Dispatches from the East Coast

I just got back from a week in New Jersey and New York (and I barely missed any big happenings here) and am just getting back in the swing of things. So I thought I'd share some East Coast observations, truisms and overheard gems that I picked up over the week.

-- New York public high-school girls are currently reading and watching "Gossip Girl," the series about spoiled NY private high-school girls, one teacher told me. The same girls are listening to Tupac -- and reading his book of poetry.

--A friend who works on Wall Street told me he knows one private hedge-fund broker who earned $3.6 billion last year, and that he deserved every penny. Of another colleague working in investments, he said, "He doesn't need to get rich. He'll be happy making a couple hundred-thousand a year."

-- The "ecology is really getting big," an elderly relative informed me, referring to environmental issues. She gets most of her information through the New York Post, Fox News and supermarket tabloids.

--A nearly retired moderate Republican lawyer told me of the presidential election, "This thing is going to be decided by race." I ran into a lot of people that told me they didn't "like" Obama.

-- In Central Park: "The world loves the Yankees, but New York loves the Mets."