Scalped for RM2,700

IT WAS worse than a bad hair day for presidential candidate John Edwards when he was taped recently fussing over his mane for a good two minutes.

The video of him checking his hair using a compact mirror and then having it fixed and teased is now on YouTube for posterity to the tune of I Feel Pretty from West Side Story.

The Democrat, caught unawares on camera while preparing for an interview, conceded later that he was embarrassed by it.

The press here loves to keep tabs on the number of times the YouTube posting has been viewed (almost 481,000 hits as of yesterday morning).

But more excruciating was perhaps the news that he spent US$800 (RM2,700) for two haircuts in Beverly Hills.

Rather inappropriate, they say, of Edwards, who “speaks out” for the working class.

The haircut bills emerged in campaign expenditure reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

The US election system has in place a very transparent system for monitoring the cash flow of presidential candidates.

The candidates' quarterly financial reports will disclose the amount they spend on things like TV advertising, hotels, staff payroll and fund-raising phone calls in the race to the White House.

For instance, in his campaign, Rudy Giuliani, the “America’s mayor,” ran up hotel bills totalling US$48,500 (RM165,870) over three months.

The reports also state how much campaign money the candidates have in the bank.

Hillary Clinton has raised US$26mil (RM88.9mil); Barack Obama, US$25mil (RM85.4mil); Mitt Romney, US$21mil (RM71.8mil); John McCain, US$12.5mil (RM42.7mil); and Giuliani, US$13.8mil (RM47.1mil).

News reports have pointed out that some of the candidates have raised three times the amount of any contender in the previous White House bid in the campaign so far, although such large amounts are no indicator of the eventual outcome.

The quarterly reports offer a first hand look at how the candidates are rushing to fill their war chest. And, come next year, contenders will be required to submit monthly financial reports.

Indeed, the 2008 bid for the Oval Office is shaping up to be a billion dollar race.

As Washington political lawyer Ben Ginsberg explained, no incumbent is running for election, so the race is wide open.

“It is also the first time that all leading candidates are using private money instead of depending on public matching funds,” he said in a briefing for foreign journalists.

Without public financing being involved, there is no limit on their spending.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an associate counsel with Brennan Centre for Justice, a non-partisan organisation which advocates changes to campaign finance laws, cited another factor: “New York and California have moved their primaries up to Feb 5 and 18 next year; other states may do the same.

“This requires candidates to run campaigns simultaneously in the most expensive media markets, which requires millions of dollars. All these forces are creating a perfect storm, pushing candidates towards the most expensive presidential season ever.”

She believes reforms to the law are needed.

“For many Americans, campaign contributions are a luxury they cannot afford. For others at the higher end of the economic spectrum, contributions are a cost of doing business,” she added.

“But as a democracy, we need to ensure that politicians are not bought like commodities and that voters have faith that their elected officials will make policy choices based on the good of the people and not just the good of their political benefactors.”

Donors are allowed to give up US$2,300 (RM7,866). There are also the “bundlers” who are allowed to gather US$2,300 cheques from their friends and business associates.

Individuals may also give a maximum of US$28,500 (RM97,470) to a political party.

Unions, foreign nationals or government contractors are prohibited from contributing.

It is quite a transparent system, particularly for the entities that are required to report their finances.

“One growing problem is the formation of non-profits who have no current duty to report under the campaign finance laws,” Torres-Spelliscy said.

Nevertheless, there are lessons from the American experience, said Azman Azham, a committee member of Umno Club New York-Connecticut.

“Back home, we don’t even know where the candidates’ money come from.”

It’s taxing on the wallet for the visitor to New York

So you want to wake up in the city that never sleeps, as the song goes? Beware, for accommodation in New York, even for travellers on a budget, can burn a hole in the pocket.

THIS city of eight million is a thief of hearts and wallets. The pricey, intoxicating Big Apple leaves visitors smitten and broke if their paycheque isn't big enough.

