case of Philip Morris (now Altria) well enough to earn their employees’ $17K campaign contribution (in Congress she consistently voted for anti-tobacco legislation). After working as Special Counsel for Secretary of the HUD Andrew Cuomo during the late Clinton years, she became a partner in the Boies, Schiller & Flexner firm, a litigation powerhouse (US v. Microsoft, Bush v. Gore).
Her NRA rating has earned her the opposition of Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband and son died in gun violence, but she has the approval of Sen. Schumer, another NRA opponent. Pres. Barack Obama, Secretary Hillary Clinton and Majority Leader Harry Reid support her appointment. As a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition, she voted against the bank bailout but supported the GM/Chrysler package, and may have to compromise her principles in voting for the Obama economic stimulus package (she has already expressed approval of the NYS relief part).
The Senator is married to Jonathan Gillibrand, a venture capitalist who is British, and also has an older son, Theodore, age 5. She was on the Armed Services and Agriculture Committees, the latter particularly important for her constituency. I was impressed with her material, received from her office, when I inquired about her sponsoring wideband services for the Hudson Valley, important for small-scale technology and industrial development.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Best wishes for our Barack Obama Yes We Can team
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
At his inauguration on Tuesday, January 20, President Barack Obama promised swift action to deal with the huge problems his administration has inherited. To begin with, the stock marked gave immediate warning, with a Dow Jones Industrials drop of 4%, or 332 points , precipitated by the announcement from State Street Corp, everybody’s pension trust manager, of a $6.3B unrealized loss .
Once more, it brought into question the Paulsen/ Berneke TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) strategy of mid-2008 that set up a $700B fund to produce instant relief to the collapsed credit system, by spending $350B on bank equities and capital assets (mostly subprime mortgage tranches). It was approved by some conservative thinkers, Heritage Foundation, for one, as the initiative that avoided a catastrophic failure of the financial markets. To remind us, $168B went to 116 primary banks , $82B to smaller banks, $40B to AIG and $50 to Citigroup, not to omit the $136B for GM and Chrysler.
The remaining $350B were released by the Congress January 15,at the request of President Bust and under pressure from President-Elect Obama , to provide immediate stimulus funds for revival of the economy, both in direct payments and tax relief, with $50-100B to be applied immediately to avoid foreclosures.. At this point the stock market values were down 40% and unemployment had reached 7% .
This method of continued relief was objected to by conservative thinkers, such as Patrick Buchanan the free market critic, who accuses President Bush of losing 3M jobs in his first four years, another 1M in 2008, and of de-industrialization of the US, with growing dependence for essentials of life on Japan, China and other Asian countries, and for borrowing from the same countries to pay for the goods they supply.
Stimulus payments find critics in both parties, who remind us that President Bush’s $168B second term package was used by the recipients largely to repay credit card loans, strengthen savings and pay for Chinese-produced necessities in 99-cent stores. Further, the infrastructure strengthening activities – highway and bridge repairs - may well be dissipated in “pork” payments, such as administration costs. Monies passed to the 30-odd states in budget distress would reward sloth and not encourage painful basic changes in tax and administrative structure to remedy essential problem areas. Extensions on unemployment benefits are seen by the same critics as discouraging active job search.
Coming back to Buchanan, he advises tax relief and activities of the private industry as the basic Reaganesque solutions to the problems of economy. He recites facts of the Great Depression, such as the Crash of 1929, which by 1931 produced unemployment of 16% . By 1933 there was a stock market values drop of 89% , the GDP was down by 33%, unemployment was 25% and thousands of banks had closed . FDR was elected in 1932, and continued winning, virtually wiping out the GOP, but his Keynesian spending tactics – the New Deal that boosted employment through massive public works and established social support programs such as Social Security – did not turn the economy around. It took the war orders from the European allies in the 1930s and ‘40s to first bring the US industry back to life, followed by the US involvement in WWII . The national war effort all but eliminated unemployment, down to 1.9%. Buchanan compares FDR’s solutions to those of President Reagan, who in 1980 inherited Jimmy Carter’s stagflation of interest rates at 21% and inflation at 12%. Reagan brought in Paul Wolcker, who cut taxes, and turned around a 10% unemployment rate, bringing on an industrial boom and creating several million new jobs.
These analyses do not give adequate credit to President Obama’s bold actions. He sees a loss of jobs, savings and dreams deferred and defeated every day that we spend pointing fingers and dragging our feet, and wants instant action, starting the day after the Inauguration. Early in January the jobless benefit recipients’ count jumped to 4.6M, by 101K, highest since November 1982, and corporate income tax receipts fell by 41% in December, compared to a year earlier. Obama’s composite FDR/Reagan tactic, a stimulus package of $825B for two years, is the result of the thinking of a bipartisan team that includes Paul Wolcker. It concentrates on both spending and a tax cut, a methodology that will boost the deficit (projected by the Congressional Budget Office as $1.2B this year) and the $10.6B national debt. When FDR tried to balance the national debt in his second term, unemployment jumped from 14% to 19%. Obama cannot afford to raise the taxes to the wealthy; in fact, his heath care plan of $50-65B a year may have to wait . Obama’s new jobs tactic – 3M by 2011 - envisions building roads and bridges and other needed infrastructure, doubling alternative energy production in two years and improving energy efficiency in homes and business buildings (tough to stimulate investment if gas prices stay low), putting medical records on line in five years (watch the stifling privacy issue), expanding broadband throughout the US, equipping and improving education and investing in science, research and technology, at a cost of $1.3T. Our most sincere best wishes for his - and our – success.
A friend sends a message for anyone who is looking for temporary full time employment, with the US Census Bureau, now in full gear: http://www.2010censusjobs.gov or call 1-866-861-2010.
At his inauguration on Tuesday, January 20, President Barack Obama promised swift action to deal with the huge problems his administration has inherited. To begin with, the stock marked gave immediate warning, with a Dow Jones Industrials drop of 4%, or 332 points , precipitated by the announcement from State Street Corp, everybody’s pension trust manager, of a $6.3B unrealized loss .
Once more, it brought into question the Paulsen/ Berneke TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) strategy of mid-2008 that set up a $700B fund to produce instant relief to the collapsed credit system, by spending $350B on bank equities and capital assets (mostly subprime mortgage tranches). It was approved by some conservative thinkers, Heritage Foundation, for one, as the initiative that avoided a catastrophic failure of the financial markets. To remind us, $168B went to 116 primary banks , $82B to smaller banks, $40B to AIG and $50 to Citigroup, not to omit the $136B for GM and Chrysler.
The remaining $350B were released by the Congress January 15,at the request of President Bust and under pressure from President-Elect Obama , to provide immediate stimulus funds for revival of the economy, both in direct payments and tax relief, with $50-100B to be applied immediately to avoid foreclosures.. At this point the stock market values were down 40% and unemployment had reached 7% .
This method of continued relief was objected to by conservative thinkers, such as Patrick Buchanan the free market critic, who accuses President Bush of losing 3M jobs in his first four years, another 1M in 2008, and of de-industrialization of the US, with growing dependence for essentials of life on Japan, China and other Asian countries, and for borrowing from the same countries to pay for the goods they supply.
