Call it, "Bloomberg's Bust," "Cry Wolf" or the "Sky is Falling," but as of 4 AM on the Sunday morning of Hurricane Irene, neighbors across the hall had thrown a party and the curtains on my open windows hung lifelessly like a still photograph.
Indeed, it was barely raining outside.
Shortly after midnight, I took my dogs for their evening walk.
Streets were deserted, almost all stores were closed, NYC transit was shut down and there was barely a car on the streets.
One might think we were on the verge of the Apocalypse.
But, it was hard to understand exactly why.
Sure, it was raining, but nothing unlike anything we hadn't experienced before over the past few weeks.
(We have had the wettest August in NYC history, apparently.)
In fact, recent rainstorms were a hell of lot worse with lightening flashes like the Fourth of July and loud thunder bolts like bombs. Floods, especially in New Jersey have seemingly become a daily event over this summer.
By contrast, Hurricane Irene for the most part, failed to bring even an anemic breeze, let alone lightening and thunder.
I am thinking of Irene as Bloomie's Bust or just one more example of our nursemaid Mayor's mad obsessions with "control" and over concern with his "legacy."
One can argue of course, that "it is better to be safe than sorry," but when does "safe" take on the dimensions of paranoia, hysteria, over reaction and in the case of resident park geese, mass massacres?
Apparently when we have a Mayor who thinks he was elected to become everyone's "mama" or nursemaid.
It is of course sad to hear that ten people lost their lives along the eastern seaboard due to the hurricane.
Several of them (including one child) perished due to falling tree branches and one 54-year-old surfer apparently died doing what he loved to do. (In the latter case, "cause of death" should however, be recorded as stupidity.)
I am wondering if our Mayor will declare a "war on trees" tomorrow -- especially if any New Yorker should happen to succumb to a falling tree branch during the rain storm?
After all, a "war" on geese has been declared following the 2009 "Miracle of the Hudson" landing after the plane collided with two migratory geese from Canada on that fateful January day:
Two years later, the geese are still paying for that misfortunate accident, as are the people like myself for whom it is important to maintain some semblance of nature and wildlife in our public parks.
In truly looking at our Mama Mayor's "legacy" over the past decade, one has to wonder about his understanding of what being mayor actually means?
Bloomberg wasn't elected to tell us whether to breast or bottle feed babies, what to feed our children, what restaurants to go to, why we should go to public parks (to "exercise") or what we should do during a rainstorm.
He was elected mainly to see that the buses and trains run on time.
And right now, mass transit is not running at all.
All because of a little rain.
It should have been clear to most people with common sense that this hurricane barreling up the east coast wasn't going to represent the apocalyptic threat that it might have appeared on the "Doppler" weather maps or what our mayor was ordering hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to vacate their homes from.
It was, after all, loosely spread out over an area of 500 miles.
While that suggests a lot of rain, it was not so concentrated (like Hurricane Katrina) to forewarn of sudden, catastrophic and violent event.
I for one, did not even buy a bottle of water or extra batteries.
But, maybe that is because I have already learned not to take our mayor's pronouncements and hysteria seriously.
Bloomberg is, after all, the same guy who signed off on the relentless slaughter of thousands of peaceful Canada geese who were residing in public parks, representing no harm or threat to anyone.
Heaven help us all in New York City, were a real and viable threat actually to occur.
Many of us would not take it seriously as too often our Mayor has been guilty of "crying wolf" -- and geese.
Indeed, we don't need Mama Mike to tell us which way the wind blows or that we have "too many" geese.
As of this moment, the wind ain't blowing at all and I cannot find even one goose in Central Park. -- PCA
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