Oyster shell dresses and green grass suits raise awareness of the city’s community gardens

Michael Leete, who works at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) in Alphabet City, showed up for last weekend’s “anti-fashion” show dressed as a sparkly orange tree. Leete, 28, and fellow acts were decked out head-to-toe in all recycled and organic material.

“We’re exposing a different side of fashion,” Leete explained of the show’s mission. “We’re showing how it can be used in protest to make the act more interesting.”

While high-end fashion is invading New York City for February Fashion Week, MoRUS and its partner organizations had something a little different, something a little earthier, in mind for their show, which took place at the museum’s C-Squat on Avenue C.

Another volunteer, Barbara Ross, came strapped with dangling oyster shells.

“New York City once had oysters in the Hudson River that were wiped out,” she said of her costume’s purpose. “There’s talk of bringing them back to help with storm surges.” Ross’s oyster shell costume was meant to shed light on the potential environmental benefits of mollusks.

“All these costumes have a green message,” she said. “They show what people can do.”

“Fashion can also be functional,” Leete said, adding that costumes like his, a part of the Earth Celebrations series, were intended to raise awareness of the city’s prolific community gardens and plans to demolish them.

Earth Celebrations is a nonprofit organization directed by activist Felicia Young that aims to preserve these gardens through art and performance.

In addition, the show had a broader mission of bringing attention to how costumes and props can be used to promote positive change in the face of social, environmental and political issues—including the use of puppets to support the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Prior to the show, Young took the stage to talk about the group’s work.

“New York City has the highest concentration of community gardens in America, and Earth Celebrations helped save them,” Young said. “People didn’t even know these gardens existed.”

Young said the gardens grew out of rubble-filled lots of the 1970s, cultivated by individuals who helped transform neighborhoods previously considered slums. Real estate developers then began targeting those very spots.

“These gardens should not be a temporary stopgap on the way to luxurious neighborhoods,” Young said. “These are not vacant lots.”

Over time, since the organization’s founding in 1991, politicians like former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg got involved in helping preserve the gardens by providing grants and helping raise awareness.

Volunteers Isabelle Garcia, 31, and Lauren Mittelman, 24, walked the recycled runway in suits made of grass, which was grown directly onto the costumes by Bill Di Paola, a MoRUS co-founder and staunch activist in the city with the environmental organization Time’s Up!

Mittelman said the suits represented how easy it can be to grow something no matter the context. “If you can grow grass on a suit in a week, you can grow sustainable stuff anywhere,” she said.

Amanda Buckley, a 30-year-old painter in the city who works a variety of odd jobs, was in the audience on Saturday. Buckley heard about the museum’s show on Facebook and decided to check it out.

“I’m interested in how political activism can exist in an artistic context,” Buckley said.

Another audience member, Jerry Trudell, said he used to squat nearby in the 1990s and helped start the transformation of vacant lots into gardens that brought Earth Celebrations into being. He said a garden procession went around every year to support and bring visibility to the garden coalition by uniting garden activists from different areas.

MoRUS’ “anti-fashion” show also included a brassy performance by the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, a volunteer-run band, complete with dancers, which regularly shows up at a variety of protest events, rallies and benefits throughout the city. The band first formed to protest the Republican National Convention.

Hanna Kyle Moranz, 31, a dancer who’s been with the band since 2008, said the orchestra, like MoRUS and its partner organizations, “strongly believes in the power of spectacle for positive change.”

City & State: Does your comedy ever intersect with politics?
Susie Essman: Not too much. If something strikes me, yes. But there are people who do it so much better than I do that I let them handle it. You know, the Jon Stewarts and the Bill Mahers and the Lewis Blacks. They’re so much better at it than I am, so I stick to what I’m good at.

CS: Is there anything going on in New York politics that you find to be particularly funny right now?
SE: No. You know, when things are going well, it’s really bad for comedy. Bush was great for comedy. Eliot Spitzer was, of course, fantastic for comedy.

