Clyde Haberman’s last NYC column. Has it been only sixteen years? Mr Haberman’s city voice was and is ageless.

Certain themes recurred in NYC:

Hate-crime laws, for example, essentially punish thought deemed impure by adding prison time for certain acts that are already crimes. The steady expansion of state-sponsored gambling lifts dollars from the pockets of those who can least afford it. The rejection of civilian trials for terrorism suspects is a capitulation to fear. The knee-jerk cancellation of political activity every Sept. 11 makes a mockery of the chest-thumping about how the terrorists didn’t win. Democracy took a severe pounding when the mayor and the City Council overrode the expressed will of the people to give themselves third terms.

And the Catch-22s of bureaucracy make the mind reel. A man named Marc La Cloche was taught how to be a barber while in a New York prison on a robbery conviction. After his release, the same state then denied him a license to work his trade because he had been in prison.

NYC focused on all those subjects more than once. At last sight, hate-crime laws are intact, state-sponsored gambling continues to expand, terrorism suspects are headed for military tribunals, politics is still taboo on Sept. 11 and the mayor is well into his shaky third term. As for Mr. La Cloche, he died without ever getting his barber’s license.

So much for the power of the press.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Friday, April 8th, 2011 at 8:00 pm.