A Kennedyless Senate in the near future? Not if my state has anything to say about it.

I hadn't imagined that moving to New York might put me on the cusp of being indirectly part of the Kennedy dynasty. Exciting stuff.

With all the talk of war and the economy, sometimes the most dire situation facing our nation gets overlooked. As Sen. Ted Kennedy gets older and his health wanes, the U.S. faces the grim spectre of a Kennedyless Senate.

You heard right, a Kennedyless Senate. It's been 56 years since America suffered such grim, grim days (except a brief period when JFK was pres and Teddy was too young to claim his hand-me-down spot, yet).

Luckily, it looks like New York's favorite celebrity carpetbagger legislator, Hillary Clinton, is heading back to Washington. Maybe her and Bill can now save a little money by not paying for their fake residence here in the Empire State that kept her eligible for the position.

With that free spot, Gov. David Paterson has the unique opportunity to rescue the country from the impending Senatorial quandary. All signs seem to be pointing to Caroline Kennedy. (At least she's a New Yorker, so she's got Hillary beaten on that front.)

Unfortunately, there are some troublemakers out there who feel that Senate seats should be given based on qualifications rather than famous last names... thankfully though, those naysayers will likely be overruled.

Oddly enough, Caroline Kennedy hasn't really shown much interest in holding any public office until now. Maybe she accidentally killed someone like her Uncle Teddy (and chose not to seek out aid) and needs to have that Senate immunity that helped him out back then...

On the bright side, at least our Senate replacement process here is just plain stupid (but not surprising), whereas Illinois' process is stupid, corrupt, dirty and just plain illegal (but alas, also not surprising).

I do love American politics.

Side note on the Illinois Senator issues... recent news of Gov. Blagojevich's wife and her potential involvement spawned one of my new favorite Post headlines... "She's One Nasty Blagoje-Bitch" Stay classy Post, stay classy.

I can vote here now... hooray?

I got another sign that I'm officially becoming a part of the city... I got word in the mail today that the New York City Board of Elections has processed my voter registration.

It tells me the districts I'm in for different elections, city council, state assembly , etc... all that fun stuff, but it doesn't tell me any candidates or anything.

I guess I'm not too surprised that they didn't send like a sample ballot, but it sure would have been nice. They don't even really have anything online telling me who is running for any positions I'll be voting on.

I've been looking around, and I've barely been able to find out even who is filling the positions right now... craziness. From what I can tell, it looks like most of my reps have been parked in there seats for a pretty long time and/or show no signs of going anywhere...

Here's a quick look at the motley crew that allegedly represents me and my interests, or something like that...

My Congressman - Charlie Rangel - A lot of you may have actually heard of and/or recognize Rangel. He was first elected to "represent" Harlem and my nearby neighborhood in 1970 and is a pretty, shall we say, outgoing politician and his name gets out a lot. Also, he finds himself pretty regularly caught up in scandal after scandal...

My State Assemblyman - Herman D. Farrell, Jr. - Like with Rangel, it always provides a special comfort knowing that someone has been parked in the same political positions since long before I was born. I'm not a big proponent of term limits, but wow, 34 years in Albany? That's probably long enough to spoil someone who even started with the best of intentions. It probably doesn't matter since it's not too likely anyone else is running for the seat anyway...

My City Councilman - Robert Jackson - Seems normal enough I guess. I'll have to see who, if anyone else, is in this race.

My State Senator - Eric T. Schneiderman - I like how if you go to the bottom of the biography you can see how he just barely kept his seat in the 2006 election by beating the Republican challenger 51,202 votes to 4,270. Talk about a nailbiter.

Neither of my U.S. Senate seats are up for election this time around... though as I understand it neither Chuck Schumer nor queen carpetbagger Hillary Clinton are in too much danger of losing their seats anytime soon.

I'm already pretty jaded on politics in general, since it really tends to be about the slimiest thing there is, but realizing that my votes are likely pointless even in the more local races is just icing on the cake. Thinking about the overall sliminess reminds me of one of my favorite Reagan quotes:

"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first."

Don't worry, I'll of course still end up voting anyway though...

Heck there are still other citywide races that I understand are pretty heated that I need to look into. They may actually prove interesting to research, things like comptroller and such.

Hopefully as I look more into the local races I'll find some of the more obscure races to look into. Like when I was in Kentucky I got to vote on the county coroner (and even covered the public debate between the two coroner candidates, which was definitely interesting to say the least... the newcomer accused the longtime coroner of directing more than a fair share of the indigent bodies to the funeral home he owned... weird, scandalous stuff)

Unfortunately though it's getting late, so that kind of in-depth research will have to come some other time...

