Posts Tagged ‘Mexico’
We were swamped at work and I didn’t get a chance to catch my breath until well into the afternoon. Even if I hadn’t forgotten my lunch at home, I wouldn’t have been able to eat until 4:00 at the earliest. But by then I had gone beyond hunger. Ever been there? When you wait so long to eat that you no longer feel like eating? It’s like your hunger fed on itself until it disappeared.
So I decided that I wouldn’t run out and get something awful in the area (the deli around the corner makes a semi-competent egg sandwich; the owner of the deli two doors down is still mad at me because I refused to comp him a doctor’s appointment; the Chinese buffet next door makes Panda Express look like Shun Lee; the Burger King next door is a Burger King). Instead, I’d wait until we closed at 9:00, hightail it to Zito’s Sandwich Shoppe on 7th Avenue (in Brooklyn, not Manhattan) and get my new most favoritest sandwich ever: The 8-Hour Slow-Cooked Pork Bracciole.
It’s a butterflied loin of pork (from Faicco’s!) stuffed with provolone, garlic, parsley and a pinch of bread crumbs, covered in their deceptively simple tomato sauce, and sprinkled with parmigianno reggiano — all served on a perfect hero (from Brooklyn’s own Il Fornaretto Bakery!). It’s absolutely amazing.
Zito’s closes at 10:00, but I called them at around 8:00 and asked when they stopped taking orders. “10:00 p.m.” Perfect. If I left work at 9:00, I’d be between the Carroll Street station and the 4th Avenue and Ninth Street station (which is an area that gets great cell reception as it isn’t in a tunnel) by 9:45. I’d call in my order and arrive at Zito’s by 10:00 at the absolute latest.
I wasn’t hungry until around 8:30, but from the moment I devised my plan I could only think of that sandwich and how good it would taste when I ate it with my face.
A patient arrived at 8:15, so I started tidying and closing down what I could. He was on his way by 8:50 and I considered calling in my order and telling them that I’d be there in an hour. “Nah,” I thought. “No need. My plan is foolproof.”
Cut to 9:30, when we actually locked up.
I calmly walked to the R train, frantically doing math problems in my head (what if I get off the train just before 10 and call in the order and then get back on the train — would that work?). I didn’t see myself getting a sandwich. So I started considering the places near Zito’s that would still be open. Mediocre pizza, horrendous Mexican, Dunkin’ Donuts, Rite Aid… nothing really tickled my fancy. Then I heard the R train coming. I raced down the stairs and then raced up the other stairs (I hate you, Cortland Street station) and made it onto the Brooklyn-bound R. I looked at my watch phone. It was 9:35.
“Hmmm… I could get to Jay Street by 9:48… if there’s an F train there by 9:53, my plan will still work!”
I maneuvered through the train so that I was standing exactly where the entrance to the escalator at Jay Street would soon be. When we arrived at the station, I hurriedly climbed the escalator (it’s like walking fast on an airport treadmill except not fun and it makes me wheeze). In all the time I’ve made this commute, there has never been an F train waiting for me at Jay Street. Tonight, there was. At the doors closed as soon as I started down the steps toward it. A crazy person was loudly trying to seduce a morbidly obese station agent as she pretended to sweep the floor. It offered me no succor. I would arrive home sandwichless.
An F came about 10 minutes later. When we were finally out of the tunnel, I called Zito’s. It was 10:02.
“Zito’s, how can I help you?”
“He wants to help me!” I thought. “A place that wasn’t taking orders wouldn’t offer me assistance!” I tried to hide my giddyness from the dead-in-the-eyes commuters surrounding me. “Are you still taking orders?” I asked.
“Sorry, no. We’re no longer taking delivery orders. We stop at 10. Have a good night.”
***
But… but… what of his offer of help? What did he expect me to ask for that he would have been able to aid me with? “Would it be possible for me to not order a sandwich?” I was gutted. But then I had another thought. They aren’t taking delivery orders, but what of pick-ups? What of pick-ups? We were back underground, but I started to feverishly imagine various scenarios wherein I exit the subway and call and ask to make a pick-up order and am told, “Sure thing!” or that I arrive just as they’re about to throw away a pile of unclaimed but perfectly OK sandwiches or that I appeal to the kindness of Zito and he smiles and nods and hands me the sandwich that he had been saving for me all along.
