A Blog Named Sue

Downtown the young ones are growing

This story, about a teenager charged with tagging a 9/11 memorial mural in New York City, depressed the hell out of me. Not so much because there's a teenager out there clueless enough to think that tagging a memorial mural is a good idea, although that's depressing enough, but mostly because of a comment made by a firefighter who worked out of the same house as the firefighter commemorated on the mural. When interviewed by local cable outlet New York 1 before the tagger's arrest, he (correctly) surmised that the perpetrator was probably a "teenager," someone around nine or ten years old when the 9/11 attacks took place and therefore he probably had no idea what it was all really about.

That got me thinking about how much more aware I became between the ages of nine and seventeen, and that's when the abyss really opened up for me. For all intents and purposes, today's adolescents have come of age knowing nothing but post-9/11 America. Growing up in an age of anxiety is nothing new; I grew up during the height of the Cold War (and I've got the Nena songs on my iPod to prove it) and we actually had to watch and summarize The Day After as a school assignment. (Spoiler alert: Nuclear war sucks ass!) What bothers me is that so many things about post-9/11 America that have outraged many of us are simply the status quo for today's young people. The United States government has always had the ability to monitor your cell phone calls without a warrant. The government has always tracked the books you borrow from the library and the movies you rent from Blockbuster. The government has always been able to declare you an "enemy combatant" and hold you indefinitely without trial or access to counsel. There have always been extraordinary renditions. There has always been a Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay.

The United States has always tortured.

I guess I'm lucky, inasmuch as I grew up in the lull between J. Edgar Hoover's COINTELPRO and today's Patriot Act. Those of you reading this who are old enough to have lived through both probably think I'm a bit naive, and it's a fair charge.  COINTELPRO, however, was ultimately shut down after its excesses were exposed. Our elected leaders stepped in and did their jobs. The Patriot Act continues along its merry way and one of our major party's presidential candidates has declared that he sees nothing wrong with warrantless wiretapping.

This is why accountability matters, and why measures designed to hold our elected leaders accountable when they abuse their power must never be "off the table." What is it like to come of age in a country where rights and freedoms that our leaders claim to be sacrosanct are, in fact, anything but? How will today's young people react - with anger? fear? cynicism? docility?

I know which reaction I'm hoping for, but I have no idea which one we're going to get.

The Mel Cooley Index for Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Today, Mel Cooley is thinking, "Well, I guess since you're not America's Mayor anymore, we can tell you how we really feel."

Yeah, it's been that kind of day

Man, I hate it when giant rats burst from a flaming hellmouth and try to devour midtown Manhattan...

Pic via my crappy camera phone.

They Got High Powered Lenses On The Cameras Outside

So the NYPD's pervasive, high-tech and no doubt very expensive security camera system has been bested by that dastardly piece of supervillain technology known as the hoodie. I can't say I'm surprised. The cameras have always struck me as security theater of the highest order, since there's no way anyone can be watching the feeds coming in from all of them in real time - meaning their value in preventing or disrupting a potential terrorist attack or other criminal act is practically nil. As for their potential use as an investigative or evidentiary tool, well, all anyone ever had to do was simply not look at the camera (easily done since most New Yorkers, including me, have really crappy posture) - or in this case, pull up your hood. And most suicide bombers don't really care if you know they did it or not, what with them being dead and all.

So now the question is: what next? Security theater that doesn't make anyone feel secure (or, for that matter, afraid) is even more pointless than your everyday run-of-the-mill security theater. One possibility is that the New York City police and government will recognize this rather obvious flaw in their planning and take time to hammer out a new, rational, and effective security plan for the Big Apple. Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen either. So what will happen? Here are the possibilities, as I see it:

A) Even more and bigger cameras! Situated on every lampost at shoulder height so they can see your face no matter what. Costs for these additional cameras will be offset by corporate sponsorship; each will bear a sign saying "A secure New York - brought to you by Citigroup! Go Mets!"

B) Anti-personnel mines laid around Time Square's Military Island every night at midnight, taken up around 5 AM (hopefully before the crowds gather there for that day's taping of Good Morning America). Actually, I can get behind this option, but only if they promise to leave the mines in place all day during the holiday season. Might cut down on the tourist traffic. I used to work on Times Square - you have no idea how bad it gets. Think of a human wave attack, but with strollers, humongous bags bursting with crap from Toys R' Us and large people wearing ill-fitting leggings instead of Red Chinese infantrymen.

