Archive for the ‘Government’ Category

In which The Gay Recluse says great, wtf. We’ve written before about the vacant house next door, which we’ve been complaining about for close to umm, 10 years. But finally last spring it was declared unsafe, which may mean 1) the city is going to knock it down, or 2) some developer bought it and […]


In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly dies of lung cancer. It’s bad enough when the smoke is spewing across rooftops in the distance, but it’s quite another thing when it’s blowing right through your living room window. When is the city going to get serious about inspecting these shitty boilers? Plus it’s getting worse, […]


In which The Gay Recluse contemplates the urge to shit on the world. In our apartment building, trash collection is not exactly arduous: all you have to do is put it out by the elevators between the hours of six and nine, morning or evening. For some, however, this is too much to ask, so […]


In which The Gay Recluse becomes increasingly obsessed with the George Washington Bridge. Time/Date: Today, after the rain. The bridge is named in honor of George Washington, the first President of the United States. —Wikipedia


In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly dies of lung cancer. Chronic pollution is a lot like chronic pain. You know it’s there but it’s hard to get rid of. Particularly when everyone’s doing it! Sometimes it blows right in the window. And makes us wish we lived in Vermont. The oily black smoke of […]


In which The Gay Recluse holds a contest. Sort of. Ok, submissions from the American side of the Atlantic have been kind of weak lately, so we thought we’d treat you to a taste of the big leagues in Hot Gay Statuary. Yes, Paris, City of Light! Reader CBNY sends us the following pix and […]


In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinions in The Times. Note to readers: we will be in Berlin for the next few days, so may or may not get around to our daily opinion-page column. But fear not! We will be back at some point to keep everyone in line. Bob Herbert/Hard Roads Ahead […]


In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinions in The Times. David Brooks/Obama Admires Bush The Short Version: Obama is smarter than his press releases sometimes make him seem. In his words: “Everybody knows that Obama is smart (and he was quite well informed about Lebanon). The question is whether he’s seasoned and tough enough […]


In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinions in The Times. Nicholas Kristof/The Terrified Monks The Short Version: Friends! Behold the Indiana Jones of opinion page! In his words: “I sneaked through these Tibetan areas in Gansu and Qinghai Provinces, eluding the troops by taking a local car with curtains pulled over the windows.” Score: […]


In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinions in The Times. Thomas Friedman/The New Cold War The Short Version: Iran is the next big challenge for the US. Too bad we’re so fucked. In his words: “Alas, the right question for the next president isn’t whether we talk or don’t talk. It’s whether we have […]


In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinions in The Times. Bob Herbert/Here Come the Millennials The Short Version: The youngs are seriously fucked, which is why they should vote for Obama. In his words: “This is a generation that is in danger of being left out of the American dream — the first American […]


In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinions in The Times. William Kristol/The Jewish State at 60 The Short Version: Happy Birthday, Israel. You are surrounded by crazies. In his words: “Still, even though the security of Israel is very much at risk, the good news is that, unlike in the 1930s, the Jews are […]


In which The Gay Recluse provides an update on a beehive of activity at 573-579 West 161st Street. So it’s official, if “official” means by way of an unnamed receptionist at the architects’s office: 573-575 West 161st Street is going to be a 6-story condominium. We’re trying to scrounge up a rendering, but in the […]


In which The Gay Recluse rather quickly gets lung cancer. Time of Photographs: May 10, around 8:30. The oily black smoke of 100-year-old boilers disperses daily across the rooftops in Washington Heights, heedless of those who suffer from pneumonia, asthma and tuberculosis. Officials and politicians? Not even footnotes in this story, which is about the […]


In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinions in The Times. Frank Rich/Party Like It’s 2008 The Short Version: Friends, thank you! I, Frank Rich, have won the Democratic primary! In his words: “This is not 2004, when another Democrat from Massachusetts did for windsurfing what the previous model did for tanks.” Score: B- (Blather) […]


In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinions in The Times. Bob Herbert/Seeds of Destruction The Short Version: Hillary’s message about “electability” and “white voters” is racist. In his words: “The Clintons have been trying to embed that gruesomely destructive message in the brains of white voters and superdelegates for the longest time. ” Score: […]


In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinions in The Times. Paul Krugman/Thinking About November The Short Version: Obama’s probably going to blow it because whites don’t like him!   In his words: “In recent decades, Democrats have had little trouble unifying after hard-fought primary campaigns. ” Score: F (Failure) This is a depressingly cynical (but untruthful) column that implies […]


In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinions in The Times. Gail Collins/The Torch en Route The Short Version: Hillary wants to run. So what?   In his words: “South Dakota wants its turn. It wants to have Chelsea visit its community colleges and refuse to answer questions about Monica Lewinsky. ” Score: A- (Amusing) Collins continues […]


In which The Gay Recluse documents the sunset of a dream. Today the tide seemed to finally turn against Hillary Clinton. We felt bad about it, but mostly on behalf of our mother. She’s in her seventies now and really wanted Hillary to win. She’s spent the better part of four decades fighting for women’s […]


In which The Gay Recluse scores selected opinions in The Times. Thomas Friedman/The Democratic Recession The Short Version: Thanks, oil! You’ve caused democratic government to wane around the world.   In his words: “I’ve long argued that the price of oil and the pace of freedom operate in an inverse correlation — which I call: “The […]