A Tale of Two Pressers

It was the best of press conferences, it was the worst of press conferences, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness.

Actually, it was just all bad. Yesterday New York’s titular leadership showed the world how utterly inept they are during dueling press conferences.

New York City’s Mayor Bill De Blasio started this race to the bottom in City Hall’s Blue Room, the well-worn space where these events have taken place for decades. Perhaps in an act of mercy to the memory of a real statesman, a neat row of American and City flags hid the portrait of Alexander Hamilton. It’s just as well—he wouldn’t want to see what was about to unfold. Staring blankly, well even more blankly than usual, the Mayor looked into the one camera and warbled on for 15 minutes about peace, love, and understanding (minus the melody of an Elvis Costello cover); maintaining law and order, not so much.

When it came time for questions, it suddenly hit me—there were no reporters at this press conference! I know from experience the Blue Room has plenty of space to accommodate reporters even in this time of social distancing, yet De Blasio took questions over the phone like a bad radio show host. When a reporter asked about witnessing looters going about their business with impunity and without interruption, the Mayor became unhinged. His face recoiled, lips pursed, and he flat out denied that you could possibly characterize the previous night’s ravaging in that way. This would be an odd perspective given the video of looters doing their best Black Friday rush into a boarded-up Macy’s, shopping, literally, with fire in their step.

Adding to this absurdist performance was De Blasio’s denunciation of using the National Guard. Claiming that these profession troops were untrained and unable to integrate into the police command, he saved his greatest venom for last—that this force was…armed. Of course he had just called on community leaders and local clergy to stand up and stop the rioters through the force of their words, a force to which a mob is notably non-compliant when wielding crowbars. Adding to the general menace was the Mayor’s concern that the protests and riots might add to a new out brake of Coronovirus. What was a joke meme on Facebook now overshadowed utter lawlessness on the streets.

Up the Hudson River, the curtain rose on a different kind of off-Broadway show. Opening in March, it featured the tiresome droning of Governor Cuomo and Swedish-colored PowerPoints. Normally Albany is a sleepy beat, concerned with arcane budget matters and other ways to tax the state’s residents out of existence. But the past few months have been a record-breaker with daily national coverage and the Governor acting as a foil to President Trump. The reviews were fawning and it was a socially-distant standing-room only press sellout, like any night at Hamilton. The fanboy press has been polite and raising their hands waiting for the great performer to call their names and answer their not-too-difficult questions.

Tuesday’s performance, however, could only be described as one of the greatest flops of all time.

The sharks didn’t just smell blood. The sharks had sniffed through the chum and were headed straight for kill. Some raised their hands, but all were yelling like the White House press corps when Marine One has its rotors going full tilt. One look at Cuomo’s face and you could tell he knew he was nothing but prey this day.

Blasting both De Blasio and the NYPD for failing to do anything resembling their jobs (a remark about the police for which he would later have to apologize), Cuomo started off feigning strength. But then the question of the day came up: why didn’t he send in the National Guard? What followed was a Cuomo-esque litany of legalese and philosophy. He had offered the National Guard to cities across the state. Well he could have sent in the National Guard, but that meant displacing the Mayor’s authority. He wasn’t ready yet to displace the Mayor’s authority. On it went, as did the looting.

To the press’s credit, they wouldn’t let go. One intrepid reporter threw out a national question—had there been a request from Washington to send New York’s National Guard to the capital to help out with the protests there? The Governor never actually answered that question, but came up with the worst possible answer—he wouldn’t send National Guard troops out of state because they were needed in New York. There was a moment of silence while the circular logic sank in, perhaps the quiet was also a nod to the political death the Governor had just inflicted upon himself. Even his usual ending “Goodbye, I have to go to work” was met not with the usual rustling of papers and shuffling of reporters’ feet out the door but a cacophony of more questions.

Many years ago former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (no stranger to protests or maintaining law and order) described a moment of political and media epiphany. Vacationing in Los Angeles over New Year’s he was watching local news coverage as the clock was about to strike midnight. Then it struck him—the LA stations were replaying New York’s ball drop. What happened in New York definitely didn’t stay in New York, and he used that knowledge as a global platform to promote the city during his mayoralty.

