OTBKB apologizes for the tardiness of today's Greetings from Scott Turner. As you know, Scott is a writer/designer and Rocky Sullivan's pub quiz maven extraordinaire. This post is sponsored MissWit Tees. Owner Deb Goldstein, is as Brooklyn firecracker as they come — in terms
of sass and community. She sells online (www.misswit.net) and at all the local fleas and street fairs, sent me her schedule, and we're passing it on to you:
Greetings Pub Quiz Air Space Gazers…
If you've ever searched for the perfect moment to channel Hervé Villechaize, yesterday was your moment in the sun.
"The plane! The plane!" excited New Yorkers shouted, pointing at the blue skies above.
Except it came out as "oh no, not again," "what the f…?" and "hey, is that Air Force One?"
Well, it was Air Force One. Not technically, because the blue and white presidential planes are only "Air Force One" when White House Resident One is aboard. Otherwise, it's just a 747 with a Presidential seal, nothing grander than props and CGIs from a Harrison Ford movie.
liking the looks of this was in short supply
Happily, New Yorkers — we grizzled, unshakable veterans of terror attacks, Con Ed explosions, crack epidemics and America's Next Top Model riots — proved unflappable, calm and collected.
""I was crying and praying to God to forgive me my sins because I thought I was going to get killed," the Daily News quoted Kathleen Filandro, who fled her building when the jet passed overhead.
A Wall Street worker, employed by a dominion rife with
dubious constructs, said "It's like someone coming up to you, sticking
a gun to your head for 15
seconds, walking away and hearing 20 minutes later it was an undercover
cop posing for a photo." Well, point-blank firearms are just a teensy
bit more likely to kill financial-sector grandiosity-junkies than
winged-machines in the wild blue yonder — 9/11 notwithstanding.
77 Hudson Street…the Big Address Sign strategy pays off
The most hysterical reaction came from His Honor,
whose rehearsed anger didn't have panicked New Yorkers' backs.
Quickly, it melted to reveal the mayor's hurt feelings at being the
only New Yorker who should've been told but wasn't. As usual with Mister Mayor,
it wasn't about how it affects the citizenry, but how it affects Mister
Mayor — a breach in ring-kissing protocol, not the breach in our
hearts. The mayor never disappoints.
Look…it was a stupid stunt on the White House's part (whose chief resident apparently knew as little as Bloomberg). Obama's gotta run a tighter ship than this. It was insensitive,
because eight years later, few New Yorkers here that day can glimpse a
plane overheard and not think about September 11th. Me too, and I'll
never stop.
It doesn't mean, though, that I was counting my sins as Not Officially Air Force One flew overhead.
And yes, the mayor should have been told. He is the mayor, after all, as much as he shouldn't be come this November.
And boy, do I agree that a photo-op of this magnitude should never
have happened. The panic and miscommunications were bad enough. The
waste of taxpayer money to fly a presidential 747 and an F-16 over Manhattan for a White House giveaway trinket, in any economy, is ridiculous. An anonymous source told the Associated Press
that the flyover was combined with a nearby training exercise to save
money. "Honey, I know we're in foreclosure, but the salesperson gave
me a great deal on the new yacht!"
In other words, how many imbeciles cooked this up and for how many different reasons?
For what it's worth, local security officials — including the NYPD and New Jersey police — had been informed days before. The Bloomberg minion who was told by the feds not to mention it (very X-Files) is the fall-guy in the parts known as 'Round These. Bloomberg's spokesman Stu Loeser said, via a statement, "He has
been reprimanded and a disciplinary letter will be placed in his file." A letter placed in his file! Ooooh, the mayor must be very, very angry!
"must act concerned…must act concerned…must act concerned…must — can't wait for my crème brûlée — NO! must act concerned…CONCERNED!"
If only we'd have known, we could have warned New Yorkers
was the Bloomberg administration's other protestation. How, exactly?
The media? The Internet? Posting DO NOT LOOK SKYWARD signs on every
lamppost from South Ferry to Central Park South? A lot of us don't pay attention to the warnings out beyond their doorstep, which is sad, but which, you know, is.
Bloomberg, as always, rings hollower than Tubular Bells. Just a day prior, Bloomberg defended Con Ed officials who failed to evacuate a Queens street prior to the blast that killed Ghanwatti Boodrama, a mother of two. A sunrise later, Bloomberg's concern for New Yorkers' lacks a certain sincerity.
Besides, it's not just about the feds keeping Bloomie from knowing
the secret handshake. High-up NYPD officials had gotten the memo, and
they didn't pass it on to the cops on the street who could help quell
the panic around them.
Bloomberg: rehearsed fury, scapegoating an underling, disciplining
with a letter in a file, and glossing over the mistakes in his own
house. Had the mayor been a lord in feudal Japan, he would have gone down in history as the first to walk away from falling on his sword.
It's hard to judge the plane-in-the-sky panic. Well, beyond as
judgemental as I've already been. People reacted, and many got out of
what they perceived as harm's way, and that's good. How much of it is
post-9/11 awareness, and how much of it is the relentless clobbering
our psyches took from the Bush Administration's All Scare Tactics All The Time onslaught can never be known.
At Rocky's last night, as the melodies of the Monday-night trad Irish seissun floated off into the warm April night, the conversation turned to the weirdness in the air. The recent spate of multiple-murder cases, the swine-flu Whendemic of '09,
this plane thing. Bizarre stuff is the electrical grid for humanity's
more vibrant realms, and that's an always-has-been/always-will be. The
consensus at Rocky's, though, was that the dial's been tweaked up a
notch. Or over a notch. A certain direction that has us stepping a
bit more gingerly and little wider-eyed.
As for counting our sins, if that's your thing, it's probably best to get it out of the way before the sky starts falling.
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Fab Foto of the Week…the New York Public Library opened a new branch in midtown. It's got a "laptop bar" and at least one patron you don't want to upset:
ever wonder what male lions do while the females are out doing everything else…
