Another construction crane collapses in New York, taking some lives, ruining others. But where’s the mayor? And where’s the outrage?

I’ve begun writing this just before 10 AM. About an hour and 45 minutes ago, roughly a mile from where I live, yet another of those death-dealing construction cranes collapsed in New York.

It’s hard to tell how many are dead. At least two, says NBC News. At least one, say another report. They’ve barely begun to dig around in the rubble for bodies. Meanwhile, I've been hearing the wail of fire engines and ambulances all morning from my window, and the roar of helicopters overhead.

Once again, the crane not only damaged its own construction site, but destroyed some apartments in a building across the street. Firemen are searching for victims, living or dead. People in the area – and there are hundreds of apartments in the area – are being evacuated.

It’s little more than a week ago that I wrote an angry rant about the mayor ignoring the safety and health concerns of his fellow New Yorkers, instead focusing on congestion pricing and other headline-grabbing causes. (Scroll down a bit to find it.)

Peek-a-boo! Where’s the mayor?

This morning, so far, we’ve not heard from the mayor. The highest ranking official I’ve heard interviewed was Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. He did a credible PR job for the politicians who are “discussing” what to do about collapsing cranes, while failing, at least in the two interviews I’ve heard, either to express concern for the dead and displaced New Yorkers, or to express any amazement or outrage whatsoever that you put your life in danger just by living here.

Hey, where is Mayor Bloomberg? Out in Podunk, giving another political speech? Or taking a long weekend at his retreat in Bermuda? Who knows? His home is also only a mile from the disaster. He could have walked from his front door to the disaster in 20 minutes, even if his limo wasn’t handy.

Fleeing from action

Former Mayor Ed Koch, even Mayor Giuliani (whom I like even less than Bloomberg) would have been on the scene almost instantly, at least appearing to be irate that such a thing could happen in their cities. They thrived at running toward the disasters, not away from them.

Somebody in municipal government ought to be in high dudgeon. Instead, all we New Yorkers are getting are the equivalent of a high-handed shrug. It’s the CEO attitude: “Well, you know, we need to make progress and sometimes there are accidents.”

In other words, City Officials To New Yorkers: "Drop Dead."


Saturday Morning Addendum: I'm away for the weekend, with only limited access to a borrowed computer. Friends called to say that some time last night on television (I think they mentioned NBC) there was footage shown of the mayor making a statement about the collapse. They think he used the words "intolerable" or "unacceptable." I'm told he even sounded, if not outraged, at least somewhat piqued. Well hallelujah! Maybe someone on his staff is reading The New York Crank.

First independent interview with Rocky Mountain News’s space alien: “We have come to drink your…Celray Tonic.”

Man, it must be a slow week for news in Denver. The Rocky Mountain News is reporting that a local whack-o, a dude named Jeff Peckman, “who is pushing a ballot initiative to create an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission in Denver” is going to show the news media a video of a “living, breathing, space alien” today, May 29th.

Oh please, gimme a break! I mean, did you think that our ace news staff, sitting here in The New York Crank newscubicle, were going to let ourselves get scooped by The Rocky Mountain Snooze? No way, pal!

Crank's interview scoops the
Rocky Mountain Snooze

Fortunately, we were able to reach the alien via ISF (Internet Space Phone) to get this exclusive interview, thus scooping not only the Rocky Mountain News, but also the Colorado Film School, in Denver, where allegedly some unnamed instructor has endangered whatever accreditation a Denver film school might possibly have (not to mention the credibility of the Rocky Mountain News) by declaring, to quote the newspaper, that he had “scrutinized the video ‘very carefully’ and determined it was authentic.”

We think that's only part of the story, for reasons revealed in the transcript of our exclusive interview.

CRANK: Are you really an extraterrestrial?”

SPACE ALIEN: So what do I look like, chopped liver?

CRANK: The Rocky Mountain News quotes their local space alien nut as saying the film “…shows an extraterrestrial's head popping up outside of a window at night, looking in the window, that's visible through an infrared camera….The alien is about 4 feet tall and can be seen blinking.”

SPACE ALIEN: Right, I saw that news article, too.

CRANK: What’s the blinking all about?

SPACE ALIEN: It’s an outrage. I come out of a dark space ship – we keep the lights way down so I can read the instrument panels – and I stick my head out. Do you think they step forward and shake my hand? Oh please! Instead, they shine a bright light in my eyes, like I just got stopped for drunk driving. What would you do if you came out of the dark and they shined a light in your eyes? Pee?

CRANK: Why have you come in your flying saucer to Denver?

SPACE ALIEN: We’ve already done Paris. You should see the prices!

CRANK: Yes, but why Denver?

SPACE ALIEN: We are very thirsty. There is very little moisture on our planet. And we hear that there’s terrific Celray Tonic in Denver.

CRANK: Cel-what?

SPACE ALIEN: Celray Tonic. We have come to drink your Dr. Brown’s Celray Tonic.

CRANK: Where in Denver do you expect to find that stuff?

SPACE ALIEN: Katz’s Delicatessen.
CRANK: But that’s not in Denver. Katz’s is in New York. On the Lower East Side.

SPACE ALIEN: I think you’re wrong.

CRANK: I know I’m right. I live in New York.

SPACE ALIEN: Wait a second, just wait a second, sonny. I’ll ask my navigator. Hey Glutzpittt, where the hell is Katz’s Delicatessen? (PAUSE) He says New York.

CRANK: So why did he steer you to Denver?

SPACE ALIEN: He says The Rocky Mountain News offered to pick up our landing fees and hotel bill. Also, they'll give us a free continental breakfast. They’re going to make a whole big thing out of us.

CRANK: They don’t have anything more newsworthy to report on?

SPACE ALIEN: Did I ask? Do I care? So long as they pick up the tab, who am I to complain? They have a saying on my planet: “No news is good news.”

As giant cranes tumble on New York pedestrians, a smallfry politician offers a plan to protect you. With this.

Man, it’s getting tougher and tougher to live in New York and – sorry Mike – before I get to the smallfry, it’s time to start socking it a little harder to outgoing Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

For a long time Bloomberg appeared to be on a quest for – what was it again, the Presidency of the United States? Anyway, his quest led him to nanny the city into smoking bans in bars, calorie postings next to menu items in fast food restaurants, a failed try to tax citizens from the outer boroughs who dared to drive into Manhattan, and a whole lot of traveling away from the city – instead of staying where the Mayor’s ought to have been keeping an eye on things.

Meanwhile, certain basic services that have always been the city’s responsibility got, uh, shall we say neglected?

When the mayor’s away
the rats will play

For example, while the Mayor traveled around the United States last year, evidently in a failed attempt to seek a Presidential nomination, his health inspectors were giving passing grades to rat-infested restaurants.

Had the mayor but stayed home and walked around his city a bit more often, he might have seen what thousands of residents of Greenwich Village saw: a virtual rat menagerie attracting crowds as the cute little critters skittered around the restaurant.

Eventually that led to TV news coverage of the restaurant rat zoo and an ensuing scandal. The health inspector who for one reason or another – Do I detect the aroma of bribe money? – gave the rodent-infested eatery a passing grade was relieved from duty.

Of course – to deliberately and horribly mix a sackful of metaphors – that was closing the barn door after the rats were out of the bag. But hey, better late than never.

You’d think the mayor might be inspired by this ratty scandal to do a top-to-bottom review of what, whether and how the city’s myriad inspectors were doing their jobs, which were designed to protect the public’s health and safety. But no.

