Today’s Headlines

  • Some Taxi Drivers on Strike, ‘Crisis’ Plan in Effect (NYT, Post, AMNY, Sun)
  • The Economics of Cab Driving (City Room)
  • Subway Delays Cloud Tuesday Commute (Sun)
  • Queens Now Eligible for Federal Disaster Aid (City Room)
  • It’s Okay to Kill a Pedestrian Over Coffee, but Not OxyContin (Post)
  • Garbage Truck Falls Through Street in Chelsea (Gothamist)
  • How Gotbaum Is Using Her Office to Raise Her Visibility (Daily Politics)
  • Hawaii ‘Superferry’ Idle as Protests Continue (NYT)
  • US Car Culture Clashes with Climate Change (NPR)
  • Sidewalks, Alive and Dead (Starts and Fits)
  • Eric

    Re: It’s okay to kill a pedestrian

    If one we’re to handle any other object capable of deadly harm with such carelessness (a handgun, for instance, or a chainsaw), he or she would undoubtedly be charged with criminally negligent homicide in such an instance.

    But get behind the wheel of a car, and the same rules don’t apply. If you want to get away with murder, grab your car keys.

  • Eric

    Re: Gotbaum’s visibility

    I will offer a bounty to anyone who can produce a living, breathing Betsy Gotbaum. Her picture should be on a milk carton, not a bus shelter.

    “Public” Advocate? Hah! The next time she actually advocates for the public will be the first time. She has taken an office that Mark Green (with all his flaws) actually turned into something good and useful, and made it wholly inconsequential.

    Hey Betsy: kids are getting run over regularly in NYC. How about a little advocacy for them?

  • Hilary

    To be fair, wasn’t the office stripped of almost all of its funding under Betsy?

  • Aaron – good to see Starts and Fits still kicking around…

  • Spud Spudly

    Gotbaum wouldn’t need funding to make a stink about something. As the Public Advocate she can get up on the steps of City Hall any time she wants and state her case and at least half the tv stations in this town would carry it. She really is a waste of space.

  • Eric

    Hilary, Spud Spudly is absolutley right. Election to any public office brings with it the perk of a bully pulpit. If you don’t have a big staff and budget, make a big stink.

    I challenged a Brooklyn elected official in a meeting a couple years ago over the failure of the Brooklyn 4th Avenue upzoning to include any affordable housing units. He blamed it on Doctoroff and Bloomberg, but I don’t remember him standing on the steps of City Hall and making a stink about it.

    But Betsy Gotbaum makes him look like Fiorello La Guardia.