Author Archives: Kathleen Brady

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About Kathleen Brady

Kathleen Brady has written biographies of Ida Tarbell and Lucille Ball. She is a former reporter for Time Magazine and has contributed opinion pieces on New York City issues to Newsday and other local media

Why Things Have Gotten Quiet In NYC

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Wealthy New Yorkers have managed to shut down debate about what is good for New York City, including the vanishing middle class and those who believe in zoning laws. A N.Y. Times story today about opposition to Mayor Bloomberg’s outsize development plan for area around Grand Central Station points out that disgust with the plan for midtown east has helped to revive the formerly moribund City Club of New York. It reports that club secretary Stuart Pertz, an architect who was on the City Planning Commission in the 1980s, says that organizations are stymied by their need for donations and they fear offending executives, or working against their interests, when they need them to provide funding.

The Bloomberg Administration is finally drawing to a close, four years later than we expected it to by law, but puppeteer Bloomberg will still have his billions, so look for this situation to continue. The Koch Brothers and those hedge fund managers who do not receive crippling fines from the government, all hold sway on important boards. At this point non-profits that are afraid to pursue their missions, or decided to pursue agendas at half-throttle as many do, should disband for all our sakes, or, as in the case of the once influential City Club of New York, get loud.

Red Sox Are As Guilty As A-Rod

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Holier-than-thou statements and physical attacks that the Boston Red Sox direct at New York Yankee third baseman A-Rod continue to puzzle me, even as I have waited a few days in hopes of attaining enlightenment. Sox pitcher John Lackey, outfielder Jonny Gomes and Aaron Hernandez-wannabe Ryan Dempster have all denounced him, one way or another, as unfit to play. They have also repudiated the MLB/players union agreement as it relates to suspensions. But here’s the thing: The truly disreputable A-Rod did not play a game until Aug 5, while the 50 or so who accepted suspensions for involvement with performance-enhancing drugs were contributing to their teams’ victories. Do the mighty Sox want their hits and scores to be expunged? Those who accepted suspensions played three times more than A-Rod will play in the regular season.

What does make Red Sox pronouncements even more shocking is that Red Sox stars Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz have been singled out for juicing. Both contributed to stunning Sox victories. Meanwhile, we still await the explanation that Ortiz (“Big Papi”) promised more than three years ago. Ortiz did manage to make a statement on A-Rod, however, as he too seems to believe he deserves to point a finger.

Dempster felt he had the right to pelt A-Rod with baseballs and the umpire Mike O’Nora concurred. (Although the MLB later ruled that Dempster aimed at A-Rod deliberately, which means that if O’Nora were a competent ump he would have thrown Dempster out of the game). Dempster is behind a Dempster Family Foundation that supposedly supports afflicted children. Is he the kind of player that we want to bring children to baseball parks to see?  I thought the bad Red Sox team culture was supposed to end last year when they shipped off a pack of their players to Los Angeles. Who but a Dempster could make A-Rod worthy of being defended? A Ramirez!! Possibly even an Ortiz…

Last night (8/21/13) Jason Nix suffered a broken hand when he was hit by a pitch…who knows whether he will be back this season? Curtis Granderson missed a hunk of the season after an errant pitch broke is arm. That is why it is not righteous for pitchers to aim at batters deliberately … especially those in the American league who seldom step into the batter’s box. Errant pitches end careers and seasons. If the MLB contract is revised, let them add a rule suspending from baseball forever any pitcher who deliberately throws at a batter, especially if their name rhymes with Dumpster. 

Remember How NYC Democrats Used to Sound?