What the world has seen over the past 48 hours, in Times Square and around the entire city, is New York at its lowest, the rotten apple cover of Time magazine those many years ago. The disgrace of rioting and utter chaos points right back at feckless politicians who couldn’t manage their way out of a paper bag. Great expectations have devolved into the bleakest of houses.

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

Unmasked

June 1^st arrives on Monday. It begins a third month where businesses in New York City have rent to pay and no possible way to generate revenue, courtesy of a Governor’s executive order. June 1^st starts a third month where employees with no jobs from those business have to pay rent to their landlords. June 1^st starts a third month where many of those employees will continue to fight for unemployment benefits, enhanced but as yet unpaid, because a system designed to hand a few thousand at a time is swamped by nearly a million new requests.

Some years ago a local writer dubbed an intractable problem of water pooling in the street near his apartment “Lake Messinger.” Both the problem and the name represented the ineptitude of career bureaucrats and politicians to fix even the simplest of problems. In this case some poor repaving meant that every time it rained, stagnant water remained for days afterward and made a crosswalk impassible. Given the hundreds of thousands, probably many times that, of non-submerged intersections in the city, it shouldn’t really be a stretch to get the problem fixed. Yet weeks, months, and years went by, and still nothing.

Now there’s a new geography of incompetence, and I’ve named it “Mt. Cuomo.”

For those who can’t find it on a map, you can summit this elevation in our apartment. Neatly stacked bags of clothing for Goodwill rise in our entryway, high enough to establish a country’s border. It’s not that we are hoarders, it’s that we can’t take it to Goodwill because, yes, the Governor closed Goodwill along with the rest of the state. Mt. Cuomo replaced the Cuomo aluminum mines, which tunneled around our apartment in bags of cans waiting to be returned for their deposit. Normally this process is an easy one—just pop downstairs to our local drug store and get back a few nickels that Cuomo and the soda industry would normally split. They even say it’s good for the environment, right up to the point that the can industry says it really doesn’t want recycled aluminum, so however that works.

So what could go wrong? Well the very environmentalist Governor stopped enforcing the requirements that business do their environmental duty and take back the cans they sell. Wise to this unusual grace from governmental thuggery, businesses stopped accepting the cans. Wiser still, my wife surveyed the growing glut of returnables and shut down the mine. Out the cans went to the municipal recycling or homeless bottle collectors, whoever got there first.

Which gets us back to June 1^st. Lacking any original programing, our Governor now commands midday live TV. Well he did a lot more, but now even the local networks are bored of his PowerPoint commands about how Washington needs to “’Revitalize’ the economy, not just open it,” “Plan a vision for the future,” and “Stop corporate layoffs.” Since actual mass dying from Covid in New York is a thing long past, reporters are understandably looking for news of when the state will join the rest of the world out of cave dwelling. With no such idea forthcoming, we are subject to a fond monologue on how face coverings are saving us all. How the Governor wears a “cool” mask. The bandanna I wore from my first marathon in ’92 probably isn’t cool. Legally compliant, yes. Medically effective? It’s not exactly a featured as life-saving solution on Chicago Med.

June 1^st is on Monday. The curve resembles a meeting of the flat earth society. Never-used tent hospitals in public parks have long since been packed up. The state has to be counterfeiting money by now in order to pay its bills since there is no sales tax, income tax, or even bottle return revenue. It’s time to open up, and open up big. The stench on the streets is not the summer heat, but desperation, and no amount of gubernatorial goodwill can mask that.

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

It’s Not Working Out

These last few weeks I’ve been thinking about Governor Cuomo opening up the heart of New York’s economy. Sure, there have been some exemptions for what are called “essential businesses,” but otherwise this particular part of New York City has been locked down longer than anyone could imagine. I yearn for “’The speed with which this complex is being restored is a tribute to the determination, skills and resiliency of residents of the region,’" Actually, I have heard it before. The Governor was Mario Cuomo and the year was 1993. 18 days before uttering those words, terrorists had exploded a truck bomb that closed the World Trade Center. In the intervening time, a brigade of workers had sufficiently scrubbed, cleaned, and repaired the buildings to reopen parts of the complex. And while security was stepped up, there was no “new normal” or other major changes. The message was loud and clear: it’s back to work.

