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Subduing Our Better Angels

About 25 years ago, while working in the constituent office of a New York City state senator, I gave $20 and a gold crucifix to a homeless alcoholic trying to get to a rehab center, or so he claimed. I knew the cash would probably go to cheap vodka, but the crucifix and a carefully worded […]

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Masque of the Red Ink

It was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the ‘Red Death.’” — Edgar Allan Poe No one can do macabre […]

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Swiss Benevolent Home, RIP

The target was a deserted infirmary, an outbuilding of the once stately Swiss Benevolent Society Home up the hill from where we live in Mount Kisco. By the time we moved into the Captain Merritt’s Hill neighborhood in December 2007, the main house of the 19th century facility was abandoned and decrepit. The adjacent infirmary, […]

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The New York Voter Paradox

Who put a “kick me” sign on New York‘s back? Oh wait, we did. We do it every two years when we elect members of Congress who vote to expand the scope of the federal government, which is pretty much all of them. It’s well know that New York gets less money back from Washington […]

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Presidential Leadership Needed

It’s been a rough week and a half since President Barack Obama reclaimed the White House: The Dow lost more than 500 points; The nation’s CIA chief was sacked for sacking down with his biographer; Israel is at war with Hamas, again; Widespread talk of state secession is in the news for the first time in 150 years (while a new […]

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The Temptation of Gov. Cuomo

Who would’ve thought that the Liberal Party candidate for governor in 2002 would be the last line of defense against the public employee unions and catastrophic overspending in New York in 2012? But that’s exactly what Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is today — the last grown-up standing in Albany, if the Republicans in the State […]

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Final Thoughts on Presidential

It’s amazing how quickly things can go awry. That’s the lesson of Sandy, and it has to be considered in the voting booth on Tuesday. One day you’re sitting in an armchair watching a weather forecast on CNN; five days later, television, lights, heat, communications, fresh food, drinking water and gasoline can be critically unavailable. […]

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The Politics of Sandy

A candidate for New York State Assembly in Brooklyn 20 years ago insisted on inserting a dried sponge with his name emblazoned across it into his final campaign mailing, one of his former advisers once told me. The sponge was one of those campaign chotchkies candidates love and consultants roll their eyes at — along […]

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Worst GOTV Ad Ever?

Is it me, or is the most tone deaf ad you’ve ever seen,too? If I were undecided, one look at this spot would put me in the Romney camp.   

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Clint Nails It

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