CS: Mayor Michael Bloomberg appeared on an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Did you have a chance to speak with him?
SE: I was not in the scene with him. But I know that everybody was very pleased with him. He came in, he did what he had to do, and he did it well and quickly and in just a couple of takes. He’s a professional. Some politicians are better actors than others.

CS: You’re bringing comedy back to the Catskills with an Aug. 25 benefit concert at the Belleayre Music Festival, part of the Catskill Park Resource Foundation’s effort to revitalize the region. How did you get involved?
SE: I live in the Hudson Valley—not in the Catskills, exactly, but we’re adjacent.That entire area really suffered after Hurricane Irene. So many people lost their homes, and the whole Catskill region really suffered also from that devastation. And this winter all the ski resorts suffered because there was no snow. I mean, I was happy about no snow because I have a treacherous driveway, but that’s kind of selfish of me. I know that the area’s depressed.

CS: Did you go there on vacations as a kid?
SE: We used to spend the summer at a bungalow colony. When I was growing up, it was the place to go. All the hotels were in operation, and it’s where so many great comedians started working in the Borscht Belt. That’s no longer there. I think a lot of those places are just trying to hold on and see if gambling is ever going to come. They’re all closed now, and it’s kind of sad because it’s a really beautiful, beautiful part of the country.

CS: Did you ever perform there early on in your career?
SE: I worked at the Concord, at the Raleigh, at the Nevele, at the Fallsview. But I was really at the tail end. It was not the way that it was in the ’40s or ’50s, let’s say, when it was happening. All of those comedians started there: Mel Brooks and Buddy Hackett and Alan King. They used to go up there and they used to work at the hotels and then go around to all the bungalow colonies and work there on a Saturday night. They’d do maybe five or six shows on a Saturday night.

CS: What was it like when you performed there?
SE: It was very different. It was a very different clientele, and it was on the downslide. It eventually just dried up. All the hotels closed. I think money wasn’t put back into them. They weren’t kept up well. But it’s a beautiful part. I’m partial to New
York State.

CS: Is there anything that can be done to revitalize the Catskills?
SE: There’s no manufacturing any more, like the rest of the country. I think they’re trying to just boost tourism. It’s a great outdoor life there. There’s hiking and fishing and skiing and all that stuff.

CS: Tell me about the benefit comedy concert that you’re putting on in August.
SE: It’s a fundraiser to raise money for people to bring awareness [to the Catskill region].  Especially with gas prices the way they are—it doesn’t have the cachet of the Hamptons per se, or Dutchess County, but it’s a great place to go with your family. It’s inexpensive. It’s rural. A lot of good restaurants have been opening up. I think they’re just trying to bring awareness to the area. It’s in economic decline right now, like so much of our country.

To read the full article at City & State click here.

Photo by Andrew Schwartz

After four years as editor in chief of The Onion, comedian Joe Randazzo is leaving the paper, and America’s self-proclaimed “finest news source” is relocating its offices from New York to Chicago. City & State editor Morgan Pehme talks with Randazzo about his tenure at the helm of the popular satiric publication and asks him if there’s anything funny about Andrew Cuomo.

City & State: What’s so funny about politics?

Joe Randazzo: You have a high concentration of egotistical people who oftentimes put their worst qualities forward to get noticed and to be recognized, and this lack of compassion, humanism and altruism often leads to success in politics. These are the worst qualities of humankind that people who are being put forth to represent all of humankind are embodying, so that inherently is a tragically hilarious juxtaposition.

CS: How seriously does The Onion take itself?

JR: I think it’s understood that there’s this bedrock responsibility to speak truth to power, to call out bullsh-t when The Onion sees it or hears it, and to always try to fall on the right side of issues, to never be against the victim—and not to try to maintain objectivity but to keep any target open, so Democrats are just as open to ridicule as Republicans. But in order to get to the good jokes that make The Onion successful, all the writers have to do is make each other laugh. I think a responsibility to the broader social conversation is genetically encoded in The Onion as an institution and that rubs off on the writers, but on a daily basis Onion writers aren’t thinking about their responsibility or taking themselves very seriously. It just needs to be funny jokes.