Some eight years later, the World Trade Center again taught us how to focus our efforts on working to get back to what we are supposed to be doing. Prior to 9/11, the state’s Republican establishment, led by Governor Pataki, saw Mayor Giuliani as heretic for his endorsement of, yes, Mario Cuomo, over Pataki. During his nascent senatorial bid, Giuliani literally had to beg upstate leaders for an invitation to speak. Yet on that fateful day, both men put aside differences for the common good. Staffs talked to each other. Plans to return displaced business and residents focused on getting it done as soon as possible.

By the Monday after the attacks, the area south of Canal Street had been reopened to the public, and walking to my Worth Street offices I was confronted with hastily constructed chain-link fencing at Broadway and Chambers. Every few days the fences moved back as electricity and other utilities returned. Sometimes it was just a block at a time, but each movement, like a football team grinding out yards, represented more territory returning to normal. After a month or so the fences became permanent demarcation points around the WTC site, now a place no longer seen for rescue but debris and bodily remains recovery. Around that time Broadway and Chambers returned not to a “new normal” but truly business as it had always been, with traffic honking furiously and immigrants looking bewildered trying to find the local INS offices. And as I made my trek to the office, a familiar face was working as he  had every day before the attacks: the guy from the local “gentleman’s club” was furiously handing out flyers to any passerby who would take them. Everybody, and now we really meant everyone, had a job to do, and nothing was stopping them.

Because it’s May Day there could not be a better time to think about labor. Some Nordic countries celebrate this day with festive dancing around a pole in olde timey costumes. Much of the world takes the day off, ironically, to celebrate the labor movement. The great communist countries would normally have parades to show off their military and industrial might, but these days even Lenin’s descendants need to keep social distancing. Closer to home, and in true communist fashion, tenants in New York City are organizing rent strikes. These aren’t your protests against slumlord conditions but a movement to have the government pay for rent because…well just because. Certainly the combination of New York and Federal supplementary unemployment insurance will cover most people’s rent, unless you can’t make the required call to certify your benefits. Unlike 1993, New York’s Department of Labor is not working with speed, determination, or skill to get the phone lines open and the money flowing.

Inaction and ineptitude flows right up the leadership pole. The only hard work Governor (Andrew) Cuomo and Mayor De Blasio have shown is fighting each other. For the past two months there have been daily clashes over closing schools, closing the subways overnight, and closing businesses. One would make a suggestion and the other immediately taking the opposite position, with the bickering ending a few weeks later with the inevitable closing of whatever they were arguing about.

With May Day we are now at a crossroads. States across the nation are starting to open up businesses and lift restrictions. Sure they may not meet recommended Federal guidelines, but when the national government issues a plan that involves multiple phases outlined in endless PowerPoint slides, is anyone really going to follow directions? There are risks involved, but also significant rewards for those who show aggression and guts. That used to be the New York mantra, but not so anymore. The Governor talks in terms of “reimagining” an open New York. The New York City schools chancellor talks of online learning (such as it is) for over a million students continuing through the start of the school year in September, parents be damned. New Jersey will have its stay at home order in place “until further notice” which is government-speak for “we have no idea and aren’t even trying.” There was an old joke in the Soviet Union along the lines that “the people pretended to work and the state pretended to pay them.” Unfortunately the joke is now on us, as we don’t even have a place to go to pretend to work.

The emptiness of New York's streets is breathtaking. Tumbleweeds and swamps are not Texas and Florida, but avenue after avenue of closed shop doors. Survivors of terrorist attacks, super storms, and crushing taxes, I’ve always believed in the hard work and possibilities that business in New York offers. But this is different and very disturbing. I can’t “shop local” and support small businesses when they are all closed. We’ve quarantined, and will continue for the foreseeable future, millions of healthy and hard-working people for increasingly marginal returns. We’ve thrown around relief money like an NBA superstar raining down dollar bills at a strip club while celebrating his first big contract. Subway cars have been cleaned for the first time since the Nixon administration. And yet nobody can see or talk about a new, much less a normal. Lacking any ability to work, the mighty New York private sector is now a hostage to the state, begging for any kind of job. On this May Day, Lenin’s mouth must be smiling just a little bit.

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

Making The Grade

A+

Put something soft on the ground to cushion your fall because you are about to hear something from me that just may knock you out.

Hooray for pesky academics!

As my alma mater, Northwestern University, is on a quarter system, finals were supposed to be this week. With Coronavirus scrapping physical classes and shredding schedules, the provost, Jonathan Holloway, provided a novel solution: undergrads could choose not to take final exams and base their grade on the quarter’s work that was already graded. In addition, students could change from a letter grade to pass/fail weeks after the regular deadline. What a wonderful world we live in! Students relieved of the insufferable burden of taking finals and avoiding, as the Provost wrote, “the incredible stress that everyone is trying to manage.” Apparently the next mandate would be for dogs and cats to live together in joyous harmony.

So now the goal of college life is eliminating stress. For me, stress was finding an equally delinquent fraternity brother for a ride to south campus for a late-night Burger King run. Owing to everyone else’s general desire to achieve academic excellence, I usually ended up walking for my Whopper. Finals stress for my senior-year roommate revolved around whether or not he would set the curve, which for an astronomy and physics Phi Beta Kappa double major was definitely within his universe. My somewhat more earthly concerns were remembering which courses I was taking and when and where the exams took place. The idea, of course, was to hit the Bahamas for spring break, not treat classes as time on the beach.

So what could really be so wrong with going with flow, given that life in the country has ground to halt everywhere except on the Internet? Well, back to those pesky academics. In a happy coincidence of my academic major and phonetically-similar surname, political science professor Jacqueline Stevens wrote to her students, “…the Provost distributed an announcement offering options for your final paper and your letter grade, despite the fact that he lacks any administrative authority to do so. Only instructors have the authority to create, evaluate, modify, or eliminate the assessments for your final letter grade.” Uh, oh. A statistics professor opined, “But when this pandemic is over, you need to be able to look back and say ‘I was strong’. I am not going to make the final optional for your own good.” Pity the bureaucrat trying to pry open the tenured classroom door.

So why do grades from courses that few will remember, even fewer will care about, and none will cure Coronavirus today, matter? In times of declared emergency, be it from the government or the flip side of the same coin, academia, we need to hold officials to the highest standards of accountability. New Jersey’s governor “suggests” a statewide curfew of 8:00 PM. What does that mean, and how are you innocent of a suggestion when going for a nightly jog? Should our model to fight Coronavirus be the same as the country with insufficient, third-world medical facilities and a predilection for bats as high cuisine? Should Rutgers students, who get Provost Holliday in July as their new university president, worry that their degree may not be worth anything when the incoming administration just makes up the rules for grades?

It comes as no surprise that I’m more cynical than most about the current pandemic. At Madison Square Garden I’d be less worried about the guy sneezing 20 rows up than the health of players sweating on each other on the court, even if it were the Knicks. And while I enjoy my CrossFit as much as the other athletes, it makes sense to close public gyms, which are basically germ petri dishes, no matter how much you wipe the weights,. But as my coach, and mother of a 10 year-old, said on Sunday, “Great workout, wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and keep you social distance. Love you.” So on this St. Patrick’s Day let’s toast that solid advice, unless the Governor “suggests” closing the liquor stores.

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

In SOTU We Trust

It was there in countless movies and TV shows. The down-on-his-luck guy craning his neck as that sure thing was about to make him a winner at the racetrack. Of course, as the plotline had to go, that horse slowed down/was edged out/somehow came up lame, and the poor guy just tore up his ticket and went on his sad way. While I prefer to think of myself as a lucky guy, there was always a yearning for me to test my betting prowess and see if I could wager a few bucks and cash out some winnings. So in 2003 it was off to the Belmont Stakes to see if Funny Cide could break the Triple Crown curse and make me a few bucks. History shows mine was the bad choice to take the favorite as the 100,000 fans groaned in unison when the gelding faded in the backstretch. So there I was, sans fedora hat and cigar of a 50’s b-movie, tearing up the betting slip—my left hand letting loose confetti and my right disgustedly tossing down the remaining paper. While amusingly overdramatic, what I didn’t realize was that this act would later have a name: to pull a Pelosi.