C) The immediate outlawing of hoodies. Good luck with this one - you'll pry my black hoodie from my cold, dead hands.

Got an opinion? Vote in comments, if you're so inclined.

Possibly The Greatest Sentence I've Read All Day

From the print edition of today's AM New York:

Investigators still aren't completely sure if the items taken from Ivaylo Ivanov's apartment - seven pipe bombs, a rifle, a shotgun, two silencers, a crossbow and machines to help build the bombs - were needed so he could protect himself, as he claims.

The online version of the same story is somewhat more coherent, and contains the second greatest sentence I've read today:

He also told police he planned to use the bombs for fishing.

Just when I say "Boy We Can't Miss, You Are Golden" Then You Do This

By now, it's no secret that Rudy Giuliani was using the NYPD to shuttle then mistress now wife Judith Nathan about and sticking " wheelchair kids, legless vets, and the blind pencil salesmen outside Bloomindale's" with the bill. Less common knowledge (at least, outside of New York City) is that Nathan wasn't his only mistress - he's also been linked to his one time communications director Chrystine (gotta love the "y") Lategano. It's remarkable, really - you'd think that concealing two extra-marital affairs wouldn't leave a guy much time to  threaten to evict the United Nations over unpaid parking tickets, wage futile battles in the culture war, and release the sealed criminal records of juvenile offenders.

But that's not the real mystery, as far as I'm concerned. No, to me, the real mystery is how on EARTH someone who looks like GIULIANI gets that much SEX.

Yeah, yeah, I know - money, status, all that. But my God, there must be a limit. I mean, power is an aphrodisiac, not a date rape drug.

Look, I live in New York, OK? Trust me, there's no shortage of rich assholes here to set out the honey trap for. Some of them aren't even bad looking! I'm no expert on women (just ask my wife) but, damn, what could possibly be worth having to see Giuliani naked?

Still don't believe me? OK, then, I'll leave you with this - Rudy's "O" face probably looks something like this:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

OK, not my deepest analysis of current affairs, but, still,

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Why Yes, A Monkey *Did* Just Fly Out of My Butt

...that must be because I'm about to write something nice about Curtis Sliwa. Last night, on the New York 1 program Inside City Hall, Sliwa slammed Pat Robertson's endorsement of Rudy Giuliani, calling it shameful and saying Rudy should distance himself from the man who blamed the death of nearly three thousand New Yorkers on gays and feminists. (Transcript unavailable; I'll provide a link if I can get my hands on one.)

Hey, once you're America's Mayor you don't need to give a damn about the city you used to actually run.

'Cause I'm Feeling Like a Criminal

I don't have time right now to discuss this story (Giuliani's Platform Not Resonating on Home Turf) as thouroughly as I'd like, but I do want to put a few things out there that I can hopefully pontificate on in more detail later.

It seems Giuliani is trying to use his success in lowering New York City's crime rate as evidence that he can wipe out terrorism, too. The message is falling flat here in New York City, where

"...voters...who saw Giuliani's performance first hand, actually side with Clinton on the issue."

No kidding. First off, it's debatable all (or even most) of the credit for New York becoming safer belongs to Rudy. Also, New Yorkers remember all too well the wretched excess that came with Rudy's war on crime - ranging from mundane hassles like the sudden, Draconian enforcement of cabaret laws decimating the city's night life to grotesqueries like the Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond incidents. Many of us are understandably reluctant to see these events repeated on a national scale.

It's also unclear exactly how being tough on street crime means he'll be an effective anti-terrorist leader unless he thinks the suicide bomber plans on jumping the turnstile before blowing up the subway train. It would seem that he's echoing John Kerry's claim that terrorism is best countered with good intelligence and investigation - police work, if you will - rather than ham-fisted military strikes. Somehow, I don't think Rudy is taking a page from John Kerry's playbook.

OK, I've written more about this than I thought I would and I have to go to work - so I'll end it with this quote from the story:

"...Blum says the closer you get to New York City, the worse he does among voters – perhaps reflecting the more complicated relationship New Yorkers have with their former mayor. "

Um, yeah, complicated. That's one word for it.

 

The Mel Cooley Index for Wednesday, November 7, 2007.

Today, Mel Cooley is thinking, hey now, "wild asian girls" need to eat too, you know.

Besides, everyone knows you get all the good kink in the classifed section of The New York Review of Books.