New york

With the United States lurching from crisis to crisis, the Democrats want their convention to present them as the tough, mature, serious bunch who will clean up the mess the President has caused. Few men are as integral to this guise as Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York — whose popularity soared throughout the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to the care and seriousness he appeared to be displaying. But how much does reality match up with the image?‘In many ways, COVID is just a metaphor,’ said Cuomo on the opening night of the DNC. ‘A virus attacks when the body is weak and when it cannot defend itself.’ This can be true, of course. Undoubtedly, COVID-19 is far more dangerous for the old, the sick and the obese than for the young, the healthy and the trim.

A major Associated Press report this week dove into New York’s nursing home COVID-19 death count and found the numbers outright wrong. The story was shocking. Reporters Bernard Condon, Matt Sedensky and Meghan Hoyer noted that ‘unlike every other state with major outbreaks, New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property and not those who were transported to hospitals and died there.’ But it wasn’t new. In fact, AP had sounded the alarm on the miscount as early as May. They learned New York’s Health Department wasn’t even trying to count the numbers: ‘New York's Health Department told the AP May 8 it was not tracking how many recovering COVID-19 patients were taken into nursing homes under the order.

Conservatives in a place like New York — squirming daily beneath the iron heel of a newly hawkish progressive minority — will tell you, like gay hanky-codes of yore, all the right-wing dog whistles to watch out for on the streets. The American flag is a big one. The once innocuous sight of a stranger sporting the stars and stripes on a t-shirt or hat, or outside a business, is now a good indicator you’re encountering someone who plans to vote Trump in November. Our nation’s flag is like garlic and holy water to the Black Lives Matter sentry. Unless it’s upside-down. Mask defiance is another.

I joke, during this current lockdown, that I am glad I no longer take hallucinogens or mind alterers, but I’m serious. I don’t want to have to think too much about how the globe can pull itself back from this current economic pause, or what I would do if anyone I loved was dying and I couldn’t reach them, because of the new rules. A Taoist monk friend called it a ‘sacred pause’, and in so many ways she is right. Even though I know she was referring to more than wild nature having a rest, I wager it is noticeably nicer to be a bee or a fish right now, with a little more room to maneuver.

Andrew Cuomo has turned his governor’s office into Pee-Wee’s pandemic playhouse. He has giant cotton swabs and foam mountains that I half expect his brother Chris to pop out from behind, declaring he has once again beaten the coronavirus. Now, for the low price of $14.50, you can purchase an Andrew Cuomo commemorative Summer of COVID poster. It takes a lot to outshine Donald Trump, the king of marketing, whose campaign infamously sold its own line of black markers after the President was busted doctoring a hurricane map with a Sharpie. But Cuomo has managed it, with the help of a complicit media desperate to whitewash New York’s disastrous COVID-19 response.

Ola Hawatmeh, the apparent Republican nominee for New York’s 19th congressional district, doesn't bring many surprises to the table policy-wise. She’s an adamant supporter of the President, wants to build a wall on the southern border, opposes Obamacare, and is endorsed by the National Rifle Association. Her personal story, however, is unlike that of any candidate in history.Hawatmeh, 43, is the daughter of Catholic Jordanian immigrants, a domestic abuse survivor, and she's beaten cancer twice. Oh, and her job? A fashion designer.‘I’m a people’s person,’ she told The Spectator. ‘And I’ve always been a philanthropist.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is on a publicity tour to cover up his disastrous handling of the COVID-19 crisis in New York and point the finger at red state governors for managing it differently. Puff pieces on his administration have appeared in People magazine and on the website for the governor’s favorite television station, CNN.  Chris Cillizza’s interview with Cuomo did not include any mention of the fact that the New York death rate was not just the highest in the country but one of the highest in the world. That a significant portion of New York’s population dying from the virus can be considered a win for the governor is a true liberal privilege.  Cillizza let Cuomo say absurd things like ‘We tested both theories. We have the evidence. It's numbers. It's irrefutable.

A group of children recently gathered one morning near the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument in Riverside Park. The adults in charge handed out brightly colored pieces of chalk and soon the sidewalk and plaza were cheerfully adorned with mottos such as Black Lives Matter, Black Trans Lives Matter, Tell Me Why the Police Need Tanks, Let Justice Roll Down, and — my favorite — Burn It Down.  Burn down the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument? No need. New York City has had it roped off for years as it crumbles away.   The 96-foot monument was in its time a tribute to the New York soldiers and sailors who fought for the Union during the Civil War. The cornerstone was laid in 1899 by Gov.

So now they have come for Teddy Roosevelt. The large bronze statue of TR on horseback, flanked by a black man and an American Indian, will be removed from the spot it has graced since 1940 in front of New York’s Museum of Natural History. Why? According to Warren Wilhelm Jr — known to some as Bill de Blasio — the statue is being moved (to where no one yet knows) ‘because it explicitly depicts Black and Indigenous people as subjugated and racially inferior.’ Does it? I don’t think so. I think both flanking figures exude strength and dignity. I also think they stand in solidarity with the jovially commanding figure of Roosevelt.