In New York City last year, 141 were struck by subway trains, and 55 were killed. There have been several recent high-profile deaths on the tracks, including one that made the cover of the NY Post. Falling (or being pushed) in front of a train is a classic nightmare scenario. So what should we do to prevent it? Well... something cheap, if anything.
New York mayor Mike Bloomberg's crusade to ban large-sized sugary drinks has some surprising new foes: the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation, two large nonprofits ostensibly dedicated to advancing the rights of minorities. In this case, they are advancing the interests of their own corporate backers at the expense of the people they are supposed to serve.
Sometimes the American justice system is too complex even for trained bloggers, so someone please feel free to explain to us the moral rationale for this sequence of events: the NYPD has a "stop and frisk" program, expressly designed to harass minorities without probable cause, which is clearly unconstitutional. Earlier this month, a federal judge finally ruled that the NYPD would have to stop its stop and frisk program in a certain area, because it is, you know, unconstitutional. Now, that judge says that the NYPD can resume that same stop and frisk program temporarily, because—write this on your yellow legal pad, law students—stopping this unconstitutional program would be too much hassle, for the cops.
I've never been a teacher. And thank god, because I can say with 98% certainty that the majority of my day would consist of me, standing in front of a room full of unruly "tweens" who Just Won't Listen, stroking a piece of cutlery and fantasizing aloud about plunging said cutlery into the bodies of those unruly students. Any teacher would. But apparently in "today's America," this behavior is frowned upon.
The NYPD's "stop and frisk" program would more accurately be called the "minority guy harassment program"—the police indiscriminately search black and Latino males, and a tiny percentage are found to be doing something illegal. As far as white people are concerned, the system works! But a judge disagrees.
Do you know what kind of fish you're eating? Let's be very honest about the average American's palate: the average American is unable to distinguish a banana from a deep-fried Oreo cookie in a blind taste test. It is perhaps too much to expect the average American to be able to distinguish between perch and flounder. Which is probably why a lot of restaurants just sell any old fish and label it on the menu as "World's BEST Kind of Fish."
Michael Canaii (pictured, on throne) is the father of a high school-aged daughter here in New York City. And when he heard rumors that his daughter was acting out in adolescent rebellion, he did what any good father would do: showed up at her high school "swinging a heavy chain with a padlock" while threatening to "fight anyone in his path," all while demanding, "Who's fucking my daughter?"
New York City was damn-near Utopian earlier this week when not one report of a shooting, stabbing, or slashing was recorded in any of the five boroughs for just over 36 hours.
Let's all give a hand to New York's MTA, for their work after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. Really. They had to get an entire system back on line, despite extensive damage and heavy public pressure, and they did it. Let's just take a moment to acknowledge the hard work of all those workers who got down in dark, flooded tunnels and fixed that whole mess so this city could get moving again. We salute you all. This moment in time represents the most public good will the notoriously poorly managed MTA has had in many years.
Now that Yoselyn Ortega, New York's so-called "Killer Nanny," is well enough to speak after stabbing two children in her care to death before stabbing herself, she has officially been charged with two counts of murder. Unfortunately for media outlets who have thus far reveled in the alarmist "Killer Nanny" tales, the story emerging from the Ortega killings is less about an evil nanny and more about a sick, sad, increasingly stressed middle-aged lady who wasn't getting the help she needed and snapped in one of the most hideous ways imaginable.
