Photo credit: SNL/NBC

Start practicing that soothing yet knowledgable NPR tone because National Public Radio is looking to hire someone to record all of those announcements that let the people know that they are listening to NPR and not, say, religious programming (we can't be the only ones who have made that mistake, right?).

"Heard by millions of people each week, you’ll get to say, 'This is NPR” each day,'" reads the job listing. 

"You should bring a voice that’s clear, confident, and welcoming; a working style that makes the complex look simple; and be a bit tingly at the thought that your voice will be part of public radio’s daily connective tissue all across the country."

A bit tingly, huh?

But it's more than just a voice gig. NPR wants someone with "serious production chops" who "thrives on deadlines." But mostly, someone with a good NPR voice.

Alec Baldwin, Kevin Allison, Ophira Eisenberg and Julie Klausner

In the beginning there was radio, and everyone tuned in collectively. Satellite radio changed the equation slightly as listeners moved to create their own sound experiences, free of commercials and all those unwanted stations. Then, along came podcasts, and it seems there’s one for every listener these days. Now you can personalize your own aural space as never before, and there are so many podcasts to choose from.

Here’s a list of some of our favorite New York podcasts for your listening pleasure. The topics of these shows range from cabaret to poetry to fairy tales to comic books, not to mention the celebrity personality-driven shows. We think you’ll see what we mean when we say there is truly a podcast for everyone.

HERE'S THE THING
wnyc.org
Alec Baldwin has a loose tongue—just think of all the Twitter wars he’s gotten himself into—so you might not think he’d be fit to host a talk show. But the former star of 30 Rock’s acerbic wit and dry, hilarious asides are exactly what make his WNYC podcast, Here’s the Thing, such a delight. The show, it seems, is as much about Mr. Baldwin as it is the people he talks to—from Girls star Lena Dunham to New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson—but with a host so entertaining, and with such a calming voice, that’s hardly a problem.

RISK!
risk-show.com
RISK! is a weekly podcast presented by Maximum Fun, the radio show organization, and associated with the live feature of the same name in which people get up before an audience and tell a story that they would not normally want to reveal. The podcast is hosted by Kevin Allison, formerly of the ’90s-era MTV sketch comedy show The State, and the show’s description might remind you of The Moth, the nonprofit storytelling organization that puts out its own podcast. But RISK! is raunchier and more laugh-out-loud funny; the idea is, you’re taking a risk by telling your story.

DRUNK COMIC BOOK CHAT
drunkcomics.tumblr.com
“We’re talking about comic books and we’re also drunk,” reads the show’s spare description, which pretty much says it all. Drunk Comic Book Chat often feels like Drunk History, the popular web series recently picked up by Comedy Central: The hosts sometimes get their facts wrong—on purpose, it seems; they meander; they’re frivolous. And even if comic book arcana is not your thing, Drunk Comic Book Chat is oddball enough that you just might enjoy it, even while you’re furrowing your brow.

54 BELOW
54belowpodcast.wordpress.com
54 Below, billed as Broadway’s nightclub, opened last year as the Oak Room was closing, and it’s a bastion of cabaret performance in a city where that music can sometimes feel like an embattled art form. As it happens, the club also puts out a weekly podcast featuring interviews with, and clips of live performances by, some of cabaret’s most exalted figures, including Ben Vereen, Barbara Carroll and Patti LuPone.

Julie Klausner

HOW WAS YOUR WEEK?
howwasyourweek.com
Julie Klausner likes to complain. And if you didn’t know that already, you certainly will after you listen to the author and comedian’s weekly, hour-long feature, How Was Your Week?, which New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman has called “one of the few essential podcasts.” Ms. Klausner delivers monologues, interviews and cultural critiques in an off-the-cuff manner that can sometimes feel kvetchy but is most often hilarious and just right.

ASK ROULETTE
askroulette.net
Ask Roulette is hosted by Jody Avirgan, a producer for WNYC Radio, and the series first appeared on the Brian Lehrer Show. The premise of the podcast is simple: Strangers ask other strangers random questions before a live audience. There’s no way to know what question you’ll be asked or even the type of question that will be lobbed at you—hence the “Roulette” in the show’s title. Questions range from heavy (like “Is it immoral to have sex with your sibling, even if it’s mutual?”) to frivolous (for instance, “Have you ever licked an armpit?”).

