“In a transparently mercantile bid to keep protesters from disrupting the Republican National Convention later this month, the Bloomberg administration will offer ‘peaceful political activists’ discounts at select hotels, museums, stores and restaurants around town during convention week, which begins Aug. 29… The discount program for protesters is modeled on one for delegates to the convention, and there are some notable differences. Protesters are offered $5 off admission to the Museum of Sex, while delegates are not. But delegates get $3 off the space show at the American Museum of Natural History, a discount not offered to protesters. The Republicans get ‘Rent,’ the people who oppose them get ‘Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding.’” —New York Times

(Thanks to hludens for the link.)

One of the more mundane demonstrations of political power is to see how a presidential motorcade can paralyze a city as chaotic as New York. One time PervScan got caught on Madison Avenue by President Clinton. To cross the street — to reach a goal about fifty feet away — it was necessary either to skirt around the presidential motorcade, which required about a half a mile walk, or to wait it out. This ended up taking about forty-five minutes before Clinton’s big head — you don’t know how big his head is until you see it in person — smiled its way toward the Waldorf-Astoria hotel.

And it is precisely scenes like this that make most New Yorkers dread an event such as the Republican National Convention. Who needs the hassle? The traffic snarls? The delays? The increased likelihood of terrorist attacks and the enhanced security that comes along with it? Sounds like a good week to go pick apples in Amish country…

A further complication of events like this is that, since Mayor Giuliani “cleaned up” Times Square (meaning: closed every worthwhile jack shack and strip bar in town), you end up with about ten thousand horny conventioneers wandering the city with nowhere to blow their wad. Or actually, the conventioneers will probably still manage to get some bang for their buck. In sending the link, hludens joked that the Republicans “get the top call girls” anyway, and no doubt the local escorts and massage therapists will be busy that week. But for the rest of the poor slobs who don’t benefit from those upper-income tax breaks, what are the choices? The few remaining strip bars in town are expensive rip-off joints. There are few jack shacks or porn emporia left in Manhattan, and none of them match up to the long-lamented Show World and its “touch booths.” So where should they go? Apparently to the Museum of Sex, because it’s acceptable to observe the sex of the past but not to indulge in the sex of the present.

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