Angry New Yorker

Semi-Daily Rants from New York City's Angry Man

"As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly." - Dr. Samuel Johnson, Boswell, Life of Johnson, Sept. 1783

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Tuesday, November 25, 2003
 
A break from NYC's craziness... for another brand of craziness. From my sister working in Iraq right now.

“Baghdad Tales” – An Iraqi Version of Canterbury Tales…
October 27, 2003


Arrived at work today just like any other day; dead tired. Trying to get myself motivated-must be the Ramadan spirit as my coworkers did not seemingly want to work either. The explosion hit about 8:30 in the morning. It was the loudest noise and rumbling I have ever heard. It shook the office and scared the shit out of me – now I know why one of our security officers had said to always wear brown pants just in case. . Of course, when this happened I was on the phone with my mom as I said “oh my God they bombed our office as I ran into the back of the building.” To say that that is not the thing you should ever say to your mother on the phone is an understatement. After I calmed her down and ensured the paramedics were arriving to resuscitated her, I realized it wasn’t our office. Although it was almost ½ km away I would have sworn it was in front of our office. Probably, the second time in my career that I was scared shitless- the other time was during a visit in the West Bank in Nablus, not realizing it was under closure and finding myself face to face with an Israeli tank and soldier holding a rifle aimed at my face.


Some say it is outsiders; those from other countries who are well funded who do not want this litmus test of democracy to be successful as it challenges the regimes next door; leaving their government vulnerable to the sentiment on the street. Of course, discussion around the ICRC bombing abounded. I decided the song by the Clash “ Should I stay or should I go now” was our theme song…. We all cracked up realizing the seriousness of it. Sorry conflict humor… I figured when I lose that it is time to go. Our head security officer from HQ is arriving in the next few days to assess the situation but analysis so far has indicated that NGOs are not being targeted, ICRC was a political statement and there had been many warnings that they would be hit. Large parts of this analysis makes sense but of course the “unknown” is always the greatest risk. However, we also realize that now more than ever humanitarian work is needed and so we continue, taking one day at a time.


November 5th
I finally have caught up with all the work that I have missed while I was gone. I am still hoping that I will be able to get around and visit out in the field more but due to the current events, that seems unlikely. I attempted to get out to the conference center in the “green zone” where the military is located for some meetings. It is surrounded by the former Bath Party HQ a great marble square shape building, the tomb of the unknown soldier, the monument of the Iran/Iraq war – 2 large hands holding two large swords (over 50 feet hight) and the 17th July bridge (important b/c date of revolution when the Baath party came into power). After waiting about 30 minutes in the long que at the checkpoint I do what I know best and walk up to the soldiers to ask if we can cut the line as we our late for a meeting. After much debate and explanation of what CARE and an NGO are, we are permitted to bypass the line to have our vehicle searched and our person. As I spoke with the soldiers again, one said to me “next time ma’am just come up to the line, you speak pretty good English so it shouldn’t be a problem”. Thanks, Private – I’ve been practicing my English while I am here in Baghdad – pretty good English, well, I would hope so, since it's the only language I know. ;-)


Our days revolve around work and our nights revolve around the events of the hotel. I have decided that this should be labeled “Baghdad Tales” as I feel at time I have stumbled upon an Iraqi version of Canterbury Tales. We are all on this weird pilgrimage of some sorts and the characters and events revolve around our hotel – the Cedar. We have Mohammad – a tall blond-haired, blue- eyed Egyptian lawyer from Cairo who sounds more American than I do; the BFGs – the Big Friendly Giants, who are these 4 South African HUGE guys who are with a company that are building the military mess halls and catering the food (the ultimate of outsourcing – the military outsourcing their catering??); me the token American; a whole bunch of Aussies; the AFP journalists from Lebanon and a whole bunch of dodgy Turkish; and a few Kurdish businessmen. We sit on the roof at sunset, watch choppers fly overhead, and hear explosions in the distant -- seeing the puffs of smoke dissipate into the orangish, reddish skyline. As the sun sets the lights, when they are on, twinkle and light up in the distance; at times I almost imagine I am in Florida watching the sunset over the horizon and hotel lights in the distance. My colleagues and friends, Bob and Katherine, have adopted these 2 street dogs and have been feeding them every night. So after dinner we take our scraps and bring them to Elissa, a pregnant tan mutt, and Zengo a black collie mutt. Katherine and I then do our daily walk about to get the blood flowing in the legs. We walk from checkpoint to the gate that surrounds our hotel; basically in a circle like prisoners in the prison court yard. The guards all watch and smile. We have become their nightly entertainment, but am glad as I also know that we are well-guarded. The guards all have interesting stories; one is a Kurdish squatter living next door to the hotel in an abandoned building, while other are former military guys who are not happy about having been displaced but at least I know they can shoot straight, and the former “king of Baghdad in the 60’s” - not sure what that meant as their English is about as good as my Arabic.

