Hail to thee monarch Bloomberg, mere mayor thou never wert

I learnt this from reading books on English history: Whenever a particular monarch ruled in England for a long period of time, ushering in relative peace and stability, and subjects got used to the tempo of the prevailing reign, a kind of anxiety set in toward the period's "ending."

Thus a sort of darkness seeped into the national psyche (if there is such a psyche) when the era of the first Elizabeth rolled in; likewise, the long reign of Queen Victoria generated a fear of uncertainty lest she died in the 19th century.

Then there are those longish reigns that people can't wait to see the end of, because in many ways such reigns have been anti-people and the leader has been more disliked than liked.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the leader of one of the globe's most complex urban habitats--New York City--has been disliked by many for his monologic brand of leadership--one in which the leader couldn't care less about having having dialogues with others before making a decision--but his reign of 12 years has been one for the books: Bloomberg somehow transcends judging a political leadership on mere economic and other material grounds. The city has got to be a more economically-stabler entity, and the crime rate is phenomenally negligible, but what makes Bloomberg stands out is his tremendous aura.

As Frank Bruni writes, in the context of the forthcoming Mayoral elections, Bloomberg's stature makes every other candidate look small, crass selfish and even buffoonish (like Anthony Weiner).

Bloomberg has managed to emerge as noble:

He’s just brought us bikes. He’s determined to bring us composting. He means to vanquish smoking, he means to vanquish obesity and he’s intent on protecting us from the ever stormier seas, after which he means to vanquish global warming itself.

Michael Bloomberg, in other words, has become a light in and of itself. So much of a light is he on his own terms, that he tried to persuade Hilary Clinton to run for the Mayorship in 2014. The light that he is, he gave a supremely down-to-earth and yet provocative commencement speech at Stanford University. Compared to what he said, the one's delivered by Oprah, Julie Andrews and others, excluding perhaps, Michele Obama, sounded like baubles.

Here is the speech: