Media Brett Favre just the last bailout to fail New York City. Next star in East? Caroline Kennedy.
by Ward Harkavy
Well, just another bailout that didn’t work. Brett Favre was supposed to save the New York Jets, which would have made the city’s sports fans happy, though not as happy as those Wall Streeters in their stadium skyboxes.
But in the middle of a boom — the Jets were 8-3 and seemed a cinch for the NFL playoffs — Favre imploded and the team collapsed.
Hubris pays off. And then it doesn’t.
Take it from me, America, you know you’re headed for a major depression when even the usual distractions stop working.
But as the late Albert Ellis used to say to us neurotics hurtling toward a great depression: Separate your irrational thoughts from your rational ones. It’s not your fault, America, that the games that took your mind off real-world or self-induced worries no longer keep you from sliding into full-blown anhedonia.
Play the following Ellis tape, instead of the one currently in your brain:
As the blunt Ellis would have pointed out, “Fuck what other people think! Get rational about it! Get over it! Stop your whining! Work at it!” (And yes, he used such language, even at age 90, in his memorable Friday night cheapo public sessions on the Upper East Side.)
Speaking of depression and games: Greed — not the usual greed but the excessive type — did in the Jets the way excessive greed did in Wall Street. The Jets suddenly collapsed and their already-shaky hopes for the playoffs dissolved.
Both NYC teams in the NFL playoffs? No joy.
Who’s the next candidate to save the city? Caroline Kennedy. Big news this weekend, at least according to the Daily News, which snagged an interview with the princess. Ooooh, a scoop.
The headline? “Caroline Kennedy tells Daily News: I wouldn’t be beholden to anybody.”
True, she wouldn’t be beholden to her strong supporter Mayor Mike Bloomberg. The story?:
True, she’s not part of the system. In fact, she’s a dilettante who would be getting a high office solely because of her name.
Further proof that Caroline Kennedy is telling the truth when she says she “isn’t, you know, part of the system”: As the Daily News reported December 19, she doesn’t even vote:
Caroline Kennedy wants to be the next senator from New York, but her voting record is already spotty, the Daily News has found.
City Board of Elections records show Kennedy has failed to vote in many elections since she registered in the city in 1988 – including votes for the Senate seat she hopes to fill and numerous Democratic faceoffs for mayor.
“It doesn’t speak to a deep-felt commitment to the electoral process,” Baruch College political scientist Doug Muzzio said when told of Kennedy’s ballot breakdowns.
JFK’s legacy? Caroline is a legacy, the way a rich, disinterested playboy like George W. Bush got into Yale not on his own merits but because his politician daddy, George H.W. Bush, went to Yale and Junior was what the school considered a “legacy.”
And people like the Bushes are opposed to affirmative action? What do think the collegiate system of “legacies” is? It’s affirmative action for rich white people.
Here’s a real legacy: After thousands of years of fighting over land, the death dance between Arabs and Jews has come to what media outlets are calling the “bloodiest hit” by Israel in 60 years: “HELL FIRE RAINS ON GAZA.”
At least you’re just fighting for your job, not your survival. You think things are bad? Think about those little girls in Kurdistan who are being routinely circumcised.
That’s an old story in much of the world. More bad news that’s more immediate …
NO PARTICULAR ORDER:
The Age (Australia): ‘Israel: We will not stop’ [VIDEO]
Bloomberg: ‘Virginity Pledges Fail to Trump Teen Lust in Look at Older Data’
Register (U.K.): ‘Walmart’s Jesus Phone no better, no worse: Save two bucks!’
N.Y. Post: ‘Dump ’em: Losers Mangini, Favre must go’
The Age (Australia): ‘More children reported dead in latest Gaza strikes’
Register (U.K.): ‘Crash survivor Twitters from burning plane (false): Geek micro-blogged from safety’
N.Y. Daily News: ’15-year-old girl arrested in brutal Bronx stabbing’
N.Y. Post: ‘HAMAS-CIDE: ISRAEL SET FOR GROUND RAID’
N.Y. Times: ‘Suicide Bombs Kill 20 in Afghanistan’
ABC: ‘Many Questions Left in Bush Scandals’
Register (U.K.): ‘Giant US air travel data suck fails own privacy tests, but gets cleared anyway’
Reuters: ‘SCENARIOS: Assessing risks of India, Pakistan confrontation’
Washington Post: ‘Blagojevich on the Way Out, Says Illinois’ No. 2′
Wall Street Journal: ‘Latin American Investors Quiet on Madoff Losses’
N.Y. Times: ‘Veterans of ’90s Bailout Hope for Profits in New One’
Register (U.K.): ‘101 uses for a former merchant banker’
N.Y. Times: ‘Murders by Black Teenagers Rise, Bucking a Trend’
Wall Street Journal: ‘The Weekend That
Wall Street Died’
N.Y. Times: ‘Romance and Recovery in Quake-Devastated Area’
Washington Post: ‘An Experiment in Mastering Risk’