Wednesday, February 11, 2015

"Common Sense" Continues to Obscure — And the Slow Disappearance of Jerry Kassar — In Print


Is Jerry Kassar’s “Snow Job” Column Part of a Bigger Coverup of State Senator Marty Golden’s Problems and Kassar’s Own ?   

Kassar’s rant against Governor Cuomo’s Snowy Subway Shutdown borders on rank hypocrisy  —   similar gross instances indicative of “something truly dysfunctional” by Kassar and his boss have passed week-in and week-out without comment 

And for something completely different:  Is the scrutiny and criticism by this blog and others like it one of the reasons that Kassar is going to great lengths to keep his weekly “Common Sense” column from showing up on the internet ?



Guess who said this: “Would it not be nice if on occasion government officials and agencies simply admitted that they were wrong.  I think the public would have more respect for them if they did....”  Unbelievably, the author of that comment is Jerry Kassar !  ( See “Snow job  – Common Sense” by Jerry Kassar, 2/5/15, Home Reporter-Brooklyn Spectator/ Brooklyn Media Group [http://www.homereporternews.com/news/opinion/common-sense-a-snow-job/article_23e6ffd4-98d5-11e3-813b-001a4bcf887a.html] [NOTE: The following message appeared at the Home Reporter - Brooklyn Spectator site: “This is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?  It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for....” {more about that below}] ).

“SOMETHING TRULY DYSFUNCTIONAL”

Kassar probably didn’t set out to say very much in his “Common Sense” column for the February 5 - February 11, 2015 edition of the Home Reporter/ Spectator. However, almost every article that Jerry Kassar  writes contains some nugget or kernel of insight or information about Kassar, his operators and the various functionaries that he operates; the “Snow job” column was no exception to that general observation.

Kassar opened his column with a statement that there is “something truly dysfunctional” in a government that allows a governor to shut down the largest transit system in the world without giving the mayor a “heads-up.”  True enough  —  but how long has Kassar’s boss, Marty Golden, been on the job, and not addressed issues of MTA organization and governance giving almost complete control over NYC mass transit to the NYS Governor ?

DOES KASSAR THINK IT’S ALL ABOUT BEING A “FAN” OF  “STYLE” 

More interesting and enlightening by far was this introductory clause by Kassar, which began his second paragraph: “I am certainly no fan of the governing style of either [Governor Cuomo or Mayor de Blasio]...”    That explains a lot. You see many of us have long thought that Jerry Kassar was some kind of professional politician, who also had some solid conservative leanings.  The aforementioned introductory clause pretty much completely negates all such notions. To be dismissive of the belief systems, policies and practices of Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor William de Blasio, as something that can be described as a “governing style,” is to profoundly not understand the contemporary ethos, especially when it comes to highlighting the radical-conservative dichotomy now part of our polity. Perhaps worse than that is Kassar’s overly glib description of activists and political supporters as “fan[s].”  Although he said he wasn’t a fan of the Cuomo or de Blasio “...style,” one could fairly infer that Kassar was the “fan” of some other “governing style.”  

The rest of Kassar’s “Snow job” column was about plowing snow on Kassar’s block; and, oddly, the closing or non-closing of Catholic Churches in a place where Kassar doesn’t live. Neither being an item of universal interest, or even the particular interest of many of Brooklyn’s conservatives.

IS KASSAR TRYING TO BECOME INVISIBLE ?

Taking something out of “The Hobbit” or  “Harry Potter...” —    Kassar has now found himself a “Cloak of Invisibility”....

I believe that Jerry Kassar’s column, as a rule, is a vehicle intended NOT to convey necessary information to conservatives or conservative-minded Republicans. This is usually achieved by Kasssar’s selection of otiose material, complimented by obscure presentation. However, Kassar seems to have added another thought-stopping arrow to his quiver  —   he has made his column virtually disappear on the internet. Lately, when I have found what might appear as a link to the most recent of Kassar’s columns, using various direct and indirect search techniques, I have been rebuffed with the following message that appeared on the  Home Reporter - Brooklyn Spectator site: “This is somewhat embarrassing, isn’t it?  It seems we can’t find what you’re looking for....”

WHO BENEFITS ?

Kassar and his boss Marty Golden do get a direct benefit out of this.  This all creates and appearance that something is being said and done. However, that is not really the case; and it has necessitated hiding from the prying eyes of this and other blogs that seek to point it out. I think that is what Kassar is trying to do.

Right now, all that Kassar and his boss think that they need to accomplish is to mark time.

But doesn’t marking time have another familiar and more threatening sound ?

Tick-tock, tick-tock....

3 comments:

  1. I cannot read the column because I live in a foreign county and our bodega only carries the Irish Voice and Jewish Forward but since you mention the closing of Catholic Churches (I am sure you mean schools and were mistaken), this coming week's Tablet has a nice puff piece by local parishioner Ed Wilkenson on the wonderful work Marty Golden is doing for Catholic schools. Gerry Kassar gets a mention too in the part on the Cathedral Club festivities. I know Ed, I like Ed, but he seems to have fallen all over himself in the piece to praise Marty Golden. That is all. Go have a look for yourself on Sunday when the homilist begins droning . . .

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  2. RESPONSE: THE "I MAKE MANY MISTAKES, BUT NOT THIS TIME" EDITION

    What Kassar wrote included this:"Like many Catholics, I have found the shuttering of so many parishes by the Archdiocese of New York troubling...."

    I take that to mean churches, and if still open, schools as well -- usually to the great chagrin and even dispirit of many of the effected parishioners.

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  3. since the churches dont pay taxes they can just let the properties rot. brooklyn was the land of churches. lost a lot of paying customers.

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