Stimulus payments find critics in both parties, who remind us that President Bush’s $168B second term package was used by the recipients largely to repay credit card loans, strengthen savings and pay for Chinese-produced necessities in 99-cent stores. Further, the infrastructure strengthening activities – highway and bridge repairs - may well be dissipated in “pork” payments, such as administration costs. Monies passed to the 30-odd states in budget distress would reward sloth and not encourage painful basic changes in tax and administrative structure to remedy essential problem areas. Extensions on unemployment benefits are seen by the same critics as discouraging active job search.
Coming back to Buchanan, he advises tax relief and activities of the private industry as the basic Reaganesque solutions to the problems of economy. He recites facts of the Great Depression, such as the Crash of 1929, which by 1931 produced unemployment of 16% . By 1933 there was a stock market values drop of 89% , the GDP was down by 33%, unemployment was 25% and thousands of banks had closed . FDR was elected in 1932, and continued winning, virtually wiping out the GOP, but his Keynesian spending tactics – the New Deal that boosted employment through massive public works and established social support programs such as Social Security – did not turn the economy around. It took the war orders from the European allies in the 1930s and ‘40s to first bring the US industry back to life, followed by the US involvement in WWII . The national war effort all but eliminated unemployment, down to 1.9%. Buchanan compares FDR’s solutions to those of President Reagan, who in 1980 inherited Jimmy Carter’s stagflation of interest rates at 21% and inflation at 12%. Reagan brought in Paul Wolcker, who cut taxes, and turned around a 10% unemployment rate, bringing on an industrial boom and creating several million new jobs.
These analyses do not give adequate credit to President Obama’s bold actions. He sees a loss of jobs, savings and dreams deferred and defeated every day that we spend pointing fingers and dragging our feet, and wants instant action, starting the day after the Inauguration. Early in January the jobless benefit recipients’ count jumped to 4.6M, by 101K, highest since November 1982, and corporate income tax receipts fell by 41% in December, compared to a year earlier. Obama’s composite FDR/Reagan tactic, a stimulus package of $825B for two years, is the result of the thinking of a bipartisan team that includes Paul Wolcker. It concentrates on both spending and a tax cut, a methodology that will boost the deficit (projected by the Congressional Budget Office as $1.2B this year) and the $10.6B national debt. When FDR tried to balance the national debt in his second term, unemployment jumped from 14% to 19%. Obama cannot afford to raise the taxes to the wealthy; in fact, his heath care plan of $50-65B a year may have to wait . Obama’s new jobs tactic – 3M by 2011 - envisions building roads and bridges and other needed infrastructure, doubling alternative energy production in two years and improving energy efficiency in homes and business buildings (tough to stimulate investment if gas prices stay low), putting medical records on line in five years (watch the stifling privacy issue), expanding broadband throughout the US, equipping and improving education and investing in science, research and technology, at a cost of $1.3T. Our most sincere best wishes for his - and our – success.
A friend sends a message for anyone who is looking for temporary full time employment, with the US Census Bureau, now in full gear: http://www.2010censusjobs.gov or call 1-866-861-2010.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Trip South reveals the country’s mood
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
If the kids have grown up and left, if you feel life is passing you by, get two kittens. As babies, they will be lovable and playful, after a year or so they will turn into perpetual teenagers. We love ours, although they make vacations difficult.
This winter, looking for warm weather in the Keys, we decided to drive again, down I-95. The economics dictated: the cats’ air fare would equal ours, gas was cheap, the car can be loaded full, insurance was in place, a minilease of an Impala cost about $1000 a month, all the more reason to take to the road. Besides, we would feel the pulse of America, cross-continent north to south.
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The first trick, though, was finding pet-tolerant motels. We gave up driving because only unclean doggy-smelling rooms were offered, but now times have changed. The Red Roof chain allows pets in all rooms, but it took research to space the trip around them. I want to drive less than 400 miles a day, before dark. The internet research was tricky, because the motel 800 operators don’t know what hostelries are on I-95, so you have to ask for specific towns. But it worked.
Our first stop was Richmond, VA 350 miles south on I-95, after an easy and nearly empty road trip through New Jersey and south. The thought occurred that people were saving money on turnpike tolls. The worrisome part was getting through Washington, DC. In past years Mapquest offered a through route via New York Ave., very confusing, but now it suggests I-495, the Beltway. You have to be sure to stay on it, as described in Mapquest’s cryptic ways, bearing left, and it will work. The room at the Red Roof Inn was simple and non-smelly, and I gladly cleaned my cats’ litterbox spills. For politics gossip, I failed, the motel ladies were too discreet, and at Chili’s, the breakfast place (we had sandwiches for the road, and were too tired for dinner) Obama was king. Gas station chat was different, my NJ $1.39 per gallon had turned to $1.65, and post election price rise was the cynics’ response.
Moving along on more crowded road, we came to the Florence, SC Red Roof Inn,arriving in a middle of a windstorm that overturned a maid’s wagon and spilled clean laundry all over the property. Had a fine dinner at a Red Lobster; again, Obama was the savior, until the morning, at the gas station, my remark about the $1.89 price brought on a tirade of N-words , offering expectations of a calamity in a Democrat world. But at the Shoney’s Big Boy, one of the South’s pleasures in all-you can eat breakfast buffets, with 60-odd choices, including grits, we overcame the feeling of disgust. The French toast and fruit helped, and the hospitable people.
Tired of Red Roof, 350 miles south we found a Quality Inn at St. Augustine accepting pets. The trick is to find state hotel guides at 7-11s and gas stations and to use the cell phone on the road. This was larger venue, with better amenities. A neighboring Shoney’s buffet breakfast at seniors’ rates was $3.79 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we observed a mixed race two-couple table across from us. Southern politesse prevailed: when one of the ladies returned from her visit to the buffet, both men got up and remained standing until the second lady came back. People would hold doors open and ask others to go ahead as a matter of routine.
Traffic was heavy after St. Augustine, when we switched to the shore-side US1, hoping to view the seaside communities on A1A, along the shoreline sliver island. We did it at Ormond Beach, before Daytona Beach, an actually drove on the sand for some 5 miles at 10 mph, admiring the white breakers and the wide dunes, populated by seagulls and some sweatshirt-robed freezing but persistent sunbathers and walkers. At Wilbur-on-the-Sea we left the dunes to back up and cross to mainland, heading towards astronaut land, Cocoa, and the legendary fish restaurant with low prices, Corky Bell’s.
Staying at a friends’ house in Port St. Lucie, we failed an early start because the cats decided to hide. Two hours were lost, but we got on the road, arriving in the Keys just after dark, having watched our first Florida sunset on the 20-mile land bridge.
If you want to know about popular morale, the working people down South complain a lot less than we northerners, although, when questioned, everybody knows of a job lost, or several. Hospitality workers seem somber, try to be super-polite, no snippiness. Food services and hostelries worry about continuance, but nobody chats, unless asked. Obama is an article of faith. Questions about Caroline Kennedy brought on shrugs, except from a Turkish tourist lady with a German passport, who seemed to know all about her. She liked Carolyn Maloney.