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“We’ve gotten comfortable seeing low-wage workers as sharecroppers. When was the last time the mayor blew a blood vessel about the systematic violation of wage protections?” That question comes from Harvey Robins, who held top positions in the Koch and Dinkins Administrations, as quoted in Michael Powell’s column this morning in the N.Y. Times. Robins would like to see insurance companies subject to the business tax and would end the $17 million property tax abasement for Madison Square Garden. Robins, who served as deputy schools chancellor in the Koch Administration and ran Dinkins’ Office of Operations, is so revolutionary that he asks why Chicago and Boston keep their libraries open 50 hours a week while NYC barely muster five days.
I would like to know who Robins is endorsing in the mayor’s race. Better yet, I want to hear lots more from him.

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Bloomberg Policies Are Stopped, Frisked

The Bloomberg Administration rationale for what it now calls stop-question-frisk — that blacks and Hispanics are the ones most likely to commit crimes — is the mindset that inspired two policemen to chase black Ramarley Graham from the street into his grandmother’s home and gun him down by her toilet (see earlier post).  Happily, a federal judge ruled today that the practice violates civil rights and has called for a monitor to oversee NYC police. Bloomberg claims that stop and frisk reduces the number of police deaths and he does not know what he will tell their families if stop and frisk is eliminated. What does he tell the parents of teens who are needlessly slaughtered by over-anxious police armed not only with guns but with data that says criminals are likely to be minorities and therefore minorities are likely to be criminals?

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Sallie Mae exports U.S. jobs to Asia, Where It Overcharges Our Military

Today brings the news that Sallie Mae may be bilking our military — the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will accuse the student lending firm of charging more than the 6 percent it is allowed, according to the N.Y. Times story.

But Sallie Mae has long been a bad citizen. For at least a decade, as U.S students and their parents labor under a high debt load (much of it to Sallie Mae) and suffer from a high unemployment rate, Sallie Mae has exported jobs to Asia. A decade ago it employed Indians as customer service representatives, now they is more likely to be Filipinos. Why not employ Americans who labor to pay off Sallie Mae? I think even organized crime understands the logic of this. Return Sallie Mae jobs to the U.S. and give them to young people and their parents. Hapless Americans are plagued by high unemployment, and are burdened by long-term debt to Sallie Mae. Western New York State would be an excellent place to set up call service centers.

I know about the reps because I was foolish enough to take out a Sallie Mae loan a dozen years ago to help finance graduate school. I have been dealing with their reps, many of them impossible to understand, especially when the discussion is about numbers, for years. I have written about this to New York Sen. Charles Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand, as well as to Sallie Mae CEO and president John F. Remondi. No response from any of them, although I first contacted the senators months ago. A garbled boiler plate response saying your-concerns-are-my-concerns from Schumer’s people might have been his reply. Impossible to tell. I recently sent a letter to Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts who may be less beholden to Wall Street lobbyists. It’s time U.S. citizens received value from our debt. Cheap labor from Chad and Chloe in the Philippines is not helping Americans or its economy which has been sacrificed for multi-national corporations who own the ears and conscience of our politicians.

Bad Boys Are Looking Good

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If this is how elite newspaper editors and the police behave, no wonder miscreants are looking good. As shocking as the news that the Bronx grand jury failed to indict the policeman who gunned down Ramarley Graham by his grandmother’s toilet is the way the New York Times treated the story.

This morning it ran yet another “blacks love bad boys Spitzer and Weiner” story on the front page of its printed edition, while placing the Bronx-cop-goes-free-for-killing-unarmed-black-youth on way back on page 13.

The Times had an index note at the bottom of its page one “Police Killing Won’t Go To Trial” but that seemed a little obscure. In contrast, the old news was prominent — the Times also ran stories about African American support for law-bending candidates on July 15, July 20 and July 29, so it was hard to find the news there.

I sent this comment to the NY Times this morning, but they did not publish it. I also emailed my concerns to its Public Editor. The vile treatment of the late Ramarley Graham by the NY Times, a paper that I rely on, is the inspiration for this blog. Horrible things are happening in New York City today, and it is not ordinary citizens who perpetrate them nor can street criminals equal the harm done by our failed elites. Bull Connor and Boss Tweed come to my mind every day.