Eye on the Island

Hidden Agendas, Quiet Paydays

Do you ever sense a supposedly objective journalist is hoping for a certain outcome to a story he or she is covering?

Chuck Todd, NBC News’ political director and chief White House correspondent, was openly rooting for President Obama’s re-election last year. Every time I heard Todd, it was always Good Friday for Governor Romney, and Easter Sunday for the president.

Dorothy Parker’s Encore

Violet Epps, the 37-year-old protagonist in Ellen Meister’s just-published novel, Farewell, Dorothy Parker, needs to channel her inner b____, and the late Dorothy Parker’s often-inebriated ghost takes Epps under her wing to help Epps do just that.

Meister, a married mother of three who resides in Jericho, will be promoting her fourth novel with appearances on Sunday, Feb. 24, at 4 p.m., at Huntington’s Book Revue, 313 New York Ave., and on Friday, March 1, at 7 p.m., at Barnes & Noble, 91 Old Country Road, Carle Place.  

Koch’s Place In History

The late New York City Mayor Ed Koch (1924-2013) once said that if all of the taxpayer money intended for the poor got to the poor, “the poor would be rich.”

That observation about the high cost of government-funded service- providers has resonance to this day and, thanks to Koch, a documentary directed by first-time filmmaker and former Merrick resident Neil Barsky, a new generation of New Yorkers will get to see Mayor Koch in his prime.

Return Of The Commuter Tax?

Joseph Lhota, who is running for mayor of New York City, has correctly learned one lesson from the 2012 presidential election: 51 percent of voters will support a candidate who backs new or higher taxes so long as these same voters are convinced someone else will pay them.

In his call last month for the restoration of New York City’s commuter tax, which the state Legislature rescinded in 1999, Lhota, a deputy mayor in the Giuliani administration, has found an ideal source for additional New York City tax revenue—people who work in the city but reside elsewhere.

Bars Rescued Her

Spike TV has a reality program called Bar Rescue wherein nightlife consultant John Taffer revives a troubled establishment’s fortunes with a combination of tough love and managerial expertise.

Before shooting his next segment, Taffer should read Rosie Schaap’s just-released memoir, the highly entertaining Drinking with Men (Riverhead Books).  The book examines not only the author’s life as seen through the friends she made while enjoying adult beverages, but also the intangibles that make a bar one you’d like to visit regularly.  

Revisiting The Lindbergh Baby Kidnapping

Charles Lindbergh won worldwide acclaim in 1927 when he became the first person to fly an airplane non-stop across the Atlantic Ocean, departing from Roosevelt Field and landing the following day in Paris.

Less than five years later, Lindbergh and his wife, Anne, tragically endured the dark side of being a global celebrity. Charles Lindbergh, Jr., their 20-month-old son, was kidnapped and later found dead, after being taken from his crib in the family’s Hopewell, New Jersey home.

Cutting Up The County

Few issues animate political junkies more than redistricting, the redrawing of legislative district (LD) boundaries in accordance with the most recent U.S. Census.

The 19-member Nassau County Legislature is expected to adopt no later than March 2013 a map that will determine the communities falling within each of the county’s 19 LDs starting with the November 2013 election, and the next 10 years after that. County legislators serve two-year terms.

Summer Spotlight

With the calendar having turned to 2013, it is not too early to start thinking about the major national sporting events headed to the region later this year.

The Belmont Stakes, to be held on June 8 in Elmont, and the U.S. Open tennis championships in Flushing, Queens, which get underway in late August, are annual happenings. But the arrival in this area of the U.S. Women’s Open Championship (June 27-30) and Major League Baseball’s (MLB) All-Star game at the New York Mets’ Citi Field (July 16) are rare events.

Senators Know Best

Few New Yorkers entered the polling booth on Election Day wondering who was going to control the state Senate next year. That’s a good thing because a couple of state senators have decided such matters are too important for voters to decide.

At least 32, and perhaps 33 (depending upon the outcome of still-contested race in an upstate district), of the 63 Democrats who sought election to the state Senate in November won, giving the Democrats, on paper at least, a majority in the state Senate. The Republicans controlled the state Senate in 2011 and 2012.

Nets’ Island Roots

Hours after the New York Islanders announced in October that they’d be moving to Brooklyn in 2015, the New York Knicks played a pre-season basketball game against the Brooklyn Nets at the Nassau Coliseum.

The Islanders wasted little time capitalizing on the big news, with Islanders personnel handing out fliers that night to just about everyone who walked through the Coliseum’s doors, urging them to consider the purchase of 2015-2016 Islanders season ticket plans at their new home, Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. I remember this vividly because I was at the Knicks-Nets game that evening with our two older sons and reminded them that there once was a time when both the Islanders and the Nets played at the Nassau Coliseum. They knew this already, and politely declined to remind me that I was instrumental in them becoming fans of the Nets, Islanders, Mets, and Jets.