CS: At The Onion, are you a journalist first or a comedian?

JR: I come from a little bit of a journalism background. I majored in journalism at Emerson and I worked for NPR, but I’m definitely a comedian first.

CS: Earlier this year, Rep. John Fleming of Louisiana mistakenly thought a story in The Onion about a planned “AbortionPlex” was genuine. On other occasions The New York Times and Fox News have reported on your articles as fact. How blurry is the line between real news and fake news in the current media environment?

JR: That one was really wonderful, because the whole point of the AbortionPlex story itself was to try to give as much credence to what we imagined every right-wing nut job’s worst nightmare of Planned Parenthood could be and to explore that and give it The Onion treatment, which is to present it in a very dry, authoritative way. That’s our formula; that’s the lens through which we observe the world—that’s where 90% of our comedy comes from—so when we do it really well, sometimes people who aren’t familiar with us take it seriously. I think it does to a degree speak to—especially during the Bush Administration and the rise of FOX News, not that Rupert Murdoch is an evil person, per se—this sort of reinventing news as entertainment that that has really taken hold in American culture.

I think in [Rep. Fleming’s] case, he’s a pandering guy who’s not that intelligent, who thought that something obscenely ridiculous like the AbortionPlex could ever possibly be real. But actually, one of the things that lent it some credence was that somebody went and created an actual Yelp site for the AbortionPlex—we didn’t solicit this, they just did this of their own accord, organically—and hundreds of people who were in on the joke started giving it thumbs up or thumbs down and writing reviews like “It was great! My husband and I are going to go there every year for our anniversary” and stuff like that, which sort of gave texture to this world we created that we never could have done on our own. I think that story, paired with that kind of real-world response to it, painted this picture that for some people made it much easier to believe that it was real, even though the story itself was ridiculous. I mean, it’s a $7 billion AbortionPlex or something like that, where they’re killing, like, 1500 babies a minute. There’s waterslides, and you can have a martini while you wait. It’s like there’s no way that would ever be real, even from Planned Parenthood. It’s delightful when people take that stuff seriously.

CS: Does constantly mocking hypocrisy and ineptitude in government make you hopelessly cynical about the state of our country?

JR: I think a lot of comedians are cynical. I’m generalizing, but comedians tend to be fairly sensitive people who have to kind of harden their souls to the fact that they’re going to get hurt, and that everybody’s going to get hurt, and that people are imperfect and that, you know, ultimately we’re all going to die. I think that’s actually the background of every comedian’s mind. So, I think there’s a side to that sensitivity that hopes for good, that wants to be optimistic, that wants to be idealistic, but that’s a vulnerable place to be, and rather than going out and trying to collect names for Children’s International, comedians write nasty jokes about Rush Limbaugh. Personally, I wouldn’t say that I’m cynical, but I’m not an activist.

I think that our country, if we continue on this path which is consumed with the endless obsession with consumption—that’s physically unsustainable, spiritually unsustainable, and culturally unsustainable. Politics is just a reflection of that, trying to keep order out of all these different types and groups of people, who are all basically just trying to get by in a material world—I think Madonna said that at some point. So I don’t actual think I’m cynical, but I’m not holding out a lot of hope for, like, big change. For one thing, we’ll probably have to wipe out, like, three quarters of the population maybe before anything good can happen, and that’s okay, I’m comfortable with that. I’m just enjoying my life while I can before the big purge comes.

CS: As a comedic journalist, when scandals like the ones that brought down Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer hit the papers, do you just think to yourself, Thank you!?