Job offer: A friend sends a message for anyone who is looking for temporary full time employment, with the US Census Bureau, now in full gear: http://www.2010censusjobs.gov or call 1-866-861-2010
If the kids have grown up and left, if you feel life is passing you by, get two kittens. As babies, they will be lovable and playful, after a year or so they will turn into perpetual teenagers. We love ours, although they make vacations difficult.
This winter, looking for warm weather in the Keys, we decided to drive again, down I-95. The economics dictated: the cats’ air fare would equal ours, gas was cheap, the car can be loaded full, insurance was in place, a minilease of an Impala cost about $1000 a month, all the more reason to take to the road. Besides, we would feel the pulse of America, cross-continent north to south.
\
The first trick, though, was finding pet-tolerant motels. We gave up driving because only unclean doggy-smelling rooms were offered, but now times have changed. The Red Roof chain allows pets in all rooms, but it took research to space the trip around them. I want to drive less than 400 miles a day, before dark. The internet research was tricky, because the motel 800 operators don’t know what hostelries are on I-95, so you have to ask for specific towns. But it worked.
Our first stop was Richmond, VA 350 miles south on I-95, after an easy and nearly empty road trip through New Jersey and south. The thought occurred that people were saving money on turnpike tolls. The worrisome part was getting through Washington, DC. In past years Mapquest offered a through route via New York Ave., very confusing, but now it suggests I-495, the Beltway. You have to be sure to stay on it, as described in Mapquest’s cryptic ways, bearing left, and it will work. The room at the Red Roof Inn was simple and non-smelly, and I gladly cleaned my cats’ litterbox spills. For politics gossip, I failed, the motel ladies were too discreet, and at Chili’s, the breakfast place (we had sandwiches for the road, and were too tired for dinner) Obama was king. Gas station chat was different, my NJ $1.39 per gallon had turned to $1.65, and post election price rise was the cynics’ response.
Moving along on more crowded road, we came to the Florence, SC Red Roof Inn,arriving in a middle of a windstorm that overturned a maid’s wagon and spilled clean laundry all over the property. Had a fine dinner at a Red Lobster; again, Obama was the savior, until the morning, at the gas station, my remark about the $1.89 price brought on a tirade of N-words , offering expectations of a calamity in a Democrat world. But at the Shoney’s Big Boy, one of the South’s pleasures in all-you can eat breakfast buffets, with 60-odd choices, including grits, we overcame the feeling of disgust. The French toast and fruit helped, and the hospitable people.
Tired of Red Roof, 350 miles south we found a Quality Inn at St. Augustine accepting pets. The trick is to find state hotel guides at 7-11s and gas stations and to use the cell phone on the road. This was larger venue, with better amenities. A neighboring Shoney’s buffet breakfast at seniors’ rates was $3.79 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we observed a mixed race two-couple table across from us. Southern politesse prevailed: when one of the ladies returned from her visit to the buffet, both men got up and remained standing until the second lady came back. People would hold doors open and ask others to go ahead as a matter of routine.
Traffic was heavy after St. Augustine, when we switched to the shore-side US1, hoping to view the seaside communities on A1A, along the shoreline sliver island. We did it at Ormond Beach, before Daytona Beach, an actually drove on the sand for some 5 miles at 10 mph, admiring the white breakers and the wide dunes, populated by seagulls and some sweatshirt-robed freezing but persistent sunbathers and walkers. At Wilbur-on-the-Sea we left the dunes to back up and cross to mainland, heading towards astronaut land, Cocoa, and the legendary fish restaurant with low prices, Corky Bell’s.
Staying at a friends’ house in Port St. Lucie, we failed an early start because the cats decided to hide. Two hours were lost, but we got on the road, arriving in the Keys just after dark, having watched our first Florida sunset on the 20-mile land bridge.
If you want to know about popular morale, the working people down South complain a lot less than we northerners, although, when questioned, everybody knows of a job lost, or several. Hospitality workers seem somber, try to be super-polite, no snippiness. Food services and hostelries worry about continuance, but nobody chats, unless asked. Obama is an article of faith. Questions about Caroline Kennedy brought on shrugs, except from a Turkish tourist lady with a German passport, who seemed to know all about her. She liked Carolyn Maloney.
Job offer: A friend sends a message for anyone who is looking for temporary full time employment, with the US Census Bureau, now in full gear: http://www.2010censusjobs.gov or call 1-866-861-2010
Labels: cat-friendly hotels, pet-friendly hotels, Quality Inn, Red Roof
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Best wishes, Barack Obama
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
At his inauguration on Tuesday, January 20, President Barack Obama promised swift action to deal with the huge problems his administration has inherited. To begin with, rhe stock marked gave immediate warning, with a Dow Jones Industrials drop of 4%, or 332 points , precipitated by tne announcement from State Street Corp, everybody’s pension trust manager, of a $6.3B unrealized loss .
Once more, it brought into question the Paulsen/ Berneke TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Progtam) strategy of of mid-2008 that set up a $700B fund to produce instant relief to the collapsed credit system, by spending $350B on bank bank equities and capital assets (mostly subprime mortgage tranches). It was approved by sauch conservative thinkers a sthe heritage Foundation as the initiative that acoided a catastrophic failure of the financial markets. To remind us, $168B went to 116 primary banks , $82B to smaller bamnks, $40B to AIG and $50 to Citigroup, not to omi the $136B for GM and Chrysler.
The remaining $350B were released by the Congress January 15,at the request of President Bust and under pressure from President-Elect Obama , to provide immediate stimulus funds for revival of the economy, both in direct payments and tax relief, with $50-100B to be applied immediately to avoid foreclosures.. At this point the stock market values were down 40% and unemployment had reached 7% .
This method of continued relief was objected to by conservative thinkers, such as Patrick Buchanan the free market critic, who accuses President Bush of losing 3M jobs in his first four years, another 1M in 2008, and of de-industislization of the US, with growing dependence for essentials of life on Japan, China and other Asian countries, and for borrowing from the same countries fo pay for the goods they supply.
Stimulus payments find critics in both parties, who remind us that President Bush’s $168B second term package was used by the recipients largely to repay credit card loans, strengthen savings and pay for Chinese-produced necessities in 99-cent stores. Further, the infrastructure strengthening activities – highway and bridge repairs - may well be dissipated in “pork” paymrents, such as administration costs. Monies passed to the 30-odd states in budget distress would reward sloth and not encourage painful basic changes in tax and administrative structure to remedy essential problem areas. Extensions on unemployment benefits are seen by the same critics as discouraging active job search.
Coming back to Buchanan, he advises tax relief and activities of the private industry as the basic Reaganesque solutions to the problems of economy. He recites facts of the Great Depression, such as the Crash of 1929, which by 1931 produced unemployment of 16% . By 1933 there was a stock market values drop of 89% , the GDP was down by 33%, unemployment was 25% and thousands of banks had closed . FDR was elected in 1932, and continued winning, virtually wiping out the GOP, but his Keynesian spending tactics – the New Deal that boosted employment through massive public works and established social support programs such as Social Security – did not turn the economy around. It took the war orders from the European allies in the 1930s and ‘40s to first bring the US industry back to life, followed by the US involvement in WWII . The national war effort all but eliminated unemployment, down to 1.9%. Buchanan compares FDR’s solutions to those of President Reagan, who in 1980 inherited Jimmy Carter’s stagflation of interest rates at 21% and inflation at 12%. Reagan brpught in Paul Wolcker, who cut taxes, and turned around a 10% unemployment rate, bringing on an industrial boom and creating 20M new jobs.
These analyses do not give adequate credit to President Obama’s bold actions. He sees a loss of jobs, savings and dreams deferred and defeated every day that we spend pointing fingers and dragging our feet., and wants instant action starting the day after the Inauguration. Early in January the jobless benefit recipients count jumped frto 4.6M, by 101K, highest since November 1982., and corporate income tax receipts fell by 41% in December, compared to a year earlier. Obama’s composite FDR/Reagan tactic, a stimulus package of $800B for two years, is the result of the thinking of a bipartisan team that includes Paul Wolcker. It concentrates on both spending and a tax cut, a methodology that will boost the deficit (projected by the Congressional Budget Office as $1.2B this year) and the $10.6B national debt. When FDR tried to balance the national debt in his second term, unemployment jumped fron 14% to 19%. Ogama cannot afford to raise the taxes to the wealthy; in fact, his heath care plan of $50-65B a year may have to wait . Obama’s new jobs tactic – 3M by 2011 - envisions building roads and bridges and other needed infrastructure, doubling alternative energy production in two years and improving energy efficiency in homes and business buildings (tough to stimulate investment if gas prices stay low), putting medical records on line in five years (watch the stifling privacy issue), expanding broadband throughout the US, equipping and improving education and investing in science, research and technology, at a cost of $1.3T. Our our most sincere best wishes for his - and our – success.
At his inauguration on Tuesday, January 20, President Barack Obama promised swift action to deal with the huge problems his administration has inherited. To begin with, rhe stock marked gave immediate warning, with a Dow Jones Industrials drop of 4%, or 332 points , precipitated by tne announcement from State Street Corp, everybody’s pension trust manager, of a $6.3B unrealized loss .
Once more, it brought into question the Paulsen/ Berneke TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Progtam) strategy of of mid-2008 that set up a $700B fund to produce instant relief to the collapsed credit system, by spending $350B on bank bank equities and capital assets (mostly subprime mortgage tranches). It was approved by sauch conservative thinkers a sthe heritage Foundation as the initiative that acoided a catastrophic failure of the financial markets. To remind us, $168B went to 116 primary banks , $82B to smaller bamnks, $40B to AIG and $50 to Citigroup, not to omi the $136B for GM and Chrysler.
The remaining $350B were released by the Congress January 15,at the request of President Bust and under pressure from President-Elect Obama , to provide immediate stimulus funds for revival of the economy, both in direct payments and tax relief, with $50-100B to be applied immediately to avoid foreclosures.. At this point the stock market values were down 40% and unemployment had reached 7% .
This method of continued relief was objected to by conservative thinkers, such as Patrick Buchanan the free market critic, who accuses President Bush of losing 3M jobs in his first four years, another 1M in 2008, and of de-industislization of the US, with growing dependence for essentials of life on Japan, China and other Asian countries, and for borrowing from the same countries fo pay for the goods they supply.
Stimulus payments find critics in both parties, who remind us that President Bush’s $168B second term package was used by the recipients largely to repay credit card loans, strengthen savings and pay for Chinese-produced necessities in 99-cent stores. Further, the infrastructure strengthening activities – highway and bridge repairs - may well be dissipated in “pork” paymrents, such as administration costs. Monies passed to the 30-odd states in budget distress would reward sloth and not encourage painful basic changes in tax and administrative structure to remedy essential problem areas. Extensions on unemployment benefits are seen by the same critics as discouraging active job search.
Coming back to Buchanan, he advises tax relief and activities of the private industry as the basic Reaganesque solutions to the problems of economy. He recites facts of the Great Depression, such as the Crash of 1929, which by 1931 produced unemployment of 16% . By 1933 there was a stock market values drop of 89% , the GDP was down by 33%, unemployment was 25% and thousands of banks had closed . FDR was elected in 1932, and continued winning, virtually wiping out the GOP, but his Keynesian spending tactics – the New Deal that boosted employment through massive public works and established social support programs such as Social Security – did not turn the economy around. It took the war orders from the European allies in the 1930s and ‘40s to first bring the US industry back to life, followed by the US involvement in WWII . The national war effort all but eliminated unemployment, down to 1.9%. Buchanan compares FDR’s solutions to those of President Reagan, who in 1980 inherited Jimmy Carter’s stagflation of interest rates at 21% and inflation at 12%. Reagan brpught in Paul Wolcker, who cut taxes, and turned around a 10% unemployment rate, bringing on an industrial boom and creating 20M new jobs.
These analyses do not give adequate credit to President Obama’s bold actions. He sees a loss of jobs, savings and dreams deferred and defeated every day that we spend pointing fingers and dragging our feet., and wants instant action starting the day after the Inauguration. Early in January the jobless benefit recipients count jumped frto 4.6M, by 101K, highest since November 1982., and corporate income tax receipts fell by 41% in December, compared to a year earlier. Obama’s composite FDR/Reagan tactic, a stimulus package of $800B for two years, is the result of the thinking of a bipartisan team that includes Paul Wolcker. It concentrates on both spending and a tax cut, a methodology that will boost the deficit (projected by the Congressional Budget Office as $1.2B this year) and the $10.6B national debt. When FDR tried to balance the national debt in his second term, unemployment jumped fron 14% to 19%. Ogama cannot afford to raise the taxes to the wealthy; in fact, his heath care plan of $50-65B a year may have to wait . Obama’s new jobs tactic – 3M by 2011 - envisions building roads and bridges and other needed infrastructure, doubling alternative energy production in two years and improving energy efficiency in homes and business buildings (tough to stimulate investment if gas prices stay low), putting medical records on line in five years (watch the stifling privacy issue), expanding broadband throughout the US, equipping and improving education and investing in science, research and technology, at a cost of $1.3T. Our our most sincere best wishes for his - and our – success.
Trip south on I-95 reveals the country’s mood
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
If the kids have grown up and left, if you feel life is passing you by, get two kittens. As babies, they will be lovable and playful, after a year or so they will turn into perpetual teenagers. We love ours, although they make vacations difficult.
This winter, looking for warm weather in the Keys, we decided to drive again, down I-95. The economics dictated: the cats’ air fare would equal ours, gas was cheap, the car can be loaded full, insurance was in place, a minilease of an Impala cost about $1000 a month, all the more reason to take to the road. Besides, we would feel the pulse of America, cross-continent north to south.
\
The first trick, though, was finding pet-tolerant motels. We gave up driving because only unclean doggy-smelling rooms were offered, but now times have changed. The Red Roof chain allows pets in all rooms, but it took research to space the trip around them. I want to drive less than 400 miles a day, before dark. The internet research was tricky, because the motel 800 operators don’t know what hostelries are on I-95, so you have to ask for specific towns. But it worked.
