It's video just posted online from an April 22, 2009 panel discussion at the New School, entitled "Michael Bloomberg's Transformation." It's hosted by Dominic Carter of NY1, and the panel includes Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice (whose article on Bloomberg inspired the panel), Errol Louis of the Daily News and WWRL, Joyce Purnick of the New York Times and Robert George of the New York Post.

At the 21:36 mark, Purnick says the city is getting used to the mysterious billionaire they elected mayor.

“Mike Bloomberg came in out of nowhere, we thought,” she said. She added, “To the average New Yorker, if he was a name, that was it. We knew he was wealthy. We have focus groups and polls to show this. The average New Yorker knew his name, sort of.”

She goes on to say, “The man that took the office on January 1, 2002 was relatively unknown and then he kind of had to learn to be a public figure. So, has he changed? I suspect not. Have our perceptions of and our understanding of him changed? Absolutely. And that is a function of the unusual way in which he became mayor. It was a fluke, in my view.”

Purnick adds, “So, we elected this guy in 2001 not really knowing who he was. And we’re learning.”

The money raised by the event goes to charity, while the glamour of being named funniest reporter goes directly to the winner's head. Last year, the competition was won by Mandy Stadtmiller of the New York Post, with her colleague Robert George coming in third.

This year's contestants are:

Brave.

"Jeanine Pirro has a 'husband problem.' Hillary Clinton does not. It might be different in other parts of the country, but New York voters don't equate a felony conviction on tax fraud charges (Al's problem) with the impeachment of a president (who carried the Empire State quite handily twice)."

"We Christians can do this alone, y'all who ain't down with J.C. best be running along."

Sager's and George's articles cast some light on the developing rift between the conservatives -- yes, we're still on conservatives -- around Rudy Giuliani, the Manhattan Instititute, the Journal and Post and Sun, on one hand; and the crowd running the GOP and the country on the other. New York vs. Washington is a shorthand for the split here, which is part cultural, part intellectual. On the cultural side, the New Yorkers are as likely to be Jewish as Christian; likely to have, as Barack Obama put it, gay friends; and unlikely to own guns.

But the ideological split is more important. For the New Yorkers, small government is often the end in itself, as is judicial restraint. They're libertarians and Reaganites when it comes to this. But for the Rick Santorums of the world, small government is a value that can be discarded when it comes to, say, government programs promoting marriage. And judicial restraint is just this week's line of attack against gay rights and abortion. If the legal tide shifts, they'll think of another one.

(New York's Conservative Party is aligned with the national movement. That may be part of why it's dying.)

Sager, along with being a Postie, is a fellow blogger and Sun alum. And for all his hawkishness and libertarianism, he apparently felt distinctly unwelcome at CPAC, as he writes at Tech Central Station:

"The arrogance that will prove problematic, ultimately, was that directed at the libertarian-leaning conservatives by the social conservatives. The message in that regard was clear: We Christians can do this alone, y'all who ain't down with J.C. best be running along.

"That was the message when Tamar Jacoby of the Manhattan Institute, who was on a panel to defend President Bush's proposed immigration reforms (supported by no less a conservative institution than The Wall Street Journal), was loudly booed by the anti-immigrant crowd. That was the message when a representative of the Log Cabin Republicans was booed and then asked by a student, 'You people [homosexuals, that is] already have the right to live together, you got the sex, what else do you people want?'

"In fact, if there was anything particularly striking about this year's CPAC, it is to just what extent Republicans have given up being the party of small government and individual liberty.

"Make absolutely no mistake about it: This party, among its most hard-core supporters, is not about freedom anymore. It is about foisting its members' version of morality and economic intervention on the country. It is, in other words, the mirror image of its hated enemy."

"It's still too raw for me," Ms. Adams said, declining to discuss the details of the dog's passing.

