Author Archive

I Won the New Hampshire Primary

Written by William Bryk on February 22, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

I won. I polled 23,808 votes. Russell J. Fornwalt of New York City polled 18,512. Ours were the only names printed on the ballot. Write-in candidates included Elizabeth Dole (9492), Alan Keyes (5426), John McCain, Steve Forbes, George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Gary Bauer, Orrin Hatch, Bill Bradley, Albert Gore, Wladislav D. Kubiak (40) and
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The Myth of the Ecological Indian

Written by William Bryk on February 15, 2000. Posted in Books, Posts

The Ecological Indian: Myth and History by Shepard Krech III (W.W. Norton, 318 pages, $27.95) Krech argues this image revived the 18th-century notion of the noble savage with an alteration suited to the times: now, Native Americans did not pollute their environment. Indeed, they possessed a peculiarly integrated relationship with their natural environment, marked by
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On Commemorative Stamps

Written by William Bryk on February 8, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

Stamps 2000, a poster at the General Post Office on 34th St., illustrates the commemorative stamps the Postal Service intends to issue during the coming year. There will be at least 113 of them. Indeed, the United States now issues so many varieties of postage stamps with such enthusiasm that one might forget they are
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Gene Fowler, Scalawag Journalist

Written by William Bryk on January 25, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

Fowler was briefly city editor, under protest, and was eased into the sports department only after several incidents in which he disciplined tardy or drunk reporters by firing a revolver loaded with blanks at their feet. Then, as the paper’s music critic was drunk in a whorehouse again on the night of a Paderewski concert,
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Remembering the New York Graphic

Written by William Bryk on January 11, 2000. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

In 1900, when newspapers were still the only mass media, at least 30 daily papers of general and specialized circulation were published in Manhattan alone. By the 20s, a combination of massive capital investment and increasing difficulties in distributing the papers made launching a new daily something only an established publisher might try. For example,
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Betsy and Jerome

Written by William Bryk on December 28, 1999. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

Though inexperienced, Betsy was far from naive. Marriage to the brother of the most powerful man in Europe was a brilliant investment. Speaking with more prescience than she knew, Betsy declared she would rather be the wife of Jerome Bonaparte for one hour than of any other man for life. As for Jerome, his infatuation
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Napoleon’s Older Brother

Written by William Bryk on December 21, 1999. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

that night from an open boat. Among them was a dignified man whose passports called him the Comte Surviglieri. Misservey, quite reasonably under the circumstances, had not closely examined the papers. Under the circumstances, perhaps ignorance was best. Napoleon Bonaparte, the second son of a Corsican notary with noble pretensions, who had risen within 20
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How I Got Into & Out of Politics

Written by William Bryk on December 21, 1999. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

"Ah, Frank," he said softly. "You’ve done grand things. Grand, grand things." "Among others," Skeffington said. –Edwin O’Connor, The Last Hurrah Eleven percent of all eligible New Yorkers voted on Tuesday, Nov. 2, 1999. I was among them. I was also among a smaller minority. I was a candidate myself, for Richmond County district attorney,
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The Glory of November 25

Written by William Bryk on November 30, 1999. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

as Beaver St. Rents rose 400 percent within the first year of occupation; the price of food and other goods and services 800 percent. The provincial assembly, city council and courts were dormant, although nothing indicates the politicians had stopped drawing their salaries. The city was governed by the Royal Army, and its government, in
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Hay! Krajewski! Hay! Hay!

Written by William Bryk on November 2, 1999. Posted in Breaking News, Posts

It closes with an essay on a colorful independent presidential candidate. One contemplates the traditional, even classical images of our presidents’ youths: Washington surveying the Virginia frontier, or Lincoln reading law by candlelight after working in the fields. Then there is Henry B. Krajewski slopping hogs in Secaucus. The pigs got him into politics. Until
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