EPHEMERAL INFORMATION

 I came into the world with boundless curiosity. When I was a kid I wanted to know everything about everything, and would read vociferously. I wanted to know all there was to know about the world around me, so I would save up my money to buy books that the local Bay Ridge bookstore would order for me, and in my first experience with debt, joined all the book clubs then advertising in the Times Book Review. I would go to Times Square to a store that used to carry newspapers from cities all over the country as well a foreign publications. I knew what the names of the newspapers were in every city and what they were like, and what were the leading European magazines. I would write to companies to get their annual reports, and amassed a huge collection of them in file cabinets. I would also take the subway to the central New York library branch for information I otherwise couldn’t get.  I wanted to know. 

I began to write file cards about news and information, but given how much there was that proved to be unwieldy, and impossible to maintain. That was my first experience with information overload. Given these predispositions over the years I subscribed to a large number of magazines covering a wide range of subjects. But as they were too numerous they inevitably would accumulate in unread piles. First they started to pile up in my parents’ basement, and subsequently in the garage of my summer house. I still maintained the notion that I would go back and read them at some point, and sometimes did so in spurts, when something caught my interest. 

That all began to change somewhat with the arrival of the Internet, as in the early years I could now go to university sites to get information, and more and more publications began to appear on line. At the same time magazines, like newspapers, began to disappear or survived with a fraction of the thickness they once had. So it became easier to cut back on subscriptions, which, coupled with an aversion to the increasingly atrocious and sloppy writing as well as presumably “serious” articles laced with profanity, coupled with a now-rigid uniform ideology in the remaining mainstream general interest publications. On the other hand my mailbox is now filled up with all kinds of information sources, making it tedious to go through email every day, but that is another story. 

But today I had a sort of epiphany as I resolutely decided to dump all the magazines filling shelves in the garage as it finally registered within me that I would never get to read through them all. I found that depressing but at the same time recognized the futility of keeping periodicals going back over decades. Tomorrow being paper recycling day here I began to go through them, and if something grabbed my interest I still set it aside and/or kept a few for archival purposes, but otherwise filled up boxes and garbage cans with hundreds upon hundreds of magazines, or set those of some value aside to give to the church sale.  There was everything from National Geographic,  Natural History, Astronomy and science,  to Wired and news magazines as well as many various specialized and technical publications, disproportionately British, because their magazines are so much better than ours. There were titles I’ve seen selling well on eBay but I didn’t want to bother with the hassle of posting and selling so they simply got tossed. 

In this process I could see the passage of time and how things have changed over the years as events have transpired and people have come and gone, as well as how many things are still the same, human nature being reliably immutable. However, I am keeping my huge collection of science fiction and fantasy magazines going back to the very first issues, but I’ve decided to limit them to the time before and just past my adolescence so that it doesn’t become too big to manage, and in any case I don’t care much for what passes for SF these days and I think it is basically over. There are still over 10,000 books around but unless they are rare, signed, leather-bound, first editions, or aren’t available electronically many of those will be going too. 

For some time  now I  have realized that despite being widely well-read, it is impossible to ever know everything, and for that matter to really know anything, as I have come to realize the truth of what Socrates meant when he said “I know nothing.”

SOME RANDOM MEMORIES OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

 I remember watching the Twin Towers going up in the 1970s from a pier in Bay Ridge Brooklyn. Before that there were rows of electronics stores on Cortlandt street I recall going to as a kid for a reel to reel tap recorder that was then still made in the USA. There was still a produce market on nearby Washington Street, before it was all transformed by development. Years later I had an office downtown a few blocks from there and for a time a parking space next to one of the towers due to street signs an associate managed to get put up. I spent a lot of time there either at Windows on the World, the underground mall, or visiting one of the offices in the buildings.