The BFGs have been great to us and have hooked us up with T-bone steak one night and Maine 2-lb lobster tails another night – who would imagine eating surf and turf in Baghdad? I am trying to get them to snag me a turkey so I can cook a good ole fashion American thanksgiving with Stove Top stuffing and mashed potatoes. We spent several nights in the hotel restaurant as they now have a nightly entertainer – an Iraqi man playing a keyboard and singing a mix of Arabic and some English melody songs. So we have spent many a night dancing around, hooting and hollering like fools -- “yaa habibi…” -- to the same songs that are played over and over like a broken record.


I have been able to visit the local Catholic church – I went to church last week and it was so interesting; I felt as if I had stepped back into time to 1000 yrs ago and how church must have been in the early days. There was lots of chanting and singing and it sounded enchanting even though I couldn't understand the language. I had to cover my hair to receive communion, luckily I was with my coworker who told me this otherwise I would have been embarrased. Afterwards she took me to their Mary grotto and we lit some candles before the crowd came from the church. It was interesting.


The night before I was to leave to Cairo for some R&R I woke at around 3 a.m. to what sounded like thunder overhead. As I realized that it is not rainy season and it therefore could not be thunder, my mind tried to reason what it was. I realized it sounded like mortar fire really close but more like it is outgoing than incoming so I thought "do I run to the bathroom?" ( my designated safety room) or wait… well in true lazy fashion I rolled over, put the pillow over my head to protect me just in case from flying glass, said a quick prayer and went back to sleep - best sleep I had all night.


I left for the week of Nov 6th – 15th for some meetings in Amman and then 5 days in Cairo. What a great city Cairo. It was so nice to finally be in a normal Arab city- it reminded me of NYC, but Cairo truly is a city that never sleeps. Cars and horns beeping 24hrs a day and people out until all hours. I met up with some friends from Jerusalem and another friend who I met when taking Italian lessons in Italy 3 years ago. It was great to go out like a normal person to late in the evening hanging out in restaurants on the Nile, smoking hubbly bubbly in the market coffee shop, taking a sailing trip down the Nile, pampering myself with a facial and massage, shopping tilll you drop, and of course visiting the pyramids; riding a camel and seeing the remains of the pharaohs and King Tut in the museum. It was great and the weather was perfect.


Since it was Ramadan, the city was decked out in Ramadan lights and dining tables decorate the city streets and market places waiting for “il fitr” or the time for when “break fast” is served. As it is time to break the fast that has been occurring throughout the day, you are invited to eat at these tables free of charge. As we walked thru the market place watching these people in the square eat their food, we were invited to share and given big plates of kibbeh (like falafel, but with meat inside) and cousa (a pasta like dish with cheese and sauce)- uumm umm good! The food was delicious and I laughed as I thought could you imagine ever accepting a plate of food from a complete stranger on a NYC street? What a nice tradition.


My friend who I met in Italy invited me over for Il Fitr one night at his and his wife’s house and then went to a local Cairo coffee shop and hung out with his friends until late in the evening like a local Cairene would do (how they ever get to work the next day is beyond me). Of course, all those stories you hear about the traffic is true and worse. I have never been more scared and convinced we would die than driving in the taxi in Cairo – I shut my eyes 9/10's of the time I was in a car. Although Baghdad is just as bad.


Well back in Baghdad just in time for operation “Iron Hammer” or a name something like that. Most of the evening we have been hearing what sounds like heavy artillery firing in the distance, which we have now found out is 105mm artillery firing from a AAC130 gunship plane somewhere in the Northern end of Baghdad – remember Baghdad is quite large so what occurs in one area, another area may not even be aware of this.


At this point you are probably wondering what the hell am I still doing here. Well I ask myself that as well and realize maybe I’ve gone mad but more likely it’s the fact their watermelon season is from May thru at least Nov and I LOVE watermelon. Actually, I have a sense of responsibility to help those who need help, to get this place to the point it needs to be in order to really be free, to help finish what my country has started. How can you not when you look in the eyes of children such as these. Hope all is well in your part of the world.

posted by anonymous at 11:55 AM

Monday, November 17, 2003
 
Non- New York related post
Our enemies in the north?

While Canada is often the butt of jokes in the U.S., often unwarranted, our friend to the north is filled to the rim with people with such a warped view of the U.S. that I think we should start planning a border wall up there.

As evidence, take this letter posted on the Canadian Broadcast Co. website, and slugged as "The Letter of the Day" for Nov. 12, 2003. The writer, one Ian McTavish, equated President Bush's honor of the dead in Iraq as a deceit upon the American people, and went on to state:

"The simple truth of the matter is that one cannot force peace by armed conflict. All that is being done is planting the seeds for further armed conflict. If not now, then later

Would it be too much for the good American people to reflect for a moment on how much warfare, yes terror, assasination, and support for criminal 'leaders' in other countries, they have involved the American people in since the Second World War?

Would it be too much to reflect upon why unprecedented demonstrations were held around the world in advance of the illegal Iraq invasion by the U.S. and the U.K.? No nation has been as involved in the means of warfare and violence than has the U.S. over the past 55 years. "

This left me speechless. The U.S. has been involved in more warfare and violance than any other nation in the past 55 years? Dear God, has Mr. McTavish not studied Stalinist Russia, or the Cultural Revolution in China? Has he not heard of Pol Pot? His pathetic "one cannot force peace by armed conflict" is contradicted by the reality of world war II. By his logic we should be preparing for renewed attacks by Germany and Japan. How would Mr. McTavish have resisted Hilter? Candygrams? Simply amazing.

posted by anonymous at 2:27 AM

Friday, November 14, 2003
 
Parking Ticket Fines Hiked Up Again
NY1.com, NOVEMBER 14TH, 2003

As of Friday morning, tickets for parking violations in New York City have increased by $10, pushing some fines as high as $115. It's the second ticket hike in a little more than a year.

But don't blame the city for the extra cost. The increase reflects a $10 jump in the state ticket surcharge, from $5 to $15.

Last October, the city boosted many parking fines from $55 to $105.

Among the violations affected by the new increases are parking in a no standing zone or crosswalk, double parking, and parking in a bus stop or near a fire hydrant.

posted by anonymous at 4:41 PM

Tuesday, November 11, 2003
 
New Yorkers Pay More Taxes
From Gotham Gazette -
"A new study released yesterday [available here] by the Citizens Budget Commission confirms what many have long believed:

New Yorkers pay the largest local tax in the country -- 72 percent above the national average. City residents pay $73 in local taxes for every $1,000 in personal income compared with a $43 national average, the study found. When state taxes are factored in, New Yorkers have to pay $141 for every $1,000 they earned -- the highest payout in the country. These figures, based on federal economic data from the 2000 fiscal year, did not include this year's increases in state and city personal income and sales taxes.
The study pointed to Medicaid, education and pension costs as the driving forces behind higher state and local taxes. "Local government across the state are struggling under the weight of these requirement," said commission president Diana Fortuna.

Asked about the findings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that he will try to convince State Legislature to reduce city's obligation to pay $4 billion for Medicaid. The mayor also reiterated his pledge to try to lower taxes when the economy rebounds. [ed. note - fat chance of that happening with the city council we have now.]

The study focuses on five problem areas:
  • PROBLEM 1
    New Yorkers are the most heavily taxed Americans.
  • PROBLEM 2
    New York’s debt burden is among the highest in the nation.
  • PROBLEM 3
    New York has large and recurring budget gaps.
  • PROBLEM 4
    New York’s budget process lacks timeliness, transparency,
    and responsibility.
  • PROBLEM 5
    Improvements in fiscal practices are hampered by unresponsive
    governmental institutions.