Last year, the city was a magnet to almost 44 million tourists, partly lured by the images immortalised by Carrie Bradshaw skipping about on her Manolos and “Friends” having coffee at Central Perk.

Reality, however, isn’t entirely charming. For most tourists, seeking shelter in New York City is the main budget-busting woe.

Hooi Sow Chun, 39, spent a fortnight here last month with her mother and sister. The total accommodation cost for their stay at a studio apartment in Greenwich Village came up to US$1,920 (RM6,580).

“Accommodation was the most expensive part of our trip. We travelled using my sister’s frequent flyer miles. If we had to purchase tickets, it would have cost us RM4,500 per person,” said Hooi, a homemaker.

She had no complaints, though, about the studio apartment, which was located near a subway station. The location was good and there was cable TV and Internet access.

“The only setback was that the apartment is on the fourth floor and there is no elevator,” she said.

“Another horror was an ‘uninvited guest’ – a rat – which came one night and ransacked our bags the minute we turned off the lights.”

But looking for a clean, spotless budget hotel isn’t well-nigh impossible. Take Pod Hotel, a funky, chic budget hotel which opened here in January to roaring success.

“Yes, there are more inexpensive hotels. But you may not want to stay there as they are not that clean and attractive,” said David Bernstein, the managing director.

Rates at Pod Hotel range from US$89 to US$229 (RM305 to RM785). The hotel, according to Bernstein, was part of a trend described as “budget boutique” that was now sweeping across Europe.

Staying in these fashionably and artfully designed rooms at least won’t leave you entirely down and out in New York.

Most of these hotels cut costs by, say, reducing manpower to allow for more automated tasks. Construction costs reportedly went down for some of these places when owners, for example, leave brick walls exposed for that aesthetic look.

In New York, room rates have jumped 39% in the past four years. They now average US$240 (RM823) a night.

Besides the room charges, there are also the taxes to contend with. One New York Times report estimated that these hotel taxes amount to 14% in New York City.

Asked about these additional costs to travellers, Bernstein only shrugged. He acknowledged that hotel guests had to pay a host of taxes as required under state and city laws.

Authorities are now targeting 50 million visitors annually by 2015. They want to push the message across to people who assume the city is too expensive to visit.

About seven million of the 44 million visitors to New York last year were foreigners. The weaker dollar played a part, certainly.

This foreign invasion of tourists is reportedly welcome because they usually spend about US$196 (RM672) a day compared with US$166 (RM569) by local travellers.

“They also stay longer – seven days compared with two days for their domestic counterparts,” according to the New York Post.

In a way, the cost of living here is lower than in Malaysia on a dollar-for-dollar comparison.

“Minus the ringgit to dollar conversion, the cost of hotel accommodation looks cheaper in Manhattan than in KL. I don’t think we can find a studio apartment for four persons for RM90-RM120 a night in KL. Even a hotel room in central London can be about £90 (RM618) a night,” Hooi noted.

Still, most poor mortals would have to hit paydirt before they begin crooning “New York, New York.”

Online media – the changing face of journalism

AMERICAN newshounds are facing a media landscape that is changing at an unrelenting pace. Blogs and news websites are the ones now often cited as points of reference.

For instance, TMZ.com, which broke the story of Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic rants during a drunk driving offence last year, has become a bible of sorts for entertainment reporters.

As Assoc Prof Sreenath Sreenivasan of Columbia University puts it, this celebrity gossip website was a “game-changer.”

“If you cover entertainment news, this is the place that you must turn to,” he said of the influential TMZ.com that, according to Nielsen/ NetRatings, had 7.9 million unique visitors in February. This marked a 151% increase over the previous year.

At a recent briefing for foreign journalists, Assoc Prof Sreenath named countless sites that had changed the name of the game.

“Five years ago, readers would tip off Fox or CNN,” he said, but now, exclusive photos of Britney Spears shaving her head was first released to X17 Online.

“I’m not saying that every blog is important. Hundreds of thousands of them are launched each day, most of them read by just the writer and his mother,” he said.