In its early days CNN had a glassed-in studio on the ground floor, and as time passed it was still a place where frivolity was possible, whether it was someone climbing all the way up to the roof of a tower, or an incredible aerial ballet by a man on a wire suspended between the two towers, as everyone looked up in disbelief and delight. All of that was before security became ubiquitous after 9/11. Times have often been characterized as periods of innocence, but now it is clear that was truly the case then.

Today you can't enter an office building in Manhattan without showing a photo ID, stating the purpose of your visit, wearing a mask, then receiving a pass, and being directed to a specific elevator. You used to be able to walk up the City Hall steps, and I remember even being able to temporarily park there. Now it is surrounded by tons of tall iron fencing, concrete barriers and tight security surround the police headquarters, and free movement is a thing of the past.

I was married at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox church, which in the dusk made a tiny rectangular silhouette against the giant towers, dwarfed by their immensity. That image still haunts me to this day as the church was also obliterated on 9/11.

In the early days they had a hard time renting the space so a lot of the World Trade Center wound up being occupied by New York State offices. When George Pataki became Governor he couldn't wait to get away from there and relocated offices to midtown where it was more convenient to railroad to upstate from Grand Central. Thus, but for fate, there could have been a significantly different set of people there on September 11.

I remember well the first failed attack which killed those who unfortunately happened to be in the garage at the time, and people pouring out afterword covered with soot. But the towers stood and no one, in their wildest imagination, could then have conceived of the horror that took place years later in 2001. By that time I was no longer situated in the area, but any of us could have been there, and in truth all of us were there, for it truly was an assault on all Americans.

There has been only one film that really captured all that happened, which was called The Path to 9/11, which once aired on ABC, but which the scoundrels who now run Disney incomprehensibly refuse to re-release. Other attempts at the story have been pretty bad.

I haven't been back to the area where the towers stood since. It is still just too painful, having a vivid memory of what was once there, which has since passed into cruel oblivion, along with all those innocent souls that just happened to be there that day. Given that so much that transpired since has been reversed by recent events, today has become an ever more sad and somber anniversary, but one of events that we must not and will not ever forget.

A TIME OF STASIS

The most striking thing about the past twenty years is how little has changed. Think for a moment of what, of any substantive significance, exists today that did not exist twenty years ago, and you will soon conclude the answer is not much. It is an atypical time of stasis, where not much has changed culturally, politically, socially, or technologically.*  Contrast this with almost any other twenty year period that comes to mind, i.e. 1940-1960 and clearly change was far more extensive. Or 1920-1940, or 1900-1920, and on and on. In each instance there are clearly substantial cultural, technological, and social changes that simply have not been equivalently replicated over the past two decades. 

Thus the present moment is atypical compared to the relatively recent past. This may or may not be attributable to the event, but things seem oddly frozen since September 11, 2001. As if to cruelly bookend this phenomenon, the Afghanistan disaster indicates we are now closer to the conditions on September 10 of that year, as much of what transpired has been completely reversed.  

But what has changed during this period is us. We are that much older. Thus, someone young and starting out twenty years ago is now approaching middle age, with the course of their life largely set. Someone just born back then is now fully grown. Much of what characterizes our lives happens over a twenty year period. We are young and then not so young, almost suddenly; for even though we know, objectively that we are going to age, it still comes upon us unexpectedly.  

So we have aged, yet the times seem frozen, which is the opposite of what has usually characterized human experience, where the times change but we remain the same. So most of the problems that were with us then are still with us now, and the stasis that grips us has only become more rigid. Yet nothing stays the same and sooner or later there is going to be a breakpoint. 

What has been lost during this time is a certain faith in progress- that things will always get better, that now seems faded. Yet tragedy has always been a major part of human experience that has perhaps been unnaturally masked in modern times. Things are better, things are worse, there are good times and bad times, and always will be, even though the present seems oddly frozen in place. But sometimes tragedy comes in a different sort of magnitude that overwhelms everything else. That is the legacy of September 11, 2001, now made even worse on its twentieth anniversary as we have so terribly deprived of catharsis due to avoidable recent events. Yet there may be hope, as people have finally had enough and the intolerable present finally reaches a breaking point that ultimately ends the stasis of the times. 