Mayor... Weiner?

One of the front-runners for New York City's mayoral race is Rep. Anthony Weiner, and since I have the sense of humor of a child, I think that's hilarious.

Despite, in theory, having a job to do in the House of Representatives, he's been actively gunning for the office since at least before I got here... out campaigning like crazy. At first it was for himself and Hillary Clinton, but once she dropped out, he focused solely on the mayorship.

I've been chuckling to myself every time I see a story about him campaigning in one of the papers.

I can only imagine the fun the New York Post would have if he was mayor.

After all, they brought us such masterpiece headlines as "Ho-Broken!" (about a rich New Jersey guy cheating on his wife with the hooker that brought down
Gov. Spitzer) and "Peking Yuck" (about the poor air quality at the Olympics).

Heck, the Post calls Mayor Bloomberg "Bloomie" in a lot of their headlines, I wonder if they would they call Weiner "Weenie"...? I know, I'm a third-grader at heart.

Plus, as a bonus, if you want to keep up to date on his doings you can sign up for the "Weiner Report." Seriously? For all I know, that sight might be blocked at work.

He campaigns in a "mobile office" that he calls the "Weinermobile." (I didn't make that up.) In reality, it's an SUV with a sticker/magnet on the side that he calls a mobile office so he can get away with illegally parking where ever he wants... but whatever I guess.

If he campaigned in a real weinermobile, I would totally vote for him... well, not really, but I would joke about it at least.

I guess it could be worse for him...

"The people of America have spoken, and they're saying they want four more years of Douchebag!"

I had fun this weekend, but it looks like I missed out on some Central Park fun...

So I had originally planned to go to Central Park a couple times this weekend to jog and explore, but instead I got lazy and mostly drank the weekend away... which was tons of fun, but apparently I missed topless day at Central Park! (NSFW)

I really did have plans to spend most of the weekend exploring the park and getting familiar with it... oh well. Win some, lose some I guess. It would have been the perfect excuse to be gross and jog topless too. Maybe it's best that I didn't end up at topless day... as things like that have ended poorly in the past.

As has become normal when I've been lazy and not posting too often, I'll do bullets...

* Friday night I went barhopping around Columbia, which is in the Upper West Side (just not nearly as "way upper" as where I am. It was interesting, and I swear the couple next to me at the first bar was a professor and a student. It was an old WASPy looking dude and a 19-year-old looking Asian girl. That was totally a "Law and Order: SVU" episode waiting to happen.

* Saturday was the Upper East Side with MM. We went to this piano bar where we ran into an uber-celebrity! He's so huge... I didn't even know who he was. That's a whole new strata of celebritude. It was Doug Wilson! Yeah, THE Doug Wilson.

Apparently he's on "Trading Spaces" on TLC.

I would have had no idea who he was, except another guy at the bar excitedly asked me "Is that Doug Wilson from 'Trading Spaces' over there!"

I think I said something to the effect of "I have no idea, but I bet he knows, let me ask..."

He was a friendly guy, I think he was a regular there.

* Another bar we went to was kind of interesting... as soon as I walked in the guy who had been playing the bongo drum grabbed me and sat me down at the bongo and said "play." Play I did, just some sort of random beat that hopefully had something to do with the beat (though most likely not... the night was well underway at that point).

I must have been really loud though, because my fingers are like bruised... weird. They also had a hula-hoop competition... I did not win. I know, you're shocked.

I chatted up the owners for a bit, asking them where they recommend in Chinatown... turns out they were from Taiwan and loathe Chinatown - oops. Again, win some, lose some, right?

* Then we went to a new bar and watched the men's basketball gold medal match... while closer than it should have been, we still dominated. The only takeaway from the game is that Pao Gasol is a complete beeyatch. Word.

* I really should start carrying my camera around... but I've said that before. This weekend I heard "Beat It" blaring at the subway station and a big crowd had gathered, so I check it out and sure enough there's midget dressed up in full MJ garb, with the white glove and everything moonwalking around the station.


It was basically the same as this clip, except a midget in that outfit, and fewer people, and just a boombox, and no spotlights or special effects, and it probably smelled worse, and... well, the only things that were the same were the outfit and the creepy factor.
* The other strange sight was a man walking near Chinatown around lunchtime today wearing a sandwich sign covered in too many words to possibly make any sense, like "Bloomberg," "school," "Child-torture" and about thirty other random words. He kept hitting a cowbell and chanting "Arrest Bloomberg. Arrest Bloomberg." That's the mayor, Michael Bloomberg in case you're wondering. I bet the weirdo would be none too pleased if Bloomie successfully beat the city's term limits and got re-elected.