The subject of her 2003 book The Gift of Jazzy , the terrier and Ms. Adams first met when Jazzy arrived, unannounced, as a bereavement present from New Millennium Press co-president Michael Viner, seven days after the death of Ms. Adams' husband Joey, the famous comic.

The relationship didn't take at first, with Ms. Adams quickly discovering the many onerous responsibilities of pet ownership.

But she has said that the relationship grew while she was mourning the death of her husband.

Jazzy's life with Ms. Adams was one that few humans could afford. For Jazzy's first birthday, Ms. Adams threw a birthday extravaganza whose a guest list, according to a Post report at the time, included Bryant Gumbel's poodle Cujo and Isabella Rossellini's dachshund Uma. Jeweler Judith Ripka fashioned silver dog collars for the occasion, while designer Joanna Pastriani made up silk-lined coats for all the dogs in attendance.

In a recent interview with CBS's Charles Osgood, Ms. Adams detailed the trappings of Jazzy's day-to-day existence.

"He has doggy day care. He has a golden sable coat from Dennis Basso, the furrier. He also has a red mink. He has kosher chicken.

"He has water from Evian," Ms. Adams said.

Certainly, Jazzy could be difficult. There were run-ins with celebrities, including Imelda Marcos and Manuel Noriega. (In the latter case, Jazzy stepped on Ms. Adams' telephone just as she was beginning an interview with Mr. Noriega, canceling the call and thereby killing her scoop.) But with the release of The Gift of Jazzy this year, the terrier took on a celebrity status that rivaled Ms. Adams'. Last February, she helped christen the Jazzy Park Avenue Boutique in Macy's. In April, Jazzy was the honoree at Macy's annual Flower Show and Petacular. In May, Ms. Adams dispatched Jazzy to interview Bruiser, Reese Witherspoon's gay Chihuahua in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde .

"Wouldn't you agree sudden fame is tiring?" Jazzy asked Bruiser.

Joined in Ms. Adams' townhouse by a companion dog, Juicy, rumors surrounding the health of Jazzy had circulated for several weeks. In the Sept. 30 edition of The Village Voice , Michael Musto wrote: "Insiders buzzed that my pal Cindy Adams's famous dog, Jazzy, had gone forever bye-bye, but there she was at shows with Jazzy (unless this is one of those cute Siegfried & Roy hoaxes)."

On Oct. 7, Ms. Adams explained to Off the Record that the death had happened "a while back."

"But I haven't done it yet in the paper, because I don't have the energy to get 800 nice blue-haired ladies sending letters and pictures about their Fidos," Ms. Adams said. "It's just too painful."

In the weeks since Primedia first announced the sale of New York magazine, the chatter about potential bidders has filled more cocktail and book parties than if Howell Raines had become the first person to land on Mars. Welcome to the New York bubble-for Henry Kravis' sake, let's hope it doesn't burst. Because interest in this sale is not just more proof of the New York media's self-obsession. The buzz about the sale is driving the price of the magazine through the roof.

By now, it seems that half the men's-room attendants in this town can rattle off a list of would-be bidders and their prospects: New York columnist Michael Wolff, with some help from his buddy, the ad mogul Donny Deutsch; Miramax chairman Harvey Weinstein; Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman. For kicks, there's also Jimmy Finkelstein, working with the publishing company owned by Wilbur Ross, the spouse of the former New York Lieutenant Governor. There's Bill Reilly, who helped found the company once known as K-III, which later became Primedia. S.I. Newhouse is in, then out, then in again as a potential bidder, if you follow the rumor mill closely. And what about the Tribune Company? They bought Chicago ! And Emmis? Well, they own a bunch of regional city magazines. Viacom? Did someone say Viacom?

One fixed-income analyst who spoke to Off the Record on the condition of anonymity said the feeling on Wall Street is that the price of the magazine "is going to be set on the level of interest, as opposed to anything more statistical and more financial.

"The sense you get from the talk out there is that the earnings or the profits or the cash flow have been going down over the last few years," the analyst continued. "If they had sold it a couple of years ago, they probably would have got something between $50 to $75 [million], $60 to $80 million. It appears now that their cash flow or operating-income level is somewhere down near $2 million a year. Generally the way we look at is as a multiple of operating cash flow. Even at that level, it'll be a 25-times multiple if someone pays $50 million. It doesn't seem for us on Wall Street to conjecture what the multiple is or what the price is, because it seems like rumors we've seen in the newspaper are going to be higher than anything that seems reasonable. Clearly someone's going to buy this thing, for lack of a better phrase, on their ego."

"It's an ego trip," deadpanned Mark Edmiston, managing director of the media investment firm Ad Media Partners, analyzing the situation.

Of course, there have been other media-property sales that have taken the spotlight in recent years. Primedia kept nervous writers at Folio and Advertising Age up all night when it was trying to find the buyer who would take on titles like Modern Bride and Seventeen .

But this is New York , the magazine born from the brain of Clay Felker, the magazine that gave us Tom Wolfe and Gail Sheehy. And so Primedia has provided us with the material-as the late Mike Royko noted upon the death of Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley in 1976-for the best donnybrook we've had in quite some time.

"The thing that's unique about New York is that the interest includes individuals," said Reed Phillips, a managing partner at DeSilva and Phillips, a media investment-banking firm. "The interest is eclectic-less predictable and corporate than if it was primarily viewed as a magazine opportunity. But it's not viewed as that; it's viewed as a soapbox. It's probably more like the interest from a daily newspaper for sale."

In the meantime, just being mentioned as a potential bidder has given renewed street cred to the expense-account crowd at Michael's.

"Anytime a prominent property is for sale, a lot of people don't mind seeing their names in print being listed as one of the individual buyers," Mr. Phillips said. "This one is even more pronounced. You've got people who are highly unlikely to bid and are even acknowledging they're interested because it's nice to be listed as one of the potential buyers at the suggested price."

Next week, according to sources, Primedia will release the financials of the magazine to potential bidders. The sale should be a definitive moment for Primedia, once a targeted media company undone by late-90's stock-price lust (c.f., the combined purchases of About.com and emap for over $1 billion). And yet, increasingly, Primedia is becoming the beneficiary of a small media bubble that is driving the price of the magazine through the roof. (A primedia spokesman declined to comment.)

Indeed, while everyone from Mr. Wolff to Mr. Zuckerman shoves each other out of the way to say "I'm interested! I'm interested!", Primedia itself has remained mum, keeping its head when, all about, future owners are losing theirs.

"In particular in the levels that it's being talked about, it's become a real media phenomenon," Mr. Edmiston said. "If I were them, I'd be quiet, too. Where the fire's blazing, you don't need to put extra fuel on the fire. Historically, they don't make a big deal about the magazines; they let them stand for themselves. I've seen too many odd things in my life to say they won't get that price. I just don't understand it."

Beyond the actual cash Primedia will get for New York , the company gets the added benefit of one last major spotlight move to prove to Wall Street that it's finis with the business of mass-circulation magazines. With a ground-thumping sale, Primedia can finally make the case that it's the largest publisher of special-interest magazines, that the company has at last thrown off its dreams of being a diverse media company-the kind that, in 1999, represented the synergistic future of the new millennium, and that now seems as current as Robert Moses' planned superhighway through lower Manhattan.

In fact, what Primedia has proven to Wall Street is that a buzzed-about sale is good business. New York , after all, is a magazine that reportedly makes $1.5 million in profits-only about three times what it pays Mr. Wolff to rant about Rupert Murdoch and Barry Diller each week.

"If you're looking at it from a purely financial standpoint, you'd be hard pressed to get 15 to 20 million [dollars] for it, because it's not a growth property," he Mr. Edmiston said. "It not only has a low profitability, but there's no ability to even recapture the glory days of New York magazine. The advertising will not be there. And the reader base is the same thing-there's not much you're able to grow the circulation. That tells me that you should be paying or a six- or seven-times multiple. The best argument is the one for [the Tribune Company], because Tribune has a newspaper. Emmis doesn't make a lot of sense, because the synergy with Los Angeles is pretty close to zero."

Of course, Mr. Zuckerman owns a newspaper-which he's again thrown into upheaval with editorial changes at the top-and one could argue that by working together really, really hard, the combined forces of the Daily News and New York could vanquish the forces of the Post and Time Out New York .

But that's not what this sale is about. The buyer of New York , with its storied history (even if its present incarnation seems a total repudiation of that history), is getting a place at the table of New York media; in a business that's all about social-climbing, that's worth a lot of money.

Speaking from his home in Berkeley, Calif., Mr. Felker-himself in a class above any that can be merely bought-said the interest in the magazine shows that New York still has a shot at being important.

"I think it helps," Mr. Felker said. "The fact that the attention has put a sort of premium on the magazine shows that it's a special magazine."

On Oct. 8, sometime jokeman and New York Post op-ed columnist Robert George will appear in "Republican Riot," an evening of stand-up "with a conservative bent," along with Fox News columnist Julia Gorin at Don't Tell Mama Cabaret in midtown.

Reached at his office in the depths of Mordor-that canyon of 60's skyscrapers lining Sixth Avenue in midtown-Mr. George, who has done improv for about three years, said he would start his set by introducing his background as a "Catholic, West Indian, black Republican, and ask if there was anyone in the house that was too."

"For follow-up," Mr. George said, "I'll say 'Don't all of you stand up at once.' Then I just make a lot of political humor and observations. It teases Democrats. It teases Republicans."

Off the Record, which has a prior commitment that evening, asked Mr. George to serve up his best joke.

"I can't give my best joke," Mr. George said, but then continued, "But let's try this one: So, the Republicans are doing their best to attract minorities to the party. But despite their best attempts, they're falling down on the job. Like, for example, they're pushing Arnold Schwarzenegger to be governor of California. Shouldn't they know the Terminator is offensive to black people in two different languages?"

Mr. George paused for a moment and said, "Actually, that doesn't work in print, because you'd pronounce it ' schwarze -nigger.'"

Mr. George continued: "Whenever you're doing stand-up, you have a particular organization and rhythm that's actually difficult to express over the telephone.

Asked if he'd drummed up any ripped-from-the-headlines, tigers-living-in-housing-complexes material, Mr. George said he'd "actually been working on that."

"Some apartments in New York cost an arm and a leg," he offered. "Especially if there's an alligator and tiger in there.

"I have to work on the set-up."

Margaret Talbot, who's spent the last five years working as a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine , will join The New Yorker as a staff writer in January 2004.

In the course of her tenure at The Times Magazine , she wrote on everything from a Christian fundamentalist family to the pervasive phenomenon of "mean girls." Ms. Talbot said she'd continue to pursue such topics at The New Yorker .

"I had a terrific time there," Ms. Talbot, 41, said of The Times Magazine . "I know it sounds really tedious to say, but I was really ready to make a change. For writers, The New Yorker just has that eternal attraction or appeal. You kind of wonder what it's like to be inside those pages. I was just ready to try for slightly different set of challenges as a writer."

New Yorker editor in chief David Remnick noted that Ms. Talbot had "an eye for parts of the country-and developments in the country-that are not always easily seen.

"I can't wait till she gets here," he said.

Not that I never had my doubts, in other years, about Valentine's Day. I had plenty. But for a long time, I didn't admit them to myself. Every Feb. 14, I made the romantic rounds. I performed my neurotic, erotic duties. In candlelit, midpriced restaurants, while couples and carnations wilted, I made eyes at my dates and sometimes even conversation. I tremblingly entered lingerie shops and stood staring at the enterprising garter belts, the hustling brassieres. I stole silken "intimates" right off the backs (or thereabouts) of mannequins and, later, with something like pure despair, saw how different these pinching items looked on the bodies of my girlfriends. But then I got out of all that. It was simple, really.