Look out…below-o-o-o-oh!

So then, surprise! Last March, a giant construction crane collapsed, flattening a townhouse and killing seven people below, after a building inspector gave a passing grade to the crane – which it turns out he hadn’t inspected.

Well, Bloomberg was busy fighting for his failed congestion pricing plan at the time. Had he but succeeded, future victims of collapsing cranes at least wouldn’t be inhaling the fumes from quite so many cars – Mayor Bloomberg’s limo excepted.

Little wonder, with not only his presidential ambitions thwarted, but also his mayoral record tarnished, the mayor has been appearing even crankier than The New York Crank. In fact, if you Google “Mayor Bloomberg getting testy,” you’ll find something like 27,000 entries.

When the bigwigs fail,
the lightweights rush in

Already, the local political vultures are pouncing on the carrion of Michael Bloomberg’s mayoral career. Recently, I received an e-mail that New York State Assemblyman Johnathan L. Bing sent to all of his constituents.

In yet another case of rats, barn doors and bags, Assemblyman Bing revealed his efforts to pass legislation that hereafter would penalize inspectors more severely after the cranes they don’t inspect collapse on people.

Here’s an idea worth bagging

But best of all, as part of the collapsing crane discussion in his e-mail, Assemblyman Bing announced this stunningly helpful initiative:

Assemblyman Bing will be hosting an event later this month with the American Red Cross to inform constituents about emergency preparedness and to give away free "Go Bags" containing supplies that New Yorkers should have in case of emergency.

"Go Bag?"

That’s the knapsack-sized bag up at the top of the page. So hey, I’m not worried any more. If a 10-ton crane falls on my head, I’ll simply unzip the knapsack that no doubt I’ll be carrying with me everywhere, whip out a bandage, and put it on my crushed skull. Why, there might even be a bottle of water for me to sip, assuming I’m still alive and not quite totally paralyzed.

Meet your favorite TV news program’s newest correspondent in Afghanistan

Is the long arm of Osama Bin Laden about to reach into your TV set and start spinning headlines during the news hour? Well, consider:

A while back, the American TV journalist Dave Marash joined the Al Jazeera network as its primary English language anchor. Turns out it was only temporary.

Marash, a respected journalist, quit again this past March because of what he cited as increasing editorial control from Qatar where the network is headquartered, and the increasing creep of anti-American sentiment.

Speeding “creep”

Creep? Galloping aggressive plans to penetrate the U.S. market is more like it. Now the New York Times reports that Al Jazeera 

...is pushing for a "breakthrough" that would make the channel available to American TV viewers and help it move beyond a turbulent start-up phase, according to its new managing director, Tony Burman.

The same New York Times article reported that,

Mr. Burman said he planned to increase coverage of American news, particularly as the presidential election approaches. Mr. Burman said Al Jazeera also planned to invest in new bureaus; it already shares more than 60 bureaus with its Arabic sister organization. And the channel plans 'more provocative” current affairs programming and investigative journalism, he said.

And if that doesn’t give you the willies, consider that,

“Our goal is to go in the opposite direction to so many other news organizations which are, sadly, cutting back on their coverage of the world," said Mr. Burman.

"News? We don't need no
stinking news! We need profits."

Unfortunately, Burman knows whereof he speaks. Here in the US, newspaper after newspaper is cutting back on staff in the name of preserving profits, or warding off the next Rupert Murdoch.

The networks are no better. They blame their falling ratings on their anchors (witness the ongoing sturm und drang over Katie Couric) while failing to shoulder any responsibility for having fewer of their own correspondents – I mean correspondents on the company payroll full time – abroad.

My, what a curious accent
you have, Mr. Correspondent

Ever notice that nearly every correspondent in Iraq or Afghanistan for – oh, let’s take CNN – seems to have an English or Australian or Irish accent? Could it be that rather than pay the costs of putting their own person on the spot, the network pinches pennies by merely picking up dispatches from freelancers and reporters from other countries’ networks?

(Important note: I make a standing exception to all of this for Christiane Amanpour who has a sort of English accent, an English mother and an Iranian father, but who also has a journalism degree from an American university, works on the payroll for CNN last I heard, and may be one of the most impressive foreign correspondents in the history of American journalism.)

But Amanpour seems more like the exception than the rule. If you can pick up the cheap a reporter or freelancer who works primarily for the BBC, why not simply stoop to picking up a really cheap feed from Al Jazeera in Qatar? Hey, it would be lots more profitable than paying to have your own unbiased guy and your own salaried camera crew on the scene, wouldn’t it?

"On the other hand, Mr. Pinocchio said
that Mr. Durante's nose is really quite small."

Of course, American journalism these days has a pretty weird idea of what unbiased means. You can’t quote somebody who’s telling the truth without quoting somebody who “disagrees,” even if the lack of agreement is based on lies. And you can’t simply call a liar a liar – not even when the lie is as plain as the nose on Pinocchio’s face.

Little wonder the New Yorker’s TV critic Nancy Franklin recently railed:

…I don’t think that people want less news; they want, I believe, the same kind of informed passion and doggedness that TV-news people displayed while covering Hurricane Katrina, and they want anchors to go deep into issues…Who knows, young people might turn on their TVs in droves if news organizations had a few choice strands of Michael Moore’s DNA in them, and pointed out when, say, a public official wasn’t telling the truth. Jon Stewart is a lightning rod both for people who decry the notion that young people get their news from watching “The Daily Show,” and for people who think that his (and Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report”) is the only current-events show worth watching. I’m not a Stewartite, but when Dick Cheney denies making certain statements about the war in Iraq and Stewart shows three video clips that prove he’s lying, I think he’s providing a real service to the country, and I’d like to think that that’s what his fans are responding to.

But no. The news networks will simply shuffle anchors, as if that’s the heart of the problem, cut reporting staff to make up for the losses caused by declining audiences, and show “both sides” to “balance” when somebody they interview tells the truth.

In the end, we'll always
have Al Jazeera

After all, when the last real reporter standing is finally given his “package” to take a hike, we’ll still get plenty of news – via a cheap feed from Al Jazeera and their “special” point-of-view.

Somewhere in his underground TV studio, Osama bin Laden is chuckling.

He’s against privatizing Social Security. No, uh, he’s for it. Nope, against it. No, for it. Against it. For it. Against it. For it.

If John McCain becomes President of the United States, Social Security is as doomed as the buggy whip industry. His tool will be that old dirty trick “privatization” – a process that will do for Social Security what private insurance has done for medical care in this country.

Here’s the latest horror, from a May 15th posting on The Carpetbagger Report:

Asked about the change, McCain rejected his own campaign’s Social Security policy. “I’m totally in favor of personal savings accounts…. As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it — along the lines that President Bush proposed.”

When reminded that his campaign website says something completely different, McCain said his site would be changed. Two and a half months later, the site remains the same. As a result, McCain and his campaign have taken completely different positions on the issue, with the candidate embracing the same policy pushed by Bush, which Americans rejected overwhelmingly.

Makes you wonder whether Alzheimer’s has already set in.

Save America’s corporations from their greedy CEOs and themselves. Complain like hell. Maybe this book will help.

I got a full time reporting job on a big city daily newspaper when I was still a college student – by writing to the editor of the newspaper.

I got my first advertising job by writing to the chairman of an ad agency.

Those were the days when chief executives seemed to read their mail.

I repeat, those were the days.