But there are those like “The Politico”, which began in January that had made its mark although its target is solely to report on Capitol Hill and the US presidential campaign.

Initiated by seasoned writers from The Washington Post, its site reportedly attracted one million page views on its first day.

It is a scene so different in certain regional newspapers, which have been reducing their manpower in Washington bureaus to focus on local stories in the wake of decreasing advertising revenue and declining readership.

To them, it is pointless to spend so much time and effort covering Washington events, which is available live to the public through other means.

The Newspaper Association of America has estimated that advertisement spending on newspaper websites will go up by 22% this year, unlike the mere 1.2% increase in their print editions.

One of the must-read blogs here is The Huffington Post, which draws 2.3 million unique visitors monthly, and whose creator Arianna Huffington was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 people who shaped the world last year, alongside Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report, another heavyweight blog.

Now, even some established newspapers are describing themselves as a “website first, newspaper second,” said Assoc Prof Sreenath.

Still, it is not the end of traditional journalism.

“It’s just that the delivery method is different, that’s all.”

And yes, old habits refuse to go away as people still read the papers even in the big cities.

However, a number of stories that appear in print are decidedly different in flavour now. They report on the latest website that offers seat reservations in the most popular restaurant in town, or the sites to check out if you want your home telephone number unreachable to telemarketers.

The New York Times has a column called “Online Shopper” where the writer would share her experience in buying a product on the Net.

Newspapers that did not think of ways to re-engage their readers might just end up becoming irrelevant, said Kelly McBride, a faculty member of Poynter Institute, a school for journalists.

In some markets where lay-offs took place, she said, newspaper companies began hiring employees with Internet skills.

“There is a demand to find new ways to deliver the news online,” she said in a recent telephone interview.

Newspapers are not dying but the newsroom is changing its face. As McBride puts it: “The train has left the station.”

‘Hijab’ and ‘purdah’ not a barrier for Muslim women

THE hookah pipes are neatly stacked on a shelf near the display window. Outside the shop, there is a makeshift DVD stand offering Egyptian movies at US$10 (RM35) each. Except for a handful of translated titles such as The Way to Belly Dance and My Soul Mate, the DVDs were all in Arabic.

Other shops had signs like Taiba Halal Meat, Andalous Travel – Hajj & Umra (that’s how it was spelt) and Eastern Night Cafe. Arabic script is seen everywhere.

Women in veils are frequently spotted as well in this small but vibrant Arab community on Steinway Street in the Astoria neighbourhood of Queens, a borough in New York.

They seem to blend in with the crowd of assorted faces out for their Sunday shopping. Caucasians, Asians, Arabs, African-Americans; it was a mixed pot indeed.

“There is no discrimination against women wearing the hijab here, at least officially,” said Sheikh Omar Saleem Abu-Namous, an imam in New York.

He, however, cautioned that there was some hidden, unadmitted prejudice against these females especially in employment.

“Either they will not be hired or they will be told to abandon the veil if they wanted the job,” he said.

To be fair, though, the imam noted that there were employers who had no qualms hiring women who covered their head. “I have seen such employees in Duane Reade (a large pharmacy chain),” he said.

When Jakkiah Basran, a Malaysian, learned that her husband would be posted to the United States, she wondered about the climate there for Muslim women like her who wear the tudung.

That was two years ago. Today, 45-year-old Jakkiah has no apprehension at all about her choice of attire.

“Initially, I could see that some Americans did not know how to react to me. They stayed away a little and I did not know whether they had felt awkward or otherwise,” said Jakkiah, who is the wife of the Malaysian Consul-General in New York.

Jakkiah decided to take matters into her own hands so to speak. She made the first move, flashing a smile and extending her hand to those around her.

“I got very involved with the Consular Women’s Club (CWC) and the Women International Forum. One day, an Irish woman at the CWC came up to me, saying that she had observed that I was very selective with the food I eat.”

“I explained about the halal requirements in Islam. I also told her that these requirements were not only peculiar to Islam but likewise in other faiths such as the Kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws. We became the best of friends since,” Jakkiah said.