And suggests nine reforms
  • REFORM 1
    Require that the adopted budget be balanced in accord with generally accepted accounting principles.
  • REFORM 2
    Require a four-year financial plan with quarterly modifications.
  • REFORM 3
    Replace the constitutional requirement for voter approval of general obligation debt with a constitutional limit on the amount of all state debt that is set based on relevant, changing economic factors.
  • REFORM 4
    Create a professional, non-partisan Legislative Budget Office to provide fiscal information to both houses of the Legislature and to the public.
  • REFORM 5
    Require that independently prepared revenue projections be used in the adopted budget, if the Governor and Legislature do not agree on revenue projections in a timely way.
  • REFORM 6
    Require a “rainy day” fund larger than the current Tax Stabilization Reserve Fund.
  • REFORM 7
    Eliminate the use of “off-budget” accounts.
  • REFORM 8
    Change the budget calendar to allow more time for deliberation on the
    Executive Budget by the Legislature.
  • REFORM 9
    Strengthen the committee process of the State Legislature to allow more
    participation by members in budgetary decisions.


(See also Kenneth Lovett and David Seifman, NYers Slugged With Nation's Highest Taxes, N.Y. Post, p. 1, Nov. 11, 2003; Al Baker, Study Says Local Tax Bite Is Deepest in New York, N.Y Times, Nov. 11, 2003, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/nyregion/11TAXE.html?pagewanted=print&position=).
(Information about the Citizens Budget Commission - here.)

posted by anonymous at 2:41 PM

Monday, November 10, 2003
 
Should NYC be more like Houston? Why not? I've said it before and I'll say it again, the knee-jerk jingoism that New York is "the capital of world" serves us poorly. It closes our minds to ideas from outside and instills a "we don't need to improve, we're the greatest city in the world" mentality. Think I'm crazy? Consider:

Model Cities
By Joel Kotkin
available at http://www.nycfuture.org/content/reports/report_view.cfm?repkey=122&search=1

"New York’s economic policymakers probably don’t spend a lot of time sitting around lamenting, “Why can’t we be more like Houston?” But maybe they should.

New Yorkers are not known for their willingness to look outside the City Limits for edification, but sometimes the experiences of other cities have important lessons for us.

Like New York today, Houston in the late 1980s and Los Angeles in the early 1990s were suffering from massive corporate downsizing and a devastating loss of civic direction. Yet under the leadership of strong, business-oriented mayors--Bob Lanier in Houston and Richard Riordan in L.A.--these two cities were able to stave off collapse by drastically remaking their economies. Today, even amid a stubborn national recession, both cities have been able to use their now highly diversified, small-business-oriented economies to stay on an even keel."
[read the entire article here, or as a PDF here]

posted by anonymous at 2:20 PM

Sunday, November 09, 2003
 
A Strong Approach Needed
An aside from New York City comments - As a political wonk I find myself in many regular discussions about the situation in Iraq, U.S. policy and the ongoing war on terrorism. While I switched my political affiliation from being a default democrat (basically in order to vote in NYC's heavily democrat-favored primaries) to the republican party in the post 9-11 world, I consider myself more a devotee of ideas that work, rather than specific ideologies.

However, it just so happens that I think the republicans have better ideas these days, while the democrats are seriously spinning their wheels, to the point where today they are the "bumper-sticker party" according to democrat senator Zell Miller. His recent scathing indictment of the present democratic party encapsulates fairly well why I switched parties. (See Zell Miller, A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat, (Stroud & Hall Pub., November 2003)).

Since my younger sister is currently on the ground in Iraq right now, working for CARE International, (see CARE's Work in Iraq), my interest in Iraq is more than academic. And with this personal chit in the game, I as a preliminary matter fully supported the war and continue to support U.S. actions in Iraq until we've gotten the job done. Executing a "fly paper" strategy in the war againt Islamist-based terrorism was never going to be easy, but as with democracy itself, it beats all the alternatives.

Fundamentally, appeasement is not an option in this fight against terrorism. Osama and his cabal don't hold hands around the camp fire in their caves and sing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?". Not by a long shot. While no one likes war, the calls by those in Europe and the left, essentially asking "can't we all just get along?", while admirably idealist, is hopelessly and dangerously naive. The answer is no, we can't just get along with these terrorists any more than we ultimately could with Tojo's Japan or Hilter's Germany. At some point moral relativism is not an option -- and this is one of those points in history. [Unfortunately, today's high school and college students are frequently seriously confused in understanding the difference between "tolerance" and "moral relativism." Granted we're all idiots in high school -- I know I was -- so there may yet be hope for eventual development. Still, many college students' heads have been so clogged by squishy concepts of tolerance and an instilled disdain for western thought, which previous generations studied in the classic western canon, that I do fear for the long-term of this country.]

