Bloomberg: New York’s Nibelung
New York - Mayor Michael Bloomberg is as gruesome a fellow as they come. Mind you, he’s not as bad as Governor Eliot Spitzer, but then not every public official is a habitual body waxer. These men share, alas, an affinity for foul play, hypocrisy and cowardice, among other virtues. No sooner did Spitzer win the governorship, than he stuck the tax rotweilers on the states’s Majority Leader because the latter wouldn’t play ball. When President Nixon tried to do that he lost his job. Spitzer hasn’t even been censured. Bloomberg, in the meantime, calls himself America’s greenest mayor, but he’s as green as the fumes which choke Noo Yawkers every day, including holidays. Just consider this: Bloomie’s emissions are equal to that of 18 average Americans, 404 average Guatemalans, and I’d hate to think how many thousands of Eskimos. (Perhaps all of them.) The New York Post figured out that Bloomberg’s main city residence emitted 64 tons of carbon per annum, his Vail condo 17 tons, his Bermuda “cottage” 51 tons, his Cadogan Square flat 30 tons, his New York country house 21 tons, his Dassault Falcon 900 jet 2.9 tons per hour, his Mooney M20M plane 0.1 tons per hour, his horse farm in upstate New York 40 tons—and the Post failed to mention the private chopper which the mayor uses more often than I reach for an alcoholic drink.
Not bad for a green mayor who lectures us daily on the evils of smoking and of eating fats. It is so typical of a billionaire hypocrite to tell people what they should do with their lives. Here’s a tiny (5’ 4”), flatfooted man with the mouth of a hooked fish and a voice that’s a constant whine, a magnate who can count up to perhaps twenty billion, who reads a book about as often as I head up the Gay-Lesbian parade. Yet he’s preaching to us as if he were King Solomon. Screw you, Bloomberg, and I hope the women who have sued your company for sexual discrimination and harassment take you to the cleaners. (Bloomberg settled two lawsuits for personal sexual harassment out of court before he ran for mayor the first time, which is also par for the course. When one looks like he does one tends to push the weaker sex around.) What enrages me is the perennial human urge to control one another’s behaviour. I’ll take advice from Guderian where tank warfare is concerned, from Rundstedt on how to retreat and fight superior numbers of the enemy, and from Castries on naming outposts after mistresses, but from Bloomberg on how to live? You gotta be joking.
The governor and the mayor aside, New York is wonderful in autumn. The weather has been warm, there are parties galore, and the girls seem to get prettier as I get older. Not everywhere. I went to Washington, D.C., for a speech and noticed how middle America eats. And speaks. Americans eat too much and have trouble expressing themselves. Speech codes prohibit anything that is deemed hurtful by others, particularly those deemed to be minorities. This includes women, who seem to be in the majority wherever I look. In fact it’s a melancholy fact that a large number of Americans sit around watching the Cartoon channel or Seinfeld re-runs while stuffing themselves with fries and cheeseburgers. Another dreary experience is watching people slouching in baggy and rumpled clothes and dirty sneakers. In every hotel, bar and public space the ubiquitous TV is on, which may explain why Americans nowadays are as inarticulate as they are.
But I complain too much. It’s not all the people’s fault. Those cruddy deconstructionists who insist Shakespeare is no better than rap music have a lot to answer for. Once upon a time, true art was indisputable. Then came Picasso and the game was up. The vain and unpleasant Arnold Schoenberg wrote that tonality had decayed through inbreeding, which brought us Yannis Xenakis years later, as cacophonous a “composer” as a monkey playing the piano, but less melodic. And as far as literature is concerned, fuggettaboutit. I simply cannot read a modern novel even when stuck in a doctor’s waiting room without TV. Can’t anyone write a short declarative sentence which makes sense any more? I keep buying books whose blurbs I fall for and it’s always the same: Unreadable and dull. So I stick to non-fiction, biography and history and lotsa newspapers. Fiction died long ago and the only two that can still write and are both friends of mine, cannot stand each other. Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer declared war about five years ago, a war that I’m staying away from. Otherwise everything is honky-dory. The back seems to be improving with age, New York taxis are worse than ever—last week alone two people were killed while six were mowed down by rogue yellow taxi drivers illegally yakking on their cellphones while way over the speed limit. (Bloomberg, unlike Giuliani, refuses to crack down on them). These maniacs make one miss the cabbies of London, a place run by a Bloomberg cohort and as obnoxious as Noo Yawk’s honcho. Thankfully not as rich. Can you imagine if Livingstone was a multi-billionaire what London would be like?
Kampala, if we were lucky, but Harare is closer to the mark.
Comments
Hey Taki!
I’m heading up that way in a few hours to visit my daughter and your column just makes my anticipation that much better. Hee! Love your work.
Compliments, John K.
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It’s odd that Americans are back to where we were in the 1820s, when an Englishman asked, rhetorically, “Who reads an American novel or attends an American play,” or words to that effect. (We can modify that to exclude those under duress, since out culture is ubiquitous, and apply it today.)
Why is it that Communism couldn’t so harm the Russian soul enough to stop Solzehenetsyn and Pasternak from writing great novels, but ease, comfort and success have ennervated my beloved country?