*To be sure the Internet is more widely utilized and woven into the fabric of our lives, and the now giant companies mislabeled as “big tech” were virtually unknown two decades ago, but the basic parameters of the Internet were already well established. (They are, with the exception of Apple, hardly “tech” companies but rather big media companies, still fundamentally based on little more than a website). 

THE STATUE OF Robert E. Lee AND HISTORICAL TRUST

 During most of the years following the Civil War Robert E. Lee was one of the most admired men in American history, in both the north and the south, for good reason. Lee was never an advocate of slavery, or secession (until federal troops were sent into the south), and above all he was an honorable man of exemplary character. But the main reason Lee was universally respected was his conduct following the Civil War. For it was then that Lee worked tirelessly for reconciliation and peace and contributed greatly to those ends. Just consider the alternative to the honorable surrender he provided. There could have been ongoing  violent resistance and endless guerrilla warfare in the south for many years, in the absence of leadership from such a highly respected figure. Lee was the essential figure in making the conclusion of the war final, and in his efforts to bring the country together going forward. 

Thus, even though he had, with a broken heart, commanded the forces of the rebellion, what resonated was what he did with the rest of his life. There was little controversy about this until recently, when a fanatical radical minority began a campaign to remove confederate, and then other statues from public display, sometimes at the behest of as little as only one “offended” person. But the current removal of Lee’s statute from Richmond, Virginia is even worse, as it is happening with the concurrence of a rotten political establishment that has turned its back on heritage and history. It is ahistorical to the extent that it misconstrues Lee’s true character, as well as anti-historical, in the attempt to erase the past. 

Furthermore it outrageously violates a basic trust given that the statue was donated with the understanding and guarantee that it would stand into perpetuity. That this could so blatantly be undone by the rotten, unprincipled current authorities means that no guarantee, no trust is sacred and can simply be discarded at the whim of a subsequent generation. How then can anything pledged today be taken seriously going forward if it can be subject to subsequent arbitrary dismissal?  This is worse than the Taliban’s destruction of what to them are sacrilegious historic edifices, which at least stood for many centuries unmolested, but without any guarantee. Here, barely a century and a half has passed and the trust has been violated. Such a violation of trust must inevitably be accompanied by a serious loss of legitimacy in the institutions facilitating it. 

Such things are happening despite a lack of pubic support and the (unfortunately passive) opposition of the majority of the people. The scoundrels who have perpetrated this travesty must be held accountable, and if long-term legitimacy is to be restored it must be enshrined in law and precedent that is inviolable. Otherwise we are acquiescing in the notion that everything is ephemeral and relative, that there are no fixed and transcendent principles over time, that our ancestors are totally irrelevant, nothing is sacred, and that a passing change in sentiment can undo all that has come before. If we no longer have a past, we no longer have a future.

NOTES ON THE PANDEMIC

The Chinese-originated Covid-19 Wuhan Virus, like certain others before it, was transferred by wild animals that were eaten by humans. It is possible that it emerged from infected animals at a lab, but the current pandemic definitely arose when some Chinese ate bats, just as the AIDS epidemic originated from Africans eating monkeys. Thus the surest way to stop such pandemics is to eliminate ingesting “exotic” animals in the first place, never mind cats and dogs. Diseases are clearly transferred when wild animals are eaten, while driving many to extinction. 

As with any crisis we will see the best, as well as the worst in people. Many people are rising to the occasion and doing their best. That does not include the media, which has hit a new low with this pandemic, nor the self-inflicted wounds of some state governments. The worst action taken was forcing nursing homes to take virus patients by the Governors of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. This has resulted in many avoidable deaths at a time when many hospitals are virtually empty and are incurring enormous losses as the elective surgeries they depend upon have been postponed. How many additional deaths have occurred from delayed heart surgeries? Meanwhile over a million health care workers have been laid off as most of the specialties they provide are shut down. 

