Entries from September 2005 ↓

Four years after 9/11 we have a new more devastating tragedy to deal with, and the same ineffective leadership in Washington.

I can’t really think of anything new to say on this anniversary, so I’ll refer to previous thoughts.

Readers who do not live in New York City will indulge me for a moment while I talk about one of my favorite spectator sports.

Primary elections for city government offices will be held Tuesday, September 13 and borrowing a page from a friend and fellow blogger, I wanted to talk about who I’ll be voting for and why. Let’s not call these endorsements, just my personal picks. This blog isn’t nearly that influential.

Voters will decide who they want to represent their party in the November general elections. In a city and state where Democrats outnumber Republicans almost 5:1, New York has a Republican mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who enjoys popularity even among Democratic voters. While he maintains the same agenda as his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani–to give the city away to the real estate developers and create a place where only rich people can afford to live–his greatest strength is that he is not his predecessor, Rudy Giuliani.

Giuliani was such a polarizing force that anyone who followed him was bound to gain favorable treatment. You either liked Rudy or you hated him with a passion and a force equal to that of Hurricane Katrina. Most everyone I know loathed him. To his credit Bloomberg, at least in his initial days and months as mayor, went out of his way to mend fences with communities (namely Black and Latin neighborhoods) that had been on the outs under Giuliani. Overall he’s just been far less abrasive in attempting to get his plan for the city implemented and citizens have been willing to give him a freer hand.

On the Democratic side there are six mayoral candidates in this week’s primary, only four of whom are serious contenders, and none of them impress me.

The frontrunner throughout most of the campaign, former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, lacks the fire and vision to excite voters in my opinion. I actively supported and campaigned for Freddy four years ago, when he narrowly lost a hotly contested primary to (arrogant and equally loathsome) former Public Advocate Mark Green. He ran like a man who wanted to be Mayor and showed drive and enthusiasm that suggested he could take this city in a new direction. This year he stumbled out of the gate, saying to a gathering of police that he didn’t think the Amadou Diallo shooting was a crime, which angered Black voters, and he has generally had trouble articulating his agenda. He almost seems this time like a man who is running only because he was expected to.

Former Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields and current City Council Speaker Gifford Miller strike me as a politician who is being term-limited-out and has nothing better to do, in the former case, and a politician too young and inexperienced to be entrusted with a city this big, in the latter.

Congressman Anthony Weiner, whose district includes Brooklyn and Queens, is also young, but spent 7 years on the City Council and 7 in Washington. In recent weeks he has managed to separate himself from the pack and raise the level of visibility for his candidacy. He won’t beat Bloomberg in November, but I think he’ll run a more energetic campaign and cause people to look at issues Bloomberg is ignoring and for which Ferrer seems unable to get the public’s attention. I’m voting for Weiner.

Public Advocate is the city’s second highest office, yet little-known to most voters. It is the chief watchdog over the Mayor, Council and all branches of city government. When people don’t feel their needs are being met, it is the Public Advocate’s job to do something about it. A squeaky wheel to get the grease.

Incumbent Democrat Betsy Gotbaum has maintained the low visibility of this office with a lackluster and uninspired term. The position calls for an activist, someone to take initiative and keep other politicians on their toes. She has blazed no new trails, taken up no great causes. A basic public servant. The best candidate is the person who should have been elected back in 2001, former New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Norman Siegel. I’ll be voting for him, again.

There is no primary for the office of Comptroller, the city’s chief financial officer. Incumbent Democrat William C. Thompson will be re-elected. I mention him only because he will be in an ideal position to run for Mayor in 2009, when Bloomberg will have to leave because of term limits. He will then have 8 years in office, overseeing the books and challenging the Bloomberg agenda. He also enjoys widespread popularity in political circles, although he will need to raise his name recognition among average voters.

Only Manhattan will elect a new Borough President this year. BP’s (similar to a county executive everywhere else in America) are largely ceremonial nowadays, although they once held a great deal of influence over city finances when New York decision-making was handled by the Board of Estimate. In 1989, the US Supreme Court ruled that non-elected body was unconstitutional because it violated the principle of one person, one vote. The BP’s office is now a bully pulpit from which the occupant serves as advocate and cheerleader for borough causes.

