to pray for a baseball team to win. It's selfish, too, given all that

the Yankees have attained, all the attention and riches and praise they've

gotten these last few years, for themselves, the franchise, the fans. Lou

Piniella deserves to win one year. I'm awed by the Curt Schilling–Randy Johnson

threat. The Mets, who after all are a New York team and have the hearts and

scars to prove it, need a turn at bringing home the trophy.

All of them should get their rings and parades and

multimillion-dollar endorsements and those glorious moments that come with

being the No. 1 team.

Just not this year.

I want this baseball season to end like the last three. I want it

to be the same. We need it to be the

same. I'm waiting for that moment, after Game 6 or 7, when Mariano Rivera

throws that last unhittable pitch and Scott Brosius comes running, and Derek

Jeter jumps up and down, and Paul O'Neill comes bounding in from right field

and throws his arms around Tino Martinez, and Bernie Williams does his quick

genuflection in thanks out in center field, and they all come together on the

pitcher's mound, all piled up around Jorge Posada, and raise their gloves to

the sky.

We need to see that same joyful photograph, with those same guys,

on the front page of the Daily News

the next day.

New York needs it. On Oct. 30, a beautiful, crisp, clear fall

day, walking to the subway on the way up to Yankee Stadium for Joe Torre's

press availability, a reporter saw a city of downturned eyes. The women were,

appropriately, dressed in black, many with large fringed shawls wrapped around

them, like comfort blankies borrowed from their beds. The men looked sullen,

tired, intent. People paused at the corners, stared straight ahead, then walked

as the traffic passed with only a vague sense of purpose, almost as if they

woke up in Oakland or Seattle or even Boston, God forbid.

And on that No. 4 train, riding up to 161st Street in

midafternoon, the car was half-empty and silent, people staring at the floor or

dozing off, no one even reading a dirty novel or moving their mouths to psalms

in a prayer book. A gang of loud high-school students with boom-boom headphones

and energy to burn would have helped, but none got on.

We're not even the same city we were in the couple of weeks after

Sept. 11. We're not looking each other in the eyes anymore. We're not sharing

condolences. We're not sharing. We're grouchy, exhausted, tapped out. We know

something else is coming, but we don't know what. We know Afghanistan is a

mess, but we're not sure what else to do. We know on Nov. 6 we have to vote

but, really, for whom?

We get into a cab and we no longer feel that smug satisfaction of

having opened our doors to strangers, to people with different dress and

strange accents and tastes in radio or tapes that make us feel alive in the

most eclectic city in the world. Frankly, we're extremely pissed.

We get on the subway, and we don't even want to complain anymore

about the crowding, the filth, the mass confusion that has turned underground

Manhattan into a stinking, puzzling maze. We're just glad for nothing worse.

We're glad for the familiar. For the routine. For family. And for

the Yanks. These are our guys. We need to see them one more time, to celebrate

again, before they-Luis Sojo, Paul O'Neill, maybe Scott Brosius, Chuck

Knoblauch, even Tino Martinez-leave us for good. Before age and greed and

opportunity break up this team, this dynasty, and bring a new crop of talent to

Yankee Stadium-one that might win, but that never can replace this brilliant

bunch of lads with good manners and a charged-up work ethic and a sense of New

York, New York to boot.

Up at the stadium, Joe Torre was not speaking of any of these

things. He was talking to a room full of reporters about the importance of

pitching, about his hopes for Roger Clemens, his memories of World Series and

come-from-behind victories past. His eyes-the whites, the rims-were red, raw.

He looked like he'd walked back from Phoenix, straight into that briefing room,

without a shower or a minute of sleep. Games 3 and 4 were still ahead.

"No question we need to win a ballgame," he told the reporters.

He was wearing a blue cap with a police patch on the side and a blue Yankees

jacket. The backdrop said "World Series 2001." "We need to pitch. We need to

dominate."

The Yankees have come from behind before, and they've gone on to

win. There was Wade Boggs, rounding the field on horseback-on horseback!-in

1996, celebrating the comeback to victory from a 2-0 start against the Braves.

The stadium was so loud, even out in far left field, that you half-expected the

horse to bolt for River Avenue.

Walking out of the stadium that night, grown men-strangers-were

hugging each other, high-fiving up and down the street. Blacks, whites, Asians,

Hispanics, everyone full of joy. Riding up Jerome Avenue later that night,

under the el, you could see clumps of people standing out on street corners,

waving and cheering to passing cars. This was 1 in the morning, in the South

Bronx.

Two years later, there was Tino Martinez, in Game 1 of the World

Series in 1998 against the San Diego Padres, pounding that grand slam over

right field to put the Yankees ahead for good, winning by 9-6 the first game in

their sweep. I was with my daughter that night and I must have screamed for 15

minutes, she can tell you. I should be ashamed to admit this, but it was one of

the happiest moments of my life.

Joe-or Mr. Torre, as Derek Jeter still calls him-was talking

about the 1996 World Series, of going into the second game, behind 1-0 and

about to lose Game 2, and assuring George Steinbrenner that they'd win Games 3

through 6. "I might not be here," he told reporters the day after this year's

Game 2, if he hadn't gotten that one right.

We need Mr. Torre to get it right this time, too. We need Roger

Clemens to pitch the game of his life. To act like the New Yorker he has,

amazingly, become and reach deep down and pull it off. Be Andy Pettitte and get

that look of determination in the eye, that hawk-eyed stare, and just do it.

Pitch after pitch after pitch.

"My body feels really good," the 39-year-old Mr. Clemens said to

the room full of reporters on Oct. 30, "knock on wood." That made him chuckle,

the first time he'd cracked a smile since walking into that interview room on

the day before the big game, and his blue eyes lit up. On his head was a cap

that said "FDNY." On his massive chest he wore a blue hooded Yankees

sweatshirt. "I'm going to go as long as I can, and hopefully I'll go longer."

Winning Game 3 and then 4, and then two more, would definitely be

a challenge.

"We make it tough on ourselves, sometimes," he said.

"This is sort of a war," Joe Torre had told the sportswriters,

not even realizing the aptness of his metaphor. "We need to win. Otherwise, [ they're ] going to win."

Go Yankees. Go New York.

Stein? Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Mr. Stein-the yuk-yuk guy at Time magazine whose column once rotated

with Margaret Carlson and Calvin Trillin-has been like a stand-up comic without

a microphone. Though he's been sent on various assignments, Mr. Stein's regular

wisecrack-filled column-along with most of the front-of-the-book Notebook

section-has been cut from Time to

make room for the deluge of hard news.

