Some think write or argue that the US is in decline. Its easy to argue this or the opposite and we surely can never know, but the US is still easily the richest most powerful, most dominant nation in the world today. Its really not even close and anyone who doesn’t admit this is just well not really being honest.  Will the US be the worlds richest, most powerful, most dominant country five years from now. Its hard to see why not.  Ten years from now. Also, hard to see why not. Twenty years from now, well I guess we can begin to wonder a bit. Will our education system learn how to correct itself?  For the nay sayers and the doubters I say yes it will, more on that later. Our educational system has already been forced started to ask some tough questions and even answer some of them. Hooray for that. Lets keep it going.  Are we beginning to answer some of the tough questions about our environment and our fossil fuel reliant energy system? Yes and while many would say its too late, we are too late. Newsflash. Democracies are always late even almost too late. Why? Because people are busy enjoying their freedom as they should, but when the troops truly need to be mustered, the power of the unified forces of freedom as opposed to the forced, imposed ones of tyranny and authoritarianism, should never be underestimated. Freedom fights almost always lose the first few battles or even more, but in the end, we have seen what happens in history with those who doubt American power.

Will we be able to pay off our debt? Talk about one of the most over-hyped issues ever. It goes something like this. If we keep going into debt at the current rate blah blah blah than in god knows how many years, not five or ten, but maybe twenty or thirty years later, maybe just maybe our children and their children will be in such dire straights that they might not be able to enjoy the same standard of living as we do. The one with abundant clean water, umilited fresh air, flowing food from farm to grocery store, freedom of the press, religion assembly, access to loca state and national parks, access to unfettered information and the like - the envy of the world. Do we really think our children and their children won’t have these things? Really. Or is it just another scare tactic for those who have it better than 99% of folks in human history but they want more for themselves and others now because my God their lives really aren’t good enough?  Please. Spare me. Ok.  

China a challenge to US hegemony, really? I doubt that, but we have to be careful, think carefully and act to improve our selves and our country a little bit everyday. Adjust our education system so that everyone can learn more, and we all can learn to be better versions of ourselves. All of us can do this  -  in our homes - with our friends and families, at work  - improving our knowledge skills and productivity, and in our communities - participating in civic life, faith groups and yeah even cheering at the occasional game or concert.

So the crisis that we hear shouted from the rooftops everyday by media, is in some ways an attempt to addict us to messages that can help us buy stuff or pay attention to stuff we don’t need to live happy meaningful productive lives. Try to resist it, at least sometimes. We’ll all be better for it, even companies and the markets - because they will have to learn to be more innovative, more creative in their attempts to earn our dollars.  Instead of a new phone with useless gadgets or a new box of cereal with the same contents, let us all push capitalism to its most creative by stop buying nonsense. Then we will unleash a level of innovation the world has never seen. Products - good and services, will be created in America in the future that genuinely merit higher prices not as I will mention below in my another section seen below.

While I feel I can make statements about the in a class by itself qualities of the US and New York City, that are hard to challenge, its harder to make such statements about New York State, unless I incorporate New York City into New York State which I can and I will because its true.  New York State outside of New York CIty and the New York metropolitan area have wonderful things, fantastic places and remarkable people, but all other states do too. Is Niagara Falls for example, on an entirely different plane from the many incredible natural wonders in our country. I think that is debatable.  New York City’s presence within New York State, however, put New York on a plane that I think no another state can match..

Those who think that California or Florida or Texas are the states of the future, we’ll see about that.  Already I see folks leaving California for Texas or other places because of the “crowds”, and folks are beginning to leave Florida for other places to escape the summer heat, and while many are leaving New York City to go south for the sun, to the suburbs to escape the “crime,” many more from all over the world continue to come to New York City as a if not the primary destination for world culture, for the start of their American journey or just to enjoy the Big Apple.