It is also a stepping stone to higher office (witness Ferrer and Fields), and so this year’s field is full of politicians on their way out because of term limits or those already gone and trying to get back in. Nine people are running, I think only two of them have a realistic shot, Margarita Lopez and Bill Perkins, both outgoing city council members. Lopez is the outspoken, out lesbian from the Lower East Side. Perkins is the activist street fighter from Central Harlem who was nearly elected council speaker before a compromise vote put Gifford Miller in that position.

The rest are a mixed bag: three members of the New York State Assembly are running; Adriano Espaillat, Scott Stringer and Keith Wright. All are competent officials, but frankly I think they can better serve the city from up in Albany.

Outgoing council member, Eva Moskowitz, former council member Stanley Michaels (from my district), out gay lawyer and community board member Brian Ellner and IT consultant Carlos Manzano, are all hoping for a miracle.

I’ve met and followed the careers of both Lopez and Perkins. Both are grassroots activists at heart who have no problems opposing the Mayor. Both are skilled at staging a press conference on the City Hall steps. Margarita can be abrasive at times and I wonder how that will play across the borough. Perkins doesn’t enjoy widespread support among the moneyed interests downtown. To my mind that makes either one perfectly suited. So I’ll be parochial. Perkins’ district is one over from mine. A Borough President from Harlem would help keep our issues on the table at a time when Harlem real estate is up for grabs. I’m voting for Perkins.

Finally, for Manhattan District Attorney, incumbent Robert Morganthau has been in office since 1974. He’s 86 years old. He opposes the death penalty. His opponent, former New York State Supreme Court Justice Leslie Crocker Snyder, favors the death penalty. She accuses Morganthau of blocking efforts to repeal the harsh Rockefeller Drug laws and says he has a poor record on promoting people of color in the DA’s office. This is a hard one to pick. They’ve each got pluses and minuses. I’m wary of Morganthau’s age and Crocker’s stance on the death penalty. I may not pick this one until I get in the voting booth.

The Internet is a wonderful thing. It allows people to communicate over vast distances, sometimes without benefit of ever having actually met.

A few years ago, I created a listserv for members of my mother’s side of the family. At the time there were plans for a family reunion in the works and I thought it might aid in the organizing.

Years later and since many family reside in Louisiana, that same list serves to connect distant relatives spread out across the country as we try to find out how family members are managing during the aftermath of Katrina.

The past two days have brought good news. A great many of them evacuated to Baton Rouge, where they are safe and in the care of other relatives. Homes may be damaged or lost but at least people are safe. There are still one or two unaccounted for however and we are keeping them in our prayers.

Ironically, the Internet also brought news of a relative I didn’t even know I had. Reading another blog, we found another member of the Nero clan. Small world.

While the idiot in the White House tries to get his head out of his ass and figure out a game plan, average Americans, businesses, colleges and universities and other groups are all banding together to provide assistance to the people along the Gulf Coast devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Universities from all across the country are opening up enrollment to the now displaced students from schools down in that region. A growing list is in formation. I am pleased to see my alma mater has also joined in.

New York City is sending bus drivers, police officers, firefighters and other trained rescue personnel–all volunteers–to aid in evacuation and restoring order. They are not the only city of course. Others, like Worcester, Massachusetts are sending medical assistance. The New York State Bar Association is offering its help in restoring essential legal services to the people down there.

Professionals in a wide range of industries are raising money or donating time to the cause as well, including the restaurant industry.

Finally, Cuban President Fidel Castro has reiterated his offer of medical assistance , but thus far they have been rebuffed by the asshole in the oval office.

Late Sunday however, in a startling about face considering past criticism of this international body, the US has officially accepted aid from the United Nations.

Imagine that. The big bad, go-it-alone President of the United States actually has to reach out to other countries for help. Maybe he will finally realize we aren’t the only nation on the planet and start acting like a team player instead of a playground bully.