THE BOWERY BOYS
theboweryboys.blogspot.com
Gregory Young and Thomas Meyers, hosts of The Bowery Boys, are not native New Yorkers, but they know more about the intricacies of the Big Apple than most would dream of. The subjects of recent episodes on this travel and history podcast include a look at the Great Blizzard of 1888 and an examination of the secret history of Herald Square. The Bowery Boys is delightfully old-fashioned without feeling recondite, like an episode of Car Talk without the car talk.

POETRY OFF THE SHELF
poetryfoundation.org
Curtis Fox, who has produced podcasts for The New Yorker and Parents magazine, hosts this weekly installment in association with The Poetry Foundation. Poetry Off the Shelf features interviews with authors, professors and, of course, poets. If you’re intimidated by poetry, this podcast might be for you: it’s short, easy to absorb and without a trace of highbrow didacticism. “Nothing is off limits,” reads the podcasts’s description, “and nobody is taken too seriously.”

ASK ME ANOTHER
npr.org
This weekly, hour-long podcast is hosted by the writer and comedian Ophira Eisenberg—who tours regularly with The Moth—and it’s recorded live at the Bell House in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn with a rotating cast of guests. A whimsical game show, serious and playful, full of amusing trivia and word games and puzzles and homages to popular shows like Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, the show feels like Peter Sagal’s Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me! recast for a younger audience. Ask Me Another refers to its question makers as “puzzle gurus,” some of whom have written for Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The stakes, of course, are not as high on Ask Me Another, which is what makes the show so charming.

TABLED FABLES
tabledfables.tumblr.com
Have you ever thought that maybe Jack shouldn’t have sold the family cow for those magic beans? And when you think of Beauty and the Beast, do you imagine more than just the Disney movie? Also, how did Cinderella’s slipper fall off if it fit so well in the end? New York City producers Sophie Bushwick and Amy Kraft spend a lot of their time thinking about this stuff and discuss it on their monthly podcast, Tabled Fables, in which they investigate the history behind, the evolution of and the meaning to be found in fairy tales.

THE WORLD IN TIME
bloomberg.com/podcasts/lapham
The legendary Lewis Lapham--former longtime editor of Harper's and founder of Lapham's Quarterly--hosts this podcast of social criticism and historical inquiry for Bloomberg News. Mr. Lapham has a deep voice, with a cadence not unlike Edward R. Murrow's. This lends an appropriate air of seriousness to The World in Time, which takes on serious subjects--in a recent episode, Mr. Lapham discusses the philosophical significance of islands with author J. Edward Chamberlin. But don't be intimidated: Mr. Lapham's weekly, 20-minute podcast is both easily digestible and mentally nutritious.

Neal Conan (YouTube: Screencap)

NPR recently announced they would cease broadcasting Talk of the Nation in June, thus pulling off one of the most bald-faced betrayals since Judas in the Upper Room or Dylan in Royal Albert Hall. The betrayal cut along many lines and was felt, by this reporter, acutely.

The reason given for the cancellation was the clamor of member stations for “a magazine-style news show at the middle of the day, something along the lines of Morning Edition and All Things Considered.” But it seems to me Talk of the Nation was meant to give voice not to the Torey Malatias of the world but to the grain farmers of Nebraska, the taxi drivers of Detroit, the P.E. teachers in Denver. It was, that is, Radio for the National Public. No matter what reason given, that NPR is cancelling one of the only shows that did this directly cannot be seen as anything but treachery.

So NPR threw the National Public under the bus. They also threw Neal Conan, the host of Talk of the Nation under the bus. This would not be quite as tragic if Mr. Conan wasn’t so talented. After all, between 1999 and 2008, there were 186 motorcoach fatalities, so lots of people are thrown under the bus. But Mr. Conan is unparalleled in the gentleness with which he queried guests, listened to callers and drew them out. There was never a hint of condescension or agenda. This, I think, is primarily what made the program such a joy to listen to: it envisioned, and enabled, a world in which diametrically opposed demographics—along nearly every metric—could speak. (Contrast with the times when Celeste Headlee has played host and she, infuriatingly, pretends to listen to a caller, then hangs up, thinking if she repeats the caller’s name and location, she is somehow engendering dialogue, which she isn’t.)