JR: Something like Eliot Spitzer or Anthony Weiner is a little more in the purview, from The Onion point of view, of late-night talk shows, like one-liners and zingers. The Onion tends not to really comment on those types of little blips, and when we do it tends to be more of a comment on the media’s take on something. We try to write stories that can be evergreen, that you can read in 10 years and they would still make some sense. We try to look at it with more than a 24-hour news cycle mentality. When Anthony Weiners come up I think we actually say, “Sh-t!” because we have to either figure out a joke that nobody else has done, or we won’t be able to cover it at all.

CS: The Onion hasn’t really run a satiric article featuring Andrew Cuomo since his days as HUD Secretary. Is there just nothing funny about Cuomo to write about?

JR: I don’t think there is. He’s boring, right? That’s his whole thing?

CS: In 2009 The Onion was awarded a Peabody, and last year you actively campaigned for a Pulitzer. Does The Onion really deserve journalism’s highest award or was that just a shameless publicity stunt?

JR: I think that we would all actually really like to win a Pulitzer—and now that I’m leaving in two days, I think I can say that The Onion absolutely does deserve a Pulitzer. In terms of commentary I don’t think there’s anyone who has consistently done a better job with sort of more integrity that The Onion has. The Onion also does lots of stupid, horrible jokes that have no business being published, but I think there isn’t any other organization that has for 20 years observed the American condition as consistently as The Onion has. It’s been amazing to be able to work for them for six years. The Pulitzer campaign was definitely tongue-in-cheek. It was meant to be sort of a comment on awarding prizes for journalism, which is kind of a weird thing. In many ways, even though you are talking about things that are supposed to be good for the community, it can get wrapped up in just as much vanity as the Academy Awards can. So we thought it would be funny, instead of pretending we don’t care about prizes like many news outlets do, just shamelessly going for one and saying we will actually just buy one from you, if you allow us to do it.

To read the full article at City & State click here.

During his first week as a candidate for the state Senate, Ulrich, a Queens Republican, repeatedly criticized his opponent, Democratic State Sen. Joe Addabbo, flip-flopping on the issue of gay marriage.

In 2009, Addabbo voted against the bill as it went down in lopsided defeat, but in 2011, the Queens senator – after polling constituents in his eastern Queens district on the issue – voted in favor, providing crucial support that allowed the bill to narrowly become New York law.

“First he voted against it, saying most of his constituents were against it, and then for it, saying most of his constituents now favored it,” Ulrich told the Queens Chronicle last week. “I think people are frustrated by that. Joe’s got people upset with him on both sides of the issue.”

But Ulrich’s own record on gay marriage is just as complicated, which could undercut what what so far has been his main argument for unseating the incumbent Democrat.

Ulrich, a 27-year rising Republican star who was heavily courted to run for the Senate, grew up going to Catholic schools and considered going into the priesthood before coming a politician. He has often stated his opposition to same-sex marriage. For instance, two years before he was elected to the City Council, Ulrich wrote in a 2007 op-ed that stating then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s push on the issue was an “assault on the institution of marriage.”

But when a bill explicitly promoting gay marriage came before the City Council in 2010, Ulrich voted in favor The law, passed a year before gay marriage was legalized here, encouraged gay New Yorkers to go to other states, where same-sex marriage was legal, and get hitched there.

It did so by requiring New York City Clerk, which issues marriages licenses, to post “a list of all domestic and international jurisdictions that perform same sex marriages” on its website. The clerk’s site also must say, because of that law, that those who get married outside New York would enjoy the “benefits available to people lawfully married in New York,” further encouraging gay and lesbian couples to get married in other states.

A January New York Times article also suggests that Ulrich’s views on social issues have softened . He told the paper in an interview, highlighting his work for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, that he’s “not so off the reservation on social issues.” The article also suggests in passing that Ulrich’s pro-life views on abortion had flipped since he joined the City Council.

In a statement, Bill O’Reilly, a spokesman for Ulrich’s campaign, said the Ulrich’s vote in the City Council on gay marriage was simply in support of a “freedom on information issue,” and that he will was still pro-life.

