Ah...well, will you guys accept an apology from one constituent who was born, raised, educated and worked until age 29 in flyover country? Explaining my background so you know I might understand what is going on here, on both sides.

I just went and checked Chuck's bio on google to be sure, and it's just as I suspected, the main reason for this gaff that sounds so arrogant and clueless: he's a native New Yorker, a Brooklyn boy who ventured afar to Hah-vahd, and then also a little time in out in "the other world": Albany (state capitol) before spending much time on the dc/nyc shuttle.

Trust me, he didn't mean any disrespect--he's just clueless. He really does value all other types of Americans, it's just that they are so, um, foreign.

;-)

I haven't had a chance to read up on what happened, but I noticed that Mayor Bloomberg's spittin' mad, I caught some of the things he's been saying on local news, he's been saying some pretty outrageous things, too, and he's not at all the "native New Yorker" type, usually the soul of discretion....there's been some serious cuts or suggestion of them? Schuumer's obviously fighting like a tomcat to get us as much money as possible, which I have seen him do before, he gets like a street fighter, it's a very NY type thing. It's really one of the main reasons why New Yorkers are so disliked elsewhere in the country, but you know, those types, they don't care, you have to accept them like that, or not. It's not really elitism, but it is an arrogance born of confidence from having to fight for space, recognition, respect, in a very crowded environment from a young age.

I know Schumer is behaving like the stereotypical New Yorker stereotyping other states as less important. That was my point.

I'm not faulting him for fighting for New York. That's his job. But he could do that without alienating people in other states.

...

Those are not prime targets. The World Trade Center, Statue of Liberty, U.N and Empire State Building are.

The Carter Center?

Seriously?

We all think our hometowns are special, but I find it hard to accept the argument that the Carter Center or CNN's TV studios are more well-known and more sought-after targets than the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty.

Question: have a lot of terrorists been captured with blueprints and photos of any of Atlanta's "targets"?

artappraiser's right -- we NYCers can be smug sonofabitches. But in this case I think we have a reason...

I do agree with you that Schumer's "peanut farmer" comment was stupid.

Have questions about the Cafe? Try here.

Ever hear of . . . the School of the Americas?

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys.

Do you honestly think he couldn't have made his case without dissing another state?

You know that this is the reason I laugh when some dems get all upset about the prospect of Guiliani running for president, and when I hear from dem relatives in flyover country that they like Guiliani? Guiliani is THE stereotype, Schumer here is doing a poor imitation. (The kinder gentler 9/11 Guiliani is some "good daddy" character he dug up from some depths of his soul out of shock, it's not the genuine article.) Unless he got a permanent personality transplant, I think most of America would be in for a big surprise-- give him a week at campaigning with a bus full of press, and he'd be insulting huge swaths of people every day, refusing to apologize because: he's always right and everyone who disagrees with him is not only always wrong, they're not important: Diplomacy? What's that? Fuggeaboutit! You want truth, you can't handle the truth!

This is why New Yorker's are often said to be poor candidates for national office--I sometimes saw a little bit of it in Howard Dean, which was lauded by some as "feistiness."

BTW, I think you were very right to point this out, to show how it was played in your area, alert the leadership, as it were. I myself just plain found it interesting to hear about. I don't have a great hopes that it will make classic NY type politicians think twice about how they end up unintentionally (and sometimes intentionally) dissing flyover country (and other countries, for that matter!) on the national stage, but it's always worth a try.

On the issue itself, I've read more about it now, today's NYTimes article makes it pretty clear to me that it's mainly just another ridiculous Bush FEMA type thing, with a little dissing of New York thrown in ala Gerald Ford's "drop dead." Which makes Schumer's tactics as cited by you seem all the more wrong-headed, mho...he should be looking for "Bush is picking on us over ridculous stuff" sympathy from the rest of the country, not complaining that others got pay raises while NY was the only one that deserved one.

As for the mini-debate going on on this thread about importance of landmarks as terrorist targets, I myself see it as sort of irrelevant, getting into things that aren't that applicable. The main point to me is that the tiny crowded isle of Manhattan (not the whole of NYC, which is much more like the rest of the country) with its teeming masses crowding in every day with the U.N. and the stock exchange (and the hated by many "Wall Street" now scattered throughout), all kinds of VIP's mixed into crowds everywhere, tons of foreigners visiting everyday, controversial consulates and controversial organizations scattered everywhere, Hollywood celebs just walking down the street, befuddled tourists from across the U.S. gawking at the skyscrapers, the most skyscrapers per square inch than anywhere else in the country, with its subways and many other things atypical to the rest of the country, is very expensive and difficult to keep secure. It really is the country's international capital just as D.C. is the national capital. Extra money is needed for Manhattan protection just for that reason--what happens there every day affects not just the whole country but the whole world. All Americans should be proud in front of the world that it has such a low crime rate now and that there have been no successful attacks since 9/11....just as it was an embarassment for all Americans when it was such a dangerous armpit a few decades back. The whole of Manhattan is the main important terrorist target and the whole of Manhattan is an important American "landmark" as it were.

Sounds like you really do heart NY.;-)

Maybe so, I certainly complain about it much more than is traditional bitching of your average native.

I think it actually helps many people learn to like New York to get out of Manhattan. Manhattan is the nice to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there! Not without $20 million a year. It's a very strange place to live. I moved to the Bronx over 10 yrs. ago, but hung on to a rent-controlled studio in Manhattan until last year. I finally let it go, I am free. A wise Floridian friend said to me when I actually lived there and got ensnared in Woody Allen anxiety mode: you have to get away from all this crushing verticality, you need a horizon--Manhattan if you never get out is like a prison of the mind at times.

Back to topic for a sec: it's actually part of the security problem in that the majority of people filling Manhattan each day are visitors. Not to mention that all have to go in a tunnel or over a bridge to get there. Everyone welcome except terrorists! Well, terrorists are welcome too as long as they don't practice their occupation while visiting!

Atlanta was destroyed once. Remember Sherman burned it to the ground. It has long used a phoenix as a symbol and Resurgens as a motto. Now its back, bigger and better than ever.

Funny you should mention that, and not because I am a big "Gone with The Wind" fan. Personally, I was thinking the other day that a comment like this was desperately needed over on some of Boyd Blundell's threads. I sense that the lovers of New Orleans have not been able to have a necessary mourning process and their decisions and hopes are being skewed by that. New Yorker's got theirs for just losing the tip of their island, and it helped, thought probably as they are used to change, embrace change as part of the culture, it was easier for them. Just like clones do not really replace a living thing that changes with growth and its environment over time, there's no way they can have back the lost parts of New Orleans back as they were, there are no time machines, they are gone, living things like cities just don't work that way. Strikes me as many are still thinking "we can have it back," it's very sad, they need to mourn, before deciding what the "new new orleans" will be.

P.S. I've been to Atlanta twice last couple of years (that's not counting the delightful memorable times spent in your airport on layover as so many of us going SW have) to do work for a client in their home, dld have a chance to drive around neighborhoods and explore--didn't bother with landmarks or sights, I often prefer not to except to drive past--like to get a sense of a whole city. Liked it a lot....but that main highway loop of yours....is much worse than the d.c. beltway. :-)