You may not be old enough to remember, kiddies, but once upon a time corporate chairmen felt they had a responsibility to somebody besides themselves, their wives and their mistresses.

Okay, come to think of it, scratch the part about their wives.

The four vanished pillars
of corporate success

CEOs once stood on a four-pillared platform, supported by the reciprocal loyalty of 1) their stockholders, 2) their customers, 3) their employees and 4) their communities. To inspire that loyalty, they respected and were responsive to all four constituencies.

I repeat again, those were the days.

Today some top corporate chiefs
are as responsive as a dead toad

Not so long ago, when Bob Nardelli was still busy enjoying total compensation from Home Depot in excess of $200 million – in exchange for which his stewardship as CEO led the company’s stock essentially nowhere – he evidently was busy not giving a damn about his customers, either.

It was back then that the Crank’s beautiful girlfriend, in an extremely rare fit of misguided optimism, allowed Home Depot to take a deposit against $25,000 of her money to replace the double-glazed windows in her country home.

This no-brainer installation took nearly a year. Among other problems, the salesman kept calling the Crank’s beautiful girlfriend at her New York residence and announcing that the job was done and demanding payment in full. She’d drive out to the country and discover that the job hadn’t been done. This kind of thing happened time after time, over many months. And I'm not even going to go into the tale of the custom-made window that they couldn't get to fit.

I foolishly suggested that she complain to Bob Nardelli. “He can’t possibly allow this to happen once he knows about it,” I insisted.

Big Bob's big silence

She wrote to him. His answer? We’re still waiting to hear from him – an extremely dubious proposition now that he’s been hauled out of Home Depot by his hind end, but rewarded for his failure not only with a king’s ransom but also the chairmanship of Chrysler where he’s evidently still busy counting his money.

Ditto, in terms of James P. (letters-from-customers-be-damned) Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, from whom this cranky customer is still waiting for a reply to a letter he sent on August 10, 2006. And no, I’m not holding my breath any more, either.

Has a top ad guy
cracked the code?

But now a former top ad guy (and – full-disclosure – old colleague) Bruce Silverman has written a book called How To Complain For Fun and Profit, indicating that the Beautiful Girlfriend and I may have been complaining the wrong way.

Silverman, whose many senior titles have included President of Wong-Doody, a West Coast ad agency; President of Asher-Gould, another West Coast ad agency; President of Western International Media and Creative Director at various Ogilvy & Mather offices and of Bozell South, evidently had a cute little sideline all these years – writing complaint letters.

While you and I might write a complaint letter because we’re irate to the point of exploding, Silverman complains for what appear to be different reasons. His complaint letter are not only an art form but also a sport. He has saved his winning letters all these years, along with notes tracking his success in getting freebies. And he does keep score.

Free clothing, free nights,
free money, free bananas!

 In a chest-thumping e-mail to me Silverman boasted like the complaint champ he is,

"Over the course of the past 20 years, I’ve written dozens and dozens and dozens (!!!) of complaint letters to airlines, hotels, car rental companies, cruise lines, retailers, banks, credit card companies, car dealers, movie theater chains, theatrical producers… and a huge percentage of those letters resulted in me getting something back from them… and the “something” wasn’t just an apology! I’ve gotten free stays at great hotels, first class airplane tickets, cruises… clothing… MONEY… even bananas!"

Now it may be that Silverman has been writing only to those rare senior executives who still give a damn about anything other than their compensation packages. Or it may be that when Silverman began writing to the top people, 20 years ago, we still had a different breed of corporate manager running things, and this has upped his overall kill rate. Besides, who knows what "huge percentage" means?

Even so, Silverman seems to be on to something. A careful reading of the book, which you can learn more about here, reveals some techniques that may help you get some kind of compensation for the misery some company has put you through.

My favorite: “Praise with faint damn,” a technique for what I see essentially as getting the CEO to lower his guard by sucking up to him – before you figuratively grab his private parts and twist. I love this stuff. That’s why I’m shamelessly endorsing my old colleague's book.

Go ahead, grab the
gorilla’s bananas!

Listen, in a world where even many CEOs have ceased to give a damn about their customers – and everybody who works for them is too scared, too lazy, or too dumb to solve an irate customer’s problem – you need Bruce Silverman’s book. Who knows, by complaining you might just save corporate America from itself.

Heck, had James Dimon so much as sent me a bunch of bananas, I might not be slamming him a second time on the Internet for being just another greedy corporate gorilla.

Antioch Univer-SUE-ty. It can’t run a college but it sure can sue-sue-sue. Guess who the trustees are threatening to sue now?

Just when you think you’ve milked the last there is to milk out of the subject of Antioch University’s high-handed trustees and chancellor, who put a great college out of business after letting it slide to the brink of bankruptcy, the trustees come up with yet another whack-a-doodle legal maneuver to demonstrate that their ineptitude and mindless dudgeon have no bottom.

But first take note that:

•The trustees are already involved in a lawsuit with college faculty in Yellow Springs, Ohio, who were fired despite their tenure. And further...

•The trustees have also threatened some alumni and faculty of Antioch College and Yellow Springs with lawsuits for “trademark infringement,” after those groups founded an organization called Antioch Nonstop to continue teaching college courses that once were taught on the defunct campus. The supporters of Antioch College’s survival coined a slogan, “Be ashamed to let it die,” based on founder Horace Mann’s slogan, “Be ashamed to die until you’ve won some victory for humanity.”

There was unintentional irony in this trustees’ threat of a suit, in the name of “trademark protection.” It came from group that had overseen the college’s financial “failure,” deliberately shut down the college, contributed big time to the destruction of the college’s reputation, and refused millions of dollars in pledges from alumni who wanted to save the college.

The trustees’ lawyer had the gall to write, that use of the name Nonstop Antioch “…is likely to deceive the public with respect to Antioch’s trademarks and associated services and dilute the distinctiveness of the well-known Antioch marks and logos. The unauthorized use of Antioch’s valuable trademarks will cause confusion and improperly benefit you to the detriment of Antioch.”

Valuable trademarks? Valuable as what? Thanks to the trustees and their chancellor, the Antioch name these days is as vauable as an odiferous quart of month-old milk, with flies buzzing around the open container. But I’m getting off the topic here.

Here we go again – another
threatened trustee law suit

On Thursday, the Yellow Springs (Ohio) News revealed that the University is now threatening to sue the Village of Yellow Springs over an air conditioner that is reportedly creating an ongoing noise nuisance to its residential neighbors and that the village says was built without the required permits.

According to the website The Antioch Papers, even the air conditioner’s manufacturer says the unit in question is “not suitable for residential areas.” Oh, and by the way, the trustees are also threatening to sue The Antioch Papers.

Twisted reasoning

You wouldn’t believe the University’s twisted reasoning for refusing to turn off an obnoxiously loud and neighborhood-disrupting air conditioner in an empty college. They make the prima facie insane claim that the Village of Yellow Springs is trying to make the college re-open by suing it to turn off its noisy, code-violating air conditioner.

This mad dog legal defense of an obnoxious machine has been going on for four years! The University seems to lack the money to run a once-great college, but evidently has plenty of dough in its war chest to spend on foaming-at-the-mouth legal trivia concerning illegal air conditioners, “protecting” a trademark that its own actions made worthless, and other nonsense.

Quick, somebody call the
men with butterfly nets

Why is this sounding more and more to me like certifiable insanity? Are the trustees and chancellor suffering a collective mental meltdown?