[Full Disclosure: I don't think anyone who works at Zito's is named Zito.]
I started walking towards the shop and saw their sign was still illuminated. “That’s a good sign,” I thought. Then I thought about what a horrible pun that was and winced. I crossed the street and approached their door. As I did, I noticed people sitting and eating. Then, as I was about to reach for the knob (and feign surprise when I found it locked), someone opened it to take out the trash. I saw my opportunity and seized it.
The first employee who saw me wasn’t any of the three guys behind the counter. They all had their backs turned to me and were dealing with various closing duties. No, the one who immediately took notice of me was one of the cooks. He had a slight note of “you’ve got to be kidding me” on his face. I smiled weakly at him and waited by the register. Finally, someone turned around and asked if he could help me.
“Can I get a sandwich to go?”
He looked at the cook, then at his register, then at me — all while wearing a mask of “please notice that I am trying to make it clear that you cannot.”
I would accept a “no,” but he would have to say it to me. I wouldn’t say it to myself. At this point I was getting deliriously hungry.
“…OK,” he surrendered. The cook rolled his eyes. I didn’t care.
I sat down to wait. I could hear various people saying, “I told him not to take out the trash yet” and “lock the damn door” and “we’re supposed to be closed by now” and “what is wrong with him?” I went from fearing that I cost someone their job to wondering if the last remark was directed at me to not caring about anything except bracciole. In fact, I started imaging the man getting killed by his co-workers for unknowingly letting me in and, at his peasant funeral, a rockslide wiping his entire family out. I imagined everyone at Zito’s pointing and laughing at me for being so pathetic that I needed to swindle my way into a meal. None of it mattered to me. I just wanted my dinner.
After what seemed like two minutes (but might have been three), I was handed my sandwich. I profusely thanked the man who handed it to me. Then I profusely thanked the man who unlocked the door to let me out. I almost started to cry.
It took me another 25 minutes to get home, but I didn’t care. As soon as I walked in the front door, I washed my hands, ripped open the foil and paper casing and did unspeakable, inhuman things to my first real meal of the day (the semi-competent egg sandwich I ate at 8:00 a.m. doesn’t count).
You know what? This would be a terrible movie.
The Post continues to besmirch every aspect of Occupy Wall Street. ZUCCOTTI PARK’S BIG TOP: Gals-only structure set up to guard against pervs perfectly illustrates the damned-if-they-do-and-damned-if-they-don’t position the Post has put OWS in. First they claim the protesters allow sexual assaults in the park, then they mock them for doing something about it.
“Some of the male OWS protesters remained in denial over the growing number of sex attacks. ‘Sexual harassment gets called rape, and it’s not,’ one scoffed when told of the women’s tent. ‘There’s no way that it’s happening as much as people are saying it has. It’s just word spreading and getting misunderstood.’”
How come when a protester says that sexual harassment gets exaggerated he’s scoffing, but when Herman Cain says it he’s heroically fighting against a racist, liberal media smear campaign?
“Yesterday, former Mayor 9iu11ani said President Obama must take responsibility for the ‘very dangerous’ OWS movement. ‘Barack Obama owns the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement; it would not have happened but for his class warfare, 9iu11ani told the conservative Americans for Prosperity Foundation summit in DC.”
In case you forgot, the AFP was founded by the Koch Brothers. And they are two of the only Americans that the foundation wants to make more prosperous.
Other OWS articles include Todd Venezia’s $kinning fat cat Moore, which begins, “Gasbag Michael Moore went ballistic yesterday after a reporter asked him if he was really among the hated richest ‘1 percent’ of Americans during an Occupy Denver event.” That reporter is Evrod Cassimy. Here’s a photo:
Sexy.
“Moore had just finished railing against greedy rich people to a group of Occupy Denver protesters — while also showing some corporate-style synergy during his Denver visit by holding a signing to promote his new book, according to CBS.”
You know who else is currently on a book-signing tour?
Rebecca Harshbarger and Helen Freund’s Camper’s Mac attack reports that “a Zuccotti Park protester threw a violent fit in a McDonald’s yesterday after employees refused to give him free food. Fisika Bezabeh, 27, ripped a credit-card reader from a counter and threw it at workers at about 2:30 a.m. at the Mickey D’s at 160 Broadway, a bathroom spot for protesters.”
I like how a homeless person goes crazy in a McDonald’s near Zuccotti Park and he’s automatically an OWS protester.
Don’t forget to do nothing while your phones and computers set themselves back an hour for Daylight Savings Time.
“Mayor Bloomberg spent more campaign funds in 2011 than any candidate in New York — and he’s not even running for office.”
Yet.
“A United Express pilot convicted of flying while drunk will serve six months in prison.”
Maybe if the consequences were more dire, there wouldn’t be so many pilots flying drunk?
“A Bronx man [Karriem Barrow] was convicted yesterday in White Plains federal court of robbing a Bronx restaurant and seven suburban banks at the beginning of last year.”
He now faces… “a minimum of 200 years in prison.”
But when banks steal money from us, they don’t even get charged.
“ABC/Washington Post poll taken after the Herman Cain scandal broke shows he’s jumped 7 points among GOP voters in the past month.”
What else can he do to boost his support? He’s already said he’d force victims of rape and/or incest to carry their babies to term, he’s against homosexuals doing pretty much anything… maybe he can murder an illegal immigrant with his bare hands?
“‘I have attracted a little attention,’ [Cain] joke, in a defiant speech in Washington to a Tea Party-affiliated group Americans for Prosperity… Cain went on to pitch his 9-9-9 tax plan and called for an ‘attitude adjustment’ at the Environmental Protection Agency, drawing a big response from the crowd.”
Of course! Bashing the EPA! That ought to help him widen his lead.
According to Page Six (today on page 10), Lindsay Lohan “crashed the party for Leonardo DiCaprio’s movie J. Edgar‘ and made such a scene she made A-list attendees uncomfortable’… Lohan has to turn herself in to jail by Wednesday to serve a 30-day sentence. But this didn’t stop her from turning up at the Hollywood Roosevelt with her hair and makeup still done up from her earlier Playboy shoot.”
I’m really going to miss her.
Former Gov. Jesse Ventura has vowed that he’ll “never stand for the national anthem again” and will “spend more time in his beloved Mexico” after a judge ruled that his airport-security lawsuit (which he filed against the government, alleging that airport scans and patdowns constitute unreasonable search and seizure) should have been filed in appeals court.
Ventura “said he has not decided whether to continue pressing the suit.”
My, what strong convictions you have, Jesse.
Todd Venezia writes today’s Weird BUT true sidebar. He tells the story of Rickie La Touche, who was recently convicted of killing his wife — because she smashed his collection of Star Wars action figures. Sadly, Todd got his name wrong (it isn’t “Rickie La-Touche”).
There’s also the story of a man in Alabama (Montigo Arrington) who updated his Facebook status to “Has any 1 else eva thought bout strappin a bomb on n walk n a police department n blowin da [expletive deleted] up?” Arrington was on probation at the time, so the police went to his home and discovered a stash of kiddie porn. Todd almost makes a joke in the first sentence of this three-sentence piece: “Here’s a good way to turn to Facebook status to ‘jailed.’” Todd’s really good at his job.
Bonus Points: I found a picture of Montigo:
And ladies? He’s single…
Daniel Freedman’s Patron Devil of ‘Occupy’ is all about Guy Fawkes. It even includes a photo of OWS protesters wearing Guy Fawkes masks. Oddly, there’s a word that doesn’t appear anywhere in the entire half-page op-ed: Anonymous.
Is it possible that Freedman forgot that Anonymous popularized the use of the Guy Fawkes masks long before OWS started? But why would he forget? I know of no reason why the hacker group’s fashion should ever be forgot.
Happy Guy Fawkes’ Day!
Brooklyn’s George Najarian writes in about Kim Kardashian divorce from whoever she was married to (Kris something?). “When I heard about the impending divorce, I became so upset that I ran into my kitchen and stuck my head into the oven. I even lost a bet with a friend when I said the marriage wouldn’t last longer than two weeks.” I love it when sarcasm contradicts itself.
But Sydney, Australia’s Jane Wallace sides with Kim (and loose women in general). “My grandmother used to say that men came good at Christmas and went bad at Easter. Christmas to Easter is about 72 days. Now Kardashian lives by my grandmother’s old wives’ tale. She was married for 72 days and now wants a divorce. That’s long enough to put up with any man. Why should any woman waste herself on just one man per year when she could have four men per year?” Um… love?
Bill O’Reilly’s The Measure of Experience claims that “a new Quinnipiac survey [asked]: ‘Does the fact that Herman Cain never served in public office make you more likely to vote for him for president, less likely to vote for him for president, or doesn’t it make a difference?’ Well, 43 percent said it doesn’t make a difference, 41 percent would be less likely to vote for Cain, and just 14 percent would be more likely to support him. The takeaway from this poll is that close to 60 percent of Americans don’t believe any political experience is necessary in order to run the country.”
Actually, Bill, 14% of the respondents said Cain’s lack of experience makes them more likely to vote for him, 43% said his lack of experience doesn’t affect their intention to vote (or not vote) for him, and 41% said his lack of experience would make them less likely to vote for him. The true takeaway from this poll, then, is that you aren’t very good at interpreting poll results.
Linda 3Starsi reviews Lifetime’s The Pastor’s Wife.
She gives it…
…three stars.
And that’s Saturday.
More to come…
“Light to moderate alcohol consumption can have health benefits for many people but carries grave risks for others… researchers in California found.”
In a related study, researchers discovered that some drivers get into car accidents but others don’t.
Science!
President Obama unveiled a new plan that “would lower the cap on the maximum amount of student loan debt from 15 percent to 10 percent of discretionary income — instituting the cap next year instead of waiting until 2014. Any remaining debt would be forgiven after 20 years — five years sooner than under the current law. And loans obtained through different government programs could be consolidated at a lower rate.”
Geoff Earle ends his piece (Obama the loan ranger) with this: “But Republicans blamed the rising cost of college of Obama’s economic policies. The real way to reduce the burden of student loan debt is to slow down the growth of tuition,’ said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).”
Say hello to Lamar Alexander:
Now say hello to this chart:
That chart begins in 1982 and ends in 2005. Here’s one that covers 1975 – 2009:
This one appears to cover 1978 – 2011:
Any Republican that blames Obama for the rising cost of tuition is either an idiot, a liar or both.
Do you miss the old days when the Post lavished praise on Hillary Clinton, hoping the Democrats would nominate her so that John McCain could win the 2008 election? If so, you’ll love S.A. Miller’s Hill’s shock poll climb over Bam. The article cites a Time magazine poll (of some people somewhere) that shows Obama beating Mitt Romney 48-44, Herman Cain 49-34, and Rick Perry 50-38. Looks like Obama has nothing to worry about, right? Except Hillary Clinton! She beat Romney 55-38, Cain 56-34, and Perry 58-32.
Good thing for Obama Hillary isn’t running for anything.
“A Brooklyn woman won a staggering $60 million judgment after a botched operation at Maimonides Hospital left her stomach paralyzed. Kaitlyn Nelson, 24, underwent surgery in December 2000 — when she was 13 — to tighten the sphincter at the base of her esophagus to correct an acid reflux problem . But during surgery, her vagus nerve was injured, causing paralysis to her stomach muscles.”
If the operation took place on December 15th, I think the hospital’s attorneys might have been able to win the case.
(look at the name of the hospital again)
Laura Italiano reports on yesterday’s sentencing of Heidi Jones to 350 hours of community service and three years’ probation for lying about being raped last year (TV GAL IS MISS CAST). On the plus side, Italiano doesn’t refer to Jones as a “weather babe.” However, she does refer to her as a “weather gal” twice (not counting the headline).
Did you know that “meteorologist” can refer to either a man or a woman? If so, can you let the Post know?
Andrea Peyser notes that homeless Anthony Ciccone “insists he wants no help,” but she knows the real reason he lives on the street. “[It's] as plain as Madge’s wacked-out leftist politics. The government must meet all of Anthony’s needs. You don’t expect La Madonna to dig in her pockets to help her own flesh and blood, do you?”
Ah, but you don’t know if Madonna has tried to help her brother, do you, Mandrea?
Peyser also writes about how The New York Times refuses to admit that Occupy Wall Street is made up entirely of anti-Semites (Protest press gets with the pogrom).
“This is from The New York Times: ‘The protests have also, on occasion, had a distinctly Jewish flavor: The encampment has coincided with the busy Jewish holiday season and has witnessed, in its midst or on its edges, a crowded Kol Nidre service on Yom Kippur, festive dancing with a scroll on Simchat Torah… and the sukkah.’ Times collaborators want to wish away displays of anti-Semitism spreading like a cancer at Occupy Wall Street. Good luck, you dancing fools.” How dare the Times report on things that happened! Especially when they contradict the Post’s false narrative!
But the bulk of Mandrea’s page of bile is devoted to XXXtracurricular activity in school.
“The city’s public schools are transitioning into a gross and kinky pleasure palace, with sixth-graders — kids as young as 10 — being drilled on such activities as sexual intercourse and oral sex. Plus, a cornucopia of deviant acts you wouldn’t perform without a defibrillator handy.” Like showing a man your naked body, Andrea?
Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott notes that “‘A significant percentage of our teenagers have had multiple sexual partners, so we can’t stick our heads in the sand about this.’ But psychiatrist Miriam Grossman… says our kids aren’t safe.”
This is the third Post article in the last few days that features Miriam Grossman’s opinion (which just so happens to parrot a book she wrote over two years ago). Fun Fact: That book was published by a subsidiary of Eagle Publishing, Inc. – a publisher with a political agenda.
Peyser ends with this: “Lose the curriculum before someone gets hurt.” I believe she is issuing a threat of violence. I hope the police charge her for threatening Mr. Walcott’s well-being.
Page Six is on pages 12 and 13 today.
A coroner has ruled that Amy Winehouse “drank herself to death” after an autopsy showed “lethal amounts of alcohol in her blood — more than five times the British drunken-driving limit.”
And well over the not-dying limit.
Did you know that “Mick Jagger makes homemade jam for his pals?” I didn’t… until I read Cindy Adams’ column. And now I know! I wonder what more important piece of information in my brain was replaced by this. Oh, well.
She also provides this incredibly funny joke: “Headline in Year 2059: ‘Minorities still trying to have English recognized as Mexifornia’s third language.’ Headline in Year 2060: ‘Baby conceived naturally, scientists stumped.’”
Did I say incredibly funny? I meant please die, you racist anachronism.
This story about a store in Canada is offered without comment:
“[An] Edmonton store, called Winners, gave a handicapped 9-year-old girl a $25 gift certificate as an apology after employees cruelly kicked her out last week because she had a service dog. Little Emily Ainsworth and her mom happily went back to the store again this week to redeem the $25 — and were again kicked out. ‘It’s demeaning,’ her mom, Alison, said.”
“Three thieves [in Sweden] were nabbed after they stopped to go poo in some bushes near the home of a strawberry farmer whom they tied up and robbed of $1,500. Cops found the felonious feces and were able to get DNA samples, which led to the arrests.”
For the record, I was recently robbed of a sizable amount of my leavings. So if any of it is found at a crime scene, know that it was probably put there by the person who robbed me.
Yes, that’ll do.
Now that Barbara Sheehan has been acquitted of murdering her husband (Raymond Sheehan), she’s giving interviews and discussing her husband’s (alleged) sexual fetishes.
“He would meet up with young people and he would dress like a woman, they would dress like a woman. There were no women…. He was into that, diapers, acting like a baby, or having someone else act like a baby. He wanted me to watch him do things. He would do things to himself.”
Their kids must be so pleased with her.
Fox Business Network senior correspondent Charles Gasparino’s Protesters’ Corporate Pals: CEOs clapping loudly for OWS complains that people are supporting Occupy Wall Street more than the Tea Party — and it’s all the media’s fault.
“The elite media has constantly vilified the peaceful Tea Party as right-wing rabble… Meanwhile, politicians, the press — and now CEOs — have generally celebrated Occupy Wall Street as the second-coming of the civil-rights movement — no matter how many times its followers have clashed with police in the name of Mao and Che Guevara.”
“When was the last time you heard [the media] describe the squatters in Zuccotti Park as young and white?”
“Imagine how much the Tea Party would have achieved if it had even half the media support of Occupy Wall Street.”
Fair, balanced, ridiculous.
“Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said he’s ‘incensed’ by public criticism of his company.”
As of today, I have won as many NFL games in 2011 as the Miami Dolphins (0-6), Indianapolis Colts (0-7) and St. Louis Rams (0-6) combined.
Robinson Cano has two years left on his 4-year contract with the New York Yankees. His agent would like the Yankees to throw away that contract and give him a new one worth a lot more money.
Can you guess who Robinson Cano’s new agent is? I’ll give you a hint: He got the Yankees to throw away Alex Rodriguez’ contract and give him a new one.
Answer: Scott Boras.
The judges also would have accepted “Scum.”
And that’s (the rest of) Thursday.
First, here’s Bill Maher on The Rachel Maddow Show last night:
And here’s Cornel West and Tavis Smiley on The O’Reilly Factor last night:
And here’s last night’s Bloomberg/Washington Post GOP debate in New Hampshire (watch at your own risk):
Michele Bachmann is phenomenally stupid. But you didn’t need to watch last night’s debate to know that.
IRAN IN DC BOMB PLOT
Bust at JFK foils scheme
“Members of Iran’s military schemed to blow up Saudi Arabia’s US ambassador in a crowded DC restaurant, the feds revealed yesterday — adding that they nabbed one plotter at JFK.”
“An elite Iranian military unit plotted to blow up the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States in a Washington restaurant packed with hundreds of diners, federal authorities revealed yesterday. The plot was coordinated by a US citizen, Manssor Arbabsiar, who arranged to pay $1.5 million of Iranian blood money to a man he believed to be a ruthless Mexican drug-cartel hit man, but who was actually an informant, the feds said.”
Crisis averted! Whatever the feds are doing must be working. Bravo to everyone involved! Wouldn’t you agree, James Jay Carafano, national-security expert at the Heritage Foundation?
“This summer, President Obama revealed his new and improved strategy for combating terrorism. Pop quiz: What did it say about Iran? Almost nothing. Despite its record, Tehran merited just one mention in 19 pages.”
Mr. Carafano’s Obama’s taking us back to the bad old days on page 4 explains that “Even a foiled plot raises [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad’s stature — to violate American sovereignty and pay little. And Tehran could well have succeeded where 41 other post-9/11 plots against the United States have failed.”
Wait… how many post-9/11 plots against the United States succeeded? How many terrorist attacks have succeeded here during Obama’s presidency? And yet, on the day that the feds announce that yet another plot has been foiled, the Post lets a pig-faced conservative complain that Obama’s anti-terrorism plan is “to make nice with evil regimes”?
How fair, how balanced.
Bonus Points: The only other piece of page 4 is Undies fiend’s rituals, which discusses the start of the trial of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (“the underwear bomber”), who is pleading guilty. It’s been almost two years since Umar unsuccessfully tried to blow up his junk. Have any other terrorists managed to pull it off (and the “it” that “pull off” refers to is the terrorist plot, not flaming underwear)?
Erik Kriss’s Wall Street’s job losses $ocking NY begins, “The state’s chief fiscal watchdog is sounding a warning about a new Wall Street slide that he says will belt New York with a new round of job losses and plummeting tax revenue.”
“And [Gov.] Cuomo has said he worries that Wall Street’s problems could inflate the $2.4 billion deficit projected for the state’s next fiscal year, which begins on April 1.”
Well, the state is going to lose $5,000,000,000 (that’s billion with a b) in tax revenue if the “millionaire’s tax” expires in December. So… we all agree that it shouldn’t expire, right? Because New York desperately needs that revenue, yes? Right, Erik? Hello?
“Russian officials claim they have ‘indisputable evidence’ that the fabled Yeti, a half-human creature is real and lives in the Siberian tundra. One expert, Dr. Igor Burtsev, says the Yeti, better known as the Abominable Snowman or Bigfoot here, exists in the remote Kemerovo region.”
Dr. Burtsev provided the media with some photographic proof:
Geoff Earle reports on last night’s GOP debate (Ganging up on Cain: Foes hit GOP poll vaulter) and provides the insightful opinions of a panel of three “registered Republicans” who (allegedly) sat through the whole thing.
Lawyer Hyman Silverglad, 79, of the East Village, declares Mitt Romney the winner (“he injected hope”) and Herman Cain the loser (“His constant repetitions of 9-9-9 [his tax plan] was not to my liking”).
Medical assistant Carol McGuinness, 66, of Stuyvesant Town, declares Mitt Romney the winner (“Romney came across better, more sure of himself”) and Michele Bachmann the loser (“Michele Bachmann is a robot”).
Professor Michael Chan, 65, of Midtown, declares Rick Perry the winner (“His talk of job creation in Texas was impressive”) and Herman Cain the loser (“I oppose a federal sales tax in his 9-9-9 plan”).
What a young panel!
The highlights (according to Earle) include Bachmann’s dismissal of Cain’s 9-9-9 plan on religious ground (“When you take the 9-9-9 plan an turn it upside down, the devil’s in the details.”) and Mitt Romney’s defense of the 2008 bailouts (“We were on the precipice and we could’ve had a complete meltdown of the entire financial system. Action had to be taken.”) and criticizes Rick Perry because “he was mostly on the sidelines, and missed chances to swipe at Romney.”
Not mentioned anywhere in today’s paper: After the debate, Perry went to the Beta Theta Pi fraternity at Dartmouth College for a Q & A and was asked about states’ rights. He responded that one of the “reasons we fought the revolution in the 16th century was to get away from that kind of onerous crown.”
Fun Fact: The Revolutionary War lasted from 1775 to 1783. Which, according to my calendar, was during the 18th century (I have a very thick, very old calendar).
Carl Campanile’s Christie throws weight behind Romney’s run tells us that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has endorsed Mitt Romney “because he’s the class of the field.”
He went on to say that Christie also thought Romney was “the top of the cream, the sweetest of the best, and the choice of the head.”
“Sixteen actors dressed as zombies were injured yesterday when they fell from a platform during filming of a new movie in the Resident Evil series — and rescue workers at first were startled by the seemingly catastrophic scene. ‘I could see the first paramedic, saying, “Oh, my God,”‘ emergency medical services chief David Ralph said with a laugh.”
Luckily this happened in Toronto. If it happened in most of the United States, the EMTs would have tried to sever the victims’ heads.
The good news: Obama’s job bill wasn’t shot down by the GOP in the House!
The bad news: It was shot down by the GOP — and two Democrats (Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jon Tester of Montana) — in the Senate.
Sigh.
Michael Goodwin believes that Chris Christie’s “enthusiastic endorsement of Romney yesterday could turn out to be a pivotal moment in the 2012 race — emphasis on could.” What trenchant insight!
But he spends the bulk of his page mocking the Occupy Wall Street folks. He suggests that by accepting Mayor Bloomberg’s offer to stay in Zuccotti Park, they’re missing out on the chance to protest at all of the properties Bloomberg owns. “If they take the deal, protesters would be passing up a rich target. In fact, because the mayor has at least six houses around the world, they could camp out at all of them and strike a global blow for whatever it is they want.”
I can’t decide if Goodwin is playing dumb or if he really is that dumb. Or both.
Rally hits ‘home’: Marchers target biz bigs’ UES digs is about the “Millionaire’s March” (which was the “Millionaires March” yesterday) and how it “attracted about 450 demonstrators.”
In response to the march (which protested, in part, the expiration of the millionaires tax in December), Mayor Bloomberg defended Paulson & Co. President John Paulson (whose home was one of the many visited by the protesters). “He’s brought more business to this city than any banker in [the] modern day. To go and picket him, I don’t know what that achieves.”
