Further Adventures in Fierce, Low-Stakes Battles: Do You Care If the Rushkoffs Leave Brooklyn?
Has any mugging generated a higher word count — both written and aural, now that there’s a WNYC audio clip available — than the fateful moment that parted writer Douglas Rushkoff from his wallet? We’ve read the writer’s original Christmas Eve post, “Merry Christmas: Gimme Your Money” (on his own blog, now temporarily disabled), which led to blanket coverage and furious discussion on other city blogs. We’ve read his wife, Barbara, also a blogger, thrice denying the Borough of Kings: “Brooklyn, Schmooklyn. Yeah, it’s pretty here, but we are surrounded by crime … It costs $2,000 a year to insure my wedding ring.” One can hear the faint rustle of public sympathy falling away at this point. “Nah, I am not liking it here much now … We outta here.” (That original post is now gone, too). And we’ve read well-meaning bromides from the Rushkoffs’ colleague and neighbor, Steven Berlin Johnson, who’s trying to keep his friends from leaving: “Where else in the country can you go from the houses of world-famous authors and movie stars to Hasidic Jews and working-class African-Americans all in the space of about twenty blocks?” (Um, ever cross 110th Street?)