To read the full article at City & State click here.

Ben Kallos

This all seems as obvious a lifestyle to Kallos as his decision to run for Jessica Lappin’s seat in the City Council in 2013. He’s positioning himself as a young voice, a progressive choice, someone who has worked tirelessly, frenetically even, on so many civic issues it makes the résumés of some sitting council members seem paltry by comparison.

Kallos, a lifelong Upper East Sider, went to the Bronx High School of Science, where he distinguished himself by running a computer consulting firm at age 15. He went on to SUNY Albany, where he was heavily involved in student politics, and got his law degree from SUNY Buffalo Law School.

He has practiced corporate litigation at several firms, worked as former State Assembly Member Jonathan Bing’s chief of staff and with then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and former public advocate Mark Green. He now works with Bill Samuels on the New Roosevelt Initiative, a campaign dedicated to promoting reform-minded and ethics-driven candidates that successfully worked to oust disgraced State Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. from the legislature. They also work on the Effective New York campaign that promotes reforming Albany’s notorious dysfunction by amending the state constitution.

Reform is the name of Kallos’ game, and he sees solutions in everything, especially in the input of his potential constituents.

“The community is an amazing resource; everybody has such great ideas and government is so broken. We’ve been doing it the same way for same way for literally thousands of years,” he said during a recent interview.

He’s a big fan of the participatory budgeting experiments going on in four of the city’s districts and is always looking for ways to get more community feedback and keep people informed about their government. He serves as a public member of Community Board 8 and has created several free websites that connect people directly to transparent voter and legislative information.

On the ground level, Kallos works with many small businesses and he views his role helping them as part of a larger civic responsibility.

“As an attorney, I love to help make people’s dreams come true,” he said. “It’s about helping people grow their business, grow their dreams, because I’m not there to make a quick buck off a starting business; I’m there to help somebody grow a business, grow jobs in Manhattan, grow talent.”

Taking that long view is how Kallos sees the city fixing its education system as well as providing jobs. He supports public investment in educational alternatives for at-risk youth, such as providing grants for associate degree or vocational skills training for teens who aren’t succeeding on the traditional college-bound path.

“All of a sudden, we’ve taken someone who is going to be a drain on their economy, and with a minimal investment, gotten them a certificate they need to practice a vocation and maybe that’s a lifelong career,” Kallos said.

Kallos sees that kind of multi-tentacled, out-of-the-box approach to many problems, like addressing after-school programs for kids, childhood obesity and the affordability of healthy food for low-income populations by extending after-school hours in partnership with local food providers that also give kids food to take home to their families.

“At the end of the day, the question is: Do you want to invest in our futures or in something else?” he said. “We can always do better. It’s about continual improvement.”

With the amount of dissatisfaction and disappointment that many have expressed toward New York State government, it’s clear we need a governor who has a strong vision for the office and who can take control of a Legislature that has caused embarrassment on a national level. The choice for voters is between Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, and the Republication businessman from Buffalo, Carl Paladino. We wholeheartedly endorse Cuomo for governor.

Paladino has little to offer and has run a campaign filled with bigotry and bluster. While we recognize the strain of populism that has appealed to those disgruntled with government and the way politicians have been behaving, we do not want our state governed by anyone who has so little respect for his fellow citizens.
But this is not simply a Cuomo-by-default decision. As attorney general, Cuomo has a strong record as the state’s chief lawyer, investigating the pay-to-play scandal that led former Comptroller Alan Hevesi to plead guilty.
His blueprint for ethics reform includes a section that would legislate that lawmakers would have to disclose their earnings from outside jobs, something we think should also happen. While we are wary of family “dynasties” in all levels of politics, we feel Andrew Cuomo has shown a clear path and ambition in politics separate from his father’s, while also learning from his time working with him.
We do, however, hope that Andrew Cuomo stops playing it safe when it comes to his stated principles, coming out strong in favor of marriage equality (something that nearly all New York City politicians agree it is time for) and other progressive legislation. Getting any of his reforms passed with an obstinate Legislature will not be easy. But we feel Cuomo can make good on his promises to restore trust and create transparency in government.