There ought to be a law requiring Antioch University trustees and their chancellor to pass a mental competency exam. And if they flunk it, they ought to be carted off to the looney bin, which more and more is where they are demonstrating they belong.

How America is getting pecked to death by birdbrains. Part 1: The USPS and privatization.

Under the Republican-Bush Administration and so-called "conservative" ideology, the United States has very nearly become a Third World nation. Birdbrained thinking is behind every aspect of a declining United States, from the drain on our human treasure and national treasury by the Iraq war, to today’s topic: A draining trip to the post office.

I went to the post office today, May 7th, to mail a package. The post office is three blocks from my office, roughly a three-minute walk. I left the office at 12:25 PM. I got back to my desk at 2:20 PM.

The post office is one of the two biggest in Manhattan, the James Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue between 33rd and 34th Streets. Using it turned out to be a nightmare.

The Flat Rate Follies

I wanted to use the service that lets you stuff anything that fits into a certain size box for a flat rate. I saw signs all over the post office announcing what a great deal this is. What I didn’t see, after a block-long traipse from one end of the huge post office to the other, were the boxes.

I finally found some kind of roving postal official who’s evidently there to answer questions such as, “Where do I get one of those flat-rate boxes?”

So I asked him, “Where do I get one of those flat rate boxes?”

“Well,” he said, seeming a bit unsure of himself, “there might be some over on that table.” He pointed to a table at the south end of the post office.

“Nope, I’ve already looked there,” I told him.

“Well, go over there,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction to the philatelic store at the north side of the post office.

I went to the store. I looked around. I couldn’t see a flat rate box. I got in a line. There were six people in front of me. Finally, it was my turn. I asked for one of the flat rate boxes.

“I have only one left,” said the clerk, pulling it from a hiding place behind his counter.

One left? One left? I’m in one of of the two largest post offices in Manhattan, if not in the United States of America, with signs all over the place advertising flat rate boxes, and they only had one box? One?

“I’ll take it,” I said. “How much?”

The price of “free”

“Oh, it’s free,” said the clerk.

Free? They make you stand in line 10 minutes for something they’re giving out free? Why don’t they just stack ‘em up in the corner, under a sign that says: Flat Rate Boxes. Take One, Free.

I put the contents of my package into the box. I addressed the box. I sealed it. Then I had to get at the end of another line, in the main hall of the post office to buy however much postage I needed to put on the box, and to obtain a receipt.

True, there were a few computerized stamp-generating machines in the hall as well, with long lines of their own behind them. But I wanted to make sure I got everything exactly right, since if I screwed up the box, I wasn’t likely to find another. So I got in the line for service by a human.

There were 27 people in that line. I know, because I counted them. There was one – one! – window with one postal clerk behind it open. Five others were closed. This was an the middle of the business day. In the bustling midtown Manhattan business neighborhood. In one of the city’s two largest post offices. One clerk!

From time to time, another clerk window would open for a few minutes, then close again. Often people in line didn’t see the window or hear the tiny bell the clerks behind the windows would ding instead of calling out “Next!” The Farley Post Office used to have a semi-automated system with flashing lights that would indicate when a window was available. That seems to be out of order.

The line in front of me shuffled along slowly. The line behind me grew longer. After a while there were only 12 people in front of me, and 41 behind me.

Postal customers seethe

Not that there weren’t postal employees around. There were, although none of them were doing clerical duties behind post office windows. For example, there were two uniformed postal postal police on patrol. On patrol for what? Probably to make certain none of the customers “go postal” out of sheer frustration and rage. A few seemed on the verge. Eyes rolled. Lips mouthed what appeared to be silent curses. The cops watched us suspiciously.

One hour and 35 minutes after went to the end of the line, I was “served.” A postal clerk took my package, asked if it contained any liquids (no) or explosives (nah, me?) and if I wanted any other “services.” (Nope, this one has cost me enough time.) He relieved me of $8.95 and handed me a requested receipt.

My package is now speeding on its way. I hope.

The birdbrained
urge to “privatize”

For a few bucks more – and certainly for a lot less that I’d bill my own clients for almost two hours of lost time – I could have gone the same distance to a FedEx office and gotten taken care of in less than five minutes.

I think that’s the intent behind the tightfisted Congressional funding of the Post Office that winnows down postal staffs to skeleton crews, slowing down service to a crawl while constantly driving up postal rates. The USPS is yet another service that birdbrained Republican dogmatists would like to “strangle in the bathtub.” Somehow, financing mail delivery the way the government has done since George Washington was President sounds like some kind of communist plot to them.

More important than war

Never mind that a funding post offices was the sixth item listed as one of the duties of Congress (Section 8) in the U.S. Constitution by the framers. They listed it ahead of the power to declare war. It was that important to them.

Today the birdbrains in Congress want the USPS to “pay for itself,” in violation of the constitution. Essentially, they want the government to dis-invest in a constitutionally-mandated benefit for citizens and small businesses (such as publishers) alike. So they choke off funding for the post office. Result: rates go up, service goes down, and in a huge building you can waste nearly two hours to mail a package via the one or (rarely) two clerks on duty.

Can and will private business do what the Post Office does? Sure, at a price that will drive up everything from the cost of paying your phone bill (and of receiving it, since the phone company’s costs also will get passed along to you) to the delivery of mail order shorts, to the cost of publishing a struggling journal.

Oh, also Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and happy Valentine’s Day. The price of mailing your card (or paying a bill) could cost you $4.53 at today's rates if it’s a privatized price.

Commerce will suffer. Taxpayers, instead of paying a miniscule portion of their taxes toward support of the United States Post Office, will pay a huge cost increase on everything that travels by or does some kind of business by mail. That’s just about everything. Got that? Every-thing. Every-damned-thing.

Of course, that’s what the Congressional birdbrains want.

How to protest

Write or call your Congressional representatives and senators. With just your zip code you can find their addresses and phone numbers here.

Quote this article to them. Or print it out and mail it to them.

Ask them if they’re part of the bird-brained thinking that’s strangling a critical government service, the U.S. Post Office, and turning the USA into a Third World country. Ask them what they specifically intend to do about lousy postal service and climbing postal rates.

Do it fast. Before the price of a stamp goes up again.

Uh oh! If you blow the whistle on sleazy Republican sinners, here’s where you might end up:

So, uh, in case you’ve been napping for very long time, there was yet another hooker scandal in Washington, this time involving a madame named Deborah Jean Palfrey.

Once again, it involved political bigwigs. Republicans, in this case. There was the threat that a lot of Republican officials would get exposed. (Let the puns fall where they may.)

Johns? What johns?

But surprise, very few of the involved Republican vice customers got outed. (Democrats seem to patronize a different classs of hookers. Viz former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.)

One of the few unfortunate johns whose name did see the light of day would be Republican U.S. Senator David Vitter, who “apologized” for committing “a very serious sin.” Another potential “witness” in the trial was Harlan Ullman, the military "genius" who invented shock and awe as the cool thing to do in Iraq.

Oh yes, still another would be one of Condi Rice’s boys, a dude with the title Deputy Secretary of State. However, Deputy Secretary Randall Tobias hastily, umm, “resigned” last April.

It was starting to appear as if we'd really have a show once the rock finished getting turned over. Who knew what else would crawl out? But somehow, a huge trove of details concerning Palfrey’s business and clients never surfaced during the trial. Or after it.