This is not to say that the suggested or mandated precautions regarding masks, hand washing, etc. should not be followed. They are essential where the virus is rampant, such as in the epicenter here in New York, which has a third of all US cases.  The city is especially vulnerable due to population density, the primacy of subway transportation, and tall building with elevators. But what applies here does not apply elsewhere. 52% of the counties in this country have not had a single death due to the virus. Thus what is essential in metropolitan areas does not apply to rural and exurban areas, so there should be no national mandate applicable to all regions. It will be a long time before New York recovers, but other areas could be open now. 

It is not just economic dislocation that has occurred, but outright economic distortion.  How can some giant companies like Walmart remain open while mom and pop operations are forced to be closed, many of which may never reopen again with the prolongation of these conditions. Small businesses ought to be compensated by the government since it is the state that has shut them down. They employ most of the lowest wage earners who constitute the largest segment of the newly unemployed, and ironically many are earning more from the Economic Impact checks and Unemployment Insurance than they did working, which may portend problems going forward. 

Meanwhile many others are now working from home, and the future prediction of telecommuting may finally have arrived. Many large corporations thought it would be productive to emulate Google with open plan “high performance workspaces,” unwisely dispensing with offices, cubicles and private work spaces. Now employees cannot return to these facilities, and can no longer be on top of each other. But Google is fundamentally a website, and a poor model to follow. Up until the arrival of the Wuhan virus these companies had soured on working from home and were discouraging it. Now we are learning that telecommuting is indeed viable and is propping up half of the economy. 

A tragic sense has long eluded us, compounded with historical amnesia. If this virus had occurred 100 years ago the death rate would be truly catastrophic, as it was in 1918 due to the Spanish flu, when a third of the planet’s population became infected and 50 million died. Even worse, past plagues eliminated a third to one half of the population of Europe. Such unimaginable devastation is beyond our comprehension now, due to progress in managing disease and economic disruption, so as to mitigate disasters. But we may have been living in a historical sweet spot, which could change, as continued progress is not guaranteed. This all brings home how fragile our lives are. They can be disrupted at any moment, so we should always expect the unexpected. We will probably emerge from this stronger due to the resources we have, but we cannot know what the next disaster will bring, and at the very least should be thankful for all that we have.

THE US MIDTERM ELECTION RESULTS

The general consensus, even among hostile media, is that the midterm election results went relatively well for Trump and the Republicans, due largely to an increased majority in the Senate, and a less-than-disastrous loss of the House, particularly in historical terms.  While there is some truth to this, a look under the hood for a more detailed analysis of the results shows some problematic conditions for Republicans. 

First, there is a fairly widespread pattern in the margins of victory across the board. In Democratic Party dominated “blue” states the Democratic candidates won by very large, landslide margins. In contrast, in too many Republican-leaning “red”states the victory margins were much thinner, sometimes razor-thin. That ought to set off alarm bells, particularly where the margins have been narrowing, as it suggests a potential transition of the state to a more competitive status, if not towards the other party. This applies to both the House and Senate (Governorships are more fluid due to state and local conditions). It means that Democrats are more competitive in “red” states than Republicans are in “blue” states. 

Second, Republican congressional losses were concentrated in the suburbs, once the base of the party. It is possible that many of these seats can be regained in subsequent elections, as long as they remain “swing” districts, but others are slipping away. The present political landscape makes it easier for Democrats to make incursion in Republican territory than the reverse.

Third, Republicans cannot count on the Democrats to self-destruct. Although the “resistance” and the far-Left have gotten a great deal of attention, that does not translate into public support. But Democrats played it smart in this election by fielding a large number of center-moderate candidates, including a significant number of veterans. They avoided identity politics and other assorted evils previously foisted upon us. This enabled them to win swing and Republican-leaning districts. If the Democrats follow this strategy in the next presidential election it will become a very difficult contest for Trump and the Republicans. 