Our first stop was Richmond, VA 350 miles south on I-95, after an easy and nearly empty road trip through New Jersey and south. The thought occurred that people were saving money on turnpike tolls. The worrisome part was getting through Washington, DC. In past years Mapquest offered a through route via New York Ave., very confusing, but now it suggests I-495, the Beltway. You have to be sure to stay on it, as described in Mapquest’s cryptic ways, bearing left, and it will work. The room was simple and non-smelly, and I gladly cleaned my cats’ litterbox spills. For politics gossip, I failed, the motel ladies were too discreet, and at Chili’s, the breakfast place (we had sandwiches for the road, and were too tired for dinner) Obama was king. Gas station chat was different, my NJ $1.39 per gallon had turned to $1.65, and post election price rise was the cynics’ response.
Moving along on more crowded road, we came to Florence, SC, arriving in a middle of a windstorm that overturned a maid’s wagon and spilled clean laundry all over the property. Had a fine dinner at a Red Lobster; again, Obama was the savior, until the morning, at the gas station, my remark about the $1.89 price brought on a tirade of N-words , offering expectations of a calamity in a Democrat world. But at the Shoney’s Big Boy, one of the South’s pleasures in all-you can eat breakfast buffets, with 60-odd choices, including grits, we overcame the feeling of disgust. The French toast and fruit helped, and the hospitable people.
Tired of Red Roof, 350 miles south we found a Quality Inn at St. Augustine accepting pets. The trick is to find state hotel guides at 7-11s and gas stations and to use the cell phone on the road. This was larger venue, with better amenities. A neighboring Shoney’s buffet breakfast at seniors’ rates was $3.79 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we observed a mixed race two-couple table across from us. Southern politesse prevailed: when one of the ladies returned from her visit to the buffet, both men got up and remained standing until the second lady came back. People would hold doors open and ask others to go ahead as a matter of routine.
Traffic was heavy after St. Augustine, when we switched to the shore-side US1, hoping to view the seaside communities on A1A, along the shoreline sliver island. We did it at Ormond Beach, before Daytona Beach, an actually drove on the sand for some 5 miles at 10 mph, admiring the white breakers and the wide dunes, populated by seagulls and some sweatshirt-robed freezing but persistent sunbathers and walkers. At Wilbur-on-the-Sea we left the dunes to back up and cross to mainland, heading towards astronaut land, Cocoa, and the legendary fish restaurant with low prices, Corky Bell’s.
Staying at a friends’ house in Port St. Lucie, we failed an early start because the cats decided to hide. Two hours were lost, but we got on the road, arriving in the Keys just after dark, having watched our first Florida sunset on the 20-mile land bridge.
If you want to know about popular morale, the working people down South complain a lot less than we northerners, although, when questioned, everybody knows of a job lost, or several. Hospitality workers seem somber, try to be super-polite, no snippiness. Food services and hostelries worry about continuance, but nobody chats, unless asked. Obama is an article of faith. Questions about Caroline Kennedy brought on shrugs, except from a Turkish tourist lady with a German passport, who seemed to know all about her. She liked Carolyn Maloney.
Job offer: A friend sends a message for anyone who is looking for temporary full time employment, with the US Census Bureau, now in full gear: http://www.2010censusjobs.gov or call 1-866-861-2010
If the kids have grown up and left, if you feel life is passing you by, get two kittens. As babies, they will be lovable and playful, after a year or so they will turn into perpetual teenagers. We love ours, although they make vacations difficult.
This winter, looking for warm weather in the Keys, we decided to drive again, down I-95. The economics dictated: the cats’ air fare would equal ours, gas was cheap, the car can be loaded full, insurance was in place, a minilease of an Impala cost about $1000 a month, all the more reason to take to the road. Besides, we would feel the pulse of America, cross-continent north to south.
\
The first trick, though, was finding pet-tolerant motels. We gave up driving because only unclean doggy-smelling rooms were offered, but now times have changed. The Red Roof chain allows pets in all rooms, but it took research to space the trip around them. I want to drive less than 400 miles a day, before dark. The internet research was tricky, because the motel 800 operators don’t know what hostelries are on I-95, so you have to ask for specific towns. But it worked.
Our first stop was Richmond, VA 350 miles south on I-95, after an easy and nearly empty road trip through New Jersey and south. The thought occurred that people were saving money on turnpike tolls. The worrisome part was getting through Washington, DC. In past years Mapquest offered a through route via New York Ave., very confusing, but now it suggests I-495, the Beltway. You have to be sure to stay on it, as described in Mapquest’s cryptic ways, bearing left, and it will work. The room was simple and non-smelly, and I gladly cleaned my cats’ litterbox spills. For politics gossip, I failed, the motel ladies were too discreet, and at Chili’s, the breakfast place (we had sandwiches for the road, and were too tired for dinner) Obama was king. Gas station chat was different, my NJ $1.39 per gallon had turned to $1.65, and post election price rise was the cynics’ response.
Moving along on more crowded road, we came to Florence, SC, arriving in a middle of a windstorm that overturned a maid’s wagon and spilled clean laundry all over the property. Had a fine dinner at a Red Lobster; again, Obama was the savior, until the morning, at the gas station, my remark about the $1.89 price brought on a tirade of N-words , offering expectations of a calamity in a Democrat world. But at the Shoney’s Big Boy, one of the South’s pleasures in all-you can eat breakfast buffets, with 60-odd choices, including grits, we overcame the feeling of disgust. The French toast and fruit helped, and the hospitable people.
Tired of Red Roof, 350 miles south we found a Quality Inn at St. Augustine accepting pets. The trick is to find state hotel guides at 7-11s and gas stations and to use the cell phone on the road. This was larger venue, with better amenities. A neighboring Shoney’s buffet breakfast at seniors’ rates was $3.79 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we observed a mixed race two-couple table across from us. Southern politesse prevailed: when one of the ladies returned from her visit to the buffet, both men got up and remained standing until the second lady came back. People would hold doors open and ask others to go ahead as a matter of routine.
Traffic was heavy after St. Augustine, when we switched to the shore-side US1, hoping to view the seaside communities on A1A, along the shoreline sliver island. We did it at Ormond Beach, before Daytona Beach, an actually drove on the sand for some 5 miles at 10 mph, admiring the white breakers and the wide dunes, populated by seagulls and some sweatshirt-robed freezing but persistent sunbathers and walkers. At Wilbur-on-the-Sea we left the dunes to back up and cross to mainland, heading towards astronaut land, Cocoa, and the legendary fish restaurant with low prices, Corky Bell’s.
Staying at a friends’ house in Port St. Lucie, we failed an early start because the cats decided to hide. Two hours were lost, but we got on the road, arriving in the Keys just after dark, having watched our first Florida sunset on the 20-mile land bridge.
If you want to know about popular morale, the working people down South complain a lot less than we northerners, although, when questioned, everybody knows of a job lost, or several. Hospitality workers seem somber, try to be super-polite, no snippiness. Food services and hostelries worry about continuance, but nobody chats, unless asked. Obama is an article of faith. Questions about Caroline Kennedy brought on shrugs, except from a Turkish tourist lady with a German passport, who seemed to know all about her. She liked Carolyn Maloney.
Job offer: A friend sends a message for anyone who is looking for temporary full time employment, with the US Census Bureau, now in full gear: http://www.2010censusjobs.gov or call 1-866-861-2010
Travel weith kittens; Trip south reveals the country’s mood
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
If the kids have grown up and left, if you feel life is passing you by, get two kittens. As babies, they will be lovable and playful, after a year or so they will turn into perpetual teenagers. We love ours, although they make vacations difficult.