Hey folks, this was an operation that had been doing business in D.C. for 13 years and had “at least” 132 women working for it. And we're asked to believe that only three Republicans in government used them? Who were the rest of the johns? Door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesmen?

Oh my gracious! There's no one left
to write a tell-all book!

Vitter was facing up to 55 years in prison just for helping Republicans get laid. With all that time on her hands, she could have written one hell of a best-selling book from her cell.

But suddenly — poof! She committed suicide. And at almost exactly the same time, the trial judge sealed records identifying the women who worked for Vitter and didn’t testify. Of course, what they might have testified to is with whom they did what, when and where they did it, and in which position. Alas, now we’ll never know.

But wait! There’s more!

It turns out that a University of Maryland professor was “employed” by Vitter. Tch tch! You know, those professors are notorious for their publish-or-perish attitude. And if they testify in court, they can be so damningly articulate.

Except, the professor, Brandy Britton, also “committed suicide” before her trial could begin.

Coincidence? Well, if you say so. But it’s starting to feel a tad creepy to me.

Al Quaeda agent?

When Al Quaeda hijacked four airplanes on 9/11, bringing down the World Trade Center with two of them, Americans experienced a sense of righteous rage that won't go away in the lifetime of anybody who witnessed it.

To this day even the most liberal of us – including this cranky writer who is a usual opponent of the death penalty – wouldn’t shed a tear if Osama Bin Laden were shot or blown to bits in his cave, executed by lethal injection after a trial in the United States, or decapitated by a man swinging a sword in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. In fact, my sense of justice and a lingering fury has me longing for the last alternative.

9/11 was intended
as economic sabotage

It’s important to remember that Bin Laden’s intent was more than just to murder Americans. Those 3,000 lives were "collateral damage." The 9/11 operation was an act of economic sabotage aimed and wrecking havoc on New York, disrupting the nation’s financial markets, and shaking the world’s faith in the invulnerability of the United States.

So what is an American citizen who deliberately sets out to tear apart a strong American financial system—thus disrupting the financial markets, shaking the world’s faith in America, and possibly driving the entire United States to the verge of another Great Depression?

I’m talking about former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm, a man with more unsavory behavior in his background than a stray dog has fleas.

The man who created
a financial avalanche

Gramm is the Texan responsible for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. This law repealed Glass-Steagall Act, which once protected the financial integrity of America's banks.

Even more horrifically, Gramm was behind the stealthily-enacted, so-called “Commodity Futures Modernization Act,” which prohibits the government from regulating or even looking into the kinds of complex financial transactions that brought down Bear Sterns, threatens many banks including those where you may have deposits, and which may, as you read this, be snowballing into a financial avalanche that will bring down the United States economy.

I’ve previously railed against the repeal of Glass-Steagall here. And you’ll find a good – if simplified – summary of the havoc Phill Gramm has brought down on the United States economy here.

It seems fairly clear that Gramm did what he did for personal gain in the form of generous campaign contributions from doomsday business entities ranging from Enron (remember them?) to UBS, a now-shaky (thanks in part to Gramm-sponsored legislation) Swiss Bank on whose board Gramm sits.

“Dear Phil, Thanks for the great work.
—Your Pal, Osama Bin Laden”

If Gramm were on the payroll of Osama Bin Laden and did nothing more than what he has already done, an alert U.S. Attorney General would have a field day looking into charges of sabotage and treason relating to Gramm.

Of course, Gramm sabotaged the American economy in the U.S. Senate, which is to say he sabotaged our nation fair and square. So it’s doubtful that he will ever spend so much as a millisecond locked in the slammer. So much the worse for the future of America.

However, it is worth noting that Gramm is the chief financial adviser to Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain. If McCain becomes President, we’ll have the functional equivalent of an Al Quaeda agent of economic sabotage sitting in the Oval Office.

And that’s not just unjust. That’s economic terrorism.

New York's too much of a hassle right now. So I'm going here:

Hey, the Pope blew into New York this morning. You wouldn't believe the amount of constabulary they have hanging around in my Upper East Side neighborhood as a consequence.

On Park and 76th there were enough officers in blue to replace the entire police department of – oh, I dunno, let's guess and say Zanesville, Ohio. And the Pope isn't even on that block. He's five blocks away, at 72nd off Madison.

I walked another block. I found another humongous crowd of cops. I shudder to think what it's like in front of the Vatican ambassador's residence where the Pope is staying, but there's no way you can get within a block of it unless you can present identification proving you live on the block.

Hazmat Harry gets free
parking in the park

There had to be 20 police vehicles crammed into the East 72nd entrance to Central Park – everything from cop vans to a hazmat truck. Hazmat?

I don't know why either. How is anybody going to get into the neighborhood and past all those cops while schlepping a dirty nuclear device or a giant cylinder of poison gas? Maybe it's just that the Police Commissioner is afraid somebody near the Pope will fart.

Immediately inside the Park, on the North side of the 72nd Street transverse, a giant crowd of cops who looked like they might be an enormous SWAT team were lolling on benches. Yeah, lolling. Probably because the Pope hadn't arrived yet. Not that I can figure out exactly what the NYPD plans to do with half a battalion of SWAT cops. Maybe they're planning a shootout with the Swiss Guard.

I hiked across the park to the West Side and hopped the C-train down to my office. There was a cop on the platform. There was also a cop in my subway car.

On the one hand, all this made me feel very safe. On the other hand, you'd hate like hell to try getting around town this week.

And listen up, all local crooks:

With all that police manpower concentrated in Manhattan, it's a wide open opportunity for bank robbers in Brooklyn and Queens. Just make sure your escape route doesn't include Manhattan.

As for me, I don't do big occasions and police vehicle traffic jams. So I'm heading for Paris, assuming I can find a limo or taxi that can get me through the chaos to the airport.

High finance for lowly schnooks

I'm bringing along a fat wad of cash – which ought to be enough to buy me a cup of coffee and maybe a couple of square meals given that the price of a Euro, before bank commissions, is $1.57. Use plastic? Nah! The S.O.B.s behind the Citibank Mastercard are now soaking their customers for a three percent fee for using plastic in a foreign country, on top of the fee the greedy bank already charges merchants.

And oh, with interest rates falling, Citibank sent me a notice that they're raising their own rates. When I was a kid in Brooklyn, Iron Bar Willie got ten years in Sing Sing for trying to collect some vig at exactly the same rate Citibank is now ripping out of its customers wallets. What do you think the odds are that the chairman of Citicorp will do time in the jug?

Nah, me neither.

See you middle-ish of the week after next, probably as cranky as ever.

“Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances.”

Thank you, Tom Shales of the Washington Post for telling it like it is when you slammed the despicable moderation of the last Obama-Clinton primary debate.

The economy is crumbling before our eyes. Americans are dying every day in Iraq. The nation’s infrastructure is crumbling. Our healthcare system is a shambles. Our international prestige is nosediving.

And those two morons had nothing better to focus on than an old sermon from Barak’s former minister and similarly meaningless inanities?

Shame! Shame! Gibson and Stephanopoulos are a disgrace.

Hide-And-Go-Tax mayor socks New Yorkers with a killer water bill.

Water bill?

No, not for bottled water. I’m talking about the “free” stuff that pours out of the faucets in New York.

In a town fed by one of the planet’s best reservoir systems, with rainfall in excess of plentiful for the past few months, with no forseeable likelihood that New York is going to run out of the stuff in the next 100 years, New Yorkers are about to get socked with what is likely to be yet another staggering increase in their water bills.

