For those who do right in New York City....

M98 bus stop lexington at 41st, the bus is 15-20 minutes late

Unreported statistics right up in their face.





There is actually a queue at this bus stop.
Sadly, #3, which was me, had the above trashcan contents right in my face.

What would George Say?

Does the Patron smoke Marlboros?

early 70s in front of what now is called "The Rock", pre-qualityoflife, photo of me by Kat, my big sister

in answer to the New York Public Library's panel discussion this last Wednesday, "Has New York Lost its Soul?"

Much that I would disagree with in that discussion. Particularly with the guy from the Rockefeller Foundation, its almost as if he doesn't live here. Go figure aren't they the ones giving school children and illegal aliens money to do what we do as our civic duty? Opportunity NYC is funded by Rockefeller Foundation. An odd fund in light of Mayor Bloomberg's hidden poverty policy whereby low income people are forced to take jobs too low to sustain them and their families or work for free for the city if they are on welfare, see mayor's meeting.  These are the actions that rob New York City of its soul.  Outside my window is its result.  Police and fire sirens all night long.  People climbing the fire escapes and cracking windows open, knifing the bottom lock, kicking the door open.  All into the early morning hours of 5:45am.  

Mr. Walker from the Foundation spoke:

"There have never been any real New Yorkers, the lifeblood of this city has always been young, ambitious, hungry people who want to come and make it big and take the risk of coming to New York City. "--City Room Blogs

but really I stand agawk to this statement,

"The belief that unlike in most of the rest of America, where they talk about tolerance of difference, in New York, we embrace, we celebrate difference."--City Room Blogs

Apparently Mr. Walker has never lived in Harlem or Washington Heights or East Williamsburg or even late 1980s burned out Park Slope as a white person. Perhaps not even Needle Park at Broadway and 72nd in the early 1970s.  No I thought not.  Nor has he worked in all of the New York City law firms.  It is there they celebrate Marlboros and difference, race quotas via secretary pools. I think he has not experienced this City or any other, at the heart and soul level because there are many lovely, soulful, tolerant cities outside of New York. This would explain why he says New York ain't got no heart.

The New York City I experience has a heart and soul. It is crushed daily by the thoughtless young. Mostly nicotine smoking addicts, litter bugs, speed freaks, law breakers who don't even attempt to have some dignity in the city. And yes indeed, we are a City and not a Company. That is our greatest problem right now, countermanding chaos created by a perverted policy. The real New Yorkers here are original thinkers and we will be here when all of you are gone. 

Well its good to see 73 comments to this local paper. I won't join nor will I visit the Altria Patron supported New York Public Library. I guess since I've spent most of my life in New York City, I am a New Yorker. And I will hold on to my soul by not supporting, attending or being supported by Altria infected events or places of "culture." Though I would love to move to another city and can. I won't be chased out, think again. I will be here at the very least to see that the heart and soul of New York prevail.

See further, local paper discussion on this panel discussion here.

When Mother says "No Smoke is the Answer" does New York City listen?

We are loving Mother's Royal College of Physicians today. No landline polls for them. They come right out and say it, the truth. Smokers are not decreasing rapidly (as New York City claims). The rate is .04%.

Mother's team has given some real visionary thought to the problem:

1. Its not the nicotine that kills, its the chemicals in the smoke.

2. The stop smoking product handouts (as the ones New York City gives out, medically unadministered) don't work for the nicotine addicted.

[note: Having personally debriefed New York City tobacco unit officials at some length I verified that indeed they really don't know who has quit or who has stopped having a heart attack or died of some kind of cancer. It would be a bit more honest to say that more people want to quit and are trying to quit in New York City than to say that they are not smoking. And, indeed, it would be tremendously more fair to say that more people in New York City are complaining about the cigarette smoke than ever before. see also 2003 Legacy instead of this 6/2007 miraculous hype smoking down 19% in the wake, if you live in NYC, you know that's not true.]

3. Mother's answer. Admit that cigarette smokers are addicts and treat them as such. If you really want to help everyone (involuntary passive smokers,  included), get them off the smoke, give them medically administered doses of nicotine.

"Smokers smoke because they are addicted to nicotine but it isn't nicotine in cigarette smoke that kills – it's the hundreds of other toxic chemicals that come with it. There are millions of smokers who can't quit and those people need nicotine products that can satisfy their addiction without killing them."--John Britton, lung specialist at the University of Nottingham and chair of the RCPs Tobacco Advisory Group

Harm reduction is an established principle in the treatment of drug addiction, where addicts who cannot give up their habit are encouraged to switch to a safer drug.

The Independent article sites Sweden as the country with the lowest smoking rates, 13% among men. Snus is Sweden's over-the-counter "harm reduction" product. This product is banned in other countries.

"We need to liberalise the medicinal market and introduce a decent cigarette substitute. We may end up with millions of people addicted to nicotine inhalers, but so what? Millions are addicted to caffeine."-- John Britton, Royal College of Physicians Tobacco Advisory Group

See further, "Smokers Should Be Treated Like Drug Addicts..."

"In New York City kicking the addicts out of their opium den, the bars, did no good.  They just stood right outside the bar's windows and doors [bar personnel included] and congregated outside of neighboring apartments.  They took to the street and they weren't happy about it, they were and, to this day, are in protest.  They are nicotine addicts, "Stop Smoking" is not the answer for them."--The Best of Trendy

For Christmas, "Common Sense Change"

Governor Spitzer will start phasing in, as an anti-fraud measure, driver's licenses for the 500,000 illegal immigrants in New York State. Come December 2007, these folks, referred to as aliens, must present a foreign passport to the NYS Motor Vehicle Department in order to process this new passage of rite.

" a 'common sense change' that will improve traffic safety and lower insurance costs for all New Yorkers by ensuring that more immigrants have valid licenses and auto insurance. Giving more immigrants verifiable identification will also enhance law enforcement by bringing people out of the shadows"---   Governor Spitzer's assertion in "...Easier Access"

humma.  Do illegal aliens have foreign passports? Could it be they want to stay in the shadows?  And isn't there a provision for foreign drivers already in the books?  See drivers from other Nations.   

Improving traffic safety?   I'm up for that one.   Let's see... no mention of any written driver's license test in the ...Easier Access" local paper article.

Could just be a non-mentionable.  But do we really need 500,000 more hairbrained drivers on New York State roadways!!  Since we are on the topic of radical ideas, why not make every driver, bicyclist and pedestrian take a written driver's license test before they receive their various forms of identifications at the NYS Motor Vehicles.  Congestion problems in New York City would disappear, among other things.  

From the New York State driver's manual online:

Chapter 4: Traffic Control

Pedestrians:

"Remember also that pedestrians legally crossing at intersections always have the right-of-way. Do not pull in front of or behind them or to "hurry them along" - wait until they are out of the intersection. Elderly and disabled pedestrians may require extra time to complete their crossings."

Not the British thing again!

Are the British running New York again?

Matthew Bishop of The Economist waxed the topic of Bloomberg 2008 today:

"Mr. Bloomberg is the sort of guy that The Economist would love to have as president..."

But really where is the substance of such glad-handling?

Mr. Bloomberg has inherited most of "his Company's" fruit by way of former Mayor Guiliani's hard earned endeavours and adopting incompatible country policy from London and Mexico or was it Argentina. He continues the bad of Guiliani, increasing hidden poverty and masking real crime statistics. But at least for this day, the CEO takes credit for his Company's success.

He speaks about low unemployment, huh?
while Governor Spitzer speaks in seasonal adjustments and, yes, you got that right, construction workers, prostitutes, and of course hotels have seasonal jobs.
see here

He speaks about high construction rates. You got that right. And so what? see Curbed.

He speaks about world record breaking tourism. The ranking of international arrivals in Facts & Figures 2006 Handbook for World Tourism is Europe, Middle East, Asia and the Pacific and then the Americas. See further note from www.Activate.us below*

He forgets that the citizens of the City are the ambassadors for his back-breaking tourist herding. It is we who guide the tourists through the chaos that he has created.

And what is the benefit for the human beings that used to enjoy their City? City kids know how to use their calculator at an average level and workers get their wrists twisted by the police at Christmas time.

We've been crowded out of our city, we live in a perilous construction zone. Very few people have nonseasonal jobs and their jobs are in peril. But don't worry, Mr. Bloomberg will take care of it, sometime in the future.

The Company makes up its statistics while the City lives the reality.

I didn't vote for Mr. Bloomberg and I don't know anyone who did? Did you? Perhaps it was the British? I understand that how ever many votes he got, it was $92 a vote in a fire sale.

As far as I know there is no Company with a history. However, please feel free to read about the British Rule in the History of New York City.

*"If you've noticed more foreign tourists overloaded with shopping bags on the streets of US cities, it could be because the world is on a spending spree with a dramatically weakened US dollar. The US dollar has recently declined 45% against the euro, and has been overtaken by the Canadian looney for the first time in 30 years."

Iraqi Insurgents, American Revolutionaries?

The trio started by patting each other on the backs, playing with words and striking poses. Mr. Cuomo played around with the word "mayor" with no political benefit. Mr. Brokaw never got to the point of a slimming, trustworthy pose.  Mr. Bloomberg talked way too much with his hands.  I wondered at those hands, what did they mean?

I didn't get past the first few parts. "Middle class malaise?" caused an involuntary click. I would have missed some of the great thinking Mr. Cuomo promised had I not been searching for the term "hogwash" today, arriving at Joshin Politics door. The blog reads from the NY Post, an excerpt of the Cooper Union Performance, a presidential platform in the works, introduced by Mario Cuomo with guest interviewer, Tom Brokaw and guest, Michael Bloomberg.  The taping is available on Mr. Bloomberg's site. here.

The NY Post quote concerns Mr. Bloomberg's comparison of Iraqi Insurgents to American Revolutionaries wherein the United States becomes the British Empire. Should we entertain such a comparison I thought, is it one of value? Would this idea get Americans thinking about how wrong it is to have invaded Iraq and how wrong it is to stay there? 

Alas, "invade" is the keyword. The British did not invade their colonies, they supported them, they were their motherland.  Sure France started throwing some francs onto the already burning colonists enlightenment, their thoughts of  freedom from a dominating Mother, not "freedom of speech" per se.  The colonists had grown up. 

And that is not at all what is happening in Iraq.  America was an ally of Saddam Hussein in early 1980 against Iran.   Saddam, a 1960s revolutionary, overthrew the elitist factions of his country, including the Western oil company that dominated Iraq.  He suppressed Iraq's non-ba'athist factions.  America invaded Iraq in 2003 and something very different has ignited. Over half of Iraq's remaining population fights America, while at the same time the sum of Iraq fight each other. The latter being the organic fight that Saddam, with America's help, had been suppressing in previous years. 

Politics and revolution are not the same, neither is as simple as Mr. Bloomberg finds it.  The big brag between the three for Bloomberg 2008 was politics is simple when you stay out of it?  humma.   As well, New York's middle class not as simple or their malaise the way Mr. Bloomberg defines it.

And really, I wonder do you think Mr. Brokaw ever rode the subway? and does Mr. Bloomberg really? And whereto? from 78th to 53rd, tough commute for sure.

See "Mayor Bloomberg's Commute Not Like Yours"

License to Kill?

The lack of an agreement [of the world powers in Rome] will allow Israel “to continue the operation, this war, until Hezbollah won’t be located in Lebanon and until it is disarmed. Everyone understands that a victory for Hezbollah is a victory for world terror.”
--Justice Minister Haim Ramon, Israel

“I would say just the opposite. Yesterday, in Rome, it was clear that everyone present wanted to see an end to the fighting as swiftly as possible.”
--Frank-Walter Steinmeir, Germany's foreign minister

via AP, NY Times, "Israel Approves Call-up..."

If only the people could move their leaders to see that this is not about whose side you are on. This about young men on all sides being anihilated along with the very populations they seek to protect.

I am so ashamed of my country for not calling a cease fire immediately when all others agreed. It is so against everything we believe in to just purge a people. It is unjust and unfounded. It is against God. This is not the hard line this is the non-thinking lazy person's line. It is supreme arrogance. The parties involved should be called to the table and only objective mediators in between. Fire the peace brokers, tell them their show is over.

Thinking inside the hatbox, a Mexican Dance

image from american patrol
This sudden border and illegal alien interest is quite curious. It coincides with President Fox's approaching retirement.

How is that when millions of illegal immigrants march on Washington and major cities there are no pictures of police penning them in, no guerrilla posts? Yet photos of the opposition to President Bush's election, invasion of Iraq and re-election were full of police power?

The BBC in 2003 had a call in to President Fox (Mexico). The dialogue revealed educated Mexican callers from foreign lands querying him on improved education in Mexico. A discussion of drugs on the border as improved by Mexico and improvement needed by the drug consumers on the United States side. Drugs are legal in Mexico, their distribution across the border is not. President Fox speaks of his country as the 9th ranking developing country, he's been able to keep Mexico's own unemployment rate at 2.7%, and there is 25% foreign investment. He says of the illegal aliens that they have no education or ability to take care of themselves when they cross the border. He claims that he educates them about what they face on the otherside. He is striving for human rights across the borders, that the illegal intruders should be treated humanely.

In 2006 President Fox threatens with the great weapon of lawsuits if migrant workers are detained by the border patrol. He campaigns for his cause of continued flow of United States dollars into Mexico. For this flow to continue smoothly there must be no military on the border, people must be allowed to cross.

Meanwhile our congressmen are voting on the silliest law ever. Over 12 million illegal aliens will be allowed opportunities to become legal. Some republican congressmen fret about the 6-12 million projected cost of medicaid for these to be citizens. Fret not because already just about that much is given to those in the alien state.

I am constantly amazed by the state of amnesty. Its a state in which dishonesty, trickery, breaking the law is rewarded. Most recently the transit strikers Christmas gift to New York. To become eligible for employment the transit workers sign and acccept a document that disallows a strike. So they strike and they are fined and then they are forgiven. The state of the mass transit condition goes completely unchanged.

And so what can we expect of this new law that legitimizes the illegitmate? According to Rumsfield this is an excellent opportunity to train the National Guard for duty in Iraq. How so?