Attorney General: Eric Schneiderman

The next New York attorney general has big shoes to fill. Eliot Spitzer and Andrew Cuomo were both crusaders who were able to balance complex issues of national importance as well as move the reform ball forward. The next attorney general must have the experience to be able to tap dance his way through the minefield of Albany corruption as well as find new ways of protecting consumers. That’s why we endorse Eric Schneiderman, a state senator from the Upper West Side, as our next attorney general.
While our state government has increasingly started resembling a Saturday Night Live skit, Schneiderman has been one of the few bright stars at the state level. He’s a smart, effective, reform-minded legislator who has stood up to his party when required, as well as crafted important legislation that promotes equal justice under law, such as ending the draconian Rockefeller drug laws.
Cleaning up Albany has become something of the mantra of this election. But Schneiderman has actually done it by convening a bipartisan panel to expel fellow Democrat Hiram Monserrate after he was convicted of assault against his girlfriend. In addition, he has spent many years standing up against Republican senators that have blocked his progressive reform-minded legislation.
We are confident that his background and experience plus core philosophy of equal justice will ensure that the interests of all New Yorkers are heard. He has a broad agenda that protects consumers, prevents the pollution of the environment and fights discrimination.
Mr. Schneiderman’s opponent, Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan, has a record that he can be proud of. As the Staten Island DA, he has amassed a high conviction rate for dangerous felons; he has also served respectably under Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau. Donovan has a competent, nuts-and-bolts plan for the attorney general position. What he doesn’t have is the sweeping vision needed to implement the changes as well as the reform-minded vision of Eric Schneiderman.

Comptroller: Harry Wilson

Officially, the state comptroller is responsible for the nearly $130 billion pension fund, auditing agencies and releasing economic reports. But former State Comptroller Alan Hevesi’s recent guilty plea in a pay-to-play scandal put a spotlight on the sleepy, unglamorous office. Now, New Yorkers need a state comptroller that is pragmatic, vigorous and innovative. We endorse Republican Harry Wilson for state comptroller.
The current comptroller, Democrat Tom DiNapoli, has implemented necessary reforms and protected the pension fund since he was appointed to the seat in 2007.
But Wilson, the Republican candidate, is a Harvard-educated investor with an extensive and unique background in the public and private sectors.
His resume includes Goldman Sachs, Blackstone Capital and, most, recently Silver Point Capital. He was the only Republican on President Barack Obama’s auto-industry task force, where he led the successful restructuring of General Motors.
Wilson has the investment and managerial background needed to make the comptroller’s job integral to fixing New York’s economy. He is a moderate Republican who has a proven record of bipartisanship and pragmatism. Much like his work saving General Motors, we believe Wilson would work well with unions, rather than conveniently blaming them for all of the state’s fiscal problems. He believes in a low-tax burden for business rather than spending tax dollars on corporate welfare.
After Hevesi’s resignation, the State Legislature tapped DiNapoli, an Assembly member from Long Island, to become the new comptroller. While DiNapoli had no prior investment experience, he has the vision to continue being an able comptroller. He also instituted important ethics reforms in the office, from banning pay-to-play practices and placement agents from the investment fund.
But Wilson has the vision, skills and temperament to be an excellent comptroller. Though he is a Republican, this is one of the few races where Upper West Side voters can cast a ballot for the GOP without voting for a conservative ideologue.

State Legislature

The Upper West Side has quality, progressive legislators in Congress and in Albany. The Republican alternative in these races are either nonexistent or not a credible choice. We endorse State senators Bill Perkins, Tom Duane and Assembly members Linda Rosenthal, Daniel O’Donnell for re-election. In the open State Senate seat that covers parts of the Upper West Side, all of Northern Manhattan and parts of the Bronx, we endorse Adriano Espaillat.
In the House, Jerrold Nadler and Charles Rangel deserve re-election to their seats.