The price of drinking tap water, brushing your teeth, taking a shower or flushing a toilet is going up by double digits once again. Said a blog called DMI Blog last year:

Compounded annually, the 54% increase in water and sewer rates in New York City that the Water Board is projecting over the next four years will mean more maxed-out homeowners going into foreclosure, more affordable housing managers struggling to keep their buildings afloat, and (since all costs trickle down) higher rents for the millions of rent stabilized tenants, many who already pay half of their income on rent.

And that was a year ago!

What’s behind the increase?
Follow Mayor Bloomberg's failings.

It turns out that behind two years of average double-digit increases is Mayor Bloomberg, picking his citizens’ pockets as they bend over the water cooler. And at the same time he's failing to do a proper job of collecting on water bills the city is already owed.

Hey, I don’t begrudge the mayor money to run the city. But how about a straightforward fairly graduated income tax hike and some city hall management efficiency, rather than a sneak attack on citizens who, regardless of income, suddenly have to pay through the nose to pee – least if they want to flush?

Another expose of the Mayor’s attempt to quietly pick his fellow citizens’ pockets appeared last Friday in the New York Post.

New York City Comptroller, William C. Thompson, who no doubt now finds himself inhabiting the Mayor’s Snit List revealed:

The Water Board leases the water and sewer infrastructure from the city. The board's rent payments to the city are based on a formula that until recently simply reimbursed the city for water-related debt service on bonds issued before the Water Authority was created.

But, since 2005, rental payments under that formula have exceeded the amount needed to pay down this old debt. This "excess rent" will total $77 million in fiscal year 2008 and grow to over $175 million by fiscal year 2011. This cash flows into the city's general fund, to be used as any other general revenue.

In other words, the Mayor is jacking up the city’s water bill and siphoning the excess into his general revenues. It’s a hidden tax, and its purpose is plain:

Pickpocket Mike wants to fund his city without having to raise income or real estate taxes.

An honest tax hike only looks bad
if you’re running for something.

An equitable income tax hike will make you look bad – despite its probable legitimacy – if you decide to run for office. Say, for Vice-President. Or for Governor of New York State next year. Or for senator to fill Hillary Clinton’s seat if she gets elected to the presidency. (Given the Mayor’s penchant for switching and abandoning parties, it’s a bit difficult to say which party’s principles he stands for or what ticket he would run on.)

Oh, and then there’s the matter of getting the mayor do his job. Part of that job is collecting monies already owed the city so he doesn’t have to raise the ante for honest people who do pay on time. The DMI Blog article pointed out that there’s a…

…plethora of billing errors that prevent the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) from enforcing collections resulting in more than $600 million in unpaid water bills…

This is a mayor who has traveled to Beijing in search of “new ideas” and around America last year in search of – well, who knows what, but at the time it looked like electoral votes.

Meanwhile, nobody in City Hall was minding the store. Which may account for everything from that uncollected $600 million to death-dealing crane collapses that resulted because Mayor’s building inspectors weren’t really inspecting.

The price of mayoral negligence is death

That crane collapse – a killer of seven people – was just the tip of the iceberg, Scott Stringer, the Manhattan Borough President revealed.

"We've had partial building collapses; we've had fires in buildings," said Stringer, "we've had cranes pummeling down shafts in buildings; we've had loss of life injuries. This incident is just the latest example of needless people dieing because we do not have proper safety protocols in this city."

Hey, it’s worth your money and your life to trying to survive in New York City when you have a mayor sniffing around everybody’s job in everybody’s city but his own. As for you folks who think you can save costs by conserving water, fuhgheddaboudid.

Said the DMI blog: "…they still need to collect a certain amount, so the more water we conserve, the more they'll charge us for it!"

Carrots, sticks, homicide, love, politics, assault weapons, Michael Bloomberg, Jack Kennedy and Barak Obama

Ignored, overlooked, or feeling unloved, once or twice a year in this country a student grabs a firearm and blows away some of his schoolmates.

Why do I think it isn’t such a huge leap from berserk students to the kind of people who grow up to be politicians?

Love, yearning, bullets and ballot boxes

Think about it. Running for office is a way of trying to make people love you. Or at least of trying to make them support you. Political candidacy often satisfies just the kind of yearning for attention and power you’d feel if you finally got so hungry for it that you grabbed an assault weapon and shot up the school.

What about people who don’t support you for election, or who try to siphon away to other candidates the love you feel you’re owed? You can get even with them if you’re a successful politician.

You can slime them. You can smear them. You can lie about them. Or you can employ a political “operative” (a fancy term for thug) like Karl Rove to do it for you. You can run for prosecutor in New York and then after you’re elected indict people and make them do the perp walk like Rudi Giuliani and Elliott Spitzer did. Just make sure, as former New York Attorney General and then New York Governor Elliott Spitzer didn’t, that if you’re stirring the public pot you don’t also have a little something cooking on the side.

In other words, running for office in the United States is, as often as not, a symbolic way of whacking people over the head with a stick, or blowing their heads off.

Ya gotta be nuts!

There’s an increasingly popular notion that you have to be slightly twisted to want to be President of the United States. My own theory, to state it in another way, is that most politicians – there are exceptions, as you’ll see – are a heartbeat away from being serial killers and that elective office is mass murder by other means.

For all I know some politicians like George Bush who so far has gotten over 4,000 Americans plus who-knows-how-many Iraqis killed during his Presidency may be even further along than that.

Which brings me to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. No, I don’t think he’s as ham-handed a gunslinger or stick swinger as George Bush. But for a while the people around Mayor Bloomberg seemed to be mumbling something about a Bloomberg third party candidacy for President. More lately he seems to be flirting with a McCain endorsement, which – who knows? – might lead to the vice-presidential nomination on the Republican ticket.

However, right now, the Bloomberg approach to problem solving – a kind of business executive top-down management style – seems to have hit a concrete wall at racetrack speed.

Congestion pricing gets all jammed up

The legacy item of Bloomberg’s administration was supposed to be congestion pricing – a rule that would have charged motorists $8 each time then drove in and out of mid-to-lower Manhattan on weekdays.

Bloomberg promised a bunch of carrots to New York Citizens in return. New York would get some money from the Federal government. Traffic would move more smoothly.

The problem is, the representatives of most New Yorkers didn’t buy it. First of all, precious few of us drive to work in this town. You’d have to be crazy. Forget the stick of $8 congestion pricing. A garage for the day can easily set you back over $30. Park your car on the street and it’s likely to get hauled away, while you get stuck not only with a fine, but also commercial towing and garaging charges until you rescue your vehicle.

The secret tax

Congestion pricing was really a hidden tax that probably would have raised the cost of everything from a plumbing repair bill to real carrots, since plumbers have to bring their trucks to the job, and carrots don’t make the trek from rural America to midtown Manhattan on roller skates.

So Manhattan residents would have been doubly screwed. They’d pay to use their own cars (if they have them) to get out of town on weekends and home on Sunday nights. And they’d pay even if they don’t drive every time the sink leaked or they got a yearning for carrot soup (or anything else edible.)

Meanwhile, city employees get thousands of free parking permits and the mayor, who says he uses the subway, admits taking a chauffeured limousine to get to the subway from his Upper East Side townhouse. So why support anti-congestion measures that he doesn’t support himself?

What real leadership means

Mayor Bloomberg, like Elliott Spitzer, like most politicians, forgot what real leadership is all about. You don’t get people to follow by dangling a carrot in front of them and threatening a stick if they don’t follow you.

