And Then There Were Two

Shorter Weiner op-ed in NYT today: Not even God has enough money to run against Bloomberg. Also I want a baby. Can't blame the guy.

Labor Glory

This emptywheel piece gives the rundown of how unions and their oh-so-cumbersome insistence on safety training saved the bacon of the passengers of the airbus that glided onto the Hudson on Thursday.

Fascinatingly, the lauded pilot was a "former safety chairman, accident investigator and national committee member for" ALPA. Representatives of various airport unions have criticized pilots' for a perceived bugger-anything-the-flight-attendants-and-mechanics-or-anyone-else-at-the-airport-needs arrogance and lack of solidarity. (Imagine how much power pilots, flight attendants, skycaps, mechanics, baggage handlers, and everyone else would have at the airport if they worked together effectively.)

But while our unions don't play together as nicely we would like them to, this case is certainly something the labor movement should feel great - and brag - about. Let's hail the awesomeness of these experienced and union-represented pilots, flight attendants, air traffic controllers, ferry crews, cops and firemen who have stuck around long enough to be effective, their choice to stick around partially due to guaranteed wage increases, nice benefits, and pride in their jobs. And the piece concludes, sweetly:

"But I haven't heard much about Bob Corker and Richard Shelby saving 155 people's lives."


Zing!

A Girl and Her Racist Dog

Mike3550 is out of commission this week defending his prospectus. So I thought I would attempt to insert some blog posts between last week and next, bringing the level of discourse down from politics and neighborhood effects - all the way down, in fact, to topics like our stupid dog.

We've suspected it for a long time, but the events of this evening have pushed me to state publicly: my dog is racist. Tonight Dog and I are going for a nice brisk walk in our neighborhood, and it becomes apparent that someone is walking behind us. I turn around, and it is a tall Latino. Dog looks behind her, starts barking her head off for about five barks. I apologize, man laughs. Okay, I think, he's behind us, he surprised her, fine. But then I thought, wait, we live in New York City, not the postapocalypse. These sidewalks are busy. People walk behind us all the time. Just - mostly white people. This is, by the way, at least the fifth time she has singled out a Latino for her rage.

The rest of our walk goes nicely, without any hate/harassment. We get back to our building and get into an elevator. Who comes through the door - surprise! - but our nice new white neighborman and our nice new Indian neighborwoman. NEW neighbors. Would you expect some skepticism from Dog? She has never met them before. But lo and behold, she puts on the greatest kiss-ass puppy-eyes display known to man. She is a hit, and gets her chin rubbed and ears scritched. Score.

They get out on 3. We get out on 5. A Latino who doesn't live on our floor stands before us on 5. Dog freaks out. Barks as though the man is ripping apart my body and feasting on my entrails. In fact - and I've never seen her do this before - she lunges at him.

No one was hurt, thank goodness - she didn't really get on him, just near enough to provoke deep visible fear in the man's eyes - but the man got a profuse gushing apology from me and was very gracious considering an animal apparently wanted to end his life because he was standing there. Dog got some serious yelling and alpha-domination by yours truly.

I don't get it! I never thought of myself as a racist owner, but maybe I evoke barely perceptible tension when I'm around people who are different from me and she picks up on it. Maybe she turns on Lou Dobbs when we're asleep. Maybe the other dogs in our building are a bad influence. Maybe my racism is like a dogwhistle, and only she can hear it.

Port Authority Salaries

I usually avoid ribbing civil servants about their salaries, because a) they are usually low, and b) if they're high, many (perhaps most?) of our public servants are talented, unsung heroes who could have made bank with their skills but chose to serve the public instead, so bravo if they can make a decent living.
Today, however, I freely mock the reported salaries of employees at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, generally speaking. Here's a public agency that just raised its tolls (so the fat salaries look bad), has failed to rebuild the WTC site projects in a respectable time frame (so the fat salaries look bad), and seemingly towards giving at least one airport tenant a free pass on a recently passed labor harmony/employee retention policy (which just makes me angry) and turns out fully one sixth of Port Authority employees make upwards of $100 K a year.
The one caveat is that I think the outrage over police officers making over $100 K a year is distasteful. Why shouldn't someone who risks his or her life to save your ass make just as much as the bureaucrat who processes his paperwork?

Monets vs. Seurats: I'm A Jerk

My father is a fattist. I.e., he can't stand overweight people the way some people can't abide smokers. They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, so here goes:
I'm obsessed with weight. America is a fat, fat place, but living and working in New York City is somewhat of an anomaly, at least when it comes to women, because that's the gender whose trim, healthy members I'm enviously glaring at every morning. Everywhere I turn are model-actresses with youthful calves and slender hips. But when you look closer, these willowy femmes seem--I don't know, craggier. More lines on their faces. Worse teeth.
By comparison, in the odd event that I do see a larger person, it's more often that I observe fine grooming and much attention to detail in appearance.
Very unscientific, because I am in no way qualified to comment on this, but the psychology (mine and theirs) is interesting. Are the skinny, craggy people native NYCers, who have suffered more air pollution and are more hardened in general? Are the larger, better-coiffed women compensating by adorning themselves with manicures, highlights and carefully-applied lipliner?
As a tweener-hovering between normal and overweight, I'm just curious. And a bad person.
::Sigh::

Best Campaign Slogan. Ever.

Yesterday, I joined E. and members of UNITE HERE in the NY Pride parade. We received much applause and thumbs-up as we went down the street under signs that said, "SleepWithTheRightPeople.org" I swear, that has to be the best campaign sign, ever. Sleep With The Right People is a partnership between the LBGT community (including Pride at Work) and UNITE HERE, including the Hotel Workers Rising campaign (which also has a great slogan: Lifting one another above the poverty line).

It was a very interesting event that was both uplifting and sad. It was great to see how much support there is for things as basic as recognizing partnerships or for TBLG couples to be able to adopt children; but it is also sad recognizing how little will there is, politically, for such systematic change. The moment of silence an hour into the parade was a stark reminder of the reality of our current world. Calling attention to the discrimination against TBLG folks is, I guess, the first step in making sure that moment of silence becomes increasingly less of a contemporary and more of a historical issue.