Ballot Measures:

Earlier this year, Mayor Michael Bloomberg called a commission to study and recommend changes to the city charter. This Nov. 2, voters in New York City must approve the changes at the ballot.
The questions are printed on the back of the ballot, on the other side of the candidate list. If approved, the changes would bring back two-term limits for city officials and make running for office easier. Voters should vote “yes” on these two questions.
Upper West Siders should vote “yes” on the question that would limit the next mayor, public advocate, comptroller, borough presidents and Council members to two, consecutive four-year terms. Voters established these limits through two ballot initiatives in the 1990s. But when Bloomberg wanted to run for a third term last year, the Council passed a law that overturned the two referendums.
Bringing the term limits law back to two terms would respect the voters that chose two terms for local elected officials. Most importantly, the new law would also block the City Council from again changing the term limit law through legislation.
The second question contains seven parts that, in part, will help more candidates get on the ballot. Voters should say “yes” to the question, which would approve all seven changes to the charter. These changes would lower the onerous ballot laws that inhibit competitive elections and insurgent candidates running for office.

The changes include:
• Greater disclosure of campaign spending from independent groups.
• Cutting the number of petitions needed to get on the ballot in half for each elected office.
• Increasing the fine for violating the city’s Conflicts of Interest law to $25,000 from $10,000.
• Consolidating the number of “administrative tribunals,” where people charged with violating a law or regulation can contest the charge.
• Creating a commission of appointees from the mayor and City Council to review the necessity of Charter and Administrative codes that require agency reports.
• Adding government-operated transportation and waste-management facilities in the annual map of the city’s property used to site new city facilities.

By Bette Dewing

“Help!” was the final word of my last column, “Overcoming Heedlessness,” and will be the last word of this column. But how to help and change things? Well, many years ago during the city’s acute water shortage, then-Mayor Ed Koch urged everyone “to talk about it” and act. Experience has taught me to copy media with the letters and calls that I make to elected officials, city agencies and 311.

A really out-of-the-box Rx for our ailing society would be for CNN’s new Kathleen Parker-Eliot Spitzer talk show to understand that there’s more to discuss and bring to light in our country than just politics.

There are pressing social conditions and issues such as the one that cost Spitzer his governorship. Sexaholics Anonymous and other such related groups get shamefully little coverage in our society, which increasingly misuses and abuses sexuality.

Why don’t they talk about the incredibly cruel bullying habits of too many young people, which have anguished some of the victims into committing suicide? A prime example is the story of 18-year-old Rutgers freshman and beloved son, Tyler Clementi, secretly videotaped by classmates, who then streamed a very private act over the Internet.

Thankfully, this highly publicized suicide has sparked international concern and support, but “no known cause” suicides like the 18-year-old Fordham freshman, Jacob Miller, who was found hanged in his dorm room that same week, lack such support. Only the Daily News covered this beloved son’s tragic death.

Let’s urge Spitzer and Parker to bang the drum loudly enough so that every despairing young person will know that their life is bound to get better, and also that if they end their lives, those who love them will suffer forever. Male consciousness in our society must be raised so that they know it’s OK and manly to share personal problems. And we must revive Warren Farrell’s Men’s Movement, which addressed the unjust, false pressures and demands that males face, often silently, in our culture.

Those prevention talks must also stress the Sept. 30th New York Times story “Four Suicides in One Week, Takes a Toll on Fort Hood,” about members of the Armed Forces who have committed suicide.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide among military personnel is four times higher than the national average. Attention must be paid!

In our little neck of the woods, I’d like to see more on the Oct. 5 story in the Times, “Subway Work on Second Avenue Orphans Stores,” by raising awareness for all New Yorkers—and above all, elected officials—to give our support and patronage to the stores and eateries that are struggling to remain open.