In fact, here in New York, a good many of us feel most of the time as if we’re chewing on a stick while the Mayor beats us over the head with a bunch of carrots.

What is real leadership?

You lead as a few exceptional people have. In my lifetime there have been two of those. One was the late President Jack Kennedy, whom I’ve missed since some frustrated politician named Lee Harvey Osald blew him away from a perch in a Dallas schoolbook warehouse.

The other is Barack Obama.

Watch (in early 1960s film clips or the evening television reports today) how they do it. They do not dangle carrots and tell us about shining cities on hills. They do not brandish sticks and tell us Al Quaida is coming, so we’d better be good, we’d better not pout. Instead, they inspire us to join them in great and urgent work.

John McCain waves a stick at me, warning that I’d better agree with him or Osama Bin Laden will magically emerge from under my bed and destroy me. Hillary Clinton keeps warning me with her waving stick that if the phone rings at 3 AM in the White House (for what? A man at the door with a late night pizza delivery?) she’ll know what to do. Or maybe she’ll just have a $2 tip handy for the delivery man.

Leading by inspiration

It’s time for our politicians to act like the leaders they’re supposed to be. No carrots. No sticks. Just inspiration – inspiring all of us to pull together for the common good, and then giving us programs we can pull for.

So far as I can see, the only political candidate for anything in the United States who leads by inspiration is Barack Obama.

Perfidy at Antioch: tales of university trustees and senior staff lying, double-dealing, and committing institutional sabotage continue emerging.

If you’ll forgive an old (but apt) cliché, studying the reasons why Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio has in effect ceased to exist is like peeling an onion.

Antioch, as you may recall from an earlier post here, is a 157 years old college controlled by a “university” of the same name – although the university facilities consist of a bunch of second rate college continuation and adult education schools, some offering a few graduate courses.

These satellite “colleges” have no tenured faculty, no residential campuses, and sometimes offer courses of quality one well might question. (See the item on the Seattle campus’ science lab, way down below.)

An ongoing horror story

Each time I receive an e-mail from enraged college alumni – about the university trustees’ rejection of an attempt to save the college by an alumni group called the Antioch College Continuation Corporation (ACCC) – I go digging a bit more. And each time, I find myself peeling off more layers from the onion. It’s an ongoing horror story and at the center of it, if anyone ever gets to the center, you may find a plot as tangled and crooked as the Watergate scandal.

Needed, an ambitious
Ohio attorney general

It’s the kind of case that an ambitious state attorney general – if Ohio has one ambitious enough – might fruitfully explore to see if members of the Trustees and the parent Antioch University chancellor’s staff have been up to shenanigans that might violate state laws involving charitable trusts.

At any rate, here are some shockers I’ve stumbled across this week:

From the Yellow Springs News, the local weekly that finally seems to have its dander up:

Had the negotiating team, led by Chancellor Toni Murdock, wanted an agreement with the ACCC, it would not have started out asking the outrageous price of $54 million for the college, then stalling almost a month before lowering that price while every passing day was critical to the college’s ability to stay open. Had the university negotiators wanted the college to live, they would not have included the demand that the college pay the university $22 million for the college’s own $22 million endowment.

What’s clear is that the university negotiators showed no interest in reaching an agreement that would benefit both the college and the university. Bottom line, they wanted cash. And now it’s reasonable to assume that should the college close, the university leaders will sell off its assets to the highest bidder.

Trustee asset raids worthy
of Wall Street barbarians

Turns out the University wanted to make a grab for assets created at and by the college. The $22 million endowment was only part of it. The University also demanded that it keep WYSO, the college radio station whose license could be sold for a small fortune, and Antioch Education Abroad, another potential money maker. Both WYSO and the education abroad program were begun before there ever was a university.

From Inside Higher Education:

And in an additional complication, university officials said over the weekend that if another buyer for the college emerged — willing to pay for the college with cash immediately and willing to let the university keep Antioch’s NPR stations — a sale was still possible. This prompted a mock ad on Craigslist that said: “Antioch College no longer holds any substantial meaning or value to its Board of Trustees, beyond what it can be sold for on the open market. Offers by alumni groups promising to operate the college in a continuous manner, beholden to its traditional values of openness and academic freedom are particularly loathsome. Real Estate developers with proven military-industrial success are preferred. Contact the Board of Trustees at their Corporate Headquarters in Yellow Springs for more info.”

Also from the same article:

A statement from the university said that negotiations fell apart because the alumni group, which offered to buy the college for $12.2 million, was able to provide only $6 million in cash immediately, and wanted to pay off the remaining sum over the next few years. The lack of security made the deal impossible for the board to accept because the university’s creditors wouldn’t have liked it, said the statement. (At least one trustee, however, reported that there was never a formal vote on the matter and that some trustees might well have accepted the condition.) The statement went on to pledge support for the revival of the college at some point in the future.

Leaders of the Antioch College Continuation Corporation disputed the board’s statement. Eric Bates, co-chair of the group, called the board’s statement “mostly incorrect” and said that he was “shocked” by it. Specifically, he said that his group had offered to use the physical campus of the college to back up its financial pledges, so that in fact the alumni had offered something of far more value than the funds it would have still owed the university.

Borgersen [One of the people trying to keep the college open] said [of the trustees] …“They are trying to build a University of Phoenix clone out of the ashes of Antioch College and we will not let that happen.

From another source comes the news that Tulisse (“Toni”) Murdoch, the Chancellor of Antioch University, received a campus-wide vote of no confidence from the college community last year.

The referendums stated Murdock has “violated long-standing Antioch College values, community standards, and the Civil Liberties Code.” This community-wide vote of no confidence in Chancellor Murdock unifies the two pre-existing votes of no confidence in the Chancellor by Antioch College faculty and union staff. The College’s advisory body to the President, Adcil, was concerned and frustrated with the lack of consultation leading to the departure of President Steve Lawry. The community also endorsed a second referendum that advocates independence from the Antioch University system, including a separate Board of Trustees. This referendum posits that Antioch College can maintain operations beyond the 2007-2008 academic year by attaining autonomy and with the support of the College Alumni Board

And if you think Tulisse Murdoch’s reign is better on other “University” campuses, find the full text of this post to an article about Antioch from an anonymous faculty wife on the University’s Seattle campus. (You'll have to scroll down once you reach the linked article to find it.)

The science laboratory on the Seattle campus is a 3’by 5’ former clothes closet. A shelf has been installed, upon this shelf sets two (2) very, very cheap (toy store) microscopes. Yes, folks that is a science lab in Antioch terms. Any curriculum to accompany this facility? What do you think?

And so I’m waiting, Mr. Ohio Attorney General. Please bring in your charitable trust experts, your forensic accountants, a couple of hard-nosed assistant DAs and lots and lots of subpoena forms. With any luck, we may see some trustees and university administrators performing a classic dance:

The Perp Walk.

Well, if we can't find Osama bin Laden, the least we can do is bomb Britain. So that's what we just did.

Okay, okay – it was actually just an itsy-bitsy mistake.

Even so, you'd think we'd be a little more careful about where we drop our weapons. Oh, wait a second, I'm talking about people who work for the Bush Administration. Sorry it even occurred to me to act surprised.

Dropping lethal ordnance on the Brits goes perfectly with every other ham-handed, blunder-headed, dimwitted, incompetent bollixup committed by the Republican Bush Administration, from Iraq to the current attempts to screw up the already-screwed financial system.

