Eye on the Island
Capitol Hill News
Election Day 2011 was over and done with when a direct-mail piece, which appeared to come from an elected official, landed this month in the Barry household’s mailbox. It was addressed to our family’s one registered Democrat.
With Mrs. Barry’s permission, I often review the correspondence Democrats send to Democrats. This mailer was issued and paid for by Rep. Gary Ackerman’s (D-Roslyn) campaign committee, and it was well done. But I believe the piece was prepared with an eye toward the upcoming Congressional redistricting fight, rather than Election Day 2012. I’ll have more on that later.
The Money Train
The Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) is the only commuter railroad in the United States that offers a pension to employees who retire at the age of 50, if they’ve worked at the LIRR for at least 20 years.
The catch: if a LIRR employee retires at 50, he or she receives substantially lower LIRR pension payments than they would be otherwise entitled to had they waited until the age of 65 to retire.
The End of Normal
ABC’s 20/20 and CBS’s 60 Minutes broadcast interviews last month with Stephanie Madoff Mack and Ruth Madoff, respectively, which left millions of Americans with the impression that everyone in the Madoff family, with the exception of Bernie, was so good they could each pose for holy cards.
The Madoffs, however, are all too human, according to Madoff Mack, the 30-something-year-old widow of the late Mark Madoff, who graduated from Roslyn High School in the early 1980s and was the eldest of Bernie and Ruth Madoff’s two sons. Madoff Mack chronicled her observations along with writer Tamara Jones in the just-published The End of Normal: A Wife’s Anguish, A Widow’s New Life (Blue Rider Press).
LI’s Fight Night
The late Irish playwright Oscar Wilde believed it was absurd to divide people into good or bad. People are either charming or tedious, he said.
It is difficult to guess which categorization the long-dead Wilde would affix to Long Island tabloid fixtures from the 1990s such as Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco. But their ability to draw a national crowd in 2011 will be put to the test on Saturday, Nov. 5 when both participate in a Celebrity Fight Night boxing card at the Avalon Theatre in Hollywood, California.
NHL Exec’s Homecoming
The National Hockey League’s (NHL) Winter Classic, an outdoor game that in its fifth year will feature the New York Rangers playing in Philadelphia on Monday, Jan. 2, 2012, was on New Year’s Day 2011 the most-viewed NHL regular season contest in 36 years.
One of the executives behind the NHL Winter Classic’s success is John Collins, the NHL’s chief operating officer and a graduate of the C.W. Post campus at Long Island University. He is returning to his alma mater on Thursday, Nov. 3 at 12:30 p.m. as part of C.W. Post’s Provost Distinguished Lecture Series. The one-hour event, to be held in the Brookville institution’s Pratt Recreation Center, is open to the public, and there is no admission fee. There are, however, only 120 seats available so C.W. Post is accepting reservations by calling the Office of Community Relations at 516-299-3500. They can also be made by emailing Jennifer.Fitz This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Town Hall Campaigns
I wondered early in my career why Nassau’s political leaders focused endlessly on winning town campaigns, and showed comparatively little interest in who represented the county in Washington, D.C.
But I quickly learned that Hempstead, North Hempstead and Oyster Bay town government, while not the most glamorous corners of the municipal world, are where all of the significant action is. Town governments make crucial land use decisions in the county’s unincorporated communities; provide essential services (e.g., recreational facilities, garbage disposal) and dispense honest patronage.
LIE’s Report Card
The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) made news last week with the release of a 42-page study examining the Long Island Expressway’s (LIE) conditions in western Nassau County.
I know one person who did not read the FHWA’s entire report: the Newsday editor who decided ‘Danger on the LIE’ should be the front-page headline of the paper’s Thursday, Oct. 6 print edition.
County Control
Nassau’s Republicans will defend next month a GOP majority in the county Legislature for the first time in 12 years.
I say this because certain media outlets will leave the impression that Republicans have completely controlled county government since the Dawn of Time in the weeks leading up to the Tuesday, Nov. 8 elections. In fact, the actual date is Jan. 1, 2010, which is when County Executive Edward Mangano and 11 Republican county legislators gained a governing majority in Mineola.
Inside Baseball
One of the reasons movie reviewers raved about Moneyball—and baseball fans may not enjoy it nearly as much—is that most film critics had no idea that Major League Baseball (MLB) is another form of show business.
Baseball aficionados already know MLB is a lot like Hollywood—millions of young people aspire to play in The Show, and the barriers to entry are very high. Moreover, only a handful of athletes have the ability and drive to even make it in the door and, when your star fades, your contract is not renewed.
Ready for Playoff Run?
Sports Illustrated has mentioned the New York Islanders twice in recent weeks but only one of those articles can be found on the Islanders’ official website.
The SI story the Islanders understandably posted was from an SI online columnist who argued the Isles could make the National Hockey League’s (NHL) playoffs this season. You have to subscribe to SI’s print edition to know the magazine called the Islanders’ newly-announced business relationship with a tattoo parlor ‘a sign of the apocalypse.’
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<< Start < Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>Mike Barry, a corporate communications consultant, has worked in government and journalism. Email: MFBARRY@optonline.net
