Christopher Hitchens, RIP

This Wednesday I thought to myself, "I haven't read anything from Hitchens recently ... I wonder how he's doing." Last night delivered the unfortunate answer.

My interactions with him were few but memorable. While producing Laura Ingraham's radio show, I regularly tried booking him, though not regularly succeeding. During my rookie year, I began one such solicitation: "Hey, Chris ..." He politely declined due to a scheduling conflict and ended his note, "And please feel free to call me Christopher." Which naturally made me feel like a jackass. Another time he demurred, "Sorry, caught between Cuba and Venezuela," which of course wasn't a joke.

Once when he was in the studio, I asked if he'd like a glass of water for the interview. He said no, pointing out that he already had one. That appearance was actually a debate over the premise of his book, "God Is Not Great." This is the subject where Hitchens, in my opinion, was at his weakest, but even then he took on all comers -- his Christian minister sparring partner, Laura, the callers -- with wit, eloquence, and charm. Afterward, I settled back into my seat and accidentally mistook his water for mine, immediately realizing he was actually drinking straight vodka. Mind you this was 10 AM. And if memory serves, after his cancer diagnosis.

I agree with William F. Buckley, who, as his son Christopher recounts, thought Hitchens intolerable after reading his latest attacks on the church; yet no matter how badly he offended, ultimately he always proved irresistible. He lacerated Mayor Bloomberg in the most satisfying way, and for that alone he'll always have a special place in my heart.

And that's how I'll remember him. As someone evinced the best qualities of rebellious American individualism and the graceful, fluid wit to be expected only from the pen of a Brit.

Speaking of Bloomberg, below are highlights from his pièce de résistance:

The lawbreaking itch is not always an anarchic one. In the first place, the human personality has (or ought to have) a natural resistance to coercion. We don’t like to be pushed and shoved, even if it’s in a direction we might choose to go. In the second place, the human personality has (or ought to have) a natural sense of the preposterous. Thus, just behind my apartment building in Washington there is an official sign saying, drug-free zone. I think this comic inscription may be because it’s close to a schoolyard. And a few years back, one of our suburbs announced by a municipal ordinance that it was a “nuclear-free zone.” I don’t wish to break the first law, though if I did wish to do so it would take me, or any other local resident, no more than one phone call and a 10-minute wait. I did, at least for a while, pine to break the “nuclear-free” regulation, on grounds of absurdity alone, but eventually decided that it would be too much trouble.

So there are laws that are defensible but unenforceable, and there are laws impossible to infringe. But in the New York of Mayor Bloomberg, there are laws that are not possible to obey, and that nobody can respect, and that are enforced by arbitrary power. The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law. Tyranny can be petty. And “petty” is not just Bloomberg’s middle name. It is his name.

In the space of a few hours late in November, I managed to break a whole slew of New York laws. That is to say, I sat on an upended milk crate, put my bag next to me on a subway seat, paused to adjust my shoe on a subway step, fed some birds in Central Park, had a cigarette in a town car, attempted to put a plastic frame around a vehicle license plate, and rode a bicycle without keeping my feet on the pedals at all times. I also had a smoke in a bar and at a table in a restaurant. Only in the latter two cases would I hitherto have been knowingly violating a city ordinance. ...

The previous night I had been to the movies and had been annoyed, as one often is, by people chatting and commenting in the back row. This is the height of antisocial behavior, because it ruins the pleasure of others while bringing no benefit to the offender. I normally deal with it as I do when people in cinemas fail to turn off their cell phones. I turn round and tell them that I know where they live, and I know where their children go to school. Others are usually on hand with similar suggestions, especially in New York. It’s all part of the fun. Ask yourself: what if uniformed cops were standing at the back of the theater enforcing the no-talking rule? It wouldn’t be quite the same, would it? But in Bloombergville, where the citizen is treated like a backward child, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this was the next bright idea.