However, I do wish to bring attention - to highlight if you will - my second most favorite place in New York State, and one I wish more New York City Metropolitan area folks would visit and learn to cherish as I do.  I think it is one of the most glorious places I have ever been in the world and a place that adds to New York State’s list of treasures to make it one of the greatest places on earth. This place is called the Adirondacks. For those who have never been, I suggest you put it on your list and get there right away. For those who have been and wish others not to go, sorry, but there is room enough for all us.  The Adirondacks are a a unique set of mountains distinct and unrelated as far as I know to the Appalachian range that runs on our nations eastern side from north to south. This is a story for the geologists and the physical geographers to tell and share, not me.  For me the Adirondacks combine a pure sense of nature, - the wild -  with just enough human civilization - in a remarkable public private partnership that can and should serve as a model for other public private partnerships that we should and can develop. Public private partnerships like, yup, you got it ObamaBiden Care  I wonder if those who created the Adirondacks Park ever worked with those who work with our public private health care system. Those who wish us to have a single payer system. Im sorry I just dont think that corresponds with american culture and values. I think it could and would stifle innovation and we don’t want that. I often hear all the talk about how the Scandinavian nations and Canada have such have great health care systems. I doubt too many Americans though there are some for sure, would move to those nations for their health care system. If we can merge the best aspects of public virtue and accountability with those of private sphere and its innovation then, like the Adirondacks, an improved if imperfect combination could be the result. 

The Adirondacks have hundreds, thousands,  tens of thousands of lakes and as CN knows, I’m a lake lover. I didn’t always know or realize that many of us - almost all of us - are lake lovers. While I have not been to the Smoky Mountains recently if ever (its on my list ok S and Z),  I’d venture to bet that the less famous but honestly, colder Adirondacks provide an equal if not superior experience to the most famous centrally located Applacahians of Tennessee and NOrth Carolina. Go visit the Adirondacks. It is a magical place unlike any other I have ever visited.  It should be on the list not just of every New Yorker who can get there, but on the list of those who come to The Big Apple from elsewhere and want to see what a full life lived in New York could really look, feel and be like.

What a glorious place New York State is. 

Ah the Big Apple where heaven and hell seem to exist and meet us everyday, if not every hour. For those who call themselves New Yorkers in the NYC sense, it is hard not to love and hate our city almost everyday.  To wish we were out of it is only really possible in our deep hearts because we know it is here for us to come back to. For those who don;t feel NYC in their heart, and that is ok - Gotham is certainly not for everyone - there is simply no other place on earth quite like it. I have spent much time in some of the biggest, greatest cities in Asia. China (Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong) has many of them all by itself. I’ve also spent time in Bangkok, Jakarta, New Delhi, and these are awesome places with multitudes of people eating working playing loving singing dancing producing - living  They are undoubtedly global urban treasures full of life history culture and the like.  They are generally larger than New York with more street food and arguably better food (sorry westerners but come on its true) than the cities of the global west: New York, London, Paris, but New York City has a vibrancy and a sense of space, yes peaceful space, that no other city has.  Central Park is not a great park because it is more beautiful than any other. It is a great park because people from every corner of the globe can share it together in a way that no other global park offers. To stroll or play in Central Park gives you the feeling that yes for a moment or an hour or longer, if you are lucky enough, you can feel like you are truly at the center of the world and believe it or not, feel that in a peaceful way. It is a feeling you can find, that I can find, in no other park, anywhere ever. Its probably why John Lenoon chose to live next to it as many others with sufficient means choose to do.

For those who feel that New York City is past its peak I dare say you are wrong, flat out wrong. I think one reason some New Yorkers or some former NYC dwellers don’t realize the best of NYC is yet to come is because those folks haven't been to the new New York City and the new New York City is different. Its not where the old NYC was.  Manhattan is not really the center of New York City anymore.  Today the center of New York City is in Brooklyn and Queens and ever dare I say it the Bronx. Take a look at the new skyline of New York City. It begins to resemble Shanghai. Towers in Brooklyn, riverside parks from Brooklyn to Queens,  Long Island City, the new Beijing, for wealthy Asians, Astoria’s Hallets Point towers which will forever change the view of those visiting New York for the fist time, begin their cross into Manhattan or Queens or Brooklyn from the Major Deegan (87) if they didn’t crash feeling awestruck and confused at theTowers rising in the Bronx which makes them ask, “Is this the Bronx?” .New York is not dead by any means. The pandemic and its rearranging force will change New York City until a different kind of NYC takes its place,but it will still be NYC. I have no doubt about that. The towers of Manhattan that used to use physical space for offices in a technological age kind of waste of space, that frankly I never really understood, will become more efficient as people work from home more and more. But the human desire to be near people to live near others - to chat with them, play with them, eat and drink with them, share concerts theater and sporting events with them are not going anywhere. Bet against the US or NYC, you will lose, right MB?

