Neil deMause

The Brian Lehrer Show has archived my appearance yesterday, debating deputy mayor Linda Gibbs on New York’s poverty policies; you can listen to the mp3 here. They’ve even helpfully broken up the archive into segments, so you can hear my interview without having to fast-forward through the preceding news item on the oral rape of children by bishops. (That oughta do wonders for my Google hits…)

I’ll be on the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC in New York at 10 am on Friday, talking about my investigation of Mayor Bloomberg’s poverty initiatives in the soon-to-be-released Spring issue of City Limits Investigates. Tune in on 93.9 FM, 820 AM, or via the web stream to hear me answer the musical question: Two years ago Mayor Michael Bloomberg vowed “a major reduction” in New York City poverty. Does his plan match his promise?

I neglected to mention that I was going to be on Sports Byline USA‘s overnight program on Friday, talking about the new edition of Field of Schemes, whether the Sonics will move to Oklahoma, and other sundry topics. As penance, I now offer up links not only to an mp3 of that interview, but of one I did for the same sports talk network last month.

And if you would have wanted to call in but couldn’t because you didn’t know about, all I can suggest is you try using Google Custom Time.

I was interviewed about stadium shakedowns by John Miller of National Review Online (yes, you read that right) a week or so ago, and it’s now available online. I don’t remember what I said, so tune in and then tell me!

I’m going to be on KPFA-FM in the Bay Area tomorrow morning at 7:30 am, discussing the proposed San Francisco 49ers football stadium in Santa Clara. Those out of reach of KPFA’s signal (like me) can listen live via the station’s Internet streams; it looks like the shows are archived as well, so I’ll post a link here once that’s up.

UPDATE: The segment was postponed thanks to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and will now air Friday morning at 7:30 am Pacific instead.

UPDATE #2: The show is now online. (Scroll ahead about half an hour to hear my segment.)

The media frenzy over those Yankees hotel-room aliases continues, as I make two radio appearances tomorrow to discuss the pressing question of why Jorge Posada goes by “Ricky Ricardo”:

• Peter Greenberg Worldwide, syndicated/XM, 10:50 am Eastern
• The Roy Green Show, on Canada’s Corus Radio Network, 2:20 pm Eastern

For those of you within reach of central Brooklyn, I’m going to be moderating a discussion this Saturday night by Brian Berger and Tom Robbins, two of the many authors (Berger is co-editor as well) of the marvelous new anthology “New York Calling,” a look back at New York City in the ’70s and ’80s that is remarkably free of either rose-colored nostalgia or revisionist Giulianiesque horror at “a city out of control.” (My favorite snippet: The Scene Is Now keyboard player Phil Dray recalling a block committee meeting in the rapidly gentrifying Alphabet City on adding street trees: “All the white people want the trees, but the Hispanics are against it, saying that prettifying the block will just drive the rents up.”)

The reading/discussion will start at 7 pm this Saturday, October 13, at Vox Pop, corner of Cortelyou Road and Stratford Road in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. (By train, take the Q to Cortelyou Road, then walk about six short blocks west, past the newly planted street trees in this rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.)

And the CounterSpin interview is up: Click here to listen.

I recorded a short interview today for CounterSpin, the radio show of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, on my upcoming report for FAIR, “The Poor Will Always Be With Us… Except on TV News,” which examines poverty coverage (and the lack thereof) on the nightly network newscasts. (The article isn’t online yet, but should be hitting newsstands momentarily.) In New York, this airs 10 am tomorrow on WBAI (99.5 FM); elsewhere, check your local listings. Or just grab the podcast here when it becomes available.

If I’m making a New Year’s resolution, it’s to keep this page updated every month with links to my latest writings and other projects. Not only will that be a better service to you, whoever you might be who’s stumbled upon this Internet backwater, but it will also mean I’ll never again have to do what I’m now about to attempt: a complete recap of everything I’ve done since the end of August. Buckle in, and let’s go:

The final one-third of 2006 saw New York cross the t’s and dot the i’s on three sports construction projects, and I was there to chart the course of the bulldozers. With the Yankees already having broken ground in August on their new $1.3 billion stadium (about $400 million of which came courtesy of taxpayers), construction kicked swiftly into gear, creating a giant dust bowl where a 22-acre Bronx park used to be. Out in Queens, meanwhile, the Mets didn’t break ground on their new stadium until November, by which time they’d announced that Citigroup had agreed to spend $20 million a year to have the new structure dubbed CitiField – money that will go entirely into the team’s pockets, with not a dime to repay the city’s $200 million or so in expenses.

With the baseball stadium out of the way, attention turned to Brooklyn, where the Atlantic Yards megaproject (which is to include a basketball arena for the Nets, which would relocate from New Jersey) entered the home stretch for its own approval process. Following the final uninformative public hearing, the state agency running the project first stonewalled on releasing its economic impact study, then released a memo giving incomplete details of the projected effects of the project. Project opponents hoped this would be enough to convince the state’s top assemblymember to delay approval of the project; it didn’t happen, though.

The New York plans all relied heavily on “hidden” subsidies – everything from tax and rent breaks to low-interest city bonds – something that looks to be an increasing trend across baseball as team owners try to make their projects look more palatable to a skeptical public. That’s certainly what Oakland A’s owner Lew Wolff did in presenting his own stadium plans in November, as he talked lots about all the new gizmos the park would be wired for, and as little as possible about how it would all be paid for.

But enough about giving public money to rich people. I also wrote plenty this fall about giving public money (or not) to poor people, starting with New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s poverty commission recommendations and what actual poor people thought of them (choice quote: “The mayor, the president, the governor, they all messed up”), continuing with the latest on how new federal welfare laws could cost New York City big in penalties, moving on to an analysis of news coverage of the welfare law’s 10th anniversary (wherein a study that revealed welfare recipients were no better off financially under the new law was described by the press as showing that “for many the blessings of work have been mixed”), and finally reporting on Bloomberg’s first announcement of how he actually plans to help the poor (or as he calls them, “people who are starting their way up the economic ladder”). With the mayor promising 30 new initiatives but not revealing what any of them exactly are, I’ll be continuing to follow this one closely, believe you me.

And those were the main themes. The leftover articles in last four months’ portfolio include: a look at how New York City’s housing tax-subsidy reform is likely too little, too late; a tribute to the second New York Yankee to die in the prime of his career in a small plane crash; a look at the new baseball labor pact and how it’s likely to affect team payrolls (a prediction that’s panning out pretty well so far, the Gil Meche contract notwithstanding), and a report on how a New York Sun editor used a description of the Lower East Side in the 19th century to argue for its redevelopment now. But hey, what’s 120 years between friends?

And that’s it for now, at least in terms of the printed word. If you really need to hear more from me, or would just like to rest your eyes, you can hear me talk about poverty coverage on WNUR’s “This Is Hell” show from December 16, or blab about the new baseball labor pact on Baseball Prospectus Radio from November 4.

Until next month – really – I’m still Neil deMause. Farewell, sweet Purvs, wherever you are.