I went to the Y2K Community Conversion in NYC and was blinded by the light. All is well. The tinfoil has fallen from my head and I am grateful for my new Polly(the)ism.

I suppose you all might want a serious report. It was interesting. A lot of thought has gone into the problems involved. As to whether there is remediation, that remains to be seen. Call me an agnostic who won't be here to see this thing through.

According to all the brass who outnumbered the rest of the audience--not really, but almost--nothing is going to go wrong, but if it does, they have contingency plans.

Actually, the room was three-qiarters full--so maybe about 220 people or so and many of those were affiliated with some agency or other official interest.

pshannon was there and maybe we can read about this tomorrow in Sangers.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), September 08, 1999

Answers

Mara,

Just curious...how many times during the Community Conversation in NYC did you hear this sound bite from the January 1999 State of The Union speech:

But I want all the folks at home listening to this to know that we need every state and local government, every business large and small to work with us to make sure that this Y2K computer bug will be remembered as the last headache of the 20th century, not the first crisis of the 21st.

I heard it not once, not twice, but three times at a Community Conversation in June.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), September 08, 1999.

Mara,

You can't be serious - you actually believe that snowjob? Who were these "brass" you are referring to? Are they running for re-election? How do they explain the report that the Navy documented, saying that NYC was in deep doo-doo. If I was in NYC with barely 100 days to go I'd be looking for good news too ... or I would get the hell out of NY.

-- @ (@@@.@), September 08, 1999.

Kiss Bill for us if you see him in the oval office and commend him for setting a good example for all "officials". We certainly can trust all of them to tell us the truth. Isn't it refreshing? No conspiracy, no lies, no cover-ups....I'm free, I'm free! Ollie North for President!

Oh, and one more thing. Since Saudi Arabia is only 50% remediated with plenty of time to spare, be a dear and have the BRASS send some of their little techie boys over there for these next 16 weeks to work so I won't run out of fossil juice, k?

Wave to us on tv from Times Square.

-- karen (karen@karen.karen), September 08, 1999.

Linkmeister, they have a little introductory film that makes you want to stand up and yell "Hallaluyah" (which I can't spell, but I could shout). In that, Clinton gives us that smarmy homily, rephrased to be totally reassuring. A woman from NPR asked Koskinen why he thought anyone would believe all those happy faces in the film; it was a real slimey piece.

Anyway, now that I've thought it over, I believe that most of the questions related to what was being done for special populations. I personally asked about the elderly. Others asked about the poor, the Latinos, and even the deaf. Of course there's information, if you can call it that, available for all these groups--in many languages, etc. They simply have thought it too early to get the information out, which they intend to do in October.

@--was I serious? Honestly I was somewhat relieved to hear that they are working on problems and have contingency plans. At least if the city goes down, they will be fighting all the way. As for me, no, I won't be here. I'll be in Florida, waiting to drown when the polar ice caps to melt.

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), September 08, 1999.

Hi Mara! It was good to see you again. Hey, where'd you disappear to at the end? Polly(the)ism -- I LOVE it!

Yeah, it was a good snowjob. It started with a nice slick video that left one with the impression that a "Bump in the Road" would be a horrible event. Koskinen was there, and I was sitting there through much of the party wondering what school these folks go to learn how to be so slick and verbose when avoiding answering a question. Kosky is cool as a cucumber, and I'm convinced that he was born and bred at Area 51.

Our very own Mara Wayne got the ball rolling with the first question about what the city would do to help the old and infirm if there were disruptions. That's when the slickfest began in earnest. There was a good mix of people asking questions, from Mara Liasson from NPR (two Mara's in one place! Cool!) to Mark Frautschi and Charles Halpern from the Center for Y2K and Society (who, my sister who I went to the meeting with, told me was the Dean of her Law School. Yes, my sister is a lawyer.) Many "regular folks" asked questions as well. I was not satisfied with any of the answers given, although I didn't expect to be. I went to absorb the "gestalt" of the thing.

I waited until Kosky said the magic words "3-day storm" before asking my question -- The local press has not been covering this issue, I found out about the meeting from the Boston Globe. If the people in the city are going to prepare for a "3-day storm", did the city have any plans to "engage" the press to get the word out? (of course I was nervous and it didn't come out that cleanly) The Deputy Mayor said "You mean we don't control the press?" and everybody laughed. The rest was a swirl of rhetorslick, but the gist was that they will send out press releases in October, and after Thanksgiving, do a blitz to get people to buy a few cans of soup. You know the deal.

All I can say in retrospect is that if programmers etc. have treated their remediation projects the way this group of jokers treated the public at this meeting, we are, indeed, toast...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), September 08, 1999.

Mara

Love your coining of the word polly(the)ism. It is a new religion. Koskinen is its high priest. It has its prophets and evangelists and pastors. What it doesn't have is a tax-exempt #. It also has no promise of life. Reminds me of the Shakers in that regard.

-- BB (peace2u@bellatlantic.net), September 08, 1999.

pshannon,

Thanks for that first-hand report, it's closer to real than anything channeled through the media.

"the gist was that they will send out press releases in October, and after Thanksgiving"

I'm sure our friend Richard Grasso over at the New York Stock Exchange will do his very best to delay this as long as possible to ride the market highs a few more weeks.

-- @ (@@@.@), September 09, 1999.

thanks Mara : )

oh, and ps, Kosky is cool as a cucumber, and I'm convinced that he was born and bred at Area 51.

I KNEW ALIENS WERE INVOLVED!!!: )

Mike

===================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), September 09, 1999.

@--I saw Grasso and some other securities people on CSPAN last night-- that was total pap--scary!

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), September 09, 1999.

LOL!

Polly(the)ism meets Aliens-R-Us... what a Y2K movie that would make!

Thanks for the update Mara and pshannon!

Gawd! We MUST be in deep doo-doo, if they go to this much trouble for a 3-day "winter storm!"

*Big Sigh*

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), September 09, 1999.

BTW, as a counterpoint... for the local community results of Koskys 3-day storm... read...

Napa Valley Y2K... Community Preparedness & The Local Level Disconnect (CivicPrep List)

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 001NCd

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), September 09, 1999.

See also... related thread...

Okay, Everybody!: "IIIII'll Leave New Yoooooork". recent Audits and hearings on NYC Y2K sitchiation

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 001NYg

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), September 09, 1999.

The New York Times printed a piece about last night's "Conversation." I couldn't find it on their website however. Also, the other 3 local papers that I checked today made no reference to it. (Post, Daily News and Newsday.) The only web reference that I found was the MSNBC piece, mentioned on the other thread that Diane just liked to. I talked to the AP reporter who I'm sure wrote that piece, and gave her my business card. I hope she calls me. She was cute ;-)

So, unless there is coverage on this tomorrow, the point that I made about the local press not treating this issue seriously still stands. I don't watch TV, so I don't know about that. There were a few cameras there, although other than channel 41, which is a spanish language station, I couldn't tell if they were from the local TV news or not.

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), September 09, 1999.