To win this war, and it is a war, we need to dig in our heels, tighten our belts, and slug for all we're worth for as long as it takes. In the end we'll either root these groups out, and kill them and their supporters, or else one day they'll pry a nuke loose from North Korea, Pakistan, or a corrupt Russian military division. I never want to see a brighter-than-the-sun flash of a fission explosion in New York city a second before the blast and shockwave kills me and everyone I hold dear. To prevent this realty from occurring I'm willing to allow our country to do whatever it takes.

Right now what it takes is to win the peace in Iraq. So a minority of Iraqi's "resent" our being there right now, or view us as "occupiers", or think our presence is "defiling Muslim soil". Much has been made of the Muslim sense of "humiliation". Thomas Friedman's column in this Sunday's New York Times, entitled The Humiliation Factor (available here) explains Muslim humiliation very well and is worth a read.

Friedman makes interesting points, and getting the Iraqi people to dust themselves off and hold their chins up is a worthy endeavor, but he leaves out the bottomline -- that unless the middle east gets over this "humiliation" it'll never join the modern world. They have a choice -- focus on past slights, or focus on the future. They can't do both. Friedman notes "many Iraqis feel humiliated that they didn't liberate themselves, and America's presence, even its aid, reminds them of that." To which my response is "oh, grow up." Our job isn't to fashion Iraq into one big self-esteem seminar. When the United States won independence from Britain, with the crucial aid of France, we didn't feel "humiliated" because we needed French help. Granted we nearly declared war on France a few decades later, but that had nothing to do with any sense of "humiliation".


For a more comprehensive exploration of the battle against terrorism, and our current operation in Iraq, I highly recommend reading Victor Davis Hanson's various Iraq- and war against terrorism-related essays, particularly The Truth Will Set Us Free, and The Event of the Age. Hanson definitely understands the importance of our ongoing battles, but more importantly he, unlike many in the press, displays perspective in the analysis. While others in the media, particularly in Europe, have focused their hand-wringing over the past few weeks on the increased violence against U.S. troops in Iraq and the casualties we've received, he looks beyond that to the end goal. The deaths are legitimate news, but without context such reports ill-serve our country's goals.

The press of 2003 reports the numbers of killed (and every death is a sorrowful tragedy for the families and friends), but provide little to measure those numbers against, other than adding either "the attacks are increasing in sophistication", or "number of deaths has surpassed those in the initial war" or some other statement along those lines. Total U.S. casualties, while certainly mounting, are amazingly and historically low for a military operation of this scale. In fact, if the U.S. and Britain were saddled with the press of 2003 back in 1944 I can't imagine how we'd have continued to forge on and finally win WW II. Consider that as of December 21, 1944, the U.S. in WWII had suffered "135,323 killed, 362,824 wounded, 75,844 missing and 64,148 captured" with months of fighting still to go. As the U.S. in 1945 had roughly 1/2 the total population we now have, an accurate per capita comparison requires doubling those figures for a true sense of the scale.

Consider further, then, as of Nov. 8, 2003, approximately 390 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since the U.S. set foot there more than six months ago -- an average of 2.1 U.S. deaths per day, or 15.2 a week. Yet, back here in the United States around 800 people die every week for nothing in car accidents. The press isn't crying out for a ban of the automobile. Why? Because on that score they realize our way of life demands the car, and rather than ban them we continuously try to make the ones we buy safer.

While every accident death on the highways is truly a tragedy, because it's meaningless, every one of those soldiers in Iraq have given their lives in the pursuit of a noble cause and in defense of the U.S. Call me hopelessly anachronistic, but I still believe in noble causes, and I am grateful for their ultimate sacrifice. If I were twenty years younger I'd be giving serious thought to enlisting myself.

America wasn't built by easily frightened people. It takes an amazing amount of character to, say, gather your family together and hit the wagon trail to head 3,000 miles by foot for just the hope of a better life. Some of us have forgotten this truism. Freedom and democracy are ideals worth fighting for, and though the U.S. certainly has its share of serious flaws, the U.S. remains the last best hope on the face of this planet. Think not? Then, ask yourself what would the world be like if Germany, or France, or North Korea, or a Taliban-led Afghanistan had the economic and military might of the U.S. I'd wager we'd be facing a very, very different, and not better, world.

posted by anonymous at 4:23 AM

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