Isn't it rich?
You are the mayor.
Snow here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the plows.
Isn't it nuts?
And you approve?
Snowflakes keep blowing around,
Traffic can't move.
Where are the plows?
Send in the plows.
Just when we'd stopped knocking on doors,
Finally knowing the one that we needed was yours,
You're reading statements again with your usual flair.
Waiting for trains,
Not one is there.
Don't you love farce?
Your fault I fear.
I thought that you'd want what we want.
Bloomberg, my dear.
But where are the plows?
Quick, send in the plows.
Don't wait til spring's here.
Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer,
Losing your timing like this
Could end your career.
And where are the plows?
There ought to be plows.
Well, maybe next year.
.
Best of Shnow
ReplyDeleteThe Great Boxing Day Blizzard of 2010 - putting the "no plows" in "snow plows"!
ReplyDelete(only they are actually here now...)
ARGH. Parenthetical statement obviously should have read "Don't bother, they're here".
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm a day late with this.
ReplyDeleteI'll never forget a winter storm in the late '70s that happened on a legal holiday. Instead of paying overtime to bring in crews, Trenton waited a day to plow. But it was too late. It was a wet snow, it turned to slush and then froze solid. The town was gridlocked by six inches of solid ice for two weeks.
The next storm, to make up for past sins, they closed the entire town - all traffic was banned while they plowed out.
Trenton was the kind of town you could just close without significantly altering the course of western civilization. I mean, it wasn't like we had a football team.
Well, yeah, but there was that thing in 1776 with the Hessian troops.
ReplyDeleteI believe General Washington succeeded, Carol Anne, because the Hessians thought the town was closed for the day.
ReplyDeleteAlso two nations joined in mutual adversity - snow and the response or our respective minicipal governance
ReplyDeleteIn our little town of Tiverton in the far north-east of Rhode Island the economy isn't so hot since the Great Recession of 2008. Like many other places, the town budget is under pressure and tax revenues are down.
ReplyDeleteBut somehow the town managed to come and plow not only the main roads but also the side roads like the lane leading to the Tiller Cottage while the storm was in progress on Sunday afternoon and several times during the next 24 hours. Maybe it's because we don't have a rich celebrity for a mayor or a football team?
We only got a foot, and Trenton was still a complete mess yesterday. I wish I didn't have a reason for knowing that.
ReplyDeleteThe Hessians were right. The town was closed that day. As Joey's Tomato Pie goes, so goes Trenton.
Can't you just see Mayor Mike standing in the prow of a boat leading a fleet of barges carrying snow plows across the East River in a surprise attack on the snow drifts in Brooklyn and Queens?
ReplyDeleteNo?
He missed an opportunity there.
Well, Mayor Mike may think everything was OK, but at least the head of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association was honest enough to say that "There were problems with this one". Nice to see somebody who is actually in a position to know firsthand acknowledge that.
ReplyDeleteBeen a strange half a week here in NYC. My friend Jeff was right in what he was saying over on Facebook about how it wasn't right to accuse the city of intentionally withholding services from the outer boroughs, but I also wasn't sure that he understood that it wasn't that the outer boroughs wanted more service - we just wanted any service, period. This was really the polar (ha ha) opposite from a blizzard that didn't happen a couple of years ago - in an excess of caution, they shut down the city the night before & then the blizzard fizzled.
Sometimes it does seem like the city administrators can't win - but what a "win" it would've been if they'd taken the high-caution approach to this one.
To close on an up note, it looks like my subway line is finally running, hooray! A little too late for the morning commute, which took me an hour and a half (double the normal time). My expectations for the evening commute aren't really high, I won't be surprised by glitches & slowness, but I'll be very happy if it's actually a one-train ride to my normal subway stop tonight!
In other local news... the governor of New Jersey was actually out of town (at Disneyworld!) during the emergency so I guess Mayor Mike is a bit better than him.
ReplyDeleteBut Mayor Mike doesn't earn as many points as Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark NJ, who apparently has been using Twitter to clear snow off his city's streets. Now that is a smart use of technology!
Gee, and I thought a shovel was the best thing to use. Is the Twitter off-set so you don't need to bend over so much?
ReplyDeleteCorey Booker is an acquaintance of mine via C. West and an extremely nice guy, BTW.
But I still can't spell his first name.
ReplyDeleteEverybody talks about the weather...
ReplyDelete