Ironically I’ve saved this section for last, well almost for last because I realized last night that I need to write a bit more before this is all ready to go public and see what happens.

Westchester County New York is the place I know most in a way, but not really the place I identify with. Its a place some people think has the best of all possible worlds. Maybe. 

Westchester county is a northern suburb of NYC, it stretches northward from the northern Bronx about 1 hour by car to its northern the border at Putnam country near to the place where I was raised in Yorktown, NY. I lived in Yorktown for the vast majority of childhood. My folks brought my brother and from an apartment in Yonkers where we were all living until I was about 3 or so. I don’t remember, hehe. My folks were, as I’ve been told, one of the last white Jewish families to leave their apartment complex in Yonkers. They told me when I got older that they didn;t want to  leave, but just felt they couldn’t stay their on their one as one white Jewish family among many other non white non Jewish families. 

Yorktown was a nice place to be a kid, but when I hit my teens, I felt, well, terrible there. I hated it. It just didn’t have any NYC style cultural sense or affiliation that other Westchester County suburbs had as I was to learn as I grew up. Maybe this made it cheaper for my folks when they decided to leave Yonkers and was the primary reason my parents could afford it. They planned to drive to work everyday and didn’t realize how limiting Yorktown would be for me while I was growing up and was still unable to drive until my late teens.  For those in southern, north western or even north eastern Westchester County, the existence of a commuter train line to NYC - which Yorktown does not have - made Yorktown feel like a place for New Yorkers who wanted as little to do with New York City and its cultural influence as possible but take advantage of employment opportunities that being new New York City afforded.  I hated my schools, hated them terribly and hoped maybe even prayed that life would be better after I left Yorktown and went to SUNY Binghamton to start my post Yorktown life. I have almost no connection to Yorktown today except for a few friends and neighbors who remain there.

Southern Westchester, the district where I am running, New York’s 16th congressional district is home to some of the richest most famous most successful people in the world. This is not an understatement.  I know the names of a few but since my writing/ website has probably already created more than a few enemies I wont out any of them. Well two I think most already know right B&H or is it H&B? Please forgive me.

Westchester has rolling hills which are nice, but this does not make Westchester what is is. Westchester has arguably some of the best public schools in the nation, but again this is not what makes Westchester what is is. What makes southern Westchester what it is, is its suburban location to Manhattan. Each and every day,particularly from Monday through Friday,  some of the most educated, most creative, most talented, most ambitious people in the world, wake up, and take Metro North into Manhattan and work to change the world - each in his or her own way. Westchesterites are probably some of the most highly educated, globally sophisticated, world renowned people on the face of the earth.  Are all Westchesterians like this of course not? there are always people who live “on the other side of the track.” Folks who -  take care of the children of the wealthy including teaching the children of the wealthy - and I can assure you that I have and will not forget any of the other side of the track people anywhere.

These highly cultured, highly influential Westchesterians I believe will hear my message. They are liberal to moderate in their politics in the truest sense of the word. They are not conservative or should I say they do not want to be conservative. They can and will become conservative if they feel they must and I believe this is what is happening now. Southern Westchesterians inadvertently elected an extreme leftists who does not really represent them and a change will take place I believe this April I believe. The ship will be rigged and a Democrat of a more moderate to liberal not leftist progressive will be elected to run against a conservative Republican.  For this reason, and not to my surprise, the former Westchester County Executive a decent, experienced liberal to moderate politician just entered the race. My hope however is that the folks of southern Westchester will want more than just a seasoned, experienced Democratic liberal politician. That is, given the chance, they will want someone else, a fresh face on the political scene - a person, a candidate they can feel really proud to send to Washington DC, someone who is kind and caring, responsible and decent, dedicated and hardworking who values America and its freedom and constitutional democracy, but who wants America to be a better version of herself - a more just, more compassionate, more creative, more generous America. This is why I am running for New Yoork’s 16th Congressional seat

If  can get this message my message out to the people of southern Westchester, I believe the words I’m sharing here and plan to share over the coming months, as outlandish as some of them might appear, I could be just the type of person, NY 16th DC wants as their leader.