Decades, maybe multiple generations, have passed since something meaningful has come from the annual State of the Union speech. Like the upcoming Oscars, but without the killer watch parties, this ritual has become a prime time festival for political geeks and wearers of red ties. So tired is the script that we can barely look up to watch. The sergeant-at-arms wails, “Mr./Madam Speaker, the President of the United States.” Applause bursts forth, otherwise unseen Congressmen stick their hand out for their one shot at a handshake, and the President ambles to the podium. For an hour or so the President drones on while his party leaps to their feet in applause every 20 seconds like a CrossFit air squat exercise. The opposing party, in well-rehearsed inertia, sits quietly with their hands folded as if to telegraph that they are the adults trying to tame a teen kegger.

And then there was this week.

Our current President redefined the phrase “taking a victory lap” during Tuesday’s speech. Utterly ignoring the blood sport of impeachment proceedings, he tried out his upcoming renomination acceptance speech by out-Oprahing Oprah. You get a medal! You get a charter school seat! You get your husband back from military deployment! It was true theater. Maybe theater of the absurd, but nobody could say it wasn’t good TV. For background, the Democratic women put on their white dresses again, but this year they looked more like bored Catholic high school seniors at graduation counting down the seconds before they could leave.

The winner of non-conformity was Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She didn’t buck tradition, she literally shredded it. It’s always been an odd sight over the years—the Speaker sitting stone-faced behind the President, occasionally applauding to keep themselves awake more than caring about the proceedings. Nancy was having none of this with a fusillade of smirking, shaking her head, and absent-mindedly leafing through the speech’s text. It was what a four year-old at the adults’ table would look like if they were constitutionally in line to Presidential succession. At the end of all, instead of throwing pumpkin pie around, she dramatically tore up a copy of the President’s speech. Of course any millennial streaming the event on their phone would wonder why there was any paper involved, so perhaps her gesture was all in vain.

While any semblance of decorum in Washington has now been shattered, all hope is not lost. Travelling Tuesday in New England, I surfed the channels to see how the media covered this travesty. The powerful Boston channels were focused and to the point in their “breaking news” headlines—Red Sox star Mookie Betts was getting traded to the Dodgers. That’s right, the state of our union depends on the outfield this season.

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.

Conscious Unroyaling

Some ten years ago I stood in the summer morning’s heat at the start line of yet another road race. This was not an ordinary race as it was sponsored by Achilles, a group that promotes and helps disabled athletes. I had earned a spot at the front as I was guiding a disabled athlete through the course, something I had done for other races and four New York City marathons. To my surprise there was a swell of squeals from the larger-than-average crowd and I felt a slight bump, normal at a race start as runners jostle for position. Turning around, next to me was a not-well-disguised undercover cop whose protective charge was a mere ten feet way. It was Prince Harry.

Many of the athletes in front of us were disabled military veterans whose loss of one or more limbs was in plain sight. While most were American service members, His Royal Highness has a special affinity for those wounded in combat, and he worked his way around the disabled participants. Being Prince Harry, everyone knew who he was. Being somebody who cared, he wouldn’t just lean over and introduce himself, he would squat down to eye level to greet the wheelchair and push cycle participants. This wasn’t just another stop on an endless tour, this was time with his band of brothers. One could say he was born for this role; but make no mistake—he was genuine, compassionate, and caring.

What a difference a decade makes.

In what should be a time of pleasant iambic pentameter for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex has turned into a turgid As Megxit Turns soap opera. There’s certainly a time and place to take a step back and out of the limelight, like Uncle Andrew’s recent disappearance. Then again, that prince somehow failed to end his association with a convicted pedophile, so staying out of sight was probably the better plan than having the masses chase him down with pitchforks. And while brother William gets the crown, he also inherited his grandfather’s receding hairline. No bad comb overs for this royal—to the razor he went and lost the hair battle while winning the dignity war.

Unlike Henry V, this Prince Harry is not looking to make a heroic stand against the French or anybody else for that matter. Apparently he is concerned about his mental health, and his wife complains that nobody is asking how she is feeling after having a baby. Thus they “intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen.” If I had to guess, Her Majesty would give slightly different advice, like see a therapist and pop some Prozac. It’s not like they have to wait in line at the local National Health clinic.

