A September Potpourri
Hurting businesses on Second Avenue; Sept. 11; and Rosh Hashanah
By Bette Dewing
Yup, a New York Times review’s claim that no one’s sensibilities would be offended by Eat Pray Love actually got me out to the movies. Except for a few offending words, I left the theater with a glow which made East 86th Street’s maddening crowds seem almost friendly. Do you ever miss the going-to-the-movie experience where your sensibilities weren’t offended and earplugs and deep pockets weren’t needed? Read more
Harsher Penalties in Traffic Crimes
There must be zero tolerance in hit-and-runs like the one that killed Michael Ward
By Bette Dewing
“We need as much to be reminded as informed,” Dr. Samuel Johnson so rightly opined.
An August 5 Our Town letter about the death of Michael Ward, who was killed in a hit-and-run on the East Side, needs repeated informing of the desperate—but slighted—need to prevent what we need to call traffic tragedies, not accidents. Read more
Weddings, Family and Heat Waves
Our culture’s hyper-individualism is harming us all
By Bette Dewing
Weddings—ah, but what’s needed is a great revival of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s wedding message to Diana and Charles; it applies to our culture’s hyper-individualism too:
“Any marriage which is turned in upon itself, in which the bride and groom gaze obsessively at one another, goes sour after a time. A marriage which really works is one which works for others: marriage has both a private and a public face and a public importance. If we solved all our economic problems and failed to build loving families, it would profit us nothing, because the family is the place where the future is created good and full of love—or deformed.” Read more
The Scourge of Alzheimer’s
Finding a cure for that most insidious disease
By Bette Dewing
Why am I crying, I wondered, as I read Juliet Macur’s New York Times story, “Sensing His Own Mortality,” about George Steinbrenner.
More important to me than the avalanche coverage given Yankee baseball owner George Steinbrenner’s dying was how at 74, he spoke “with candor about regrets, death and family, how old age really stinks… and his fear of dying.” He cried several times, which also made the young reporter quite teary. Read more
Recalling the Greatest Generation
A book and some flags to bring us together
By Bette Dewing
Happy birthday America?
“Well, I didn’t see one flag displayed this Memorial Day on the Upper East Side,” said East End Avenue doorman Bob McNicol, frowning. “In Queens, Far Rockaway and other much more diverse places, flags are everywhere! After all, there’s a war on!” Read more
Mayoral Attention for Crimes of Traffic
Yield to pedestrians, stop speeding and support mass transit for safer streets
By Bette Dewing
Just before the mayor’s weekly John Gambling WOR radio show, I heard the following public service announcement: “Parking violations violate the rights of disabled persons. Call 311 to report.” But where are the warnings to drivers and cyclists against their moving violations, which take lives and physically injure and emotionally stress even traffic law-observant pedestrians? Read more
Let’s Get Outraged
Without a high-emotion response, the most pressing problems go unsolved
By Bette Dewing
While I can hardly bear to think of the catastrophic Gulf oil spill, the president is wrong to say, “I’m hired to solve problems, not to show outrage.” Outrage is often essential to problem solving, including the following four. Read more
More About Mothers
Betty White, Bette Davis and Memorial Day 2010
By Bette Dewing
Because columns, like exercise, diet and relationships, need continuity, here’s an update on the Share the Talk Club (“so nobody is left out,” remember?). It’s now my answering machine message, “and a little bell will ring to tell us we’re saying too much or too little.” Oh well, who needs those callers. Read more
Share the Talk Club
Let’s discuss safe traveling and co-op and condo home transparency
By Bette Dewing
“If you see something, say something,” has long been my mantra, got me writing this column and countless letters to editors, and using 311 a lot (often about good or bad bus drivers). But speaking in public or in groups is forever a problem. I am shy, an introvert, which those who rule the world—“the talk”—mostly are not. Read more
Pick Up That Phone
Overcoming the everyday social barriers that keep generations apart
By Bette Dewing
Here’s to more true public service messages, like this pre-cell-phone-explosion public phone booth Mother’s Day ad. Cell phones make it less physically “troubling” to pick up the phone, and most will be picked up on Mother’s Day, Sunday, May 9, to call you-know-who. But is there the follow-up to make the everyday difference that counts? And will talks be more about the weather than, heaven forbid, overcoming any one-sided sharing? Read more