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Reading yr aticle of the 13/10 put me on to yr site. Wow I love it !!!! You do not hold back do you ???? Carry on let rip !! regards Val
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@Lloyd
I think that your case illustrates a failure of the
market. Given between great art and trash, seems that
the public chooses trash....
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The only half-way decent fiction in English is written
by Hindus nowadays.
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Agapite mou file The current outbreak of yellow plague(cab drivers amok)on the streets of nyc stems in large part from a policy instituted by the PW CROOSDRESSER(GOP PRES CANDIDATE)!All present day recruits(immigrant just landed) to this once noble profession must first pass a URINE TEST.The unintended cnsequence from this FACIST POLICY was to exclude the best n brightest suited for driving taxis:pot smoking MARGINELIZED(stuck in a rut)WHITE MALES MWMs despite their limitations when given a destination chances are they knew it, understood the language it was given in,could take you there effortlessly and safely( depending on traffic).Needless to say the results of this policy are a present day cab ride in NYC;Upon entering the radio blasting a BAGDAHD TOP 40 chart buster LIVIN ON A CALL TO PRAYER by the MUZZERIN 5,A odor reminiscent of that best selling fragrance CAMEL DUNG No 5,FIND that you only stop repeating the destination due to arrival or accident(which ever comes first)!SAVE THE MWM!
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“I think that your case illustrates a failure of the
market. Given between great art and trash, seems that
the public chooses trash.... “
No. It is a reflection of mass government “education” and too many private schools offer the same curriculum as government schools’ but in a safe environment.
Bad taste has percolated to the uppity “class.”
And how can you claim it is the market when so much government money is spent on the so called “are” of these days?
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Sigh! “art” not “are”
Sorry!
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“Inarticulate americans”.What can you expect.Did George read anything since the little goat story (which by the way he struggled with ).As for livingston being a billionare, however much i think of him being a twat he is at least a socialist.thsi alone makes him better than goonburg.Better a short ugly socialist dictator than a shrt ugly self professed money grabing smuck.
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Thanks for another good post. It seems that Kampala and Harare have plenty of open space areas. That’s really not the case for any densely inhabited suburb of our old Athens, such as Zografou, a place you know so well. I’m hearing that a part of the famous Zografou estate is going to turn into yet another shopping mall. The local mayor and the estate beneficiaries are looking happy about these plans. Some citizens are not, and I’m not blaming them.
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Why is it every time I see Bloomberg, I think of Marie
Antoinette? It is amazing how this idiot was able to
be a success in business. Taki, you hit the nail on
the head with this guy.
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New York is wonderful in autumn.The weather has been warm, there are parties galore, and the girls seem to get prettier as I get older.
Thanks for remminding me Taki, I’m going to surprise my wife with some tickets to NYC this weekend.
Speech codes prohibit anything that is deemed hurtful by others, particularly those deemed to be minorities.
Funny you mention this, whenever I have a “Taki” moment at a party, my wife from Mani gives me a discret elbow worthy of Chris Chelios behind a referees back.
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Honky-dory!?! Is that a rowboat owned and/or operated by a white person? The proper term is hunky-dory, i.e. a fat rowboat.
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REG STOCKING—nice catch!
Shame on you Taki.
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@ Adriana
To choose between great art and trash, one has to
be able to make the distinction. Americans cannot
make this distinction because Americans have been
dumbed down thanks to our public educational system
and our hideous culture. Until they are changed, do
not expect to find great art anywhere except,
perhaps, the catacombs...which I can’t seem to find.
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@ Yiorgos, “Funny you mention this, whenever I have a “Taki” moment at a party, my wife from Mani gives me a discret elbow worthy of Chris Chelios behind a referees back.”
Here’s an example of how bad it’s gotten.
Whenever I tell this originally Soviet joke to Americans, they invariably assume it’s “racist”, even though it’s really about the American tendency to think in overly abstract ways at the expense of common sense, including common sense about race:
Well, back in Soviet times, an American spy was trained to speak perfect Ukrainian, using all the current slang, and Ukrainian body language and 100 percent perfect Ukrainian behaviour. Then he was dropped in Kiev (I dunno how, maybe from an imitation-Soviet-helicopter), and while walking down Lenin Street he greeted two old men on a bench, “HELLO, Comrades!” And the two Ukrainians replied, “HELLO, American spy!”
He gave up then and there, and said, “Alright, you got me. But how did you know I was an American spy?” And the Ukrainians said, “For one thing, we don’t have many Blacks here.”
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Taki: Can’t you find a fountain of youth someplace? You’ve got to be around (and young of spirit) for another couple of hundred years. Of course, God will feel cheated not to be able to chat with you sooner should you find that foy. What a joy to read.
Gratefully, Daniel Bonner
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I missed your column in 6th October issue of The
Spectator. I thought you were no more. I had not seen
your obit.13 October issue lead me to this site
I do not know why it was spiked. Worried about future
of Spectator and its new Editor
Dr L N Godbole
26 October 2007
07:25 HRS
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Is Bloomberg a closet PURITAN? What’s next for NYC no
dancing?
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