But hey, what do I know? I'm only a crank.

Who killed Antioch College? Is it a tale of secrecy, incompetence, and sinister skulduggery?

IMPORTANT UPDATE:
Since this was originally posted there have been some major and very positive changes at Antioch. Go here for my latest report on the subject.

Antioch College is scheduled to close in June of this year. This is by now old news. Or is it?

The news has usually been blamed on the decay of the college’s physical plant, the narrowing of political diversity among the students and faculty, and a laughable policy on student sexual relations. The right wing blogs have not-undeservedly been having a vitriolic field day. Example here.

Surprising new twists

But recently, the causes of right-wing glee have begun to seem a bit superficial. It turns out – to my own surprise – that there's much more to the story. And the "much more" isn't very pretty.

It all has to do with a conflict between the 156-years-old college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and the parent “university” which, in addition to residential liberal arts Antioch College, contains a bunch of far flung college-ettes — essentially narrowly focused community continuation and adult education schools of no great fame or formidable distinction.

I’m an Antioch College graduate from the days when an Antioch degree commanded a certain amount of respect and I’ve always assumed that the right-wing folks were for once completely correct: the problem was slow decay of the physical plant, a campus culture turned too far and too rigidly left wing to attract lots of students, a downward spiral in applications and an enfeebled endowment. The the situation seemed to be feeding on itself. The worse any one thing got, the worse everything else got.

Not entirely so, according to information leaking out of Antioch College that seems to indicate truly ugly and heretofore hidden skulduggery.

Secret meetings by trustees who
threaten to sue people
who expose their proceedings

I say the information has been “leaking” because that's the only way it can get out. The Antioch University’s Board of Trustees, the very same body that declared it was shutting down the university, is now insisting that its proceedings are subject to “lawyer-client confidentiality.”

That's pretty weird for an institution supported primarily by its alumni and supplemented, as all private college are, by government and tax-exempt foundation funds. In fact, the trustees are threatening to sue a journalist who exposed what ought to be a public record of their activities.
( I'll get you to all the appropriate links a bit further on.)

One of several possible reasons for the secrecy: there appears to be some evidence that the trustees deliberately undermined the college’s finances and growth plan. And that they deliberately rebuffed, on vague technical grounds, the alumni who had raised $20 million in three months to help save the college, as well as an earlier attempt by one individual to make a $10 million dollar donation.

Tangled, creepy and upsetting:
a “moonie” PR man, Abu Gharaib
and land-grabbing entrepreneurs

The story is tangled, creepy, and upsetting – and I don’t need to retell it here in detail. You’ll find the broad outlines here. Notable in this story is an incident in which the trustees rejected a donation that might have kept the college going shortly before they announced the closing.

Then, for a bit of blood-boiling shock-and-awe you might want to go here to read a tale that includes allegations that the parent university, in the course of bringing down the college

•hired a former PR man for Sun Myung Moon to spin what was going on

•invited in a Department of Defense contractor associated with the notorious Abu Gharaib prison in Iraq

•and may be welcoming the possibility of a land grab of Antioch campus property by local entrepreneurs, in connection with changes at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. (Two of the university board members are connected to those interests.)

Did George Bush help plunge
a knife into Antioch’s heart?

Oh and by the way, the last link also leads to a suggestion that the administration of George Bush is playing a part in destroying the institution.

Finally, go here to download some of the documents that seem to authenticate much of what's leaking out of Antioch. On the same web page, if you have about 12 minutes, watch the film that shows the campus and library turning into an exercise ground for a SWAT team doing a Homeland Security exercise.

The team laughs, jokes, and starts waving assault rifles while a library staff, mourning the death of one of their colleagues and in shock from the previous day’s news that the college closing will put them all out of work, try to carry on.

Major national media: please send your investigative reporters digging.

Quick: Which of these men got more Americans killed?

Huffington Post’s Jon Soltz comments today on the 4,000 Americans (there may be even more by the time you read this) who have perished in Iraq since the George W. Bush administration decided it would be cool to invade and have the natives strewing rose petals at our feet.

One of the excuses for the Iraq invasion, according to George W. Bush, was that, "Saddam Hussein is a man who is willing to gas his own people, willing to use weapons of mass destruction against Iraq citizens. " (link)

Well, I suppose you can get picky here. George W. Bush didn’t gas American soldiers. He simply put them (and continues to keep them) in harm’s way, where 4,000 of these courageous young people have been fatally shot and bombed.

The death count after 9/11, excluding the hijackers, was 2,998. Which means George Bush has gotten roughly 1,000 more Americans killed than Osama Bin Laden.

And still he sticks to keeping us in that damned war.

“Well, I will if you will. But if you won’t I won’t. But if you will and I’m not nominated, or if I’m nominated and you’re not nominated, or…

Politico.com reports that John McCain has taken a step toward accepting public financing in the general election.

The Politico article also reports:

Last year, McCain pledged to participate in the public financing system if he won his party’s nomination and the Democratic nominee did the same. 

The vow came in response to similar positioning by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. The Illinois senator subsequently has backed away from committing to the program, however, as it has become clear his record-setting fundraising operation likely will be able to bring in significantly more than $84 million for the November general election.

There are more potential eye-crossing, headache-inducing permutations inherent in this one than I care to shake a rattlestick at. For example: Barack wins the Democratic nomination, and then backs off from campaign financing because he realizes he has more dough in the till than McCain and can beat McCain’s pants off by using contributed money...

Or Barack accepts campaign financing, but then McCain gets a huge infusion of mega-cash from panicked corporate donors who fear Obama might lower the boom on their predatory ways of doing business...

Or both accept campaign financing, but then so-called “independent” advertisers start supporting the candidates with so-called “issue ads.” You know the kind of thing I’m talking about: “Don’t stand for it. Tell Barack Obama to stop oppressing one-eyed widows who want to wear water wings...”

Or Hillary beats Obama in the primaries and lobs so much money at McCain that he’s crushed by a tidal wave of meaningless emotional advertising...

Or vice-versa. Or the other vice-versa

Or the Dems go into a deadlocked convention and the delegates pick Biden or Edwards as their presidential candidate, totally bollixing up the Republican plans for a negative advertising campaign aimed at Obama or Clinton...

Or…

Please stop me. I’m giving myself a headache.

Dr. Crank’s step-by-step, creepy-crawly, totally-paranoid nightmare scenario for fellow nervous Democrats

1. Hillary gets completely shut out of primary votes that might go her way in Florida and Michigan. (Already happening.)

2. Barack wins nomination as Democratic Party’s candidate for President.

3. Hillary refuses to give up without a fight and goes to the “stare decicis” U.S. Supreme Court, which decides, “Stare schmarey – we’re taking over the election.” By a 5-4 split they declare Barack’s nomination null and void.

4. Democrats discover there is no longer time to hold a primary and new convention before the election. They apply to the Supremes for a delay in Election Day.

5. Supreme Court says, “Hey, stare decicis, dudes! Election Day has already been decided upon as the first Tuesday in November since forever. To assure the smooth and fair functioning of our democracy, we cannot change the date of Election Day, even though we’ve decided the Democrats have no legal candidate. How many times do we have to tell you guys, 'Don't mess with Florida?'”

6. The United States gets a one-party election. By some odd coincidence, McCain becomes President.

As I said, this is only an paranoid nightmare. It's unfounded.

Or is it?