This winter, looking for warm weather in the Keys, we decided to drive again, down I-95. The economics dictated: the cats’ air fare would equal ours, gas was cheap, the car can be loaded full, insurance was in place, a minilease of an Impala cost about $1000 a month, all the more reason to take to the road. Besides, we would feel the pulse of America, cross-continent north to south.
\
The first trick, though, was finding pet-tolerant motels. We gave up driving because only unclean doggy-smelling rooms were offered, but now times have changed. The Red Roof chain allows pets in all rooms, but it took research to space the trip around them. I want to drive less than 400 miles a day, before dark. The internet research was tricky, because the motel 800 operators don’t know what hostelries are on I-95, so you have to ask for specific towns. But it worked.
Our first stop was Richmond, VA 350 miles south on I-95, after an easy and nearly empty road trip through New Jersey and south. The thought occurred that people were saving money on turnpike tolls. The worrisome part was getting through Washington, DC. In past years Mapquest offered a through route via New York Ave., very confusing, but now it suggests I-495, the Beltway. You have to be sure to stay on it, as described in Mapquest’s cryptic ways, bearing left, and it will work. The room was simple and non-smelly, and I gladly cleaned my cats’ litterbox spills. For politics gossip, I failed, the motel ladies were too discreet, and at Chili’s, the breakfast place (we had sandwiches for the road, and were too tired for dinner) Obama was king. Gas station chat was different, my NJ $1.39 per gallon had turned to $1.65, and post election price rise was the cynics’ response.
Moving along on more crowded road, we came to Florence, SC, arriving in a middle of a windstorm that overturned a maid’s wagon and spilled clean laundry all over the property. Had a fine dinner at a Red Lobster; again, Obama was the savior, until the morning, at the gas station, my remark about the $1.89 price brought on a tirade of N-words , offering expectations of a calamity in a Democrat world. But at the Shoney’s Big Boy, one of the South’s pleasures in all-you can eat breakfast buffets, with 60-odd choices, including grits, we overcame the feeling of disgust. The French toast and fruit helped, and the hospitable people.
Tired of Red Roof, 350 miles south we found a Quality Inn at St. Augustine accepting pets. The trick is to find state hotel guides at 7-11s and gas stations and to use the cell phone on the road. This was larger venue, with better amenities. A neighboring Shoney’s buffet breakfast at seniors’ rates was $3.79 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we observed a mixed race two-couple table across from us. Southern politesse prevailed: when one of the ladies returned from her visit to the buffet, both men got up and remained standing until the second lady came back. People would hold doors open and ask others to go ahead as a matter of routine.
Traffic was heavy after St. Augustine, when we switched to the shore-side US1, hoping to view the seaside communities on A1A, along the shoreline sliver island. We did it at Ormond Beach, before Daytona Beach, an actually drove on the sand for some 5 miles at 10 mph, admiring the white breakers and the wide dunes, populated by seagulls and some sweatshirt-robed freezing but persistent sunbathers and walkers. At Wilbur-on-the-Sea we left the dunes to back up and cross to mainland, heading towards astronaut land, Cocoa, and the legendary fish restaurant with low prices, Corky Bell’s.
Staying at a friends’ house in Port St. Lucie, we failed an early start because the cats decided to hide. Two hours were lost, but we got on the road, arriving in the Keys just after dark, having watched our first Florida sunset on the 20-mile land bridge.
If you want to know about popular morale, the working people down South complain a lot less than we northerners, although, when questioned, everybody knows of a job lost, or several. Hospitality workers seem somber, try to be super-polite, no snippiness. Food services and hostelries worry about continuance, but nobody chats, unless asked. Obama is an article of faith. Questions about Caroline Kennedy brought on shrugs, except from a Turkish tourist lady with a German passport, who seemed to know all about her. She liked Carolyn Maloney.
Job offer: A friend sends a message for anyone who is looking for temporary full time employment, with the US Census Bureau, now in full gear: http://www.2010censusjobs.gov or call 1-866-861-2010
If the kids have grown up and left, if you feel life is passing you by, get two kittens. As babies, they will be lovable and playful, after a year or so they will turn into perpetual teenagers. We love ours, although they make vacations difficult.
This winter, looking for warm weather in the Keys, we decided to drive again, down I-95. The economics dictated: the cats’ air fare would equal ours, gas was cheap, the car can be loaded full, insurance was in place, a minilease of an Impala cost about $1000 a month, all the more reason to take to the road. Besides, we would feel the pulse of America, cross-continent north to south.
\
The first trick, though, was finding pet-tolerant motels. We gave up driving because only unclean doggy-smelling rooms were offered, but now times have changed. The Red Roof chain allows pets in all rooms, but it took research to space the trip around them. I want to drive less than 400 miles a day, before dark. The internet research was tricky, because the motel 800 operators don’t know what hostelries are on I-95, so you have to ask for specific towns. But it worked.
Our first stop was Richmond, VA 350 miles south on I-95, after an easy and nearly empty road trip through New Jersey and south. The thought occurred that people were saving money on turnpike tolls. The worrisome part was getting through Washington, DC. In past years Mapquest offered a through route via New York Ave., very confusing, but now it suggests I-495, the Beltway. You have to be sure to stay on it, as described in Mapquest’s cryptic ways, bearing left, and it will work. The room was simple and non-smelly, and I gladly cleaned my cats’ litterbox spills. For politics gossip, I failed, the motel ladies were too discreet, and at Chili’s, the breakfast place (we had sandwiches for the road, and were too tired for dinner) Obama was king. Gas station chat was different, my NJ $1.39 per gallon had turned to $1.65, and post election price rise was the cynics’ response.
Moving along on more crowded road, we came to Florence, SC, arriving in a middle of a windstorm that overturned a maid’s wagon and spilled clean laundry all over the property. Had a fine dinner at a Red Lobster; again, Obama was the savior, until the morning, at the gas station, my remark about the $1.89 price brought on a tirade of N-words , offering expectations of a calamity in a Democrat world. But at the Shoney’s Big Boy, one of the South’s pleasures in all-you can eat breakfast buffets, with 60-odd choices, including grits, we overcame the feeling of disgust. The French toast and fruit helped, and the hospitable people.
Tired of Red Roof, 350 miles south we found a Quality Inn at St. Augustine accepting pets. The trick is to find state hotel guides at 7-11s and gas stations and to use the cell phone on the road. This was larger venue, with better amenities. A neighboring Shoney’s buffet breakfast at seniors’ rates was $3.79 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we observed a mixed race two-couple table across from us. Southern politesse prevailed: when one of the ladies returned from her visit to the buffet, both men got up and remained standing until the second lady came back. People would hold doors open and ask others to go ahead as a matter of routine.
Traffic was heavy after St. Augustine, when we switched to the shore-side US1, hoping to view the seaside communities on A1A, along the shoreline sliver island. We did it at Ormond Beach, before Daytona Beach, an actually drove on the sand for some 5 miles at 10 mph, admiring the white breakers and the wide dunes, populated by seagulls and some sweatshirt-robed freezing but persistent sunbathers and walkers. At Wilbur-on-the-Sea we left the dunes to back up and cross to mainland, heading towards astronaut land, Cocoa, and the legendary fish restaurant with low prices, Corky Bell’s.