Mr. Conan also meant the world to me personally, and I’m not alone in this. Here’s one of the most touching exchanges on NPR I’ve ever heard. It comes from the program “Closing The Circle: Revisiting Stories from 2012.” This is from a farmer named Richard Vernon, in South Union, Kentucky. The exchange happened after Mr. Vernon called in to check up on the man. Their conversation was substantively over but Mr. Vernon didn’t want to get off the phone. You can read below but better to listen:

God bless you, Neal. If you only knew what your program, especially your voice, means to me every day. It reaches out to my heart and my mind and my soul and every one of the people who work for the radio. If it had not been for y'all the last several years, through this recession, there were times in my tractor when my cattle were bawling, hungry for something to eat, and the wind is blowing sideways, 35 mile an hour, snowing, and I don't have enough feed to give them. And I want to get out of the tractor and give up and walk away and just be lost. But instead I stayed in the tractor and listened to you guys that I can get through this day. So thank you guys for being what you are to all of us, people like us that are just barely hanging on by a thread.

I listen to podcasts of Talk of the Nation as I bike to work, as rosy fingered dawn touches the Hudson, and when I bike home from work, the sun setting over the same. Actually, I alternate between podcasts of the Interdependence Project and Talk of the Nation but, aside from the particulars, they are, to me, one and the same: an hour or two of respect, openness, thoughtfulness, consciousness.

Now NPR is silencing TOTN and we are left only with the sycophantism of Terry Gross, the smugness of Ira Glass and, infuriatingly, the adenoidal whine of Ira Flatow. We are left bereft not only of Neal Conan’s charm and grace but, more importantly, of the chorus of voices to which Talk of the Nation gave space and volume. I’ll keep listening to NPR not because I want to, but because it’s what Neal would have wanted. But I’ll never, I fear, hear again from the Rich Vernons of the world, in the sideways blowing wind, cattle bawling, hanging on by a thread.

The Accusers

Yasha Levine and Mark Ames, writing for their own site, The S.H.A.M.E. Media Transparency Project, which opened shop on in March. As Russian expats, both helped co-found the satirical Russian alt-biweekly The eXile (another co-founder: Rolling Stone political columnist Matt Taibbi), which still lives on, online. More recently, the duo were widely credited with having connected the Koch Brothers to the Tea Party (after Playboy all but erased from existence the original piece in which they initially made the connection for the magazine).

The Accused

Adam Davidson, the co-host and co-founder of NPR's Planet Money. Prior to Planet Money, Davidson worked for NPR as an international business and economics correspondent for NPR, and was a Middle Eastern correspondent for Public Radio International. Aside from co-hosting Planet Money, Davidson also has a gig as a regular columnist for The New York Times Magazine and, according to Levine and Ames, makes decent coin on the side with speaking engagements too. Here's his NPR biography. Here's Levine and Ames's biography of him.

The Charge(s)

First, that a notoriously hostile 2009 Planet Money interview between Davidson and Elizabeth Warren—the special adviser to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—was ethically tainted by Planet Money's financial arrangements with "the sole sponsor underwriting Davidson's Planet Money show and his salary." Levine and Ames argue that the sponsor in question—a financial services conglomerate—lobbied against the creation of the CFPB before it was created (and around the time of the interview), which is evidence of an insidious conflict of interest. Furthermore, they allege that Davidson is accepting speaking fees from the industry he covers for both NPR and The New York Times Magazine, something largely viewed as an unsavory, questionable practice by most journalists (and journalism institutions, which usually have guidelines against that sort of thing).

The Evidence

A Sponsorship Problem: Ames and Levine published a 2009 lobbying report signed by the financial conglomerate in question, GMAC (now Ally Financial), in which the company discloses lobbying against the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009, which created the CFPB that Elizabeth Warren now acts as a special adviser to. To them, this disclosure speaks great volumes about Davidson's coverage, particularly a 2009 interview between Davidson and Warren. At the time, Warren was lobbying for the act (as she was its architect), which set out to create an agency that would protect consumers from predatory practices by companies like GMAC/Ally Financial. During the interview, Davidson was so surprisingly hostile towards Warren that it famously warranted an apology from NPR's ombudsman.

[Ally (formerly GMAC), the consumer-lending arm of General Motors, is 74 percent owned by the government after receiving a $17.2 billion bailout. Even as other financial firms have emerged from the darkest days of the financial crisis, Ally has remained in the government’s debt, due to the struggles of Residential Capital, the Ally-owned mortgage lender that recently entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy.]

Meanwhile, Ally had sponsored the show since shortly after it had launched, in an arrangement that raised eyebrows when it was initially revealed. Ames and Levine note that at that time, Planet Money was the only NPR show with a single sponsor.

The Speaking Gigs: They've compiled some of Adam Davidson's "lucrative" speaking gigs, hosted and funded by some of the largest financial institutions in the world (JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs). While a widespread practice, it's one that in their eyes—and the eyes of many others—compromises journalistic integrity.

The Rules

We could not find the issues of sponsorship directly addressed in NPR's handbook, other than a section on the necessity of disclosures. But the issue has come up even after that section was added in. However: NPR's current ethics guide does mention avoiding speaking to groups where the appearance itself might put into question one's impartiality, along with participation in forums where "sponsoring groups or other participants are identified with a particular perspective." The policy of Chicago Public Media (which owns This American Life, from which Planet Money was spun off): "Journalists may not accept any form of compensation from the individuals, institutions or organizations they cover." Finally, the New York Times' standards and ethics guide urges staffers to be wary of speaking gigs "especially if the setting might suggest a close relationship" to the sponsor, and notes that gigs must be approved by newsroom management. The example they give: "An editor who deals with political campaigns might comfortably address a library gathering but not appear before a civic group that endorses issues or candidates. An environmental reporter can appropriately speak to a horticultural society but not to conservation groups known for their efforts to influence public policy."

Precedent

We couldn't find any examples of NPR ending a sponsorship relationship because of a radio segement or program's purview. That said, Planet Money's sponsorship agreement with Ally has come under question both internally and externally prior to this.

An NPR ombudsman concluded in December 2009:

[NPR senior vice president for news, Eileen] Weiss is correct that NPR has a large pool of credibility with most of its audience. But that pool is not infinite, and it can be diminished when listeners perceive a conflict of interest, even if one does not exist.

No action was taken then. This was nine months after Davidson's interview with Warren, which prompted an on-air apology from Davidson and an NPR ombudsman's column reprimanding Davidson. That column ran five days before Planet Money's deal with Ally was written up on AdAge.

Over at the Times, writers have indeed been punished or even fired for taking speaking fees. Thomas Friedman once had to return $75,000 in unapproved speaking fees. Times technology columnist David Pogue has come under fire multiple times for speaking fees and a trip to Disney World; he still writes there (other, less popular writers have been fired for taking free trips). Mary Tripsas, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, had a monthly column until she was fired for taking a speaking engagement. And Joe Nocera once came under fire for speaking fees, and he was given a pass as well.

What do other Times writers think of the policy? Ask Paul Krugman:

I do very little paid speaking now, and no consulting, because the New York Times has quite strict rules: basically I can only get paid for speaking to nonprofits that have no possible interest in influencing the content of the column. It’s a good rule — read Eric Alterman’s book “Sound and Fury” to see how speaking fees can corrupt pundits — though it meant that I took a substantial income cut to work for the Times.

In Davidson's Defense

Planet Money has indeed covered Ally once before, in a segment derided by an Ally publicist as "false" and "inflammatory." There is no empirical evidence that Davidson—who, in his words, has "nothing to do with the underwriting stuff"—has explicitly interacted with his sponsors in a way that would undoubtedly compromise his show's integrity. Levine and Ames have no proof of Davidson's pay for his speaking gigs (though there's been no denial that he was paid).

The Official Word

An NPR spokesperson refused comment to Ames and Levine. They also contacted Ira Glass of This American Life, who also did not respond to their request for comment.

The Observer contacted an NPR spokesperson for comment through their communications department on Wednesday evening. We asked why they didn't comment to Ames and Levine, if Davidson's speaking engagements are of concern to NPR, and if—in light of the lobbying disclosure form vis-à-vis Davidson's (as noted by their own ombudsman) surprisingly hostile interview with Elizabeth Warren—Planet Money's sponsorship by Ally Bank was a concern to them. At the time, a spokeswoman answered:

I expect we'll give you comment on why we didn't comment before, and perhaps on some of these issues you raise.

This afternoon, the same NPR head of communications Dana Davis Rehm responded:

Adam reviews all his speaking engagements with his editors and we’re confident that none of them run counter to our ethical guidelines.

Beyond that, we don’t have any further comment.

When contacted Wednesday evening, a spokeswoman for the New York Times indicated that our call was the first she had heard of it; as of this afternoon, the Times was reviewing the issue, but had no official comment. UPDATE: On Friday afternoon, a spokeswoman from the New York Times emailed us with official comment:

We have discussed this situation with Adam and we’re confident that there has been no violation of our policies around speaking engagements and no conflict of interest.

