Sound Heart but Giant Headaches about the Super Bowl
Fingers crossed Big Blue will repeat Patriot win
By Josh Rogers
My head says the Giants won’t win the Super Bowl this Sunday. It’s not that I’m one of those doom and gloom Giants fans, although admittedly I was raised by one. No matter how bleak things look at the beginning of the season, I usually go in with the attitude of “Hey, if things break right this year, we could win it all.” Read more
Value Content Over Style
Heed those who see the big picture
By Bette Dewing
Hey, journalists Jeff Greenfield and Mark Barabak, don’t call yourself “old fogies” because you think that televised debate audiences shouldn’t react verbally, and chuck that ageist label. It implies that decorous behavior in an era of loud mouths is somehow regressive. Read more
What Obama’s State of the Union Means for New York
By Alan S. Chartock
In politics, there is an old saying: “First you have to win.” A corollary is “Winning is everything.” Another companion idiom in American politics is “There are no co-winners.” Read more
The After-Party Party
The two-for-one philosophy of hosting
As most savvy New York hosts know, when you throw a large cocktail party, you can expect approximately 60 percent of the invitees to attend. Of the 40 percent who don’t come, most have a scheduling conflict or illness and are truly sorry to be missing the affair. So, what if you immediately offered these people an alternative—a kind of make-up party?
That’s exactly what my friends Ned and Donna did. They held a big cocktail party one Saturday night and invited the people who sent “regrets” to a smaller party the very next Saturday. Read more
Waking Up with Charlie Rose—and Some Questions
A new addition reminds us that our town is still king of the morning show
Over many years, Charlie Rose spent a tremendous number of hours in my bedroom. Before discovering the life-altering advantages of the DVR, I often ended my day with Rose on public TV. So his move two weeks ago to the CBS morning program sent my routine into confusion. Read more
Dousing the Flame on Apartment Fires
Fire prevention must become a top national concern
By Bette Dewing
“We often need as much to be reminded as to be informed” are among the wisest words ever spoken. Thank you, Dr. Samuel Johnson.
And we must remember Martin Luther King’s dream of a nation where content of character matters, not skin color. Surely that means not valuing “physical attractiveness” over character. Recent research shows that so-called attractive members of Congress are the ones who get the most TV coverage (“Looks Matter as TV Covers Congress,” New York Times, Jan. 6). Once, the women’s movement denounced this general attractiveness bias, and I’m seeking others concerned that the now decades of related research stored in one of my file cabinets do not go to waste. Read more
New York Proves Itself One More Time
A returned wallet restores faith in the big city
By Lorraine Duffy Merkl
“They have your wallet over at The Mansion [Diner],” said my doorman last Monday morning.
He was referring to my new, blue, rectangular Michael Kors wallet that holds my life and that I thought I’d never see again. Read more
What’s Your Sign?
How to Attract Your Peers Among the Masses
By Jeanne Martinet
I don’t usually travel on the subway with a white plastic Venetian face mask, but that’s what I was doing last Monday night.
I wasn’t wearing the mask, I was merely holding it in my lap. And yet, almost immediately after the train left the station at 23rd Street, a cute guy with super-chic eyeglasses got up from where he was sitting across from me and approached. “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you,” he smiled, “but didn’t you just LOVE it?” He wiggled his eyebrows in a conspiratorial fashion, nodding at the mask. Read more
Getting Giddy About Our Grid
The city’s original design team nets positive response—two centuries later
Now that we can go back to ignoring Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire for another three-plus years, let’s concentrate again on city life. Especially since the hottest thing in cold New York this January is the grid. Read more
How to Unhook from Addiction
A new year means new resolutions—here’s how to stick to them
By Lorraine Duffy Merkl
Welcome to your first week of change.
Five days ago, you most likely made a resolution involving one of the big three. With any luck, your agreement with yourself to exercise more, weigh less (always No. 1 on my hit parade) or stop smoking and/or imbibing will last out the week. Read more
