Joe Biden came to Manhattan for a couple fundraisers last week, which gave the NYPD a fine excuse to close off as many streets as humanly possible, which is why some people go into law enforcement — for the chance to make civilians stand behind barriers — and there I stood, looking at York Avenue, abandoned except for a few cop cars, lights flashing. I’d crossed over from the West Side in a cab driven by a cabbie who’d been at it for 39 years and who was highly irritated by the blockages, also said the economy’s tanking, shops closing, people abandoning the city, crime up, Wall Street in trouble, but at the same time, he said, “It’s Number One, the greatest city in the world.”

New Yorkers have this ability, to express despair and municipal pride in the same sentence. I over-tipped him and hiked 12 blocks to my doctor who took my blood pressure and said it was excellent, so I owe Joe for getting me to exercise. I was so surprised though by his language describing his likely November opponent, which I read in a paper I won’t name, a two-word term, a participle of concupiscence modifying a word for a common human orifice. Joe, unlike the other guy, is a churchgoer and if my chest had a bazoom, I would clutch it, but it doesn’t, not yet. I just wonder, where are we headed?