Results tagged “johnshopkins”

Mayor MIchael Bloomberg's largess makes him the country's seventh biggest charitable donor. The Chronicle of Philanthropy's Top 50 Donor List (less sexy than the Forbes list, but possibly more worthy) notes he committed $205 million to various institutions last year.

Mayor Bloomberg's generosity has been noted from educational institutions (like his alma mater Johns Hopkins) and even city organizations (like the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation). He gave staffers on his re-election campaign payouts as big as $300,000-400,000. And when Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff announced he would leave City Hall to become president of the mayor's business, Bloomberg LP, it suggested that the Mayor rewarded staffers he trusts. Well, the NY Times now looks at how some Bloomberg aides' salaries have grown since taking the government jobs in City Hall.

We think we smell another presidential candidate. Or at least one who will deny it until the last possible moment!

After months of investigation from the State Attorney General's office, Columbia University has finally fired the director of undergraduate financial aid David Charlow yesterday. Charlow had been suspended last April when his "questionable financial ties" to a student loan company were revealed: Charlow was an adviser to Student Loan Xpress, owned stock in the company, and actively encouraged students to use Student Loan Express as a lender. Then the Post printed this excerpt from an email from Charlow to Student Loan Express's CEO Fabrizio Balestri yesterday: "I want by its design to lead the students to [the] best decision in an idiot-proof way." The best decision being Student Loan express.

Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg traveled back to his Massachusetts roots and gave the commencement speech at Tufts University. Bloomberg, who grew up in Medford, name checked various haunts in the hood, tried to seem with it by mentioning Busta Rhymes, Ali G, and Salma Hayek, and reminded kids to call their mother. He also discussed free speech, in what the Sun called a nod to the Minutemen incident at Columbia:

The fourth lesson is, in the words of Ali G, 'Respect.' Don't worry, I'm not going to start quoting Borat. Respect is so important - especially in times of conflict. You all know what I'm talking about. In December, The Primary Source printed some things that much of this community ardently disagreed with - that many considered quite offensive. But instead of suppressing the publication - and despite the emotion of the moment - you respected their right to express themselves.

Continue reading "Bloomberg on Mom, Sports, and Respeck"

The rain may be keeping people in, but by the looks of theNY Times Weddings announcements, many local weddings were yesterday.

Remember when your little league coach (or dad) used to tell you to grow a pair and be a man? Well, now you can march right up to `em (provided all that deep psychological damage didn't stick) and say you don't need to. The Times reports that if a new City Department of Health plan is passed, a gender switch may be as easy as making the change on a person's birth certificate. Someone seeking a sex swap would need an affidavit from their doctor and a mental health professional delineating their reasons.

Just what you've been waiting for: Our fair city has its newest sports franchise. The National Lacrosse League is brining a franchise to the Big Apple, and four of the games will be at Madison Square Garden. Mayor Bloomberg played intramural lacrosse at Johns Hopkins, and the NY Times writes that he "showed off his command of the sports esoterica":

I know you all agree with me that there’s nothing quite like a middie clamping down on a rock on a face-off, scooping it up and cradling it with his wand and then dishing it off to a crease attackman who stuffs it into the back of the cage.

Police believe that drugs caused a 23 year old Brooklyn resident jumped out of a friend's 8th floor window in Midtown yesterday morning. Pitman and his girlfriend were hanging out with other friends in his girlfriend's cousins' apartment. Police say Pitman, who was already drunk, smoked pot and acted erractically. A 4th floor tenant went to the 8th floor, only to see Pitman "flipping out, banging the walls" and trying to attack others. Shortly after that, Pitman jumped out a window - through the glass and screen, hitting an AC unit on the way down - and landed on scaffolding outside the building.

Did Mayor Bloomberg brind the Country Music Awards to NYC to get some of the heartland vote? Earlier this week, the Norwalk, CT paper "The Hour" asked our Mayor about his presidential aspirations, if any. Mayor Bilng said, "Absolutely not... And anybody who's running will say exactly that." Plus, he made it clear he could pay for a presidential run. Well, duh - he could probably pay for a couple presidential runs, but we thought he was going to become a full-time philanthropist!

Mayor Bloomberg was in Baltimore yesterday to pick up an honorary doctorate from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (Dr. Bloomberg!) and give a speech. And what a speech: He criticized political efforts to belittle science and medicine. The NY Times's headline says he "diverges from GOP line" but it's just reminder that's he's only a Republican because he wanted to be elected Mayor (okay, he's donated to Republicans and made NYC host the RNC). And the speech was good - here's an excerpt:

Today, we are seeing hundreds of years of scientific discovery being challenged by people who simply disregard facts that don't happen to agree with their agendas. Some call it "pseudo-science," others call it "faith-based science," but when you notice where this negligence tends to take place, you might as well call it "political science."

Continue reading "Bloomberg Thinks Science is Good!"

Columbia University excitedly announced that the Jerome L. Greene Foundation was donating $200 million for a brand new neuroscience center, The Jerome L. Greene Science Center, to study the mind, brain and behavior. This is the largest private gift ever to a university to create one facility. We say, hoorah for the alma mater, and while more research for the human mind is wonderful, we do wish more could be done to lower tuition. At any rate, Columbia President Lee Bollinger continues to love the life sciences. (On a Bollinger tangent, Gothamist doesn't think he'd ever open up his house to a thousand happy Columbia students after a big football win the way he did in Michigan because we doubt that many students even go to the games and the NYPD would probably have a heart attack.) And we're interested in knowing how the Greene Foundation is so loaded - sure, he was a real estate lawyer, but those must have been some sweet investments.