On this basis it is fair to say that most Americans are, for the most part, terminally moderate. The idea that the country is “deeply divided” is an illusion that many have been sold on by the media.   “Division” is inherent in democracy. On almost any question there is going to be a majority and a minority, resulting in a division of the house to resolve a question. There may be intense divisions between activist minorities on both sides, but it is a mistake to conflate this with the pubic at large. For all the ideological noise, elections are often decided at the last minute by votes cast by people who are oblivious, disengaged, and uncommitted. For most people have a life outside of politics, where they pursue a myriad of interests, and seldom identify intensely with any political cause.  

Notes From Vienna

I’ve been away from everything on another trip to Europe, this time to Austria and parts of Germany. I didn’t turn on a TV or go online for anything other than travel information so as to maintain the feeling of immersion in the marvelous  17th, 18th, and 19th century architecture of Vienna.  Virtually every building is adorned with statuary and/or some kind of decorative carving. The palaces are gorgeous, and everything is super-clean. Coming back to New York “Pothole” City reminded me that I didn’t encounter a single road defect over a few thousand miles there and I am still baffled why the roads are so much better in Europe. 

Vienna was once the seat of a great central European empire and looks it. It lasted about six centuries under the enduring Habsburgs until the terrible catastrophe of World War I, which it was central to (recall it was the Austrian Arch-Duke’s assassination in Sarajevo that triggered the war).  One hundred years ago it was at the center of world history; but today when making travel arrangements I have to repeat over and over that I’m going to Austria, not Australia, or Vienna, not Viet Nam. 

The city is central to classical music and nothing else comes close. Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert and many others either came or did their most important work here. Classical music is still vital to the city and there are always concerts in many facilities. Evenings we went to concerts at four different venues, as well as one by candlelight in Salzburg, where sneakers and jeans are not allowed and jackets are encouraged. All inevitably end with the hand-clapping Radetsky March, which you’ll recognize if you’ve ever watched the New Year’s concert that is widely broadcast on TV. We also visited the Spanish Riding School with the Lipizzan horses because my wife wanted to; I found it terminally boring. 

German is the primary language, but everyone speaks English and this is one place where no one will take offense if you address them in English. Overall the city reminds me most of better-known Paris, in terms of beauty and livability, although it has its own ambiance and doesn’t have some of the current problems of the French capitol. To put it another way, on the hurried and harried scale of 1 to 10, New York is a 10;  while Vienna is barely a 2.  No one will raise and eyebrow if you spend much of the day reading a paper at one of the numerous coffee houses.

Apart from other cities we also drove into Germany to visit castles, but were really taken aback by the stunning Bavarian countryside which is incredibly well-ordered and spotless. Farm after farm was full of cows; indeed more than I’ve ever seen anywhere in the US. We spent a night by Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein Castle which was swarming with busloads of tourists despite being in the middle nowhere, before heading back into Austria. 

The only mishap was that one day before leaving I happened to get hit by a car; a car I was driving, (which is too complicated to try and explain here), so I was hobbling around after that. It was painful but without serious damage and I am okay now. 

As an alternative to the Paris-Rome-London circuit I recommend visiting this welcoming city. They sell a pass that is an incredible bargain that gets you admission into just about everything. The tourist traffic otherwise seems to consist mostly of classical music lovers from Asian countries, who have a far greater appreciation of western art these days than we do, which says something about us. 

ARE WE REALLY "DEEPLY DIVIDED?"

We are not as divided as some commentators assume. To be sure there are political differences, but those differences are most intense among the people (around 20%) who regularly follow politics. An even smaller number are passionate partisans. Most others are pretty apolitical and more attuned to the day to day life around them, which may turn out to be the more sensible use of one’s limited lifespan. 

There are always divisions of opinion about any topic you can think of, i.e. sports, music, movies, tv, hobbies, local organizations, which way the toilet paper roll should face, etc., etc. In fact those other things are what life is really about, and people who may be at loggerheads politically nevertheless share common ground in many other areas, while their political cousins may be oblivious to, or on another side in different areas. 

The people who fret most about “division” are themselves frequently part of the problem, although to them it is  those other people who don’t see things the right way. It is only possible to buy into the idea of deep division if you believe that everything in life is political. There is some of that on all sides, but it is especially pronounced on the Left (as distinct from “liberal” in this case), where true believers don’t see any distinction between the political and the social, which in turn then applies to state and society. To them everything is political, and they take the measure of things through an ideological continuum. They inject politics into all aspects of life, ruining much of it for everyone else. Ironically they are the gift that keeps on giving for the Right, for they engender far more annoyance than sympathy. That is why personally I am not so much “Right” as I am anti-Left, for the reasons indicated above. 

Excess political passion is like a social disease. The fundamental basis of any ideology is virtually always irrational because its foundation can be distilled to a hierarchy of values. Values are what’s left when we can’t agree on the facts. A civilized society can address many problems based upon a common understanding of the facts, which at any given moment are true or false, and involve some degree of rational resolution. But why doesn’t everything work this way? It is because the remainder are based not on facts, but values. 

Society functions because there is a common consensus regarding the way many things work. We can agree on the time of day, or turning right when the sign points that way, or noise coming from some direction, but not whether it is good or bad, because that involves a value judgement.  When division of opinion occurs that is based upon values, or where a particular value belongs in the hierarchy, there is no obvious, easy rational solution and because of that we have conflict. Then the problem will have to be addressed either democratically and peacefully, through compromise, or otherwise through force, which often involves violence or repression. Some  at the extremes become so incensed with regard to others that they will consider the latter as justified if it is in keeping with their viewpoint. 

But we know that in the long term nothing is permanent and the future is unknowable. Excess passion is simply wasted energy. As things change continuously we may find ourselves strange bedfellows under new circumstances, and yesterday’s opponent may be today’s friend. The political spectrum is not carved in stone and the issues of the day often change. This is common sense to people who are less politically inclined, so most of the “division” the dividers fret about is happening on some other planet. 

THE FUTURE OF THE AUTOMOBILE

Not so long ago one could routinely observe several vehicles pulled over on the side of a highway due to mechanical breakdown. Today that is a rare site. These days there are very few bad cars on the the road. This unheralded improvement in quality has been overshadowed by anticipated changes, one reasonable, and the other less so.

There is a general consensus that the cars of the near future will be electric-powered and self-driving. Only one of these predictions, the electric car, is likely to be realized as anticipated. But this is hardly a breakthrough in transportation, and the supposed economic and environmental benefits are not very clear. Since something has to generate the electricity to power these vehicles it means that a substantial amount of energy is still being expended in some way, if indirectly, and the benefit clearly depends on how the electricity is being produced.  

There is still nothing as efficient and reliable as the internal combustion engine, and that is the reason why most autos still run on gasoline. If that were not the case everyone would be driving electric cars now. But oil is still plentiful and cheap and without massive government subsidies and pressure electric cars would still not be viable. 

But this does entail a paradigm shift. Now you fill your tank as needed based on your own choice. When electric cars predominate, the production of energy will be offloaded, centralized, and outside of our control. Nevertheless there are other advantages to electric vehicles, notably in terms of emissions, as long as the alternative energy production is significantly cleaner, which is by no means certain. Furthermore if there were to be massive automotive electrification, and it were to become the predominant method for powering cars, the cost of gasoline would tumble as a result due to reduced demand, which means that petroleum would be an even greater bargain than it is now.

The term self-driving car is an oxymoron based on the Greek and Latin roots of automobile, which already means self-driving. On that basis if driverless cars were to become ubiquitous, logically self-driving cars would be those still operated by humans. However, I don’t think this is ever going to happen everywhere. It certainly will happen in older, denser large cities, where there would be pronounced efficiencies in only using a car when needed. But while these urban dwellers might not need to own a car, most everyone else still does. 

