The Making of a Proper Victim
What happened to Jennifer Moore, a young New Jersey woman who drove into Manhattan with a girlfriend two days ago for some partying and wound up dead in a trash bin, is tragic. She and her friend became separated at some point after they discovered the friend’s car had been impounded, and Jennifer was abducted, [...]
...read moreThe Vulnerability of the Aged
There’s a weird story developing here in New York involving charges that Brooke Astor’s son is robbing her blind while failing to provide her with proper care. Mrs. Astor is very, very old — 104 — and was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a few years ago. She’s also quite wealthy (though less so, her grandson alleges, [...]
...read moreThe Mommy Diaries
What happens when New York City women go online and create their own mommy-centered community? A lot of rage, frustration and class warfare. My feelings echo Rebecca Traister’s: There is so much to say about Emily Nussbaum’s New York magazine story about the message boards at Urban Baby. So much, in fact, that I can’t [...]
...read moreDidja Know Feminism is to Blame?
For what, you ask? Oh, just about everything, usually, but today we’re blaming feminism for ruining marriage. And not just for straights — feminists ruin gays’ chances of getting married, too! Oh, and feminism causes divorce, which causes explosions.
...read moreGood Lord.
Sick puppy Dr. Bartha apparently sent around a lengthy email to various luminaries, including Arnold Schwarzenegger. Here are some lowlights. My brother died because his wife was able to divorce him with lies and help from N.Y.S., with help of the legal Aid Society, woman’s shelters et cetera. Now my brother is dead and his [...]
...read moreLove and Real Estate
Nope, terrorists didn’t have anything to do with yesterday’s explosion on E. 62nd Street. (And, from what Purplegirl tells me, the explosion didn’t have anything to do with my delayed commute — that was due to a body on the tracks. I love New York!) The story is much, much stranger than that. Seems that [...]
...read moreI can remember when a building would blow up and nobody asked if it was terrorism. Now get offa my lawn.
The MTA never tells you anything, so I was left to stew on the platform at Union Square, wondering why in the fuck the trains were so slow during rush hour. Turns out a building on E. 62nd blew up this morning. But here’s the part where I say to Al Qaeda, “Fuck you, you [...]
...read moreMake Me More Like a Greek Woman
An op/ed in the Times this week is after my own heart — it looks at the problem of subway groping, and compares the reactions of New Yorkers and Greeks. Around the same time, I spent eight months doing research in Athens, so I decided to record Greek women recounting narratives I could compare to [...]
...read moreSubway Groping
Is nothing new, but I’m glad to see the New York Times writing about it, and the NYPD taking it more seriously. The article is especially interesting in its detailing of the defense mechanisms that female subway riders use: Most of the women who reported recent incidents were in their 20′s and younger. But the [...]
...read moreIdentity Politics
Jo-Ann Mort has a piece in TPM Cafe about identity politics in Brooklyn’s 11th Congressional District. Mort lives in the district, as do I. But she comes to an entirely different conclusion about the race than I do. A little background: the 11th District was Shirley Chisholm’s seat, and was once a majority-black district created [...]
...read more“You Still Want the Cookie.”
A group of middle-school girls in the South Bronx, tired of the lack of a comprehensive sex-ed curriculum (or, apparently, *any* sex-ed curriculum, since parental pressure has meant the school isn’t even implementing the state-required program), are taking matters into their own hands: Teach us about the birds and the bees! That’s the overture from [...]
...read moreIn Your FACE, Minneapolis!
Yeah, I’m pretty well sick to the teeth of the demonization of New York and New Yorkers as loud, pushy, mouthy, rude, dirty, inconsiderate, uncivil, what have you. The corollary to that is the lionization of the “Heartland” as the seat of all that is good and decent in the country. Well. All you haters? [...]
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