Staying at a friends’ house in Port St. Lucie, we failed an early start because the cats decided to hide. Two hours were lost, but we got on the road, arriving in the Keys just after dark, having watched our first Florida sunset on the 20-mile land bridge.
If you want to know about popular morale, the working people down South complain a lot less than we northerners, although, when questioned, everybody knows of a job lost, or several. Hospitality workers seem somber, try to be super-polite, no snippiness. Food services and hostelries worry about continuance, but nobody chats, unless asked. Obama is an article of faith. Questions about Caroline Kennedy brought on shrugs, except from a Turkish tourist lady with a German passport, who seemed to know all about her. She liked Carolyn Maloney.
Job offer: A friend sends a message for anyone who is looking for temporary full time employment, with the US Census Bureau, now in full gear: http://www.2010censusjobs.gov or call 1-866-861-2010
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Former Guardian Life Annex on East 17th Street finally landmarked
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Former Guardian Life Annex finally landmarked
The building known as the Guardian Life Annex, a sleek glass structure among 19th Century row houses on East 17th Street, east of Park Avenue South, has been the subject of controversy ever since its inception in 1959. While nestled against a 20-story skyscraper, described by the AIA Guide to NYC as a "mansarded…Renaissance Revival marvel," which was until 1999 Guardian Life Insurance Company's Tower Building, anchoring Union Square’s northeast corner, the stark contrast of the glass-walled Annex to the area of low-facade buildings was successfully blunted by its four-story height and a tree line, melding with the red brick Anglo-Italianate residences across the street.
The 1911 corner Tower Building, designed by D’Oench and Yost, was designated a NYC landmark in 1975, and now its offspring has finally acquired the same mark of distinction. In its November 18 2008 meeting, the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission has admitted the Annex to the ranks of New York's landmarks.
The Annex, built to help the company consolidate its expanding offices, was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, (somewhat reflecting their Pepsi-Cola Building, 1960, Park & 59th Street), specifically by SOM’s partners, Robert F. Cutler, Roy O. Allen and Roger Radford. Whether SOM's star was Gordon Bunshaft of Lever House fame
had anything to do with the Annex is moot; critic Paul Goldberger called its style Miesian (after Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, designer of the Seagram Building, 1958, across from Lever House).
At the time neighborhood criticism of the anachronistic structure abounded; now time and local modern high-rises constructions have modified our attitudes, as evidenced in the documents presented at the hearing before the Landmarks Preservation Commission of April 10, 2007, held to consider an individual designation for the former Guardian Annex. Note that Guardian Life itself, expanding further, has since moved downtown to Hanover Place, and the Tower has morphed into a stylish W New York Union Square Hotel, while the Annex, after a short term as a dot.com known as March First, is now the headquarters of Zurich American Reinsurance.
Talking about a landmarks designation elicits strong feelings among New Yorkers. Some of us consider landmarking, with its restrictions on changes, an encroachment on personal property rights. It is not an absolute standard, even the strictest constitutionalist will accept the designation of the Roman Forum as a landmark and reject turning New York into a sunless canyon of skyscrapers; it is the drawing of the line that presents the problem.
Surprisingly, at the April 2007 public designation hearing the prevailing testimonials were in favor of landmarking the Annex building. Presumably the low zoning for the area, and the 17th Street /Irving Place Historic District designation had something to do with it; even the representative of the management of the property, Related Companies, had no objections.
Strong support for the designation came from Union Square Community Coalition, with Jack Taylor relating how the organization has sought protection for the Guardian Life Annex since 1997, with the aid preservationist groups, public officials and many residents. Nordal McWethy, President of Gramercy Neighborhood Associates, and local architect Frank Nicoletti identified it as one of the finest examples of urban infill structure. In a similar vein, Maggie Hartnick of DOCOMOMO US (an international preservationist organization founded in the Netherlands in 1988) commented on its elegance.
It was noted that the building represented really advanced concepts of the era. There were work-saving innovations for the then new computer era, anticipating needs of flexibility – liftable floor panels for easy electric installations, large open areas with movable partitions, with privacy provided by high acoustic ceilings with fluorescent lighting, novelties that today we take for granted. Given this quality of support, one expected that the designation would proceed without fail. Actually it took 20 months. The designation document reflects the thorough research and analysis by Matthew Postal of the Commission.
The Guardian Life Annex building cornerstone ceremony for the Annex building, on July 20, 1960, with Mayor Robert F. Wagner as the guest speaker, The thought was offered that Guardian Life, founded by liberal German refugees, represented the spirit of Union Square. Yet within the next decades the mutual life insurer (i.e. there are no stockholders drawing dividends; insurance gains are distributed to policyholders), having entered the group insurance and employee benefit coverage fields for small and midsize companies, experienced a tenfold increase in staff and had built satellite home offices in Bethlehem, PA, Appleton WI and Spokane WA. By 1992 the assets had grown to $8B and the New York staff to 1,255, and expansion was in the winds. Space in White Plains and New Rochelle was offered and rejected, and in 1999 Guardian Life returned to the Wall Street area where it was founded in 1860, at 7 Hanover Square (by Norman Jaffe, 1983). Today the mutual company’s assets under management have grown to the over $30B range, and it has announced an unprecedented (for this economic climate) 2009 dividend increase to its policyholders.
col 1/15/09
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Israelis expect a rapid settlement of war, per Dr. Paranoia
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Dr. Paranoia writes:
The whole Gaza affair, Israel’s defense against the rocket attacks by Hamas from the Gaza Strip (since the 2005 turnover, with a minimal reduction during the six-months’ cease fire) has the friends of Israel highly worried.
But Israel is not without resources, and has hopes for forcing a settlement, states an Israeli correspondent reporting on attitudes in Jerusalem, on the day of Israel’s incursion in Gaza. Israel was not sanguine about the six-month cease-fire negotiated by Egypt that Hamas lapsed just days ago, with barrages of rockets. Israel expected that Hamas would use the six months to build tunnels and underground bunkers, in preparation of a provocation that would force Israel to start air attacks, to protect about one million Israelites from the rockets coming from bunkers hidden among Gaza’s general population. The objective of the provocation appears to be to portray Israel as genocidal, and force the world’s opinion to act, perhaps to attack Israel. It must be remembered that Hamas’ prime objective is to push Israel out of existence.
The Israeli hope was that Egypt and Jordan, countries that fully recognize the dangers to their own regimes emanating from Hamas, an ally of the Muslims Brotherhood (forbidden in Egypt), might intervene and slow down the terrorists, who depend on “secret tunnels” along Gaza’s border with Egypt for their supplies. Apparently fearful of anger from their own people about the deaths of civilians from the Israeli air attacks, President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah II are not forthcoming.