Her experience in other US cities like Boston and Atlanta were similar, too, where she found that the Americans were not put off by her tudung.

Based on her observations, even those who wear the full purdah faced no difficulties here.

“I was quite surprised to see some women here wearing the purdah which exposed only their eyes. Yet, they move about freely and nobody bothered them,” she said.

To her, the United States, which is home to six million Muslims, is indeed the land of the immigrants.

Hossein Kamaly, adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University’s Department of Religion, was of the view that Americans were much more okay about women wearing the hijab.

“Unlike countries such as France, people here are far more comfortable with the dressing of others.”

(Schools in England, for instance, are allowed to decide whether students should be banned from wearing full-face veils.)

He said the composition of the Muslim population in the US was very diverse but “the openness of the American system will, hopefully, make it possible for Muslims to contribute positively and more visibly to this society.”

Do Americans generally decline to speak frankly about Islam to avoid offending their Muslim counterparts?

“I don’t think there’s any hesitation on their part. Freedom of speech is the hallmark of American society although that doesn’t mean you should insult others,” he said.

Others, however, felt that the New York experience was different compared to other parts of the US and that there were many types of prejudices out there.

But in the meantime, life seems to thrive in the little Arab community in Queens.

Tourists hear a calling for this Harlem institution

IT IS often not just a gathering of the faithful come Sunday at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York.

On one recent morning, there were almost 200 tourists quietly waiting for their turn to enter the church. Instead of a Bible, many were holding guidebooks.

Gospel music is the hallmark of Harlem and travellers from all over the world get the calling to attend the Abyssinian Baptist Church upon learning from their guidebooks that it is among the best place to experience gospel music.

As the first African-American Baptist church in New York, it is housed in a lovely 83-year-old building with beautiful stained glass windows.

When the Sanctuary Choir sang “Wasn’t That A Mighty Day?” that day, the congregation, especially the tourists on the upper level, was clearly mesmerised.

By the time Timothy Allen took his turn as the tenor soloist, the audience was spellbound.

“The music was very good,” said Karen Goll, a visitor from Vienna, as she stepped out from the church when the service ended.

Asked how she had found out about the place, the Austrian whipped out the Baedeker’s New York from her bag.

A Spanish traveller, Almudena Rivas, said she arrived at the church at 8.30am but the queue was already so long that she couldn’t get in.

“I had to wait for the next service,” she said.

The Abyssinian Baptist Church, which has seven choirs, conducts two worship services every Sunday, at 9am and 11am.

“We get hundreds of tourists. The tour buses would drop them off here. There are so many of them that sometimes a number of them can’t get into the church,” said Dinean Davis, the communications manager of the church.

Asked to explain the prominence of the church, she said the Abyssinian had a long history and had recorded a number of precedents, besides being the largest African-American church in Harlem.

“The worship experience is different in a black church. The music is what intrigues most people,” she said.

Doesn’t it bother regular churchgoers that the visitors turn their church into a tourist stop?

“It has its ups and downs. Sometimes it’s disruptive but, hopefully, the message in the music would stir up something in them,” said Davis.

Just what is it about gospel music that touches so many people from all corners of the world?

“It’s the rhythm and the words,” said Jewel T. Thompson, the minister of music of the church.

This genre has often been defined as religious music which emerged from African-American churches at the start of the 20th century. Tricia Whitehead, who is the spokesman for the Nashville-based Gospel Music Association (GMA), said diversity is why this form of music has such appeal.

“There is great diversity and quality about gospel music. No matter what kind of music you like, whether rock or inspirational, or whether you are old or young, there is something in it for everyone,” she said in a telephone interview.

She observed that many people would turn towards gospel music during conflicts or crises.

“We find that the power of gospel music is its ability to inspire people.”

Take your pick of Chinatowns in New York

A WEATHERED Chinaman, no more than 50 years old, unloads a box of oranges onto his fruit stall as dozens of customers scramble to select the best. Nearby, a herbal shop owner attempts to sweet-talk a customer into buying American ginseng.

It could have been a scene right out of Petaling Street, only this is Made-in-Manhattan.

At 3.3 million, the Chinese form the biggest community among Asian-Americans in the United States, according to the 2005 American Community Survey.

Most of them live in California, but New York isn't outdone with an estimated 374,000 Chinese out of its eight million population. The city, which comprises five boroughs – Manhattan, Brooklyn, The Bronx, Queens and Staten Island – has not one, but three, Chinatowns.

The original and biggest is in Manhattan, while smaller versions are found in Brooklyn and Queens and are less touristy.

Here's a snapshot of what makes them tick:

Eighth Avenue, Brooklyn

This one-street Chinatown is the smallest of the three but prosperity is its middle name.

“There are more banks here than rice shops,” said insurance agent Michael Chong, repeating the locals' favourite phrase.

A 10-minute-walk around the block found no less than 12 banks.

“Their business comes mostly from customers who are without legal status in the United States,” Chong said.

Immigrants, mostly Foochows from China, usually make their home in Brooklyn where rent and food are cheaper.

“But prices are gradually rising. The rent for a two-bedroom apartment can come up to US$1,000 (RM3,500),” he said.

Chong, a Malaysian who set up home here two decades ago, observed that house prices have spiralled, too.

“A house that cost US$60,000 (RM211,000) back then is now tagged at US$1mil (RM3.5mil),” he said.

Eighth Avenue gets more crowded during weekends, when Chinese from Staten Island come for their groceries.

Even in this tiny “town”, you are never far from home. Kampung Koh chilli sauce from Perak, Cheong Kim Chuan nutmeg and Tan Ngan Lo herbal tea are aplenty, courtesy of a Malaysian woman who runs a shop here.

Flushing, Queens

Mat Salleh brand names like Starbucks, United Colors of Benetton and Macy's stand out amid the rows of shops bearing Chinese characters.

“This is a large neighbourhood, complete with a public library which has a big selection of Chinese titles,” said Chantal Lee, a Hong Kong native who has lived here for 10 years.

Most of the residents originate from China and Taiwan. Mandarin is often heard on the street.

“Generally, the immigrants here are better educated than the ones in Brooklyn. They live quite well, too,” said Lee.

It is also the regular haunt of Chinese from New Jersey and Connecticut.

“They come here because of the countless supermarkets,” Lee said.

At one restaurant, which offers a buffet lunch at US$12 (RM42) for customers to gorge on within a two-hour deadline, strains of a ballad by Danny Chan, the original Heavenly King, played in the background. No Britney or Beyonce is heard.

Here, it is common to walk into a shop that offers two completely different businesses. One side sells jewellery, the other Chinese herbs.

“It's their way of getting around the exorbitant rent. They sublet the space to somebody else,” Lee said.

Manhattan

What a din! It's everything that you imagine, only better (or worse).

DVD sellers shove The Pursuit of Happyness to your face. “Four dollars (RM14)!” the peddler said.

Prada totes, Chanel No 5, Rolex watches, baby turtles, even brass statues of Lord Ganesha crowd the sidewalk.

A statue of Confucius outside a housing block called Confucius Plaza is the beacon for all Chinese immigrants who have just stepped on US soil. It is the place where relatives and friends would tell the new arrivals to meet them.

Office administrator Terence Low, a Malaysian whose office is located in Chinatown, takes delight in the place.

“There is such a huge variety of food available. Depending on the occasion, there will be mooncakes, or lion dances during Chinese New Year,” he said.

“In fact, the Lunar New Year is celebrated on a bigger scale here. I don't really get homesick.”

It is all about chowing down. Lobsters, roti canai, duck rice, Vietnamese noodles, Indonesian fare; you won't go hungry so long there is cash in your pocket.

Let the customer beware, though. This is the Chinatown where horror stories are aplenty about waiters who curse and chase after diners who do not cough up the right amount in tips.