I fell in love.

My wife is against Valentine's Day. Yes, I know, I'm a lucky guy. So let me gloatingly repeat: My wife thinks Cupid's yearly visit is a fraud. She says Hallmark started it. For her, the imperative to couple up, to swoon on cue, is just as suspect as any other imperative. One of the first things we did when we got married was to announce a boycott of Valentine's Day. It's been great. It's brought us so much closer together.

The problem with Valentine's Day, as a holiday, is that it isn't about remembering something or celebrating something. It's about feeling something. And in order to feel this something, you have to buy something. You have to give this something to your special someone, who, if you're lucky, will feel something. Then you get to feel your special someone.

That's the way it's supposed to work.

But how special can you feel when everyone else is feeling something special about their special someone?

No, it's a lost cause, our regulated day of passion. This year, it's even worse. Didn't Marx imply that tragedy, in the modern age, would play itself out again as farce? It's happening right now. We have an excited, a veritably tumescent American President making sweeping overtures. We have a terrorist leader playing hard to get. We have an Iraqi dictator playing cat-and-mouse and a North Korean wallflower trying to get noticed. And these four guys have the requisite emotional makeups for farce: They're all mad for love.

According to First Lady of His Heart , by Madalyn Hillis-Dineen, George W. Bush met the then Laura Welch in 1977. "George, who had a reputation for being a bit of a ladies' man, fell quickly and hard. They were married three months later. (There are rumors that George W. stopped drinking because she gave him the ultimatum that wives of alcoholics often do-stop or else.)"

Saddam Hussein is something of a ladies' man, too, it turns out. Aside from his three wives, he's had countless mistresses. One of these was Parisoula Lampsos. She was with Saddam for 30 years. "He was tender," Ms. Lampsos recalls. "He was warm …. Saddam, he don't need to force anybody."

Never to be outdone, Osama bin Laden has three wives. Or possibly four. Certainly no more than five, which is manageable. He had a mistress, too, once upon a time. Her name was Kola Boof. Ms. Boof, who is currently under a fatwa issued by the Sudanese government, claims that she had a four-month "sexual affair" with bin Laden in Morocco in 1996. She also claims that he "hurt her" during sex, often by biting. "In a location like North Africa, there is no place to run from powerful men who insist on having their way and I was afraid of what he would do if I refused to see him. Osama told me, on the first night we met, that I was to no longer eat lion's meat (my favorite meat) and that I was to entertain no other man but him." And she adds, in summary: "He's nothing but a billionaire gangbanger who thought having three legs would impress me."

On Dateline , Parisoula Lampsos confided to Diane Sawyer that Saddam gets a leg up with the help of Viagra. His emotional ardor, however, needs no accelerant. After she had lost her beauty, Ms. Lampsos tried to end the affair. "I told him, 'Why? Let me go now. I don't have anything to give you more. You can have any woman. What you need me?'" Saddam refused to let her go. "He look at me very, very, very strong. He said, 'You belong to me. You are going to die here in Baghdad.'"

I almost forgot the wallflower. Kim Jong Il was a raging playboy in his youth. You can still see this in his permed, oddly transparent hair. Rumor has it that, while the country starves, Kim Jong Il eats steaks and runs around, on elevator heels, with a "pleasure squad" of imported blondes and beautiful Asian women.

Those are the lovers, then, and this is the farce:

As we confront Valentine's Day, 2003, George W. Bush is making the ultimatum superpower leaders often do to troublesome little countries-stop or else.

Kim Jong Il is making the nuclear ultimatum small countries often do to superpowers from whom they fear an invasion-stop or else. For Valentine's Day this year, Kim Jong Il gives George W. a pastel candy heart. On the heart it says, "Hot Stuff."

While Osama, pining away somewhere, writing the occasional histrionic letter, sends a Valentine candy to Bush: This one says: "Crazy for You."

And Saddam, his beauty faded, is crying: "Why? Let me go now. I don't have anything to give you more. You can have any country. What you need me?"

George W., the most aroused and faithful of all, sends Saddam a candy in return. A heart with an arrow through it. And the message: "Be Mine."

Do you see what I'm saying? Do you still want to get in the mood, with these guys in this mood? Valentine's Day is a trial any year. This year, it's an impossibility. Count me out. No, count both of us out, my wife and me. We're coming home empty-handed on the 14th. And we're staying in.

Didja Hear the One About Podhoretz And the Talking Frog?

"Good evening, everybody! I'm a journalist, for those who don't know me. But in my earlier life, I worked in Washington, D.C., and I'm a member of the few, the proud-the black Republicans.

It was a recent Friday night at Don't Tell Mama, the West 46th Street cabaret club, and onstage was Robert George, the New York Post columnist and editorial writer, who recently began moonlighting as a standup comedian.

The room was filled with 30 or so young professionals. Mr. George, who is 40 but looks a good deal younger, noted his navy blue suit. "This is not just a suit," he said. "It's what black men in New York call a 'taxicab opportunity-enhancement device.'"

There was a hearty shot of laughter.

"In my Washington days, I worked for Newt Gingrich," Mr. George said. The room broke into a scattering of applause.

"Why, thank you," Mr. George said. "That's a first. Usually the reaction is closer to 'Oh my God-how could you work for such a fat, soulless bastard ?'"

More laughs. "Well, he wasn't my first choice," Mr. George said. "My first choice was Ted Kennedy. But unfortunately I failed both the swimming and the driving tests."

Now there were groans. "Yeah, right," Mr. George said. "As if you would get into a moving vehicle with a Kennedy."

Mr. George moved on to another topic. "You guys hear about the terrorist alert?" he asked. "Today we went from yellow, which is an elevated state of alert, to orange, which is a severe state of alert. The next color is red, which is a HOLY-SHIT-WE-ARE-GOING-TO-DIE state of alert." Laughs again.

"And do you know about the other color-coded alerts?" Mr. George asked. "They introduced something called the 'amber alert.' You know what that is? The amber alert is for missing children. They start flashing amber when little Chrissie is missing, so people can be on the lookout for her. But it's only a matter of time before the colors blend and we get something like a red/amber alert. That's for when little Chrissie is missing … and on her way to North Korea … to buy a nuke …. HOLY-SHIT-WE-ARE-GOING-TO-DIE!"

After he was through, Mr. George sat down and talked about his new hobby. He'd been doing standup for just a few months. He called comedy his "creative outlet."

"Obviously, the Post is a pretty creative place," Mr. George said. "But, you know, like any Catholic, West Indian, immigrant, black, Republican son of a single mother who works for a visionary Australian media magnate, I felt there was something missing."

Clearly, the guy was loving his new line of work. He couldn't help himself. "Though a Republican, I can't say I love everything Republicans do," Mr. George said. "For example, we elected George W. Bush and the stock market tanked. So now that we've restored honor and dignity to the White House, what we have to do is put the Dow Jones back on the same track as Bill Clinton's penis. Then we restore Monica Lewinsky to public service-and I do mean service !"

-Jonathan Trichter and Lyndsay Bright

10 Ways to Get Back Time Lost Dialing 1-212

1. Have MetroCard ready to swipe well before turnstile.

2. Do 500 fewer pushups per morning.

3. Watch Law , not Order .

4. Give all friends one-syllable nicknames.

5. Stop e-mailing ex-romantic partners.

6. Instruct pets to find their own food.

7. Spend two hours less per day at current job looking for new job.

8. Worry about Jennifer, not Brad.

9. Before bed, lay out socks and underwear for next day.

10. Walk faster.

-Stephen F. Milioti