The feisty Palestinians have always been a danger to the Arab League dictatorships, along with their parent/ally, Muslim Brotherhood. President Anwar Sadat, who signed the peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and turned Gaza over to Israel, a nice peaceful act, (he also did it also to benefit his regime, by keeping the Palestinians out of his country), was assassinated by the Brotherhood. The founder and ideological head of the Brotherhood, Syyid Qutb, an inspiration to Osama bin Ladin, was killed by Sadat’s predecessors, the Nasser government, in 1966. Parenthetically, the puritanical Qutb, who never married and who did graduate work in Colorado in 1948-1950, started the movement when he became revolted by the materialism of American culture, the sexuality of American women (Vogue magazine ads and such?), and the sweaty excitement of American jazz.
Also, King Hussein of Jordan, (who had Black September massacres of the Palestinian refugees about to overthrow his government in 1970, and expelled the PLO), secretly agreed to turn the West Bank (occupied by Israel in the 1967 war) to Golda Maier, and in 1988 renounced all rights to the troublesome area. In Syria, the secularist Baathists under Bashir al Assad in 1982 led a bloody suppression of a Brotherhood uprising, and may be a bit ambivalent today about Hamas. Richard Armitage, Colin Powell’s assistant secretary of state, long ago suggested negotiations with Syria as an entry point to peace.
The Brotherhood is somewhat quiescent in Algeria; they are strong in Sudan and Somalia, and lead a moderate existence in the other Mahgreb (North Africa) and Arab League countries. In Saudiland their interpretation of Sharia law clashes with the Wahaabis, not enough for warfare, and in Israel they are split and only the southern half votes in the Knesset elections. The Hamas people, sprouting in all Muslim countries and gaining strength from the deaths of Gaza people, are a different matter.
Israel can continue its defense of bombing, and continue voicing the claims that it pinpoints its attacks to Hamas militants, and makes phone calls to targeted houses, announcing the attack and urging evacuation. Then, when kids are sent to the roof of the house to keep the pilots away – what a way to set up atrocities ( Hamas’ best weapons for the world opinion are dead Israeli soldiers, and, second best, dead Arab kids) – the pilots mock-shoot a free corner of the roof to chase the kids away.
Israel’s best expectations are to continue bombing, do cautious invading and destroying munitions dumps, and keep hoping that the UN, EU, NATO and such can co-opt a security force, say under the leadership of Egypt, to come into Gaza and stop the fighting. Israel can claim respondent status, and answer the accusations of using overwhelming force by its position, as a small country amidst many larger opponents. Security force actions cannot be taken unilaterally, they must be with the agreement of the host country. If Hamas disagrees with the outside security force use, it loses points in the world opinion as the defender of the people exposed to bombing. This may be the direction the war should take.
The only fly in the ointment may be Syria/Lebanon, where the Hesbollah Shiites have large forces. The 2006 incursion of Israel was not successful, and the Shiites may not use that route, and may be starting rocket attacks. Can they risk being bombed out of existence again? Think Armitage.
State Department to copy.
Dr. Paranoia writes:
The whole Gaza affair, Israel’s defense against the rocket attacks by Hamas from the Gaza Strip (since the 2005 turnover, with a minimal reduction during the six-months’ cease fire) has the friends of Israel highly worried.
But Israel is not without resources, and has hopes for forcing a settlement, states an Israeli correspondent reporting on attitudes in Jerusalem, on the day of Israel’s incursion in Gaza. Israel was not sanguine about the six-month cease-fire negotiated by Egypt that Hamas lapsed just days ago, with barrages of rockets. Israel expected that Hamas would use the six months to build tunnels and underground bunkers, in preparation of a provocation that would force Israel to start air attacks, to protect about one million Israelites from the rockets coming from bunkers hidden among Gaza’s general population. The objective of the provocation appears to be to portray Israel as genocidal, and force the world’s opinion to act, perhaps to attack Israel. It must be remembered that Hamas’ prime objective is to push Israel out of existence.
The Israeli hope was that Egypt and Jordan, countries that fully recognize the dangers to their own regimes emanating from Hamas, an ally of the Muslims Brotherhood (forbidden in Egypt), might intervene and slow down the terrorists, who depend on “secret tunnels” along Gaza’s border with Egypt for their supplies. Apparently fearful of anger from their own people about the deaths of civilians from the Israeli air attacks, President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah II are not forthcoming.
The feisty Palestinians have always been a danger to the Arab League dictatorships, along with their parent/ally, Muslim Brotherhood. President Anwar Sadat, who signed the peace treaty with Israel in 1979 and turned Gaza over to Israel, a nice peaceful act, (he also did it also to benefit his regime, by keeping the Palestinians out of his country), was assassinated by the Brotherhood. The founder and ideological head of the Brotherhood, Syyid Qutb, an inspiration to Osama bin Ladin, was killed by Sadat’s predecessors, the Nasser government, in 1966. Parenthetically, the puritanical Qutb, who never married and who did graduate work in Colorado in 1948-1950, started the movement when he became revolted by the materialism of American culture, the sexuality of American women (Vogue magazine ads and such?), and the sweaty excitement of American jazz.
Also, King Hussein of Jordan, (who had Black September massacres of the Palestinian refugees about to overthrow his government in 1970, and expelled the PLO), secretly agreed to turn the West Bank (occupied by Israel in the 1967 war) to Golda Maier, and in 1988 renounced all rights to the troublesome area. In Syria, the secularist Baathists under Bashir al Assad in 1982 led a bloody suppression of a Brotherhood uprising, and may be a bit ambivalent today about Hamas. Richard Armitage, Colin Powell’s assistant secretary of state, long ago suggested negotiations with Syria as an entry point to peace.
The Brotherhood is somewhat quiescent in Algeria; they are strong in Sudan and Somalia, and lead a moderate existence in the other Mahgreb (North Africa) and Arab League countries. In Saudiland their interpretation of Sharia law clashes with the Wahaabis, not enough for warfare, and in Israel they are split and only the southern half votes in the Knesset elections. The Hamas people, sprouting in all Muslim countries and gaining strength from the deaths of Gaza people, are a different matter.
Israel can continue its defense of bombing, and continue voicing the claims that it pinpoints its attacks to Hamas militants, and makes phone calls to targeted houses, announcing the attack and urging evacuation. Then, when kids are sent to the roof of the house to keep the pilots away – what a way to set up atrocities ( Hamas’ best weapons for the world opinion are dead Israeli soldiers, and, second best, dead Arab kids) – the pilots mock-shoot a free corner of the roof to chase the kids away.
Israel’s best expectations are to continue bombing, do cautious invading and destroying munitions dumps, and keep hoping that the UN, EU, NATO and such can co-opt a security force, say under the leadership of Egypt, to come into Gaza and stop the fighting. Israel can claim respondent status, and answer the accusations of using overwhelming force by its position, as a small country amidst many larger opponents. Security force actions cannot be taken unilaterally, they must be with the agreement of the host country. If Hamas disagrees with the outside security force use, it loses points in the world opinion as the defender of the people exposed to bombing. This may be the direction the war should take.
The only fly in the ointment may be Syria/Lebanon, where the Hesbollah Shiites have large forces. The 2006 incursion of Israel was not successful, and the Shiites may not use that route, and may be starting rocket attacks. Can they risk being bombed out of existence again? Think Armitage.
State Department to copy.
Labels: Dr. Paranoia