When contacted by email Wednesday evening, Ames and Levine had this to say over email:

Until NPR answers these questions and fully discloses the nature of their relationship with Ally Bank, and their conflict-of-interest policy, everything else is a PR distraction. We have provided strong evidence of several very serious conflicts of interest. Evasions and distractions that avoid answering these allegations and questions, like the ones provided by their ombudsman back in 2009, will only reinforce our point about corruption at Planet Money.

They also pointed us to a March 2009 Columbia Journalism Review profile of NPR, which they provided as speaking to proof that "Davidson was in the very least intimately involved in the process of creating the show," which it certainly does. Again, that doesn't explicitly tie Davidson to Ally Bank's interests.

That said, Ames and Levine's takeaway isn't so forgiving:

This says pretty much everything you need to know about the gangrenous state of America's media, when two of the most respected media institutions adopt a mob strategy to protect their little racket.

At the very least, they have indeed made a compelling case that Davidson is—if not complicitly, then inherently—conflicted. Either way, it's a conflict that’s clearly uncomfortable to more than two people, regardless, and a few who'd rather not discuss it as well.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Per Deadline, Donald Sutherland has signed on to a comedy pilot at Fox set in the rollicking world of NPR. While it's purportedly a pilot focused on a father-son relationship, we're sure the setting will have some impact upon the plotlines, especially since Fox's corporate cousins at Fox News have had a few things to say about NPR recently!

• “They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive," Fox News chief Roger Ailes on NPR, 11/17/2011
• "I am not yet convinced that the NPR national operation in Washington has been able to rid itself of the elite liberal orthodoxy that made me into their whipping boy." --Juan Williams, Fox News commentator, 10/25/2011
• "Why should conservatives’ taxes pay for this?," from FoxNews.com article "NPR Admits It's Packed With Liberals," 03/16/2011
• "This shake-up at the taxpayer-funded broadcaster should not be soon forgotten. It shows the degree to which off-base and twisted Tea Party opposition can be, and how high the fanaticism reaches," 03/11/2011
• "NPR Executive Goes on Bigoted Rant," post syndicated from the Daily Caller, 03/08/2011
• "[NPR] throw[s] out propaganda in violation of the First Amendment... Terrorists want to create terror. Well, what does NPR want to create? They're intimidating, too," Bill O'Reilly's on-air comments, 10/2010

We eagerly await the show, as we love to laugh!

Better late to the party than never, as is the case with the oddly funny, moderately creepy Babes of NPR blog, run on Tumblr by this blogger. The endgame is self-evident: highlighting and/or objectifying the voices behind the radio news network and one of America's perennial liberal lifestyle punching bags. And it works!

For example:

Ben Calhoun, Producer, This American Life, looks like the neighbor you watch doing dude yoga through the window while you smoke American Spirits and read The New Yorker on your porch. HOT.

Yet, as noticed by whoever's manning the social media operation for Fresh Air—and this doesn't bode well for those concerned with the mugs of their chosen radio staffers, if you're into that—they're already repeating themselves.

Either way, for people who spend far too much time wondering and/or fantasizing about the faces behind the voices coming in over their radio/streaming radio/podcast/whatever else people listen to NPR on these days, however, your time has come. Go to town.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Rookie

In return she provided Mr. Sagal some tips for talking to his Tavi-aged daughters.

GEVINSON: You should just speak in like, abrevs.

SAGAL: Abrevs?

GEVINSON: Yeah.

SAGAL: Like, all right, already I'm at sea.

SAGAL: So what is an abrev?

BODETT: An abrev is an abrev.

GEVINSON: Yeah. There you go.

SAGAL: It's an abbreviation. So give me an - so abrev is like abbreviate. So give me an example.

GEVINSON: Like, "ur tots jel of that boy, yo."

BODETT: Oh man.

GEVINSON: This is how I talk to my peers.

In spite of the pro tip, she said she is not a "parent spy."

Playing off her age, her game concerned the interests of the elderly, called "Frankly, I really miss "Murder She Wrote."

(Little did they know she knows Advanced Style too.)

Ms. Gevinson resides in the Chicago area, where the program is produced, and is friends with NPR star Ira Glass.

Garrison Keillor, Ms. Gross's fellow NPR contributor, wasn't overly concerned about the war over NPR. "It was a skirmish. There'll be a lot more of them after. People on the right perceive public broadcasting as being an animal. We just have to live with them--they're riding high right now." Ominously, the previously avuncular Prairie Home Companion host added, "Something else will happen."

What about NPR was so offensive? Mr. Keillor, who alienated much of the Authors Guild at last year's dinner by joking onstage about the end of publishing, couldn't say. "Unoffensive broadcasting would be a pale shade of fish. We just keep going." As for his own Prairie Home Companion, "we're not political--we're just a silly show."

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

The Good Wife (CBS): "In this densely layered dramatic series, the dutiful wife of a disgraced politician resumes her
legal career and finds satisfaction, self-worth and moral quandaries of her own."

Degrassi (TeenNick): "True to its history, the durable high-school serial’s two-parter about a transgender teen neither
trivializes nor overdramatizes its subject."

Men of a Certain Age (TNT): "A series about three longtime pals, 'regular' guys, navigating middle age, it’s comical, poignant and harrowing, sometimes all at once."

The quasi-scare-quotes around "regular" in that last citation have sold us--we thought the TNT drama was just boring schlock, but who knew "regular" life had such complexities? We've written up a few citations of our own, using suitably vague and effusive language, that the Peabodys missed.

Survivor (CBS): "This venerable and evocative drama series about island life presents the viewer with questions of mortality and group dynamics, sometimes both at once."

Kourtney and Kim Take New York (E!): "A piece of urban cinema verite that depicts two sisters navigating a new environment and discovering their own self-worth."

Two and a Half Men (CBS): "A gripping portrait of addiction that manages to make light of--never overdramatizing--its subject."

The Peabody Awards, hosted by Larry King, will be held May 23. See you then, Kourtney and Kim!

ddaddario@observer.com :: @DPD_

State Budget: Koch's call for a Legislative Budget Office moves forward. [Liz Benjamin]

Public Cuomo: "[T]he governor twice tugged on the back of Senate Minority Leader John Sampson’s suit jacket as the senator gave opening remarks." [Michael Amon]

Corruption: Mother of Kruger's alleged accomplice, Dorothy Turano, runs a community board in Brooklyn. [Javier Hernandez]

Salaries: An AP reporter is amazed at how many state workers earn more than the governor. [Beth Fouhy]

New York Times: How to read the paper, online from now on. [Arthur Sulzberger, Jr.]

New York Times: To read it for free, follow @FreeNYT. [The Atlantic]

New York Times: Glad I don't have to do it. [WNYC]

2012: More talk from Trump as many wait for him to open his books. [Ben Smith]

2012: Palin to Jerusalem; Jewish Week columnist says trip is "unlikely to do her much good with Jewish voters." [James Besser]

Insulting Bloomberg: The AP finds the same critic at the St. Patrick's Parade as I did. [AP]

Insulting Bloomberg: That critic is Dennis Dunn of suburban Yonkers. [AP]

Insulting Buffalo: Mayor there accepts Bloomberg's apology. [WBEN]

Visiting Buffalo: "I should get up there and see for myself," Bloomberg said, according to Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown. [Buffalo News]

School Funding: "[O]ne of the largest points of contain." [NY1]

School Funding" Cuomo says there's "waste" and "abuse" in districts. "Districts say 'we don't have any.' I don't believe it." [Reuters]

School Funding: Littlefield, in the comments section, says NYC should, but won't, talk about "massive spending on retirees." [NYO]

Tea Party: "[Rep.] Grimm took aim at the very same tea party that supposedly spurred him to victory." [Aaron Blake]

Tea Party: Responding to Rep. Grimm, Tea Party leader says "he exhibits a flawed understanding of where extremism ends and common sense begins." [Frank Santarpia]

School Funding: Advocacy video says, "We think you're crazy to make us sacrifice our futures with inequitable cuts to high-needs schools." [Times Union]

Homeless NYC: 15,000 may stop getting city help within two weeks. [The Republic]

Labor: "It’s very hard to get a favorable story about unions in the papers," AFL-CIO state leader Dennis Hughes complains. [Tom Robbins]

Media: If he were so concerned, why did Soros give NPR money? And whey did NPR take it? [Keach Hagey]

Media: Boycott HuffPo? [Columbia Journalism Review]

Pictures: The public talk after the private talk. [Cuomo's Flickr]

Pictures: Bloomberg and Wayne Barrett. [Bloomberg's Flickr]

Pictures: Obama talking to Japan's Prime Minister. [White House Flickr]