Decency forbids me from mentioning where I ate lunch, because the proprietor is an old friend and a beautiful and conscientious restaurateur and I can’t risk having him treated like a fractious juvenile. On September 11, 2001, he turned his place into a casualty-treatment station and general refuge, and he does everything he can think of to make his guests welcome and well fed. It was a fairly slow lunchtime, and I was able to ask all diners present if they minded my lighting a cigarette for the purposes of a Vanity Fair photo shoot. All of them said go right ahead and good luck to you. So that’s all I need say about that, except that New Yorkers are no longer trusted with such discretion or good manners. It is government alone that knows what’s “appropriate.” There cannot be a single exception. One size must fit all. This casual destruction of Bohemia, in one of its oldest and most famous redoubts, is an unquantifiable loss. It misses the point of New York—in fact, it negates it. The backward child in this case—also the spiteful and bullying and smug and spoiled child—is His Honor the Mayor. May he one day be cornered in the schoolyard at recess, and without his team of hired toadies and informers, and taught the lesson of a lifetime. ...

I have only ever heard one defense of this reign of error, which is that it mimics the “broken window” street-level campaign that began to tackle crime under Bill Bratton and Rudy Giuliani about a decade ago. But, excuse me, that was directed at people making a nuisance of themselves by wielding squeegees at intersections, or panhandling with an attitude, or offering their bodies for sale at unwanted moments and locations, or jumping over turnstiles. This current Niagara of pettiness and random victimization may well be Bloomberg’s attempt at a wannabe reputation as heroic crime-fighter and disciplinarian. Who knows what goes on in the tiny, constipated chambers of his mind? All we know for certain is that one of the world’s most broad-minded and open cities is now in the hands of a picknose control freak.

RIP.

An Eco-Warrior of Convenience

Today Mayor Bloomberg is delivering the keynote address at a Seattle climate-change conference sponsored by the United States Conference of Mayors. He will propose taxing carbon emissions, which will be levied upon companies -- not individuals themselves -- which is an important distinction.

A recent New York Post analysis of Hizzoner's real-estate portfolio and travel style found that no one holds a candle his massive energy consumption (well, except for maybe Al Gore). His personal carbon footprint equals that of "18 average Americans, 53 Europeans or 404 Guatemalans."

His (conservatively) estimated 364 annual tons of smog-inducing carbon dioxide is equivalent to "keeping 69 cars a year on the road or lighting the Empire State Building for 4 days," The Post reported.

Besides his spacious Upper East Side townhouse, the mayor owns five homes: a country house in Armonk; a farm in North Salem, both in Westchester; a four-bedroom condo in Vail, Colo.; a palatial flat on London's posh Cadogan Square, and a sprawling, 6,000-square-foot beachfront spread in Bermuda.

Together, the properties boast enough square footage to swallow two mansions like the 10,000-square-foot one owned by former Vice President Al Gore, one of several leading climate-change critics rapped lately for being voracious energy users themselves.

Bloomberg's carbon footprint swells to epic proportions when you include his penchant for reaching his far-flung getaways by one of the handful of private jets owned by his financial information firm, Bloomberg LP.

Fortunately, this chief of the Green Police has a get-out-jail card.

A City Hall spokesman said the mayor has chosen instead to donate to worthy causes -- "public health, the arts and education" -- while seeking "broader change."

Beyond taxing businesses guilty of producing the energy Americans demand, Bloomberg has also proposed city-specific policies: energy quotas on Gotham's private sector, mandatory hybrids for all cabbies, an $8 motorist tax for driving in Manhattan, new taxes on consumers' electricity bills. He's even threatening to devastate Gotham's natural landscape by planting one million new trees.

In other words, by forcing New Yorkers to consume less, the city serves as Mayor Mike's personal carbon offset.

How convenient.

Congestion Indiscretions

"Mayor Bloomberg says congestion pricing will raise $390 million a year for mass transit, but that figure is nothing more than an educated guess," The Daily News reports.

Reviewing internal documents made available through a Freedom of Information Act request, the News finds that in January 2007 the Department of Transportation was developing a congestion-pricing "System [that] runs 346 days each year, capturing cars and trucks four times on every trip, processing 6,052,000 transactions each day. Each license plate costs 75 cents to read. The annual operating cost is $884,168,938, or 44.4% of total revenue."

But by April, after some tweaking to predicted costs, the numbers changed: "System runs 248 days each year, capturing cars and trucks two times on every trip, processing 2,796,000 transactions each day. Each license plate costs 15 cents to read. The annual operating cost is $232,640,000, or 35.2% of total revenue."

In London, operational costs consumed nearly two-thirds of the system's revenue in its first year. Afterward the toll was raised to $16 from $10. By nature governmental programs cost more to run than anticipated -- New York's especially. The News therefore notes that Bloomberg's estimated $390 million in new MTA revenue can't be counted on: "While the mayor's plan assumes it will cost $232 million a year to operate the system, just two little tweaks in the model -- four sensors per trip, and 75 cents to read a license plate -- would raise the cost to $685 million per year, leaving nothing for mass transit."

Meanwhile, Richard Lipsky at the Neighborhood Retail Alliance says Bloomberg's prediction that congestion pricing will ease traffic volume 6.3 percent seems to have been pulled from thin air.

'It was time, I felt, for an Agonizing Reappraisal of the whole scene.'

My colleague Steve Couzzo took to the pages of yesterday's Sunday Post (in the brand new Post Script section) to offer the definitive account of Bloombergism -- the "independent" form of governance wholly preoccupied with busybodying even as core responsibilities (infrastructure, power, civil services) suffer -- in all its messy infamy:

The city's still in sound shape, and Bloomberg is entitled to a share of the credit. Crime is at record lows and the town is more bustling and cosmopolitan than ever.

But are we having fun yet? Not enough for the mayor, who wants us to take our medicine and be happy about it. He's left the Republicans and the Democrats behind to forge a new kind of political philosophy: Benign Billionaire Knows Best.

For him, our waistlines, our sex lives, even the behavior of our pets are fair game for improvement. Just as rezoning will produce a more sleekly contoured New York, so will tinkering with our everyday habits yield a bountiful future where no one need be fat -- or even, God forbid, stuck in traffic.

In Mayor Mike's ideal metropolis, the town would be cleansed, not only of cigarette smoke, but of a lengthy hit list of real and presumed urban evils -- among them, dogs that bark too loud and fast-food restaurants that fail to warn you of every calorie.

If you read one piece today, read this one.

Extra Credit: Anyone know where the hed for this post comes from?

Picture of the Day

Fact of the Day: It's possible to smoke, drink AND eat trans fats, while still living a long, healthy, happy life. One-hundred-year-old Winnie Langley is case in point.

(Hat tip to Karol)

Question of the Day

If congestion pricing really will work all the miracles Mayor Bloomberg promises -- fewer cars; cleaner air; less global warming; cures for AIDS, cancer, and racism -- why is he now declaring the plan "dead" simply because New York City has fallen out of the running for a $500 million bribe?

In the context of a city budget approaching $60 billion, $500 million is chump change -- indeed, Bloomberg could probably find it between the cushions on his Lear jet.

Please tell me he wasn't about to impose this unwieldy, invasive tax scheme -- which, I should add, is hated by New Yorkers -- simply to bank $500 million in free cash.

Don't Worry About Terrorism; Eat Vegetables

If Mayor Bloomberg ever gets serious about running for national office, particularly for the presidency, he's going to have to stop equating the War on Terrorism with his adventures in babysitting.

This Monday, following attempted car bombings in London and Glasgow, Mayor Mike said the biggest threats to New Yorkers have nothing to do with terrorism: "Don't go the beach where there's no lifeguards or to pool where there's no lifeguards. Sadly at the end of this weekend, or this week, you'll find that probably a lot more people were killed there than will be killed by terrorism."

Earlier this month, following a foiled plot to blow up New York City's own JFK Airport, incinerating thousands in the process, Bloomberg said: "There are lots of threats to you in the world. There’s the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can’t sit there and worry about everything. Get a life."

Before that, he used the occasion of Memorial Day to trumpet his congestion-pricing plan, as The New York Post then reported:

U.S. troops will be fighting in vain if New Yorkers aren't healthy enough to enjoy the freedoms they are defending, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday -- making a tenuous Memorial Day link between the war and his congestion pricing plan.

After marching in the Laurelton Memorial Day Parade, Bloomberg made a push for his plan, calling it a "win, win, win, for everybody."

"Our soldiers are fighting so that we have our freedoms. Unless you have good health, you're not going to be around to enjoy them," Bloomberg said.

"The pollution that's going into the air today is causing our kids in a lot of neighborhoods in New York City to have four times the national asthma rate."

The mayor enlisted a group of environmental activists to buttress his case and emphasized that the city's air is simply not good enough.

"It is not healthy for you; it's not healthy for our children yet to be born, or our children who are here today.

"We have to do something to reduce the pollution in the air and the only solution really is mass transit and the only place money is going to come for mass transit is from something like congestion pricing," Bloomberg said.

Adam Brodsky says without a strong stance in the terror war, Bloomberg has no real reason to run.

What The Right Is Saying About Bloomberg

Brent Bozell: His "non-ideological" approach to governing is anything but.

Byron York asks: "Can anyone show me evidence that Americans are hankering for a Michael Bloomberg presidential candidacy?"

National Review: "It is easy to cast stones at Washington if, like Bloomberg, you simply say nothing of consequence about the Iraq war, the most important issue facing the nation."

The Wall Street Journal: "Mr. Bloomberg has been quoted as saying that he wouldn't run unless he could win. We hope he means it. He's rich enough to afford the race, but a candidate for the nation's highest office should have more on his agenda than competence, and should have reason to believe he'd be more than a political spoiler."

Robert George speculates that Bloomberg will attract more votes from the left than from the right. Championing issues like campaign finance reform, global warming, and gun control, I'd have to agree.

David From doesn't.

Downtown Decongestant

Mayor Bloomberg's pitch to tax the poor off of Manhattan streets appears to be picking up steam. So what better time to check in on London, where a similar experiment is three years deep. Paul Biggs of the British Drivers Association offers this analysis:

To start, the whole project has been very expensive to implement, and has generated less revenue than anticipated. Setup costs were about $600 million (U.S.). The charge promised to raise $400 million per year for public transportation projects, but the estimate quickly dropped to $140 million. In the first two years, nearly $200 million was "lost" in running costs.

The lower-than-expected collections should not distract us from a far bigger problem: business in London has been hurt, and working families have been stretched. On one of the busiest streets in Europe, centrally located Oxford St., stores such as Selfridges and John Lewis reported a 10% decline in sales in the first 18 months. Overall, 84% of businesses said their income was down - and 62% blamed the congestion charge.

Residents in poorer parts of London complained of less visits by family and friends, and around a third were having difficulty paying the charge.

All these results are culled from an official government survey.

Moreover, what started as a supposedly modest charge has been hiked beyond what many can afford. The £5 ($10) initial fee was not to be raised for 10 years; it has already gone up to around $16. Bus fares are still rising despite a £500 million ($1 billion) subsidy.

Well, at least traffic is down and travel through London is causing fewer headaches, right? Not exactly. Recently, Transport for London's head of traffic management admitted that traffic was creeping back up -- and was 5% higher on boundary roads than before the scheme began. And because it's buses, trucks and taxis - which operate unfettered -- that cause the worst pollution, air quality has not improved.

Still, it's worth a shot, right?

Bloomberg's Land Grabs

What should be one of the most controversial aspects of Mayor Bloomberg's tenure is his cavalier use of eminent domain. But for whatever reason, there just isn't much resistance -- outside the Atlantic Yards project, that is -- for top-down development projects, whereas City Hall plays the role of private developer.

The threat of eminent domain now hangs over property-owners' heads in Prospect Heights, Downtown Brooklyn, Willets Point, and upper Manhattan. On that latter score, the Neighborhood Retail Alliance's Richard Lipsky reports on the latest:

It now appears that the City Planning Commission, unless there is some last minute intervention, will certify Columbia University's land use application at its June 4th meeting. This precipitous move, coming as it does before there has been any meaningful negotiations between Columbia and the community, has already begun to spark controversy.

In strongly worded letters, both CB#9 and the West Harlem LDC (formed to negotiate with the university), asked Planning Chair Burden to put off certification because, in the words of Board Chair J. Reyes-Montblanc, "It will be a great disservice to the Community, the Administration and Columbia University to issue such certification and referral during the month of June. The consequences of such an inadvisable action by DCP are dangerously enormous and may even involve public disturbance, this is how serious the situation could be." (emphasis added)

The LDC gets it just right when it tells CPC's Burden that certification this Monday, "will offend the essence of the ULURP process which is designed to seek community comment and involvement." The action also exposes the sham nature of these negotiations, proceeding along the lines of first getting the approval and then tossing the community as meager bone when it's under no pressure to really accomodate the local needs.

To qualify for a legitimate eminent-domain taking under New York law, the targeted area must be blighted if the project is intended for something other than a "public" project. That the city appears willing to pretend northern Manhattan is blighted so as to usher Columbia's expansion along doesn't reveal much respect for the limited nature of eminent domain law. Lucky for Bloomberg that not too many New Yorkers value the principle of private property.

UPDATE: Lipsky's latest.

New Yorkers on 'President Bloomberg'

From today's Political Diary, from The Wall Street Journal:

Despite New York's reputation as the bluest of liberal states, Mr. Bloomberg would have a chance. The latest Quinnipiac Poll finds that his approval rating in overwhelmingly Democratic New York City is 74%. Only 19% disapprove. As for what office they would like their popular mayor to run for, New Yorkers say he should aim for the governor's mansion.

If Mr. Bloomberg runs for president, 37% of New York City voters say they "definitely" or "probably" would vote for him, while 54% say they "probably" or "definitely" wouldn't vote for him. That would make it difficult for Hizzoner to win even New York's electoral votes, given upstate New York's historic suspicion of Big Apple mayors.

But the governor's race is another matter. For that office, 60% of New York City residents say they "definitely" or "probably" would vote for him, with 33% saying they "probably" or "definitely" wouldn't.

Says Quinnipiac Poll director Maurice Carroll: "Mayor Bloomberg is like the Energizer Bunny: He keeps running and running. But what is he running for? While the press speculates, the public is divided -- the White House or the Executive Mansion? Albany beats Washington as the favored destination for a post-mayoral Mike."

Even if the White House were his ultimate objective, starting with New York might be his smartest next step.

'Bad Habits Fuel Longevity'

Perhaps Mayor Bloomberg and his health czar, Thomas Frieden, can hire Zhang Shuqing to head up a new outreach program. China Daily explains:

Zhang Shuqing, a centenarian in Pixian, Sichuan, has his own secret for long life - smoking every day and drinking liquor after every meal.

Zhang, whose daughter died eight years ago, turned 100 on May 7. He lives with his nephew Zhang Chenggui.

Zhang senior said he started smoking and drinking strong liquor when he was in his early 20s. Since then, he has smoked every day and taken a drink with every meal.

According to his grandson Xu, Zhang has consumed 15 tons of liquor and more than a ton of tobacco in his lifetime.

Zhang, who is in good health, has a huge appetite, with a standard meal comprising two chicken legs, a bowl of steamed pork fat and glutinous rice, vegetables and fruit. And he eats the lot in less than 20 minutes.

(Via Fark)

Why Bloombergism Would Never Work on a National Scale

Speaking today in Houston, Mayor Bloomberg outlined a national energy plan that includes ... banning "incandescent lightbulbs."

'They're All 'F' Trains'

Nicole Gelinas's recent Wall Street Journal oped takes Mayor Bloomberg to task for spending oodles on health care and education while the city's subways fall into greater disrepair. To which I'd only add: hear, hear:

As New York grows more crowded by the day, and subway ridership increases—up 33% since 1996 and at the highest level in 50 years—conditions are dismal. Day after day, people wait 10-deep to get on the escalators to enter stations on Manhattan's East Side, then wait again in standing-room only crowds to exit through dangerous floor-to-ceiling-turnstiles. In Brooklyn, a borough that's seen more than 30,000 apartments go up in a decade, crowding worsens every week on the L and F lines, as more people start their commutes from new buildings. ...

Mr. Bloomberg seems unconcerned about overcrowded and vulnerable subways. When New York Times magazine reporter Jonathan Mahler asked him last year about overcrowding on the East Side line, he replied that commuters should wake up earlier if they don't like rush hours. To be fair, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, accountable to the governor, not the mayor, runs the system. But that's no excuse. The fact that the mayor didn't run the city's dysfunctional education department six years ago didn't stop him from taking control to fix problems there.

Eat Your Heart Out, Dr. Bloomberg

Remember Jeanne Calment, the world's "longest-living" woman? At the tender age of 122, Calment passed away a lifelong smoker. Now, another centenarian -- Hong Kong's 107-year-old Chan Chi -- is being probed for his secrets to longevity.

To the horror of public-health impresarios everywhere, tobacco abstinence is not among them. Indeed, he still smokes. He did, however, credit the sexually abstinent life he's led since his wife's passing when he was just 30. (Whether this is a reasonable trade-off is, I suspect, in the eye of the withholder.)

These stories, and many more like them, prove that smoking is not prohibitive of a healthy, long life. It's a habit ripe for abuse, no doubt. But smoking bans, and the rhetoric used in backing them, unfailingly abjure even minimal tobacco use as unhealthy. This, quite obviously, is simply not true.

A Lesson for Mayor Mike

Mayor Bloomberg isn't simply for "gun control" -- he's against the Second Amendment. Already, getting a permit to own a gun in New York City is practically impossible; that is, unless you're a celebrity. In December, Bloomberg announced that he wants to make the process even more difficult:

The city should slash the number of people who are allowed to carry concealed weapons, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday.

"We've taken a look at it to see whether we couldn't have fewer," Bloomberg said. "I can tell you one thing: We will keep it to as a minimum as we possibly can."

Bloomberg added that he has asked Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to tackle the issue.

"If you want a gun permit, you should have to really show that your life is in danger, and that having a gun will protect you, will improve the chances of you surviving," the mayor said.

Such an idea is plainly unconstitutional, not that politicians bother much these days heeding such quaint concepts as constitutionality. Also troublesome, though, is the impact such strict gun-licensing laws have on general safety. As Glenn Reynolds writes in today's New York Times:

IT’S a phenomenon that gives the term “gun control” a whole new meaning: community ordinances that encourage citizens to own guns.

Last month, Greenleaf, Idaho, adopted Ordinance 208, calling for its citizens to own guns and keep them ready in their homes in case of emergency. It’s not a response to high crime rates. As The Associated Press reported, “Greenleaf doesn’t really have crime ... the most violent offense reported in the past two years was a fist fight.” Rather, it’s a statement about preparedness in the event of an emergency, and an effort to promote a culture of self-reliance.

And it may not be a bad idea. While pro-gun laws like the one in Greenleaf are mostly symbolic, to the extent that they actually make a difference, it is likely to be a positive one.

Greenleaf is following in the footsteps of Kennesaw, Ga., which in 1982 passed a mandatory gun ownership law in response to a handgun ban passed in Morton Grove, Ill. Kennesaw’s crime dropped sharply, while Morton Grove’s did not.

To some degree, this is rational. Criminals, unsurprisingly, would rather break into a house where they aren’t at risk of being shot. As David Kopel noted in a 2001 article in The Arizona Law Review, burglars report that they try to avoid homes where armed residents are likely to be present. We see this phenomenon internationally, too, with the United States having a lower proportion of “hot” burglaries — break-ins where the burglars know the home to be occupied — than countries with restrictive gun laws.

If Bloomberg's safety messianism was based not on an elitist distaste for personal weaponry but on an actual interest in protecting Gothamites, he'd learn the lesson of Kennesaw, Ga., and remove the barriers to more ubiquitous gun ownership.

UPDATE: The New York Sun's Bradley Hope reports on an Idaho mayor who's dropped out of Mayor Bloomberg's "Mayors Against Illegal Guns" alliance. The mayor said, "I found there's probably a little more of an agenda coming from Mayor Bloomberg's office than I anticipated ... So as I looked into it, I could see there was a conflict with the NRA and some of the beliefs we have here in Idaho."

Would Have Guessed Wonder Bread

From today's New York Times corrections section:

A chart on Sunday comparing biographical and personal points about Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, two like-minded New York leaders with a warm relationship who could find themselves at odds once Mr. Spitzer is sworn in, misidentified one of Mr. Bloomberg's favorite foods. It is saltines, not sardines.