Tag Archives: New York Times

What do Citi Bike and the NFL have in common?

In Color Me Blue Ephron makes  humorous, poignant and cutting observations about how Citi Bank did quite well for themselves in the Citi Bike deal at the expense of New Yorkers aesthetics and tax dollars.

“For $41 million — what Citibank paid to sponsor the program for five years — our city bikes became Citi Bikes. To make certain you don’t forget this fact, a Citi Bike sign hangs in front of the handlebars, Citi Bike is printed twice on the frame, and a Citi Bike billboard drapes the rear wheel on both sides. The font is the familiar Citibank font and the Citibank signature decoration floats over the “t.” There is no way to see a Citi Bike without thinking Citibank. The 6,000 bikes so far rolled out, of a possible 10,000, and their signs are a Day-Glo cobalt blue that you see on banks. Nobody wears this color. Nobody paints his or her apartment this color. This blue is bank blue”.

I won’t summarize or paste the rest here – but if you missed this piece – here it is.

From city views,to neighborhoods like Greenpoint, to attempts to turn public parks into private stadiums, in the Bloomberg era we might ask, “What’s not for sale?”

Don’t worry New Yorkers we aren’t the only ones subsidizing big business, as Greg Easterbrook points out in a recent Atlantic article on the NFL, the subsidization of major businesses like sports franchises is a national pastime.

Ever wonder where your tax dollars went America? (hint, it’s not just health care)

How the NFL Fleeces Taxpayers

To Give you a taste: Here are the first couple of paragraphs:

“Last year was a busy one for public giveaways to the National Football League. In Virginia, Republican Governor Bob McDonnell, who styles himself as a budget-slashing conservative crusader, took $4 million from taxpayers’ pockets and handed the money to the Washington Redskins, for the team to upgrade a workout facility. Hoping to avoid scrutiny, McDonnell approved the gift while the state legislature was out of session. The Redskins’ owner, Dan Snyder, has a net worth estimated by Forbes at $1 billion. But even billionaires like to receive expensive gifts.

Taxpayers in Hamilton County, Ohio, which includes Cincinnati, were hit with a bill for $26 million in debt service for the stadiums where the NFL’s Bengals and Major League Baseball’s Reds play, plus another $7 million to cover the direct operating costs for the Bengals’ field. Pro-sports subsidies exceeded the $23.6 million that the county cut from health-and-human-services spending in the current two-year budget (and represent a sizable chunk of the $119 million cut from Hamilton County schools). Press materials distributed by the Bengals declare that the team gives back about $1 million annually to Ohio community groups. Sound generous? That’s about 4 percent of the public subsidy the Bengals receive annually from Ohio taxpayers”. 

And this is just the beginning…The article goes on to explain that the NFL is a non-profit and how that happened.

I seriously considered boycotting pro-football,  luckily the Giants and Jets are two of three teams that have paid 3/4’s or more of their stadium capital costs.

At the end of the day, literally, you may find me searching 33rd street for a quicker way home, and scowling in dismay as yet again all the bikes have flown west for the night leaving me to ponder if maybe we could use more bikes?

But seriously, subsidizing millionaires is madness, inequality is bad for everyone – and if you don’t trust me – listen to former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich.

an empty citi bike rack
But wait – you might say- I see that last bike at the end of the rack! Sadly, it’s always out of order.

 

biking across the hudson (nj.com)

The Week of the Bike and Biking Across the Hudson

The week of the bike began with with Manfrank and Michael riding up the Hudson from 59th to Van Cortlandt Park . The trail ends at my old block – Dyckman street – and there we ducked into the neighborhood, rode to the tip of Manhattan and then hit Broadway up to Van Cortlandt, where apparently there is a trail to Westchester (that’s for next time!).

The next day I turned my stiff neck and ogled as a sworm of bikers (the motorized kind) stormed up Amsterdam Avenue and later saw where they went after that. 

Yesterday one of my recent favorite NY blogs, City Room’s ‘Today in New York’ alerted me to biking across the Hudson.  (To give credit where it’s due, my wife introduced me to this great daily post a few months ago).

A few weeks ago Judah Schiller biked across the San Francisco Bay from Oakland to SF. Yesterday he biked across the Hudson.

New York Today also alerted me to a Daily News story claiming  Citi Bike was coming to Harlem.  However, when I recently checked the story the headline had changed: ‘Citi Bike NOT coming to Harlem!’

Quick Thoughts on Manning’s NY Times Draft

What  a repertoire of lively words Manning presents in her NY times draft,  opening with:

“A ‘slumgullion‘ is a stew of leftovers, and while the dish has been described as ‘watery,’ the word itself is delectably unusual and juicily descriptive”.

chatty cathyLooking for a new way to describe a chatty cathy try flibbertigibbet.

 

Manning also points  readers to the Secret Language of Crime where I learned that dromedary was not just a word my old friend created but a widely used term from the ’50’s – the 1850’s.

dromedary use over time
dromedary use over time

To rinse or not to rinse; a reply to Brody’s ‘keeping food-borne illnesses at bay’

repost from nytimes:

In her recent post Brody shares some solid guidelines for keeping food-borne illnesses at bay. However, I disagree with one of her suggestions. Brody writes “some suggest that poultry and meats not be rinsed lest they contaminate the sink”. I too used to rinse all meats and fish before cooking. ‘Some say’  implies that my great aunt Jane says this. In fact the USDA recommends not rinsing poultry and other meats because of cross contamination. The USDA explains that many of these harmful bacteria cannot simply be washed off, and those that can often get washed off onto other items in the sink area. Cooking kills the bacteria. By washing these meats you only increase the risk.

 

Sink Image with Contaminates

Thoughts on NY Times Credits for Internships

repost from NYTimes comments

Often, for example at Teachers College, students pay for tuition and then are required to spend a certain number of hours at internships or sometimes called externships where they are not paid. So the students end up literally paying to work. Schools should not require students to pay full price for credits earned in internships especially when these credits do not count towards graduation as sometimes occurs according to Carey.