Also, we must protest sharp service cuts to bus and subway services and yet another fare hike. A severe hardship for many of us, as well as increased traffic dangers as more private vehicles crowd into our high-density streets. We must demand that city, state and federal government provide the funding to restore these essential services upon which the overall health and safety of New York depends.

In addition, we must report how many who complained to Rep. Carolyn Maloney about the new hybrid articulated bus’ serious flaws were told to list them in letters to be sent to the MTA. Then do another report on how the MTA’s page-and-a-half reply justified every unsafe and uncomfortable aspect of the bus’s multi-leveled and cramped interior.

We should also talk about a jury ruling against an elder woman whose pelvis was fractured in a fall caused by a bus driver’s “jack rabbit” start. And then warn how the hybrids start up that way “naturally.”

Just maybe Parker and Spitz will start a talk-show trend where attention gets paid to some basic, not trendy, human needs and dilemmas.

Send your comments to CNN at 212-275-7800, or visit them on the web at www.cnn.com/feedback/. Help!
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dewingbetter@aol.com

When the Eliot Spitzer scandal broke, I wrote a column called, “Here’s How It’s Gonna Happen” (March 27, 2008), where I predicted that despite Client 9’s “activities” while he represented us, he would be welcomed back somewhere. That place may be as New York state comptroller.

I also saw a future with the face and words of Ashley Dupre splashed all over it in the form of an album, memoir or made-for-TV movie. I think getting her own weekly advice column in a major daily newspaper comes pretty close.

I guess once you’ve had a taste of the limelight—even in a negative way—some people just can’t walk away. Hence the reason the former call girl is working for the paper that put her on its cover, naked, cupping her breasts with the headline: BAD GIRL. Clearly, Dupre does not hold a grudge.

I can’t blame her for accepting a plum columnist job at a national tabloid, but if she really wanted the fresh start she claims, I’d think that she’d move to Wyoming, change her name and get a job as a secretary.

Perhaps some might consider that running away, and cite the adage that when you get wherever you’re going, you’re still there. Maybe Dupre is right to try to recover from scandal by staying put and reinventing herself before everyone’s eyes.

I’m not planning on any “misadventures” any time soon, but just in case, I’d like to be prepared, so I turned to New York public relations veteran, Patricia Gitt. She is also author of the novel CEO, whose main character has to do a lot of corporate image enhancing to fend off damaging publicity about how she got her job.

Together we figured out a plan of action:

1. Determine your goals.

A) If you want to capitalize on your newfound fame/infamy, act as though whatever questionable thing you did is the obvious prerequisite for your next move. In Ashley’s case, being a prostitute qualified her to have a deep understanding of interpersonal relationships. (Well, someone bought into that and gave her a job.)

B) If you want to squelch negative publicity, own up to your deed promptly, like David Letterman. Once you’ve put your side of the story out there, move on.

C) If you want to rebuild your reputation and a solid future, apologize without delay. Then, as Spitzer did in his resignation speech, let everyone know you’re down, but not out: “Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

2. Focus your energy on the things you can change, then design a plan to take you beyond the scandal. Think The Good Wife. Julianna Marguiles’ character advised, “Get up every day, get dressed, put on make-up…” then return to your career and be too busy working to notice your colleagues watching replays of the embarrassing incident on the Internet.

3. Build new, positive connections that support your efforts to head in a productive direction. Angelina Jolie left Hollywood and started hanging out in the Third World. She then began surrounding herself with the beauty and innocence of children, as well as the golden Brad Pitt. Her life as a scary, erratic, blood-vial-wearing sex maniac on the arm of creepy Billy Bob Thornton is now a distant memory.

So, if back in ’09 you made a personal or professional gaffe that you want to put behind you, there are ways to begin anew. Just ask Ashley.
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Lorraine Duffy Merkl’s debut novel, Fat Chick, from The Vineyard Press, is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.