Heh, heh. Mayoral politics in NYC is indescribable. It’s like art. Bloomburg, though Republican, is quite liberal. Rudy was classic Republican. Koch won both the Democratic AND the Republican primaries and was thoroughly liberal Democrat.
Try figuring that out.
But for local councils, borough politics, and for state and national elections, Democrats heavily outweigh Republicans.
(Hint: East coast Republicans are a lot more pragmatic [i.e., less ideological] than other Republicans; they’re certainly less right wing evangelical.)
Jeez, Friedo - dabble in stereotypes much? You have the opportunity to comment on an interesting topic and you reduce it to a bad cliche. Your call.
The New Yorker functions on a number of levels - but, simplify for stereotype-loving folks, it can be boiled down to Style and Substance. Yes, the New Yorker attempts (and judging from its reputation and things like this thread, succeeds) to position itself as an elite purveyor of commentary and culture, but (and this is key) with a self-deprecating air. Just look at it’s mascot, the guy on the first cover and the anniversary cover every year - Eustace Tilley, the weenie with the monacle observing the butterfly. Could you want to punch anyone more? The whole point is that the NYer gets that and plays it for humor.
On the substance side - the New Yorker has always gone after subtlety, irony and nuance - tough things to express. There is the classic “New Yorker” story, which takes a small, subtle change in emotion as a person or people move through life and builds the short story around that event and its subtle implications. Defining that type of story has influenced how short stories have been written since the NYer has been around - and has lead to some of the most wonderful stories of the past few decades.
The fact that some people buy it only for its style component, some only for its substance and some for both kinda doesn’t matter…the fact that it does what it does so consistently over the past 70 years is the impressive thing to me.
Heh. I’m an outer-borough person and have been a subscriber since 1993. If you get a good rate it actually costs about 25 bucks a year. And if the advertising people knew my average income they’d have a good laugh.