I have not written anything about Hurricane Katrina and its devastating effects on Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, first, because I wasn’t sure what I could possibly add to what has already been written by other bloggers and media outlets. I’m not down there and have no firsthand accounts to share, nothing that you can’t read elsewhere.

But I also haven’t shared my thoughts because it has taken me this long to compose myself and not become overly emotional. I am having difficulty forming coherent thoughts–I make no promises of coherence with this entry–and find myself riding a wave of emotions. Watching or reading the news moves me just to the brink of tears and I have to leave it alone or I just won’t be able to function.

I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around what the people suffering through this are living with now. There has been nothing in my life to prepare me. I live in New York City and was a witness to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. I saw the collapse of the north tower of the World Trade Center with my own eyes standing in the intersection at Sixth Avenue and 26th Street. That memory is forever etched on my brain.

But that was a man-made disaster; an act of war. This was Mother Nature. The earth doing what it does naturally, rotating on its axis, causing clouds to form, weather patterns to emerge, bringing rain, high winds, flooding of rivers and lakes and ultimately the loss of property and lives. We may have been able to prevent the flooding but we couldn’t have prevented the storm.

Louisiana is my maternal ancestral home. In the late 1800’s-early 1900’s, Jake and Peggy Nero raised eight kids in Clinton, Louisiana. Their third child was my mother’s father, who later married and raised her and my uncle and aunt in New Orleans. While everyone in our branch of the family now lives in other parts of the country, we have numerous relatives from the other branches who still call Louisiana home. We’ve heard about some and know they are safe, but there are many others about whom we’ve heard nothing.

Having spent every winter of my life in the northeast, I’ve often been asked by people from warmer climates, “How do you all deal with the snow?” Honey, snow is nothing. You shovel it and you keep stepping. I don’t understand how people deal with the hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, mudslides, forest fires, and earthquakes that hit the rest of the country.

I don’t understand how the people who have now lost everything will rebuild. How do you manage simple things, like proving who you are? How many personal documents of identification–driver’s licenses, insurance, banking, medical or school records–have been lost for the thousands of people affected? Hard to answer for everyone, I’m sure, but harder still for those who had little to begin with.

September 1st was when the eagle was supposed to fly for those on public assistance. They were already underwater by then. How long before they receive any regular assistance again?

What will be the long-term psychological effects of this catastrophe on those who are going through it? I know I’m not over 9/11 and I wasn’t even directly affected. Years from now will we see people acting out their sense of despair, anger or helplessness in personally damaging or antisocial ways?

My emotions run to anger when I think of who is in the White House. I have absolutely no confidence in George Bush’s ability to effectively lead us out of this crisis. The billions being spent on his stupid, unnecessary war in Iraq is a major part of the current problem. The war has siphoned away billions of dollars needed to support domestic programs, like the improvement of levees around New Orleans. His slow response on Sept. 11 proved he is clueless in situations like this. I am certain he won’t disappoint us here either.

I’m further angered by the doom sayers who are using this as some sort of sign of “God’s wrath.” I don’t believe in an angry, vengeful God. I believe in a God who wants us to love and support one another unconditionally. I think if there is any lesson to be learned here, it is that we are all connected. One human race, dependent on each other, not separate races, nations and people separated by artificial boundaries. I think these natural disasters are to remind us to stop the greedy, selfish pursuit of material goods, the wars and the killing, especially in the name of God, and start helping each other live better and fuller lives.

I am frustrated because watching all of the news accounts makes me feel helpless. I want to do something. I want to help somehow. Maybe all I can do is donate money or old clothes, but I want to do more.

I needed to clear my head of the jumble of thoughts running around inside. Even though most of them weren’t very clear, I thank you for reading.

Here are some places where you can donate:

American Red Cross

A list of People of Color-led Charitable Organizations

Hurricane Housing sponsored by MoveOn.org

Network for Good

Organized labor’s response at AFL-CIO

Over 5000 musicians have chosen to donate ALL money from the
sale of their CD *directly* to the Red Cross disaster relief fund at CDBaby.com.