I am going on record as saying that my favorite NY newspaper is The Daily News. I read it I've never been too keen on Michael Goodwin. I am more of a EC Schipp kind of gal; although I also enjoy Michael Daly, Juan Gonzalez, Stanley Crouch, Errol Louis along with ... gasp! ... Gatecrasher. I mean, who doesn't love their gossip, right?

So Bob Fertik's email about boycotting New York City's newspaper of record came as a surprise. Here's what I got from Democrats.com :  read more »

I have been busy filling up our new blog: http://duffieldst.blogspot.com/. There are many developments in the effort to promote the Abolitionist heritage on Duffield Street in Downtown Brooklyn. City Council Representative John Liu lead a press conference at 227 Duffield on Juneteenth (last Tuesday), and we got sympathetic coverage in almost every paper.

Only one paper came out in favor of using eminent domain against the historic buildings. The Daily News published an article saying that it was cynical to stop the development of Brooklyn. The Daily News subscribes to the EDC's logic that the economy of Brooklyn would grind to a halt if the proposed parking lot and 1.5 acre grassy knoll were not built... well I'm slightly exaggerating, but check out this link to read for yourself:
http://duffieldst.blogspot.com/2007/06/daily-news-calls-grassy-knoll-key...

Location

David Saltonstall of the Daily News has a very interesting piece on the unusually, shall we say, sanitary condition of Rudy Giuliani's mayoral archives. Seems Rudy's people snapped up over 2,000 boxes of records from City Hall when he left office, with the promise that the newly-ex-mayor would personally pay to have them privately archived.

And he did. Only, the files were returned without a detailed index -- which makes it extremely difficult to search them. What's more, based on what reporters have found so far, history seems to have decided to be somewhat kinder to Rudy since his people borrowed the records:

A file labeled "Private Life/Divorce" offers nothing more than a few old press clippings about his breakup with Donna Hanover, as well as a transcript from the May 2000 press conference where he described his then-girlfriend and now-wife, Judith Nathan, as "a very good friend."

Meanwhile, Hanover's papers as First Lady have been all but erased. "This subgroup was not filmed," is all the archive says.

Documents from the historic weeks after 9/11 seem similarly scant. Instead of memos detailing concerns about air quality or coordination among agencies, the record consists of a few dry reports that sketch efforts to restore the city bureaucracy. [...]  read more »

Errol Louis has a piece in today's Daily News worth quoting at length. The subject is, of course, L'Affaire Imus. Here's the link.

In this case, the college women slandered by Imus on national television and radio were the best of the best: high academic achievers at a school with tough standards, and hardworking, competitive athletes. Epiphanny Prince, a star freshman on the squad, is already a New York legend, scoring an unheard-of 113 points in a single high school game.

They did all anybody ever asked of them - they stayed out of trouble, got an education, worked hard and literally played by the rules. They deserved much more than to be dismissed as "nappy-headed ho's" before a national audience.

Imus also hit a raw nerve with his sneering contempt for black achievement, playing out the worst fear of many black professionals: that in the end, everything you ever learned or accomplished might end up counting for nothing, dismissed with a racist epithet by a group of chuckling, middle-aged white guys with power.

Exactly right. Your average racist believes (I suppose, and if there is an average) that blacks are, take your pick, lazy, stupid, ignorant, whatnot.

Except that these young women manifestly, clearly, eye-openingly, were not. Did it help them?

Of course not.  read more »

I've been taking the Times Empire Zone and Ben Smith to task today for being anti-Statenite.

Link Texthttp://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/its-election-day/#comments

Link Texthttp://www.r8ny.com/blog/ben_smith/turning_out_in_the_40th.html#comment-369392