Bloomberg Is Beatable . . .

But apparently national Democrats have no backbone:

A Democrat is struggling to unseat the mayor of the nation’s largest city, but the national party and its top Democratic leaders have been silent.

The Democratic National Committee has said nothing about William Thompson Jr.’s uphill battle to unseat the popular billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

By this point in the last mayoral race in 2005, the DNC had dispatched its then-leader, Howard Dean, to campaign with Bloomberg’s Democratic challenger, Fernando Ferrer.

Well-known Democrats like John Kerry, John Edwards and Tom Daschle had also crossed state lines to help Ferrer.

That and Obama is being a big pussy, too. What did Bloomberg give these people?

Is Bloomberg Using City Resources To Stage Campaign Appearances?

Robert Sietsema* asks:

NY1 reports this morning that 18-20 sanitation, anti-graffiti, and steam-cleaning trucks recently descended on Inwood in preparation for a campagin appearance by Mayor Bloomberg scheduled for that afternoon.

. . .

Don’t such over-the-top cleaning efforts, in neighborhoods normally neglected and left filthy by the Sanitation Department, for the sole purpose of creating a pristine stage for the mayor’s campaign appearances, constitute an expropriation of city resources for the mayor’s own uses?

*Didn’t realize he was blogging this kind of stuff in addition to food-related items.

City Council Fighting Wrath Of Khan

The bike lane-loving DOT commissioner may have her wings clipped:

The City Council appears to be trying to stand up to Janette Sadik-Khan, the Bloomberg administration’s relatively radical and innovative transportation commissioner who has rapidly closed down car lanes and replaced them with bike lanes and open space across the city.

. . .

The secret to her magic: the transportation commissioner has broad power to do as he or she likes with the roadways without subjective outside approvals, as, traditionally, such commissioners simply treated roads as roads. But by treating the roads more like canvases of open space that happen to accommodate cars, she is able to achieve quick, tangible results that are relatively low budget, and to go forward without approval from the City Council. (By contrast, the Council must approve any major land-use changes on private or city-owned land, making it far more difficult to quickly implement any major changes.)

. . .

[Two City Council] bills would mandate the community board appearances and add new requirements for timeline (30 to 60 days of review), set up public hearings, and require DOT to provide certain information about its planned projects.

No Complaining; Kate Hudson Can Afford It

Die-hard Yankees fans turn down opportunity to purchase $380 ALDS tickets:

Some diehard Yankee fans were on line for 14 hours early Wednesday, waiting and hoping there’d be tickets available for game one of the playoffs when the doors opened.

. . .

Paul was on the line since 7 p.m. Wednesday night to be there for his beloved team, and he’s on a budget.

But when the doors finally opened, there was disappointment bordering on outrage when dozens of fans found out the cheapest tickets sold cost $380.

“I live right here in the neighborhood. I attended 34 games in the stadium this season, and I am not exactly rich,” said Paul. “I can’t go on line and pay an extra $25 surcharge.”

“Absolutely, something should be done for people in the neighborhood who were giving whole new life to the Yankees, but this is capitalism,” said Sam Soghar.

Fred Negron was the only one of the group who chose to buy the $380 ticket, but that’s because he just sold his house and had the cash.

For comparison’s sake, Phillies NLDS tickets are between $35 and $75.

Location Scout: New Yankee Stadium.

Don’t Worry, “Blue Highways” Was Kind Of Disappointing Anyway

What ends up at the LIRR lost and found:

For instance, [Casey Arasa, Penn Station’s terminal manager] suggested, judging by the number of lost karate gis, interest in the martial arts and being properly uniformed for them is booming in the suburbs. Yoga, too — at least according to all the dropped mats — remains quite popular. But trend spotting gets more difficult when the items are bizarre ones, and there are certainly plenty of those.

. . .

All told, the lost and found collects more than 10,000 items a year (with a 50 percent return rate) and stores them for as long as 40 months on numerous cluttered shelves in a dingy warehouse space that is just around the corner from the men’s room. Lost cellphones are kept in plastic bins, according to their model (and with their ringers blissfully off). Cash, of course, is stored separately, and the fact that $19,892 has been returned so far this year suggests that people probably aren’t as grasping as you thought.

The biggest lessons of the lost and found appear to be: a) suburban women have a hard time keeping hold of their purses, and b) Long Islanders are waterproof, since why else would they leave behind so many nice umbrellas? Sub-lessons might include the fact that many commuters are technophobes (there are currently more than 60 laptops in the lost and found) and that, judging by how many Touristers are missing, a good piece of luggage just isn’t as valuable as it used to be.

Another thing you may not know is that the framed print of, say, the East River bridges that you accidentally left behind last year on the morning train to Babylon now hangs on the wall of the lost and found, which is furnished by commuters’ dropped objects. There is even a modest lending library of lost books that indicate the Long Island mindset: “Be a Real Estate Millionaire,” “Gross Anatomy,” “Blue Highways,” by William Least Heat Moon and Joe Torre’s inside-the-clubhouse tell-all.

See also, for comparison’s sake, the MTA lost and found (from 2006); prosthetic limbs there, too.