We now face the prophecy of the St. Crispin’s Day speech coming alarmingly true, with Shakespeare’s monarch proclaiming, “That he which hath no stomach to this fight/Let him depart; his passport shall be made/And crowns for convoy put into his purse;” So it’s off to Canada for our main cabin couple to figure out how to be “financially independent,” with a collective hope they don’t fall into the celebrity-merchandising trap. Imagine if Lady Gwyneth of Goop directed their quest for treasure with lines of “Sussex Sex Toys” or “Windsor Wick Candles” (all organic, of course). Maybe Meghan could go back to Northwestern and earn an MBA and help guide their budding business empire. One of the University’s colors is royal purple, after all.

There will be no muse of fire, swelling scene, or warlike Harry to end this sad tale. The House of Windsor will survive, bruised but maybe better off with the redheaded spawn across the ocean and closer to the rebellious colonies that seem to fit his temperament. Maybe the Sussex Three will live happily ever after, but they shouldn’t bank on keeping any mantle space open for The Queen’s Christmas Card.

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved

Thirty Bucks

“Wanna buy a pizza?”

That refrain haunted my boarding school dorm every Saturday night of my senior year. Chase the pie whisperer was hawking the goods to raise money for the baseball team’s spring training trip to Florida. The weekend hustle was in the great American tradition of hard work, taking advantage of a captive audience, and promoting ill-defined social benefits. In this case our teenage hunger was assuaged and the team made a noticeable improvement in turning double plays.

New York City has always been a center of hustle. Whether it is people moving quickly, talking even faster, or a combination of both to sell some kind of ware, hard work and a willingness to pound the pavement was admired. When rain comes, a mysterious fleet of people appear at subway entrances to sell cheap umbrellas. When the sun returns, like woodland spirits at dawn, they disappear. I’m pretty sure they are also the same guys who sell green hats for St. Patrick’s Day and red, white, and blue gear for Fourth of July. Now these folks may not be future moguls, but everyone has a kind word for saving your suit from a soaking or providing instant gear for a holiday.

Then came the drama of the $30 New Year’s Eve pizza.

When a million people come together in Times Square to count down the New Year, all manner of things can happen. In the 80’s it was mostly muggings, stabbings, and an occasional shooting. In the Disney-like atmosphere of today, the talk is mostly about security and what kind of adult diaper people wear standing for 12 hours until the ball drops. Into this morass of opportunity waded the Domino’s pizza guy. With a store just off Times Square, he had a constant supply of pizzas and, literally, a million hungry mouths to feed. And as James Earl Jones’s character in Field of Dreams predicted, people were willing to hand over their money without even thinking. In this case, it was $30 for a pie. New York City, a legal (and tasty) product, and people with cash to burn. The man was set up for a nice pay day and be seen as a model entrepreneur.

So you would think.

“Price Gouging!” “Greed!” “How Could He?” Those are some of the printable headlines. In our modern nanny-state city, this fine man was decried as a war profiteer. I’m not saying he was feeding the masses with loaves and fishes, but he wasn’t the Judas of pizza either. Want a real rip off? Try the old man day-drinking bar that slaps a New Year’s sign on the door proclaiming an 8:00 PM-Midnight open bar for a mere $100 bucks. Trust me, neither the value nor the booze will be top shelf.

Beyond Domino guy’s foresight, there is something else that should elevate him to the street vendor hall of fame. How did he get to walk around the pens of people in the first place? Dubbing itself as “one of the safest places on earth,” the news outlets endlessly repeated the requirements for entry into Times Square, the army of cops protecting the area, and the “once entered you cannot leave or move anywhere” mantra. Apparently this guy has the skills of an Ocean’s Eleven safe cracker or warm pizza is some kind of sci-fi cloaking device.

Not as swift was our twit Mayor De Blasio who tweeted in part, “…I’m sorry this corporate chain exploited you—stick it to them by patronizing one of fantastic LOCAL pizzerias.” OK then, where were the LOCAL pizzerias that night? There are plenty around Times Square, and they all deliver. Knocking a man for hustling is even more insulting coming from a guy who has never done a full day’s work, honest or otherwise, in his life. Even worse, De Blasio proudly eats a street slice…with a knife and fork. Not very LOCAL.

So the start of 2020 looked bleak for New York until I scanned the headlines in the Daily News. “Man snatches woman off Bronx subway train, later beaten by good Sam[aritan]s.” Now that’s my LOCAL town.

© 2020 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved.