Russian Oligarchs, The New Jersey Nets and Downtown Brooklyn.

This story was in Forbes on Wednesday.  (At least that is when I saw it, and since this is my blog, my seeing it is what counts)!

A Russian oligarch worth 9 billion dollars (he can buy New York City and Mayor Bloomberg), wants to buy controlling interest in the New Jersey Nets and move them to Downtown Brooklyn.

I grew up close enough to the Atlantic Yards to walk to them.    The site was thought of fifty years ago as a new place for the Dodgers to play (until Walter O’Malley took them away.  Highway builder Robert Moses did not want a stadium there, but that is another New York regional tale).

The Atlantic Yards are the Long Island Rail Road yards there, next to the Brooklyn terminal.

The proposed Barclays Center Arena would seat 32,000, large for basketball.  It would give new meaning to nosebleed seats but the players are so tall, you will still see them.

The potential buyer is so wealthy, he could have super cheap seats.  It would give new meaning to nosebleed seats.  Charge $5 and maybe the kids, who play basketball in Brooklyn gyms and playgrounds will actually be able to attend an NBA game, without sacrificing their first born.

Is this a good idea, though?   You want to encourage public transit use and economic benefit, but the crowds, etc.  Housing is supposed to be built as part of the site as well.

If this goes through, it would be the first American sports team to be majority owned by a foreign national.  (A Chinese conglomerate has minority interest in the Cleveland Caveliers and they may be losing LeBron James to the Knicks).

Not sure I like the idea of a Russian doing this.  I have my reasons as irrational as they may be.

G20

It used to be the G7.  Something like 80% of the world’s population is in the 20 countries belonging to this group.

The conference was supposed to be in New York, but with the U.N. session, it would be too much, plus, Pittsburgh is considered a modernizing city being reborn.

I wish Jack were alive to bounce this off.  People I know from Pittsburgh say many of the long term residents have not benefited from said boom.

Americans normally do not think of Pittsburgh being a city to host that sort of thing.  In the U.K. it would have been held in Birmingham, I reckon.

I watched the tape of the protesters.  What are they protesting for?  They are not going to be able to get what they want.  As we grew up saying in Brooklyn, the fix is in.  It is going to happen.  Deal with it.  How do we expect to change this?

Pittsburgh’s Mayor must have loved the attention and money coming in.  Pittsburgh’s Police Chief probably silently took some aspirin and Tums and got to work on how, the leaders would be protected and demonstrators could protest legally.  As if the Police Chief was going to tell the Mayor, Mr. Mayor, this is a very stupid idea.

Bonnie Prince Charlie, Update.

I did the speech again for TV Toastmasters last night.  Marcia, our camera person and Division Governor thinks I should do it for the Intl Speech Contest in the Spring.

Much of what I learned is from a great book by Arthur Herman called How the Scots Invented the Modern World.  The prince landed  July 23rd, 1745 on the Herbrides island of Eriskay.

The first person to greet them was a man named Alexander MacDonald, who said, “Go back from whence you came.  The country will not rise with you.”

There were only seven landed by the French ship with no supporting French army.  An intelligent person would have departed at once.  While Bonnie Prince Charlie was charismatic, intelligence was not one of his strong points.

He managed to get a Jacobite uprising going, get his invasion as far South as Derby, England until his generals realized the rebels could be cut off and brought them back to Scotland.

Against better advice, he chose a terrible place to fight.  Culloden.  Wide open.  Only when he saw the Redcoats, did it finally dawn on him, just HOW MUCH trouble he was in.

And so ended the Forty Five.

Health Care Debate, The Silly Take.

We don’t need a health care system.  You aren’t supposed to get sick in our great country.  If you get sick, you are not being productive for our nation.  You can’t get sick.  Sick days?  Not being productive?  It is not the American way.

If you aren’t productive enough in old age, there is the ice floe, that invention from the Inuit.  We’re Americans, we don’t get sicl.

Health Care Debate.

Something needs to be done.  No question there.  How are we going to pay for all this?  That is another question.

In European nations, yes, you do get government health care, but it is not as though you are not paying for it.  In exchange your taxed at a much higher rate.

Where then, is the balance?  People who contribute to our society should be taken care of medically, so they can keep contributing.

I don’t really know what will work best, this is just how I see it.