And word is it might be gone for good. According to Time sources, the magazine's managing

editor, Jim Kelly, has told Mr. Stein that he can stay on in the newsroom, but

his ha-ha column won't be coming back.

Neither Mr. Kelly nor Mr. Stein would get into what had or had

not been said between them. But Mr. Kelly said that no final decision had been

made on the timing and format of any future column by Mr. Stein. Mr. Kelly

said, "Joel and I haven't decided exactly when Joel will resume being a

columnist. It's a question of tone." He added, "He's busy reporting the biggest

story of our lifetime-and that's all he's doing, and that's all he wants to be

doing."

Said Mr. Stein, "At a time like this, the last thing that I'm

thinking about is my own little column. We're at war … against terrorism !"

Mr. Stein added that he's always had other responsibilities at Time besides his column. Recently, he'd

written a story about identifying the remains at ground zero and  also a short piece about psychotherapy in

the wake of the attacks. In the Oct. 29 issue, he flew to Minnesota and did a

feature on the Mall of America.

"I'm doing what I always did, which is writing and reporting

stories," Mr. Stein said. "The column was only about a third of what I do

around here. I pull my own weight." 

Then he added: "I haven't been lately."

Indeed, it's fair to say that Mr. Stein is still looking for his

place in the suddenly serious Time .

"Yeah, I do feel funny," he told CNN's Aaron Brown in an appearance on Oct. 4.

"I feel like, you know, I don't have a job any more, and I'm looking forward to

getting back to having one."

It will be interesting to see what a magazine like Time does with a writer like Mr. Stein

in the hardened new media age, when celebrity- or suburban-parent-coddling

covers feel entirely out of sync with what's going on in the world. Much of the

success of Time 's former managing

editor, Walter Isaacson-who left earlier this year to helm CNN-was chalked up

to figuring out how to do a newsmagazine in a culture that cared less and less

about news.

But now Mr. Kelly, who was appointed as M.E. in January, has had

the challenge of turning that glitzier, lighter Time back into a traditional newsmagazine. Though people seem to

want humor as much as they always did, it's not clear if they want to get their

comedy from Time -or, for that matter,

if Time wants to be the magazine that

gives it to them.

Mr. Kelly seems, for now, to be resisting the kinds of soft-news

covers that became common for the magazine. Even before the merger with AOL,

the magazine did a few synergistic (though no one would use that word) cover

packages related to movies or television shows produced by Warner Bros., such

as Batman and Pokemon .

This fall, AOL Time Warner was openly making a big push across

all its media properties for Harry Potter

(a Warner Bros. film, of course). Like other Time Inc. magazines, Time 's Nov. 5 issue had a big package

about the film, and the magazine even got a writer in to see it before any

critics got to take a crack (curiously, though, Time didn't serve up a review itself, going no further than

describing the Potter flick as boasting "eye-popping grandeur, dazzling special

effects and sumptuous production values" and "all the attention to detail that

a budget north of $125 million can buy"). But on Time 's cover, Harry Potter

only got a corner photo and a tagline, while President Bush got the main piece

of real estate.

-Gabriel Snyder

Since 1997, Rich Johnson's Web site Sportspages.com has

become an industry tool in the sportswriting business, providing valuable

information to columnists and beat writers covering teams. A writer, for

example, can use the service to get all the coverage of a particular team he or

she is covering, or to monitor the latest bleatings from bigfoot sports scribes

across the country.

But on its message board, Sportspages became something of a

free-for-all. It was there, last October, where The New York Times ' football writer Mike Freeman famously called

out New York sportswriters on charges of racism and sexism. Yet while Mr.

Freeman's screed was serious and signed by the author, most of the diatribes on

Sportspages were unnamed-often morphing into angry, ad hominem rants about

colleagues and competitors. In recent weeks, a family death of one sports

editor was ridiculed, while the physical attributes of women writers were

thrown around in threads like "Hottest female print reporters" and "Hottest

babes continued."

"It was out of control," said

one New York sportswriter. "At first it was just a funny little thing, but it

just turned so-oo nasty."

Mr. Johnson thought so, too. That's why he shut down the

anonymous forum on Friday, Oct. 19, replacing it with one where would-be ragers

would first have to register their real name and e-mail with him before being

able to post.

"I only do this part time," Mr. Johnson explained. "I can't be

dealing with this shit."

A former on-air anchor at ABC News Radio who returned to a

station in his hometown of Portland, Ore., in June, Mr. Johnson said it'd been

made clear to him from "friends of the site" that they wouldn't be friends any

longer if stuff like "Hottest babes" kept up. He also said he was tired of

dealing with phone calls from irritated editors who would contact him about

particularly volatile postings.

While Mr. Johnson declined to elaborate on who the editors were,

New York Daily News sources said that

one was Leon Carter, the paper's sports editor, who they said called Mr.

Johnson on behalf of News columnist

Mike Lupica, a frequent target on Sportspages. One Daily News source said: "Mike was calling his editors, wanting them

to do something about this. He asked for editor interference."

Another Daily News

source said: "Leon definitely went to bat for him."

Mr. Lupica declined to be interviewed for this story, and a Daily News spokesperson, speaking on

behalf of Mr. Carter, said, "The answer is no: Mike Lupica had nothing to do

with the closing of the forum on Sportspages, nor did he ask any editor to

lobby for him."

Since the makeover, the Sportspages forum reads less like a

Walter Winchell column and more like the "Goings-on" section of a weekly paper

in Vermont. While there remains a thread devoted to Mr. Lupica, there are also

ones discussing such ho-hum topics as the merits of the Arizona Diamondbacks'

starting rotation and a recent column by Sports

Illustrated 's Rick Reilly.

But for his part, Mr. Johnson seems relieved. While traffic to

the site is down 10 to 15 percent, it's not as much as he'd feared. Moreover,

he said, 400 people have registered for the new forum.

"The forum was never supposed to be the main point of the site,"

he said. "That was a sidebar that took over my life for a while. Now things

seem like they're back in proper proportion."

-Sridhar Pappu

The truest thing that can be said about Lisa Baird is

that she was a newswoman through and through.              

During her 26-year career, she

touched all the bases leading to her stint on a big daily in New York: the Indianapolis Star , The Miami Herald , Gannett in Westchester, the Bergen Record , New York

Newsday . She was an assistant city editor for the New York Post until June.

Ms. Baird knew news, embraced it-even as a 40-plus-year-old woman

raising two daughters on her own, there was nothing she would rather do.

After Ms. Baird was let go from the New York Post in a purging of four top staffers that marked the

arrival of new editor Col Allan, she spent several days helping out on the copy

desk at The New York Observer . But

her time at The Observer was cut

short by her illness. After just a few days of fill-in duty, she begged off,

saying her treatments would consume too much of her time. She already was

limping, clearly in pain, from the cancer that had spread from her breasts to

her bones. Her suffering was clear one day when the elevator went on the fritz

and she was not able to leave the third floor.

Lisa Baird died on Saturday, Oct. 27, at Albert Einstein Medical

Center in the Bronx. The cancer had defied an aggressive course of treatment.

She was 44 years old. She is

survived by her two daughters, Marien Richardson, 12, and Jenne Richardson, 9,

her mother, father and two brothers. The girls will now live full-time with

their father, Clem Richardson, formerly of New

York Newsday and now a columnist for the Daily News .

A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, Oct. 31, from 11

a.m. to 1 p.m., at Siloam Presbyterian Church, 260 Jefferson Avenue,

Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Efforts are underway to start a scholarship fund

in her name.

-Mary Ann Giordano

There is one person, however, who ended the year infinitely better educated than when he started it: Harold Levy. Another chancellor has learned that running New York's schools is to running a business as getting mugged in Central Park is to circling the moon in the space shuttle. It's enough to make a former businessman long for the sense and security of the stock market.

That said, there is potential for good news on the horizon. It's teacher contract time. And Mayor Giuliani has a real opportunity to turn things around, should he gain a few key concessions from the United Federation of Teachers.

In exchange for a healthy raise–substantially less than the 30 percent suggested by Democratic Mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer, but a good deal more than teachers make now–Mayor Giuliani needs to obtain a thorough reform of the process used to fire teachers. There has to be real reform this time, not the deceptions of the past.

Unfortunately, what makes it so hard to fire bad teachers–tenure–isn't even up for discussion any more. No one dares churn those waters, even in the face of massive failure and the apparent lack of alternatives. Yet any parent will tell you it's the only change that will really make a difference.

The excuse this time will be that the city already is facing a severe shortage of teachers. Working with the ones we have–giving them staff development, providing "master teachers" as role models–will allow us to fix the problems. Some, perhaps, can be saved. But as long as they know they can't be fired–and that's what tenure essentially does–why change?

So the Mayor's negotiating team is trying a new tactic, "teacher incentive pay"–rewarding individual teachers by putting a little extra in the pay check. Sure: Why rid the system of incompetent, lazy or crazy teachers when you can hold onto them and pay more for the ones who actually do their jobs?

Quantifying who is worthy of such a reward–and why–will be one of the decade's great unsolved mathematical problems. And that's assuming the selection process is devoid of the politics, pettiness, backstabbing, incompetence, indifference, coziness and downright corruption that mark relationships between teachers and administrators in many city schools.

"You can't do it," said a teacher in a nearby school district. "So many things enter the picture."

One idea, she said, is to develop a control group and then assess every student (that means test) at the beginning of the school year and again at the end. How a class stacks up against the control group can determine who gets a raise–and who can forget about the down payment on a new car.

Of course, the teacher said, that's assuming the classes are equal: that one teacher doesn't get four kids with A.D.D., two with dying parents, three about to be evicted–or, as a Bronx assistant principal recently related, a homeless child shuttling from a different shelter every night, coming to school late, tired, disoriented and hungry, until he just stops coming.

Even assuming it's doable, does anyone really want more tests? Why punish the kids to reward the teachers?

Unfortunately, politicians don't understand how schools operate (the Principal for a Day thing just isn't enough). And with U.F.T. President Randi Weingarten controlling thousands of phone callers and votes, she can essentially control the debate.

And that Ms. Weingarten is clever. She met the Mayor's call for teacher incentive pay with a counterproposal: merit pay for all teachers in schools that improve, but not for individuals. Now the discourse is over the relative merits of these two proposals–not over whether it would simply be better to fire nonperforming teachers, without years of litigation and administrative stress.

Michael Bloomberg, running with Ms. Weingarten's blessing, also supports the school-merit notion. The Democratic Mayoral candidates are low-keying it, sticking to safer topics like across-the-board raises and tuition payments to lure new teachers into the system.

The fact is, teacher incentive pay is a needless distraction, a non-answer to the problem of incompetent teachers. Making it easier to get rid of bad teachers will do more to boost morale and encourage good teaching than any bonus. But debating it will keep everyone busy, focused on everything but the real ongoing travesty of the public-school system: tenure.

Which Mayoral candidate will mouth the word and open up that discussion?

Terry Golway will return to this space in several weeks.

I disappeared three mommies the other day. Bouncing up to a group of my friends, I announced cheerily, "I have a job for you."

"Don't look at me," answered one friend, who besides raising two children works part-time for a government agency. "I have a job."

"So do I," said another, who also has two children and runs a consultancy from her home.

The third friend, once a high-powered saleswoman, substitute-teaches and cares for her three children; she, too, has a job.

"I mean …." I said, embarrassed.

What did I mean? The job on offer was just a local writing gig–occasional reviews, things these women might be interested in doing–but by offering it, I had disappeared the real job each already had.

Each of these women was already working as a tutor, chauffeur, cook, housekeeper, nurse's aide, advocate, scheduler, laundress, personal shopper and gofer, not to mention community volunteer. Each was keeping hours only an obsessed associate at a Wall Street law firm would be expected to keep, starting at 6 or 6:30 in the morning and usually finishing around midnight–and that includes Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. If that's not a job, what is? All they lacked was a W-2.

After all the high-minded talk about the role of mothers in early child development, the emphasis on engaged and involved parenting, and the sanctity of mothers and the home, being a mommy is still the least valued occupation a woman can choose. Literally. In her compelling analysis of the economics of motherhood, Ann Crittenden, a former economics reporter for The New York Times and financial writer for Newsweek , compiles a spreadsheet of motherhood data. It's not a pretty picture.

Despite all the rhetoric–particularly from conservatives–and all the pressure on women to stay home and care for their children (and take it from me, the pressure is enormous), the job of mothering is rewarded with little more than hugs and kisses. That's no small thing, but it won't pay the mortgage.

The economics of motherhood assign no monetary value to the work of mothers. (And frankly, as a society we seem to assign very little value to children as well. Consider the evidence: stingy school budgets, mediocre public schools, rundown school buildings, lack of quality child care, shortage of recreational space, mean-spirited welfare rules, horrible child-welfare systems.) Single, poor women and women of color are most affected by this injustice. But Ms. Crittenden makes the case that women with college degrees and high-flying–not to mention high-paying–careers are taking a big hit. Women like Ms. Crittenden herself, who left her Times job to raise her son.

A Harvard University study of 902 women who graduated from Harvard's professional schools between 1971 and 1981 found that "fully 25 percent of the female Harvard M.B.A.'s of the 1970's, some of the most expensively trained and highly motivated people in the country, had left the workplace entirely by the early 1990's. Many said they had been forced out of the best jobs once they became mothers." Asked their reaction to their status, many said they felt "blindsided."

Here's what women do: They abandon, forgo, cut back, give up. "It's just too hard," they say, "and the kids need me too much." And they're right. It is too hard. But walking away from your dreams is costly, too.

Ms. Crittenden lays out the economics of a horrendous "mommy tax," a multiple whammy of financial disincentives that adds up to more than $1 million in penalties on college-educated women who have children. It's a devastating formula: Start off with lower pay for equal work. Add in unpaid maternity leave (the United States is one of six Western industrial nations without a paid-leave policy), which forces many women to forgo months of pay to care for their infants. Factor in the high degree of loyalty most employers expect: "For most companies, the ideal worker is 'unencumbered,' that is, free of all ties other than those to his job," Ms. Crittenden points out. Not a team player? Can't get in early, stay late, devote weekends, travel, take that burdensome promotion? You lose. The result: "The pay gap between mothers and nonmothers under age 35 is now larger than the wage gap between young men and women." In other words, young women are now competing against each other, not men.

Many women want a part-time arrangement, so they can pursue a career and care for their children. But such work, particularly in the white-collar world, is still an anomaly. So women lower their sights, taking jobs–and pay–beneath their skill level. Or they drop out completely.

According to Ms. Crittenden, "Among married mothers with children under age 18, 28.4 percent of all those in the prime working years of 25 to 54 are not in the labor force, meaning that the only employment of these 6.9 million women is their home and children." Another survey estimates 20 percent of married mothers with children under age 18 are employed part-time. It would be fine if there was some financial recognition of the value of a mother's investment in children, marriage, home. But there isn't. "Because unpaid child care is not measured and counted as labor, caregivers earn zero Social Security credits for raising children at home. As a result, millions of American women forfeit billions of dollars a year in retirement income." For the moment, the government gets women still another way, taxing married couples who file joint returns at a higher rate.

If a mother divorces, the results are even more dramatic: damned if they work (child support gets cut commensurately) and damned if they don't (alimony is more and more rare). Men might pooh-pooh that analysis, convinced that divorced dads are–pardon the pun–getting screwed. But consider this: One third to one half of all divorced mothers go on welfare at some point. That includes educated, professional women who gave up careers to raise their children, only to see their marriage–and their financial security–dissolve.

Ms. Crittenden concludes: "For all the work they do, at the end of the day most mothers have to rely on the financial support of a spouse." You've come a long way, baby, indeed.

So why do it? For the rewards–the hugs, kisses, the pride a mother feels in creating human capital that can't be put in the bank. For the benefit to our children. Because someone must do it. Because our kids need us. And because most dads aren't doing it.

Ms. Crittenden is neutral in her language, refraining from excitable rhetoric and attaching only the most general blame. Perhaps that's because there's plenty of blame to go around. Let's start with the men. If we needed proof that the personal is political, here it is. The hypocrisy inherent in the system stems from this basic truth: Most men want their wives to stay home, take care of the children, attend to the family's daily needs–just like their own mommies. In these complicated times, "a full-time 'wife' is often the only thing that makes family life possible," Ms. Crittenden states. It's also something that makes a successful man: One survey cited found that 64 percent of male executives with children under age 13 had non-working spouses. And men's attitudes about mothers get institutionalized in the workplace, which they still run.

But feminists also deserve blame. As Jane Waldfogel, a professor at Columbia University School of Social Work, puts it: "Women's equality is not about equal access to education or equal job opportunities anymore–those things are done. The part that's left is the part that has to do with family responsibilities."

But how to solve that problem when women themselves are torn? Women want to work–and yet they attack any successful woman who appears to put her career ahead of her children. They attack anyone who skips a step, anyone who slides by on the back of a husband, anyone who avoids the dues-paying that professional women feel they've endured. When Zoë Baird, nominated by Bill Clinton to be his Attorney General, got into "nanny" trouble–and Ms. Crittenden's account of this sad chapter in American public life should raise the blood pressure of even the most skeptical reader–it was women shouting, "Off with her head!" Why? Ms. Baird had the same problem every working mother has: finding good, affordable, legal child care. Shouldn't that have engendered sympathy?

Reading Ms. Crittenden's powerful treatise is a depressing experience. Her list of suggested remedies in the final chapter only makes things worse; given the political, economic and psychological climate of the nation, her every idea seems tired, wrong or inadequate. And yet The Price of Motherhood achieves what all the best revolutionary tracts aspire to: It raises consciousness. Ms. Crittenden lays out an argument for the next wave of feminism, and the message is clear: Mommies, grab your guns.

Mary Ann Giordano, managing editor of The Observer , has three children.

as they inched their way to the 66th Street transverse. The sun roof was open,

but my husband and his partner were talking business, and they weren't paying

much attention. Then they heard the hoots coming from above.

"Nice car!" "Cool!" "All right!" It was a construction crew

working from scaffolding next to the car, calling down into the sun roof.

By now, my husband was used to it. It had taken me a little

longer. I began to realize what I was part of one Saturday morning near home,

when we'd stopped at a crosswalk to let a large group, a family,  cross the main drag. They moved slowly,

keeping pace with an elegant, white-haired woman who kept lagging behind.

She was in no hurry. As she moved across the road, she kept

looking over at us and smiling-no, she was grinning. Then she gave us a nod and

a wave just before taking those last few steps to the curb.

I remember thinking: That's one friendly woman.

But then I realized: She wasn't waving and nodding at us .

She was ogling our car.

We own a PT Cruiser-that

short, round, strange-looking little getaway-like car with the big, shiny grill

that Chrysler introduced last year.

The French call it " Le

Jimmy Cagney Car ." The New York Times

gave it an A-plus rating. Motor Trend

named it Car of the Year. The car is so hot there's still a waiting list

for it, more than six months after it first hit the road.

Owning one, of course, makes us extremely trendy.

Dangerously trendy, in my view. I don't much like standing out in a crowd. And

I certainly don't want my car to be the center of attention, especially in the

city, where it can call out to car thieves like Ed Koch at a street fair-"It's

me! It's me!"-after I squeeze it into a parking space, click the alarm and turn

the corner.

But, of course, that's just what I've gotten: a car that

does its own Robert De Niro imitation-"You talking to me?"-daring anyone it

passes to give it a second look. Those construction workers, that elderly

woman, other drivers at the gas station-they are among the legions who feel

compelled to in some way acknowledge the PT's presence on the road. Kids, old

people, women and men, Hispanic, black, preppy or Guido-you name a type, and

they've thrown us a thumbs-up, given us a honk, shouted out "I love your car!"

or flashed their lights at us. (Those who don't like it just stare.)

Believe me, I would never have bought the thing. I have

never much cared about cars. I've had Toyotas, Hondas, then graduated to your

basic Jeeps and mini-vans as suburban weather and kids came to dictate. I do

like red, but any old color, any old car will do-just so long as it gets me

there.

It was my husband who brought the PT home, a surprise while

I was away at the Democratic National Convention. He thought it was hilarious

to have it waiting for me after a week of Clinton-Gore et al.-a welcome

replacement, he thought, for the red Jeep I'd been driving, which had to go

back because the lease was up.

Of course, I warned him. I told him it would deposit us at

new peaks of Yuppie-dom, make us the subject of teasing and scorn. It didn't

bother him. He's the one who started buying fancy coffee before there was a

Starbucks on every block, who collected baseball memorabilia just before it

became one giant rip-off industry, who now goes around wearing a backwards

Kangol cap that some music company he does business with gave him (obviously

because he thinks it adds to his reputation among my kids' friends as the "cool

parent" in town).

He got the car in a fluke. He had inquired about it and

heard that the waiting list was ridiculous, that ordering a car then-in the

summer-might mean you'd have a car right about now, with no guarantee it'd be

in the color or have the features you wanted. But a few days later, he happened

to be driving by the dealer with our two sons when he saw several PT's, of

different colors, in the lot. The salesman told him they were all accounted

for, but one was for the dealer's wife-and she might agree to hold off if he

really wanted it. He'd ask.

Before Hillary Clinton had given her dull

I'm-for-kids-and-there's-nothing-scary-or-controversial-about-me speech to the

conventioneers, I had a new silver PT Cruiser waiting for me back home.

Unfortunately, it's not the first time my husband has done

that. Several years ago, he came home with a 1964 red Corvette convertible that

had been completely rebuilt, with original parts, and which he'd picked up for

a steal-or so he told me. I was horrified. Who needed all that attention? I

refused to ride in it, would not even discuss it-until he tricked me one day by

driving to the train station, which meant I had to get in if I wanted to get

home. (During my brief ride, there were no instances of women throwing their

panties through the open roof, something my husband assured me happened every

time he got into the car.)

The Corvette is now coveted by my daughter, who will be 16

and learner's-permit-eligible in two months and one day-which I know only

because she constantly reminds me. Fat chance. The 'Vette sits in our garage, a

huge hulk covered in canvas, taking up a lot of room and leaving its cozy nest

a mere half-dozen times a year-after which my husband lovingly re-polishes it

each time and checks under the hood.

The PT, however, attracts almost the same amount of

attention. Driving it, with its fat tires and retro shape, I get waved at,

honked at, talked to, flashed at (though I have yet to collect any panties). I

am trendy. I am visible. I am embarrassed.

But, you know, it's a nice little car. It's compact but

comfortable; all five of us fit, and the kids don't fight or even annoy each

other much more than they do in the mini-van (which we've decided to keep, though the lease came due and we

really hate it). I don't like that the controls for the back windows are on the

floor-which means the kids mistakenly hit them a lot, creating instant wind

tunnels-but the control panel is cool, the seats give great back support and we

are looking forward to finding an excuse to use that little fold-out table in

the trunk.

And Chrysler must have gotten its act together, because

suddenly I'm seeing other PT's on the road, and I suspect there will soon be

many more (though the base model, which Chrysler lists at $16,500, costs $1,100

more than the Honda Accord DX, and getting a PT often requires an offer of

several thousand dollars above list).

People still wave, honk, flash, call out to us. But maybe

that nostalgia thing-those James Cagney flashbacks that obviously came over the

construction crew and the elderly, white-haired woman that Saturday morning-is

starting to fade.

Maybe the PT trend is over. Maybe it's old news. Maybe we're

no longer cutting-edge.

I can only hope.

Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City , by Andrew Kirtzman. William Morrow, 333 pages, $25.

Two years ago, at Thanksgiving dinner, someone suggested we go around the table and share what we were grateful for. Like everyone else, I was thankful for family, health, our gathering, the food. But what I also said was: "Thank you, Monica Lewinsky."

As a citizen, I had plenty of regrets about the state of the union, the morality of youth, the politicization of government and the overall scumminess of our debased politics. But I'm a journalist, and Ms. Lewinsky had given me and my colleagues in the media the wildest, most exhilarating, most challenging ride of our careers.

With similar caveats, I give thanks today for Rudy Giuliani.

For most of the 90's, Rudolph Giuliani, 107th Mayor of the City of New York, has been giving journalists and citizens alike enough daily drama to enliven dinner conversations from the East End to Elaine's.

Just think what Mr. Giuliani's provided us in the last year alone: a contentious Senate race, flirtation with the extreme right wing, an ousted schools chancellor, a battle with the Brooklyn Museum of Art, an attack on an innocent victim of police zealousness, followed by prostate cancer (soon to be cured, we hope), the public unraveling of his marriage, the emergence of a "very good friend" and his shocking withdrawal from a race he had a chance to win.

He fought fierce political battles with Governor George Pataki, former Senator Alfonse D'Amato, former Mayor Edward Koch, Conservative Party chairman Michael Long, First Lady and Senate candidate Hillary Clinton, and danced provocative dances with the likes of Senator John McCain and former Liberal Party chairman (and good buddy) Ray Harding. He was the ideal protagonist: deep, complex, dark, menacing, an inscrutable vessel of power and might who cast a shadow over all around him.

Through it all he remained, essentially, a mystery. The more we followed his exploits, the less certain we were of the man, his beliefs, his very heart and soul. What would he do next? And why? We–his aides, the press, the city–careened from one Rudy-generated crisis to another, never certain why.

Now, with a term limit looming and the state Republican Party–at least for the moment–making "over our dead bodies" gestures in his direction, it seems the end of the Giuliani decade is nigh, and he won't have us to kick around any more. We, in turn, won't have at the center of our daily lives this middle-aged man with a bad combover and sneering lisp who confounds us with his crazily confrontational style and his mysterious goals.

So who is this guy?

Wayne Barrett, through extraordinary new reporting, tries extremely hard to answer the question. He's on a mission: Once, he confesses, he had been sucked in by the Giuliani myth, and made him the hero of his previous book, City for Sale , an indictment of the Koch administration based largely on the prosecutions led by Mr. Giuliani when he was U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

But then Mr. Giuliani became mayor. Since then, according to Rudy! , there's very little that Mr. Giuliani has done right. Or, at least, little he has done without a hidden motive to benefit himself or his close friends. Mr. Barrett goes deep into Mr. Giuliani's childhood and, as recounted in the most highly publicized chapters of this book, discovers new truths about the real Rudy and his people. It is truly shocking to learn after all these years that New York's most famous crime fighter is the son of a convicted armed robber who did time in Sing Sing. Late in life, Harold Giuliani was arrested again, this time for loitering in a public restroom. That arrest threw him into a deep depression that left him unable to work.

These revelations are solidly reported. Equally well documented is Mr. Barrett's contention that Harold Giuliani's duties at his brother-in-law's Brooklyn bar included collecting big payments for the family's loan-sharking operations. (That's when he worked at all.)

You may think these details are none of our business, but remember: Harold Giuliani's son imposed workfare on mothers and City University of New York students, and hired a welfare chief who once declared to a reporter, echoing Auschwitz, "Work sets you free." Harold Giuliani's son took away the livelihood of fish merchants, refusing to license anyone to work at the Fulton Fish Market who had even a shred of crime or corruption in their family's past. Harold Giuliani's son made public the sealed juvenile record of Patrick Dorismond, a man shot dead by the police merely for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But when he knocks the accomplishments of the city's prosecutor-in-chief, Mr. Barrett takes on the role of prosecutor. His pounding of Mr. Giuliani is relentless, a diatribe without mercy or context. Reminds me of the man himself.

How I enjoyed learning that the man who so freely exposed the flaws in so many others–referring to the poor, unlucky schools chancellor, Ramon Cortines, as "precious" and "the little victim"–only earned 569 on the verbal and 504 on the math portions of his SAT's.

I also enjoyed learning that Mr. Giuliani–the man who went to great lengths to get an annulment for his 14 -year marriage to his first wife, claiming he didn't know she was his second cousin–was thought by his colleagues to be single during many of the years of that marriage?

Sprinkled throughout this 498-page indictment are small, revealing facts: A psychiatrist's report on Harold Giuliani, prepared as he was shipped off to Sing Sing: "He is egocentric to an extent where he has failed to consider the feelings and rights of others." A description of Harold Giuliani, ravaged with pain from prostate cancer but refusing to have surgery: "Nobody is going to touch my balls!" Yet there's something missing in this tale. Though he has found out facts that no one had uncovered before, Mr. Barrett is no better than the rest of the press at connecting the dots. How is it that a man who reveres his now-dead father, who insists at every opportunity on the profound role his father played in his life, sends his own young son, Andrew, home from a Yankees game with his security detail, so he can bounce around town with his then communications director–and rumored lover–Cristyne Lategano? How is it that a young lawyer in private practice can defend Dow Jones and the Tribune Company in First Amendment cases, and then run the most repressive government vis-à-vis the press in city history?

Now we know that Harold Giuliani robbed a milkman, but we have no clue–other than his son's previously published remarks–as to how he raised his only child. Now we know that the father had a criminal past, but when did the son know? Did he, as some people suspect, first learn about it in the published reports on Mr. Barrett's book?

And something else is missing: the City of New York. For though Rudy! provides us with fact upon fact about Rudy Giuliani and the people around him–the chapters about Donna Hanover, Cristyne Lategano and the other alleged women in Mr. Giuliani's life are captivating, not just on a voyeuristic level but for their journalistic precision–it does not tell us why a tough guy like Mr. Giuliani was able to achieve so much. And why so many people who don't like the man or his policies are grateful that he was Mayor for much of the 1990's.

For the missing elements, turn to Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City , by Andrew Kirtzman, another veteran New York City reporter who has been a witness to all of the Rudy years, first at the Daily News and later at New York 1 News. For political and media junkies, there's Mr. Barrett's book; for the rest of the world, there's Mr. Kirtzman's, a nicely written narrative that pulls together the highlights of the Giuliani era.

Mr. Kirtzman reminds us of the squeegee men and the armed marauders who defined this city before Mr. Giuliani became Mayor and had the good sense to (temporarily) bring in creative law-enforcement men like Bill Bratton, Jack Maple and John Timoney to run the NYPD. Mr. Kirtzman reminds us of the hellhole that was Times Square and the sense of hopelessness that permeated the five boroughs. Like Mr. Barrett, Mr. Kirtzman is horrified by the lengths to which Mr. Giuliani will go–the humiliation of Ramon Cortines and Rudy Crew being two of the lowest moments in Mr. Giuliani's tenure. And, again like Mr. Barrett, Mr. Kirtzman focuses on the role race has played in the words and actions of Mr. Giuliani; both authors are puzzled by the Mayor's persistent ability to play it wrong and mean and ugly.

Race is the story of New York. It's the story of America. And it's the story of Rudy Giuliani. But chalking it all up to Mr. Giuliani's Long Island or Catholic or Italian-American background is too easy. There's something else going on here and, like the rest of us, neither author has it figured out.

Nor do they figure out Mr. Giuliani's complex relationship with the city's police officers–his knee-jerk instinct to defend them at any cost while adamantly refusing to give them the pay raises they so crave.

Both books were rushed out early–first to hit during the Senate race and then, when Mr. Giuliani dropped out, to hit while the Mayor was still hot news. Perhaps more time and perspective (the thing most sought by every well-intentioned journalist) would have brought more focus and insight. Meanwhile, we're left with the most basic questions: Who is Rudolph Giuliani? And how will the press ever live without him?

Mary Ann Giordano is managing editor of The Observer.

Opinion polls reveal a great American contradiction: On the one hand, Americans show widespread disdain for lawyers, politicians and the press; on the other hand, they wholeheartedly support the death penalty. Somehow Americans leap that chasm of contempt for all the main players in the criminal justice system and land gung-ho for the system's most consequential action: making sure the convicted defendant in capital cases is strapped onto the gurney for lethal injection. Call it a leap of faith–but one with horrifying results, as is quickly made clear in Actual Innocence , a disturbingly effective book by O.J. Dream Team lawyers Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld and New York journalist Jim Dwyer.

Mr. Scheck and Mr. Neufeld are New York City criminal-defense lawyers who early on seized upon DNA fingerprinting technology. From the start, they understood its potential: In the largely inexact world of the criminal courtroom, comparing the most basic element of human life could offer at last scientific proof of guilt or innocence. DNA extracted from human particles left behind at a crime scene–blood, bits of skin, semen–could be analyzed and compared to suspects, so prosecutors could know before the fact and, if necessary, jurors could know before it was too late that the system had indeed seized the right suspect. This practice, now largely woven into the investigative process, especially in New York, is all well and good for those facing charges. But what about those who have already been convicted?

For the condemned, there is Mr. Scheck, Mr. Neufeld, the crusading Mr. Dwyer (full disclosure: a former colleague)–and, until recently, all too few other lawyers, prosecutors and investigators. Mr. Scheck and Mr. Neufeld, with the aid of Mr. Scheck's students at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in Manhattan, have been running something called the Innocence Project, a last-chance source of legal aid for those rotting away in the nation's prisons knowing they are not guilty of the crimes for which they have been convicted. The project has not lacked for clients.

By the time Actual Innocence was completed last summer, some 6,000 people had been sent to death row since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated. Some 550 had been executed. Eighty others had been cleared through DNA testing and other means–meaning for every seven executed, one was freed. Of the first 18,000 DNA tests done at the F.B.I. and other crime laboratories, at least 5,000 suspects were excluded before trial–a one-in-four failure rate for investigators.

Saved from the gurney was Ron Williamson, who was convicted on the testimony of a jailhouse snitch of raping, sodomizing and murdering a young woman in Ada, Okla. Mr. Williamson, a broken-down piece of man who had once played professional baseball and degenerated into mental illness and drug and alcohol abuse, spent a dozen years on death row until DNA testing exonerated him. At one point, five days from execution, he stood in his cell on death row, clutching the bars, yelling, " I'm innocent! I'm innocent! I'm innocent! "–"yelling it over and over until he had no voice left to yell with," the authors add. One of the key prosecution witnesses later was found to be the real murderer.

Others were sentenced to another kind of hell: endless days, months, years in prison. Since DNA testing has been most effective in sex crime cases–for the innocent, the semen left behind is a virtual get-out-of-jail card, if the authorities consent to have it tested–many of the tortured souls in Actual Innocence experienced the added prison pleasures that come from being labeled "sex offenders." Tim Durham had at least 11 eyewitnesses who could vouch for him in Dallas on the day he allegedly raped a little girl in Tulsa, Okla. Yet he had had a troubled past, matched the description of the child's attacker and was a victim of flawed forensics that linked him to hairs found at the crime scene. Surely he cursed his fate the night he was pulled from his jail bed "and kicked until his ribs were broken, a punishment administered to him by other inmates for molesting a child. As he lay on the ground, cowering, he could hardly begin to explain that he, too, was a victim, of a court system unwilling to scrutinize any evidence coated with a veneer of 'science.'"

Each chapter of Actual Innocence includes a case study or two that dramatically illustrates the many ways justice can be ill served in a courtroom: mistaken identification, false confessions, jailhouse snitches and informants, junk science, politically driven prosecutors, sleeping lawyers, forensic fraud, racial prejudice. At times, the cases blend into one another; it all seems repetitive: All right, already, we get it .

But do we? On Jan. 31, the State of Illinois, which wrongfully convicted at least a dozen defendants sentenced to death, imposed a moratorium on executions. At least five other states are considering similar or more permanent actions. Yet this is a sadly recent phenomenon. Last spring, driven by Mr. Dwyer's powerful columns in the Daily News and similar reporting by Bob Herbert in The New York Times , I gave my teenage daughter an assignment: Westchester Country District Attorney Jeanine Pirro (she of the notorious philandering, tax-challenged husband) was to hold a press conference at my daughter's school. "Ask her," I said, "how she can justify her support for the death penalty." At that point, 64 persons on death row had been freed after being found innocent of the crimes for which they had been convicted.

My daughter did my bidding–and, based on accounts in the local newspaper the next day and other firsthand reports, took quite a tongue lashing for it. Basically, Ms. Pirro said she would not run from making sure the scum of the earth was swept from the streets.

But that's not the point, is it? Ah, how far we have come from the days when prosecutors and defense attorneys alike could agree with this legal maxim: "It is better that 99 … offenders shall escape than that one innocent man shall be condemned." Contrast with the wisdom of former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese in 1986: "The thing is, you don't have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That's contradictory. If a person is innocent of crime, then he is not a suspect."

It's obvious what drives our zeal to kill. Crime. Fear. And the criminal acts recounted in this book, told well, with neither embellishment nor any attempt to play down the impact on the victims, will make you want to draw your children a bit closer, give your partner an extra hug, take a second glance over your shoulder on the walk to the subway.

But isn't it downright un-American to react out of fear? To set public policy on the basis of collective terror? We can understand district attorneys and other politicians: Avoiding voter rejection is the motivating principle in politics today. But the rest of us: Will we tolerate prosecutors who refuse to open flawed cases, judges who push to trial tainted evidence and appeals courts that turn a blind eye to attempts to right possible wrongs–all because we're frightened by crime?

Obviously, I greatly admire this book (I think it should be mandatory reading for all law students, judges, prosecutors and legislators), and one reason is that the authors make useful suggestions for systemic change. Interestingly, those suggestions do not include abolishing the death penalty. Rather, they are suggestions that will allow society to put away the bad guys among us while protecting the truly innocent. The authors' ideas are sprinkled throughout the chapters, then reprised in an appendix that smart local legislators should photocopy and turn into bills. Republican, Democrat, it shouldn't matter. In fact, Actual Innocence is decidedly nonpartisan. (How easy it would have been to slam George W. Bush, master of death row, for his sustained ability to just say No to last-chance appeals. Messrs. Scheck, Neufeld and Dwyer show great self-control in resisting temptation.)

The alternative to reform is to continue living the great American contradiction: Distrust lawyers, the police, politicians and the press–and then, when it comes to perhaps the weightiest issue in society, have faith they'll do the right thing. What's the saying: "Cross your fingers, hope to die"?

Back in the old days-back before City Hall Park was surrounded by an iron fence, back when average New Yorkers were allowed to congregate on the marble steps and even to venture into the building-there was the Bird Man. Every reporter, cop, City Council flunky and Mayoral assistant knew him. The Bird Man would take his place at City Hall's steps sometime in the afternoon, warble a selection of bird calls, then leave. No one tried to arrest him. No one had him committed. Cops, reporters, flunkies and assistants would pass by, nod or even stop to chat.

This was back when Edward I. Koch was Mayor of the City of New York, those 12 years from 1978 to 1990 when a Bird Man warbling outside of City Hall didn't seem at all unusual. Virtually every day there were demonstrations, press conferences, rallies, even performances in front of the building. City Hall wasn't just a place reserved for the occasional Yankees victory rally (ticket-holders only) or small, pre-approved demonstrations (by judge's order or permit). It was a running vaudeville show, complete with clowns and showmen. Most importantly, it was a place where New Yorkers could congregate, air their grievances, horn in on an ambitious City Council member's press conference, meet with a reporter, even take in an earful of East Harlem salsa or East Flatbush steel drums.

City Hall was a noisy place, and loudest of all was the irrepressible mayor, Ed Koch.

Rudy Giuliani, you are no Ed Koch. (I say this with all due respect for the sitting Mayor, who has accomplished great things in this city.)

When Mr. Koch captured 50 percent of the vote in the Nov. 8, 1977, election over Mario Cuomo's 42 percent, he was ecstatic about the possibilities of being Mayor. New York journalists Arthur Browne, Dan Collins and Michael Goodwin, authors of the unauthorized biography, I, Koch (1985), quote Mr. Koch's old law partner, Allen Schwartz, on the new Mayor-elect's first thoughts: "Ed Koch wanted to bring New York City back. He wanted to make it like it was. Like one person was going to make it all different. He was not going to follow the paths of his predecessors. His perception was that they took the easy way out, the shortcuts. He would not. He was going to take on everyone who had to be dealt with, from the labor leaders to the financial community to the real estate community. His appointments were going to be the best. He was going to deal with the problems, all the problems."

Twelve years later, when the people threw him out of office, as he likes to put it, Mr. Koch had given it all he had. He had revived the spirits of the sagging city, shone a light on its vast possibilities, reformed its judicial selection process and launched a massive rebuilding program in the South Bronx ("bigger than the pyramids," he used to say), but never cracked the entrenched interests that had left the city wounded and sore.

It took Rudy Giuliani, two mayors later, to accomplish much of that. In the process, we lost an open, accessible government. Even the Bird Man is gone.

But we still have Ed Koch.

Since leaving office, he has averaged nine jobs at a time-a dozen seems to be his limit. And, as he points out repeatedly in his aptly titled new book, he's "not done yet!"

Thank goodness. Many of the jobs he has held since he was defeated 10 years ago by David Dinkins are in media: radio show host, newspaper columnist, author. (He has published 12 books in one decade.) He uses his bully pulpit to pound away at the man who succeeded, where Mr. Koch had failed, in fulfilling his lofty, nouveau -mayor goals.

I'm Not Done Yet! is an impractical guide-ludicrous, at times-to growing old. How to stay relevant! How to plan for your future! How to deal with money, health problems, diet, exercise, social life, in your post-working years! And hold down a dozen jobs! ("You know, it's funny, but I've never fully imagined how my career will slow down, or when.")

But there's only one Ed Koch. Not many of us are going to need advice on how to bounce back after losing a nationally syndicated television gig as the sitting judge on The People's Court -not to mention the $1 million-a-year salary that went with it. Not many of us can call on the best doctors in the city, upon the skip of a heartbeat, and get a small army of cops, firefighters and paramedics to respond to a morning-rush-hour 911 call.

Worried about where to go each day, when you no longer have a steady, fulfilling job? Not many of us can turn to old buddies at age 65 and parlay 20-plus years in politics into a well-paying, non-working partnership, complete with office and assistant, in a Manhattan law firm.

Mr. Koch offers advice: Don't give up! Seek out opportunities! Be open to new ideas! It will keep you young.

So true, Mr. Koch. But isn't there something else that keeps you going? (Mr. Koch turned 75 on Dec. 12.)

In I, Koch , that unauthorized biography, Harrison (Jay) Goldin, the former city comptroller, remembered Mr. Koch telling him, during a long car ride in China, "stories about slights he had suffered and relishing how that, as Mayor, he was finding opportunities to retaliate against these people one by one. It was a very long ride, and he kept saying how this one had done that, and how he had managed to get back. Finally, he looked at me and said, 'But of course, you understand that the most important thing in life is getting even.'"

But of course! That's the secret! So why, in I'm Not Done Yet! , doesn't he just come out and say so?

Sure enough, it's there, in the tales he tells about the Rev. Al Sharpton, whom Mr. Koch once had arrested at City Hall but who recently has become his unlikely ally. (Mr. Koch makes sure to remind Mr. Sharpton how indebted he should be to Mr. Koch for legitimizing him.) It's there in Mr. Koch's contempt for "one of the most acclaimed lawyers in the city" who goaded him into taking on Mayor Giuliani, but was too wimpy to speak out himself ("I said to myself, 'You prick!'"). It's there in his tales about Mr. Giuliani, and in his (correct) analysis of the Mayor's closed government. He airs again, after untold number of words in his columns (which he turned into book No. 11, Giuliani, Nasty Man , also aptly titled), his complaints about Mr. Giuliani's decision to remove from City Hall's public Blue Room the official portraits of Edward I. Koch and David Dinkins. And it's there in the story of how a police officer at Mr. Giuliani's City Hall later denied Mr. Koch access to the Blue Room (where as Mayor he had once conducted hundreds of news conferences) without an official escort from the Mayor's repressive press office. "I mention these related stories," Mr. Koch writes, "because they take us back to the underlying theme of this book: remaining relevant."

Right.

There are moments of poignancy: Mr. Koch's description of his own father, goaded into early retirement and feeling lost and lonely until Mr. Koch, then a member of Congress, helped him get a job in the fur summer storage vault at Bloomingdale's.

Mr. Koch also comes as close as he ever has to revealing his sexuality: He writes his own obituary and confesses his sadness at growing old with no companion and no heirs to whom he can leave his (now vast) fortune. "Let me be brutally frank," he writes. "It's a lonely thing, to grow old alone. It's a lonely thing to take your dinners alone, more often than not." And later: "I'm well aware of the occasional speculation regarding my sexual orientation, but it doesn't matter to me whether people think I'm straight or gay. Those who seek to 'out' people who may or may not be gay can be described as comparable to the Jew catchers of Nazi Germany. The point I mean to make here is that I'm alone."

But Ed Koch has Ed Koch, a fascinating life companion, fueled by revenge, and protected by a blanket of self-absorption.

Warble on, Mr. Koch!