Ernest Hemingway called Paris a Moveable Feast. American poet Carl Sandburg called Chicago a City of the Big Shoulders. New York City is all of those while at the same time being wonderfully quirky. It's a city that marches to its own 24-hour beat. It has no airs and it celebrates its problems as well as its solutions. New York City is also a microcosm of all that's right in the Western world and all that's wrong. Any one wanting to study the application of public policy as it applies to making any place a better place to live can see it all in New York City.
To begin, the population of New York City is eight million and as the old TV line goes there are probably eight million stories in the City. It is a collection of striking contrasts. By any measure New York City is the cultural capital of the world. With museums, world-class performing arts venues and universities. The inaugural concert at Carnegie Hall in 1891 was conducted by Tchaikovsky. Jazz great Duke Ellington began his career in New York. The "A Train" still runs under West Eighth from Downtown to Harlem.
The wealth in New York City is beyond comprehension. High-end hotel suites can rent for as high as $160,000 a month. Yet on those same streets there is visible poverty. The City reeled after the attack of Sept. 11, 2001 on the World Trade Towers, but roared back with determination to prove it could take any assault with courage and character.
Most intriguing has been the administration of current Mayor Michael Bloomberg. By way of a quick snapshot, Bloomberg studied at John Hopkins and completed a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering. This was followed with an MBA at Harvard. He started his business career on Wall Street and following a corporate buyout left with a $10 million severance package. He saw an opportunity in supplying financial news to the investment industry, built the business and has a current estimated worth of $22 billion.
What's interesting in Bloomberg's political career has been his "nanny-state" way of governing. He introduced New York's tough anti-smoking laws much to the opposition of the bar trade but made it work. There's more, all New York restaurant menus must carry a calorie count beside the entre. Bloomberg's most controversial action to date has been to ban the sale of soft drinks in glasses over 16 ounces. Currently this prohibition is being challenged in court but legal opinion is that Bloomberg's soda rule will stay and could be adopted in other cities.
I contacted a physician friend of mine on the health of New Yorkers and found a study showing city residents have a higher incidence of diabetes. Clearly Bloomberg has the evidence to back his soda-pop law.
If anything New York is a fascinating study in political policy, indeed in that city you'll find everything that's right about our western way of life and everything that's wrong.
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To the victor the spoils.
Our U.S. trip is winding down in step with the American Presidential election. In the race to the White House most pundits and pollsters are predicting a close race with President Obama holding a slight lead. I felt the President won the last debate on Monday, but with just two weeks to go I'd say most minds have been made up and the last debate probably did more to confirm than change voter opinion.
Currently we're in Missouri, and with the greatest respect to the good people of the Show-me state the campaigns here are truly on the edge of political credibility. You may have read about U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin who a few weeks ago said, "A legitimate rape rarely results in pregnancy." I won't dignify Akin's remarks with further comment, but Akin is running in Missouri.
David Gill, a Missouri candidate for the U.S. Congress is promising - when elected - to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement. Gill's radio ads claim NAFTA is sending good U.S. jobs to Mexico and China. Gill is spending a lot of cash on those ads so I suppose he thinks he has a winning argument. The truth is no one candidate can tear up an agreement between three countries, particularly when both presidential candidates support a growth in global trade. Moreover, since when did China become part of North America? We'll leave Gill's questionable platform to the good people of Missouri, but U.S. newspaperman H.L. Mencken probably summed it up best when he said, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
