In the most polluted waterway in America, Newtown Creek, which divides Brooklyn and Queens, I found this blue crab. Now I wouldn’t eat anything from this waterway, but I was surprised by 1) how large this was NYC crab is, and 2) birds know right where to go to get that good lump crab meat! Who teaches them that? It’s not like they’re from Baltimore or anything.
Speaking of rich people buying the services of the state, it seems the Justice Department is now doing the dirty work of pharmaceutical companies by cracking down on Google which got paid to run ads for Canadian drug companies. That’s not free speech. That’s illegal because Congress says it is.
So the Justice Department is going to enforce a law (which, granted, is part of their job description–but the Justice Department has a lot of discretion as to which laws they want to enforce) passed on behalf of rich companies.
Remember, our Congress prohibited the government from negotiating drug prices on behalf of Medicare beneficiaries. If that’s not a giveaway to rich pharmaceutical companies, I don’t know what is! And it weren’t legal, it would be called bribery. Wes Metheny, a senior vice president for public affairs at PhRMA, the main lobby for the pharmaceutical industry, said:
The industry still opposes allowing the government to negotiate drug prices and letting people import drugs from abroad. He said there is “no guarantee” that either would lower costs.
It’s so shameless.
Turns out Medicaid gets the cheapest deals on drugs the prices are, get this, government regulated. Maybe we should increase regulation. Or maybe we should let the unencumbered free market lower prices.
I mean, anything would be better than a crazy cycle where:
1) Corporations give money to politicians to pass laws to ensure price fixing so we all pay more for each and every prescription drug sold in America.
2) Any monopoly-breaking anti-trust effort is attacked by taxpayer funded law enforcement agencies–the long arm of the Department of Justice, no less! The government cracked down on Google because Google has the audacity to run ads for Canadian drug companies. Seems the law trumps free speech when corporate profits are at stake. I guess Google isn’t paying them enough. Besides these ads are chump change to Google. But keeping drug prices artificially high is big buck to Big Pharma.
3) The pharmaceutical corporations, in turn, funnel their government enforced profit (but just some of it) back to politicians. After all, corporate donations are constitutionally protected free speech.
But how could that ever happen here? It would be so blatantly corrupt and unfair for all of us to be forced to give our money so the rich can make more. This is America.
The mayor says there were 45 arrests in New York City last night compared to 345 arrests on a normal August Saturday night. Mayor Bloomberg said, “If that doesn’t tell you about New Yorkers, I don’t know what does.” That’s sweet. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s good there wasn’t massive looting, and New York is a pretty great place. But I’d bet that the low arrest total says a lot more about bad weather in general and in particular police being told not to arrest people unless absolutely necessary (to keep officers on the street).
Rarely to get exciting reading articles in academic journals (whether that says bad thing about me or the journals I leave to you), but this is exciting: “The Philadelphia Foot Patrol Experiment: A Randomized Controlled Trial Of Police Patrol Effectiveness In Violent Crime Hotspots.” It’s in the current issue of Criminology (like most academic journals, unavailable to the general public).
The Newark Foot Patrol Experiment was researched in the 1970s. And though it showed foot patrol in a more positive light than many people remember it for, it was hardly the unequivocal support for foot patrol I would have expected.
Now I know foot patrol works, but get a bunch of academics in a room and ask a simple question like, “Does foot patrol work?” and you’ll get a lot of “we don’t know” and “no” and “more research is needed.” Even in the police world, opinion is split.
Well finallysomebody has done a proper study of foot patrol. The bottom line? In high-crime areas, foot patrol decreased serious violent crime by 23 percent. This happened just after three months of foot patrol. No big difference was found in lower-crime areas, but then we fall back on the Newark Experiment and reduced public fear.
I bet you’ll never hear of a study showing the crime-reduction benefits of officers remaining “in service” to answer radio calls.
I love that on our block, storm preparations included harvesting all grapes, pears, and figs–and distributing the extras to us!
The dark grapes are ours (they’re tastier than our neighbors–not that it is a competition, of course). But we don’t have any figs, and these figs are some of the best I’ve ever had! Thank you, Italian neighbor!
Notice too, the hurricane box of wine.
It’s raining and the air smells really clean. But nothing of note, yet.
Afternoon Update: Well thatwas a letdown. Very uneventful here in my part of Queens, best I can tell. Though I am very thankful my basement didn’t flood, like many events in life, I slept through it (except for that goddamn car alarm at 6am).
Of course the corner 24-hour fruit and vegetable store was open when I went to take a stroll and buy eggs at 3am. It was spooky quiet last night, with no subway trains rolling by and almost no traffic.
“This is New York, we don’t have that sort of thing.”
Interesting I haven’t heard any fear of civil disorder after the storm hits NYC. I hope that’s just a sign of how things are not.
I went back and read 1938 New York Timesaccounts of the hurricane that slammed New York. It was pretty devastating. And at least two people were arrested for robbing 20 stores in Harlem.
Meanwhile I’ve battened down the hatches and taken things off the roof and rugs off the basement floor. By NYC standards, we’re on relatively high ground.
Ice blocks are in the freezer. I always have flashlights (for my bike) and we generally have a lot of food and booze. And I thinkall our wonderful spring water is gravity fed (the best of 19th century technology!).
I guess deep down I’ve been hoping for a power outage just so I can sit on our porch and play our Victrola. The neighbors will be in awe.
Let’s hope it’s fun, but not too fun.
Here’s to all the police and city workers out there working, keeping all of us safe!
Ronald Weitzer tries to dispel the myths of human trafficking.
If we were all rich enough to have our own private police force that did whatever we want?
Police have better things to do that act as private security for rich corporations. I wonder how much Coach and Rolex (and other big-name products) have to “donate” to New York’s elected officials and police leaders to get them to care about such a pressing matter? If Coach doesn’t like people selling knock-off bags, let themhire private security.
It reminds me of the days when the rich industrialist might “borrow” a few police officers to bust the heads of striking workers. For non-violent crimes, stores need to pay for private security (who, back in the days, were pretty good themselves at busting heads).
I can’t for the life of me figure out why municipal tax-payer funded police waste any of their resources cracking down on copyright infringement. This all comes to mind because of the particular absurdity and stupidity of arresting a store worker at a legitimate store for selling paper replicas of luxury goods! Chinese funeral offerings.
From the Times:
A man in street clothes entered the store and seemed particularly interested in the handbags and loafers, obviously cardboard, that have print designs that vaguely resemble Louis Vuitton’s and Gucci’s.
“He asked me, ‘How much is this?’ ” recalled Mr. Mak, pointing to a handbag on display. “I said $20, and he pulled out his badge and said, ‘Are you selling this to me?’ And then he arrested me.”
He was held overnight in a local precinct house.
…
He was charged with two counts of copyright infringement in the third degree. Jonathan L. Stonbely, a lawyer from Legal Aid assigned to Mr. Mak, said that he was prepared to defend his client against the charges and that he had rejected an offer from prosecutors to allow Mr. Mak to plead guilty to disorderly conduct and pay a $100 fine.
Whatever it costs to get this kind of police service, I bet it’s more than I’ll ever make.
My modem got fried by lighting during an amazing storm Friday night (deep down, I really didn’t think this kind of thing could happen). Until a new modem arrives… life is very strange and definitely unsettled.
It’s shocking how much of my day is internet related… from the obvious like email to the less obvious like blog posts and listening to Cubs’ game and reading out-of-town papers. Now just what do I doall day?
Time to wind up the Victrola, I suppose, and listen to some tunes.