The implications of driverless cars don’t seem to have been fully thought out, due to an almost blind faith in the superiority of technology. But there are abilities that humans possess that machines are unlikely to ever have. For example, experienced drivers have an extra sense, almost an instinct as to what the surrounding drivers are likely to do. They can anticipate how others will move with amazing accuracy. They can intuit what another drivers intentions are. Think of driving on a highway alongside a car to your right, which hasn’t yet signaled or doesn’t bother to, yet, somehow you know they intend to pass in front of you. Or the way you know that the car in front of you is likely to make a left turn before they even turn on their signal. 

If we did not have this sense there would be far more accidents than there are. It is like anything we do well without really thinking about it, having subconsciously absorbed the method, like walking. There is just no way a machine can accurately sense the trajectory of cars around them based upon a sense of the other driver. Most cars are equipped with automatic cruise control, but hardly anyone uses it consistently, and it is quite likely that driverless vehicles will suffer the same fate. 

DON'T DRIVE IN NYC II

The other day I had just crossed the border between Long Island and NYC when I was pulled over for allegedly speeding, doing 70 mph. Now since everyone else at the time was doing around 65 mph in a 50-55 mph zone, whatever the speed limit it didn’t seem like much. Just prior to that some moron in front of me was talking on a cell phone and driving erratically and slow in the left lane. When he finally pulled over I accelerated for all of 10 seconds to catch up with the traffic, and that is presumably when I was “speeding.”  Obviously when you stray from the herd you are at risk, but if anyone should have gotten a ticket is was the cell phone dude. 

After waiting an interminably long period of time for the cop to do his paperwork, he came back with the ticket saying I was doing 71.  By doing that he put me in a higher speed category at great cost. The measurement was thus highly questionable, and certainly disputable, but I shrugged it off, as whenever possible these days I try to just let things go and avoid hassles, as part of the random cost of living here. 

However, when I looked at the ticket I found that I had gotten 6 points  and a $300 fine, all of which was far out of proportion the the alleged offense. Then to make matter worse, as I read further it turned out I also had to pay yet another $300 for a “Driver Responsibility Assessment” NY now tacks on, even with a clean prior driving record. So I now had to pay $600 for a few seconds of “speeding.” So then I thought this time I have to appeal, but as I read further on the ticket it stated that you can appeal if you want but if you do your fine may be increased.  The message is thus clear- don’t even think about appealing this. Further, this really has nothing to do with speeding or traffic safety and everything to do with revenue; but obviously not for roads since they are still awful. 

From long experience I know that it is now impossible to beat a ticket in NYC. For example, one night we were at a Lincoln Center concert, and when it was over we found the car was gone. It had been towed away for allegedly parking at a bus stop.; except that there was no sign anywhere in sight and the actual stop was much further down the block. So before picking up the car and  paying a few hundred dollars for the tow alone, we took several photos of the location, of the signs, the street, and the buildings, as I had every reason to appeal. When I did, I mailed in the photos and then even printed photos from Google maps of the location so that no one in their right mind could question it. Nevertheless it was turned down with the ridiculous statement that the evidence didn’t prove anything and it could be anywhere, never mind that was specific to that location.  But again, it had little to do with the offense and everything to do with revenue. I don’t go out at night as much as I used to in the city because if I do I have to either pay more than $50 for parking or a cab, and even if parking in a spot that appears to be legal, can still get a ticket.  BTW virtually all the other tow offenders where from out of town using rental cars and were clearly targeted, so be forewarned. 

The city is now so anti-car it simply doesn’t pay to own a vehicle or drive, which is exactly what they want; at least from a Manhattan-centric point of view, never mind what car-owners need in the other four boroughs. I’ve been driving here since I was 17 and this is the worst it’s ever been. I don’t want to give up my car, or my house, but life is now at a state-sponsored intolerable level. But if they add tolls to the Brooklyn Bridge I am gone. 

So again, be advised, don’t drive here, and if you don’t have to work here avoid coming altogether.