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| My photo, not the shop I've been going to since COVID inflation made haircuts equally unaffordable everywhere, but mine is also called "Excellence". My shop has Arab barbers, but I go there not just because they're Arabs but also because they straight-razor shave the back of my neck and give me a great hot towel. |
Happy New Year! The New York City news, of the inauguration of my borough president Mark Levine as city comptroller, Jumaane Williams as public advocate (a New York institution in which he has served since 2019, preceded by Attorney General Letitia James and former mayor Bill de Blasio), and our new mayor Zohran Mamdani, really feels like a beginning of something in a way New Year festivities rarely do (I don't know but I think January 1 is a pretty unusual date for holding inaugurations; Spanberger's gubernatorial, in Virginia, is going to be January 17 and Sherrill's in New Jersey on January 20).
The ceremonial itself, and the speeches, were pretty inspiring, as far as I'm concerned. I really liked Levine pointing out that each of the three of them swore on a different holy book, and Williams getting emotional, and then asking all of us to take an oath together:
— that no one let go of anyone’s hands, because if we’re all connected, we can’t lose anyone. So we hold on to the hand of our neighbor, and we reach out with our other hand to grasp someone who may fall through cracks, and we bring them along. I want everyone, if they’re comfortable, take a hand of the person next to you, or the arm, and just repeat after me. We can all be the voice of the people.
CROWD: We can all be the voice of the people....
Echoing Mamdani's tribute to the collectivity of democracy in his November victory speech:
