Today's Fresh Blogs...

• Rush Hour

  Published: August 10, 2007, 9:37 am

  Tags: Arts Amp Amp Culture, Congestion Pricing, Michael Bloomberg, Sheldon Silver, Yori Yanover

  You can thank Yori Yanover over at Loho 10002 for this masterpiece. Ironic how congestion pricing was supposed to be the big story in Albany wound up being overshadowed by a low-budget mystery involving Eliot Spitzer, Joe Bruno, Andrew Cuomo and the state troopers.

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• Middle School Suggestions

  Published: August 13, 2007, 12:02 pm

  Tags: Arts Amp Amp Culture, Opinion, Politics, Christine Quinn, Michael Bloomberg, Randi Weingarten, Robert Jackson

  At a joint appearance on the Upper West Side to recommend improvements to city middle schools, Christine Quinn and Michael Bloomberg announced a push for expanded school days, raises of as much as $10,000 for some teachers, Regents courses in all middle schools by 2010 and clarified disciplinary powers for educators. UFT president Randi Weingarten

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• Events for August 15, 2007

  Published: August 14, 2007, 5:56 pm

  Tags: Arts Amp Amp Culture, Politics

  9 a.m. Sen. Serphin R. Maltese and the Red Cross will host an emergency preparedness program at the American Legion Post 1404, 209 Cross Bay Boulevard, on Broad Channel, Queens. 9 a.m. Quinnipiac University will release the result of a poll of American voters, asking their opinions about 2008 presidential hopefuls with more detailed questions

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• Rudy's Two Words for Edwards

  Published: August 14, 2007, 5:36 pm

  Tags: Arts Amp Amp Culture, Politics, John Edwards, Rudolph Giuliani

  Rudy Giuliani's communications director Kate Levinson writes in the following response to John Edwards in their continuing spat over foreign policy. "Two words for you - flailing campaign."

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• Edwards Campaign: Rudy Ideas are "Bush Without the Thinking"

  Published: August 14, 2007, 5:13 pm

  Tags: Arts Amp Amp Culture, Politics, John Edwards, Rudolph Giuliani

  I think this can now officially be called a spat. John Edwards' spokesman Eric Schultz counters Rudy's sharp response to Edwards' sharp criticism of Rudy in the September edition of Foreign Affairs with the following: "Poor Rudy, first he loses all touch with reality by bragging he spent more time at Ground Zero than our brave

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• Obama's Foreign Policy Advisor: Differences With Hillary Just Nuance

  Published: August 17, 2007, 11:54 am

  Tags: Arts Amp Amp Culture, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton

  policy advisor to the Obama campaign. In something of a contrast with the line taken by his chosen candidate, Gration said that any differences between Obama and Hillary were more stylistic than substantive. "We're looking at nuances," said Gration. "We're not looking at radical new approaches. We are looking at execution

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• Reporter Says News Must Be Plausible

  Published: August 25, 2007, 11:22 am

  Tags: National News, Arts Amp Amp Culture

  Writer Stan Sinberg mourns the passing of a news publication where the only requirement for a news story was that it must be, at the least, “plausible”. “For three years, under various pseudonyms (including Jake Anderson — a play on Jack Anderson, the great muckraker of my youth), I “reported” that the real

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• Another Nail In The Coffin

  Published: August 28, 2007, 12:00 pm

  Tags: Arts Amp Amp Culture, Health

  I do not go to manicure shops for many reasons, chief among them that I’d rather spend the money on something I’ll enjoy. But I also don’t go for the same reason I don’t colour my hair. I don’t think all those chemicals can possibly be good for the environment or the people who work around them. Of course,

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• The new L.A.? Or is Nashville the new Nashville?

  Published: August 31, 2007, 2:00 pm

  Tags: Opinion, Arts Amp Amp Culture, You Ve Got To Be Kidding

  The Scenesters over at Nashville Cream are pretty much the local experts on irony, so I’ll leave it to them to debate whether the “Nashville is the New L.A.” t-shirts are tongue in cheek or not. Anyway, so I’m looking at the picture on the flyer (above) trying to mentally note exactly how many levels of gross are going on

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• It's Called The Celestial Jukebox

  Published: September 3, 2007, 12:00 am

  Tags: Technology, Music, Business Amp Amp Development, Arts Amp Amp Culture, Entertainment, Internet

  Not that the idea was totally original or anything, but years ago, when I was still a “mogul” (as the bartender at McCabe’s liked to call me…), I told a conference somewhere that someday in the future, you’d be able to walk up to your stereo and just tell it you want to hear “The Beatles. Abbey Road.

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• Why the Conservatives Like Rudy

  Published: September 3, 2007, 10:25 pm

  Tags: Arts Amp Amp Culture

  Heading into the post-Labor Day sprint to the primaries, Rudy Giuliani has utterly defied the pundits who predicted that Republican voters would never accept a twice divorced, pro-choice New Yorker. Rather than wilt, Mr. Giuliani has cemented his lead in national polls and in South Carolina one of the most conservative states in the country. The

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• The Real Pedro Martinez Returns

  Published: September 3, 2007, 9:29 pm

  Tags: Arts Amp Amp Culture

  The results of Pedro Martinez's return to a major league mound were heartening to New York Mets fans. He pitched well, giving up two runs in five innings, and got a win. But the numbers don't begin to tell the story. The raw statistics from his return start on Sept. 3 against the Reds tell of an outing that is merely workmanlike. Martinez pitched

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• Johnson's Anthem to American Folly

  Published: September 4, 2007, 12:59 pm

  Tags: Arts Amp Amp Culture, Denis Johnson

  Johnson Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 614 pages, $27 Tree of Smoke will surely be hailed as a great novel of the Vietnam War, which it is but more than that it's a caterwauling anthem about American jitters, American doubt and American folly, an oblique and unsettling account of Americans growing Quiet and Ugly in the second half of the

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• Just Shoot Me

  Published: September 4, 2007, 3:23 pm

  Tags: Arts Amp Amp Culture

  world of celebrity culture. Steve Buscemi plays Les Galantine, the paparazzo in question, with a ratty conviction that, along with his cynical journalist in the Buscemi-directed Interview earlier this year, places him in strong contention for actor of the year, at least in my humble opinion. Otherwise, Mr. DiCillo's work is not as much

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• Training Day

  Published: September 4, 2007, 3:21 pm

  Tags: Arts Amp Amp Culture

  having a bad limp from an amputated foot sustained in the war on the Union side, as a member of the Massachusetts Volunteers. Most of the other men in the film seem to have fought for the Confederacy, and Dan takes some good-natured ribbing on the subject from Crowe's outlaw chieftain, Ben Wade. There is more greed-driven corruption in the

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