Zeroes, Neros, and Heroes

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On the front page of today's New York Times is an article titled "As Zero Hour Approaches, New York wonders 'What If?'" The article, continuing on page B6, occupied over a page as it told of the city's efforts and expenditures to be prepared for the Year 2000. Nowhere in the article did the tag 'Y2K' appear--always 'the Year 2000.' There was not a single mocking phrase, just a deadpan appraisal of what might transpire, and counter-efforts. The city is sending out 1.5 million fliers, advising people who will be at home to have 'food provisions and water.' No mention of how much. The city has 50,000 boxed self-heating servings of beef and mushrooms, a fleet of truck-mounted generators to provide power to "any high-rise that might lose power," on and on. ConEdison has run multiple tests, setting their computers forward to 2000, without a hitch. The City Manager repeated a phrase pregnant with possibilities--"we walk a fine line between panicking people and getting them to prepare." Given the tone of the article, one comes away wondering just what the Mayor's office has been told. And New York seems better prepared than many cities. Contrasted with Clinton's breezy dismissal, this level of concern speaks volumes: everything is NOT fixed. We ARE expecting problems, including loss of power. I hope this centerpiece article in the Times sets the tone for every media outlet in the nation: cease the belittling, and tell people to prepare.

-- Spidey (free@last.Amen), November 27, 1999

Answers

I was fairly impressed with the article, and wish it had come out a year earlier.

I'm still digesting it, and trying to read between the lines to see if there are any significant things that it does NOT say. I do recall some earlier reports, during the past year, indicating that a lot of mission-critical stuff had not been done as of the spring, summer, or fall ... which leads me to believe that if they are now "all done," they may not have done very thorough testing of all their systems. Actually, the article doesn't really say whether ALL of the systems are fixed, or just the mission-critical stuff. And while it does give the overall impression that the various agencies and city managers have done a good, solid job, there is no mention of independent testing or audits. At one point, the state auditors asked permission to come in and look at NYC's Y2K plans and activities, and as I recall, the mayor told them to take a hike ...

Perhaps the most significant thing to keep in mind is the issue of interconnectedness. NYC doesn't operate in a vacuum, and the "New York metropolitan region" includes New Jersey, Westchester County, Connecticut, and Long Island. I don't know what happens, for example, if there are disruptions at the other end of various bridges and tunnels. What happens if disruptions prevent food, oil, or other critical supplies from being brought into Manhattan? Etc, etc, etc.

Notwithstanding these concerns, I am still grateful and impressed by the level of detail provided by the article, by the serious but even- handed tone conveyed by both the reporters and the gov't officials. It would be nice if other cities could follow suit and provide the same level of detail.

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), November 27, 1999.


Ahem. (my Flint voice) Which would concern you more, New York's preparation, or lack thereof? Maybe they've been reading Timebomb 2000 all along, and just didn't want to admit it.

-- Cervantes (Quixote@windmills.tilt), November 27, 1999.

Nice posting,Spidey. Why should prepping be 'mocked'? Most cities have these types of 'freeze dried' rations should some calamity hit, and I would think that most by now MUST have some back-ups. But your article revisits a tried but true conundrum: if government actually knew a disaster was coming, what would their position be? Would they alert the masses or would they continually state 'all is well.'??? I am left to wonder though about your last line: is it too late to prepare?

Regards.

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), November 27, 1999.


Ed, I don't have it in front of me right now, but there was a graph on the first page, second column, I believe, that struck me as especially odd. Of course, one always plays the game of "reading between the lines," trying to decipher what the Paper of Record is really telegraphing to business leaders (read: rich white men), as opposed to the rest of us (poor harried clucks). The tone, and utter lack of the usual phraseology (eg "while most will be drinking champagne, a few worry-warts will be huddled..."), was a change for the Times, no doubt. It will be interesting to see if the network shows tonight lift the piece. Our Worthies know things we don't--we're left reading the tea leaves.

-- Spidey (free@last.Amen), November 27, 1999.

Spidey, Your desire to see racism behind every rock is very telling about yourself. (Telegraphing to rich white men, you make me laugh twice, once for thinking that one, if not the most liberal, left leaning, socialistic paper would ever imply a code to the "rich white men". The second laugh is for how evident your own inheirent racism will serve you badly should y2k become a socially destabilizing event. Your envy is implied in your statement and it is animosity like that that will lead to the possible rioting many are expecting. Please Spidey, keep the racist insinuations off this board. Otherwise, good post on the times article and bringing it to the forums attention.

-- (iop@hotmail.com), November 27, 1999.


you can read it at www.nytimes.com. You have to register, but its free, and you don't have to use a real address

-- biker (y2kbiker@hotmail.com), November 27, 1999.

uh, your 'read' on the New York Times, and the nature of 'liberalism' is different than mine. I would maintain that the visible world is driven by transnational business and banking interests, and that the New York Times (along with its globalist twin, the Wall Street Journal), is deeply, immutably allied to those interests. The battle is no longer between tired notions of 'liberal' and 'conservative:' those were always simply straw men held like meat before a baying public. The true face of the struggle is now visible: global financial interests versus communitarian interests--the human-based values discussed by sources as disparate as Wendell Berry and Jerry Mander, Holly Sklar and Pat Buchanan. The editors of the Times stand four-square with those who seek global governance by an international elite. To whom do you turn for deliverance? To Bill Kristol and David Brooks and the rest of the 'neo-conservatives?' Globalists all. To the Bushes and Gores and Clintons? Paid servants of the emerging supranational government. If you desire local autonomy, and representative government, you're simply out of luck. As Strobe Talbott, Rhodes scholar and Under-Secretary of State has written, "nation states will cease to exist in 20 to 30 years." The elites want this, and they will seek to marginalize anyone who tries to stop them. The parenthetical tag "rich white men" was borrowed from Tom Wolfe's 'Man in Full:' trenchant shorthand, cutting, but true: who do you think it is controlling the Central Banks and transnational corporations? Poor, Hispanic women?

-- Spidey (free@last.Amen), November 27, 1999.

iop----whether you know it or not, your pitiful little tirade against what you perceived as someone else's prejudice puts you in a spotlight illuminating your own ignorance. Your eager willingness to jump at something that doesn't exist in order to make a racial issue out of it smacks of the usual hyper PC prevalent among today's undereducated, arrogant, and correspondingly belligerent nimrods. I can only presume you are acting on behalf of some racial equality ethic that you got out of watching TV. Got Preps?

-- rainbow daddy (stillamazed@peoples.stupidity), November 27, 1999.

Here's the link: you'll have to register with the NYT to get onto their site, but registration is free and it's worth it...

NEW YORK TIMES article on NYC's preparations for Y2K

Remember, it'll only be available on their sight until mid-evening: they change the posted edition earlier on Saturday nights.

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), November 27, 1999.


Hey! It didn't mention the Times Square video. I'm disappointed :)!

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), November 27, 1999.


Interesting article. Tone is changing :-) Better late than never?

Thanks for posting your thoughts, Ed.

Good luck to NYC.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), November 27, 1999.


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