They aren’t picketing him, Mike. They’re picketing the fact that he’s about to get a huge tax break at the expense of almost everyone else in the city. And we don’t know what that achieves.
“A teachers aide who was pepper-sprayed last month during the Occupy Wall Street protests is demanding that Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. prosecute the deputy inspector caught on video spraying her… She is now demanding misdemeanor assault charges against Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, said her lawyer, Ron Kuby.”
“‘[NYPD] Spokesperson Paul Browne stated publicly that the pepper-spraying was justified as part of a “continuum of force that obviated the use of batons.” This suggests that my client should be grateful that she was not beaten to the ground with police clubs, but it does not explain why D.I. Bologna discharged his pepper spray,’ Kuby wrote.”
I sincerely hope Vance decides to prosecute. And that Bologna loses his job, his pension and his teeth.
Page Six is on pages 12, 13 and 14 today.
Cindy Adams
is off today.
Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.
John Podhoretz’s And Then There Was Mitt: Romney cleans up in debate declares that, by the end of last night’s debate, Romney “seemed to be the only even remotely plausible presidential candidate on the stage” — and not because he did a great job.
“Romney, as is his wont in these situations, simply spewed forth blizzards of words to fog the minds of listeners about his Massachusetts health-care plan and its similarity to the hated ObamaCare. It’s dazzling to watch, though substantively it’s rather shocking just how disingenuous Romney is on this key matter of his own policy record and what it means.”
Romney/Christie ‘12!
Davidsonville, Maryland’s Faul Alessandri writes in to praise Herman Cain for some reason. “The way Cain handled MSNBC’s Larry O’Donnell suggests he will overcome all the traps from the liberal media.” I believe Faul is referring to Cain’s recent appearance on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell:
PART ONE:
PART TWO:
The way Faul praises the way Cain “handled” Lawrence O’Donnell suggests that Faul isn’t very bright.
And Staten Island’s C. Honadel (aka Charlie Honadel) writes, “All you need to do to be in the GOP is hard work and have a conscience — two things lacking in the Democratic Party.”
There are two things lacking in Charlie Honadel, too. The Scarecrow and the Tin Man thought they were lacking them, too, until they learned they had them all along. Charlie doesn’t.
Fox Business Network senior correspondent Charles Gasparino’s Beating a Dead Goose: Wall Street slumps, city suffers begins, “Here’s an important irony lost on those zany and sometimes violent Wall Street protesters: On the day that they extended their near riots from the financial district to the swanky uptown neighborhoods where many of the Wall Street millionaires live, we got proof positive that the ranks of the wealthiest Wall Streeters are shrinking.”
1) The protesters aren’t “zany.”
2) The protesters aren’t “sometimes violent.”
3) The protesters do not participate in “near riots.”
“The number of Wall Street fat cats is shrinking fairly dramatically, and will continue to shrink in the years ahead — meaning even less money coming from one of New York’s most important sources of tax revenue.”
So… you agree that the “millionaire’s tax” shouldn’t expire in December, right, Charles? Right? Hello?
Chales goes on to blame the cause of the protesters’ dismay not on folks like Jamie Dimon and Rupert Murdoch, but on the people who inacted “the jobs-killing Dodd-Frank financial reform.” But not the folks who deregulated Wall Street, setting the stage for the economic collapse that pre-dated Dodd-Frank. Funny that.
Did I mention he works for Fox Business Network?
“National chain IHOP plans to open a franchise in the upscale Limelight Marketplace in Chelsea.”
Max Gross rates seven new sandwich shops across New York City. One of them is Potbelly, which I used to frequently frequent in Chicago. Gross rates it two subs (out of four). Either Potbelly radically changed their menu/ingredients or Gross doesn’t know what he’s talking about (or both). In fact, I’m going to go to Potbelly ASAP and get a Wreck with Pepperoni just to see if the New York version holds up to the ones I ate in Chicago.
“Amar’e Stoudemire said last night if the NBA lockout wipes out the season, he believes the players will form their own league instead of trying to catch on in Europe. ‘If we don’t go to Europe, we’re going to start our own league, that’s how I see it.’”
I know I said I don’t care about basketball, but I would pay big money to watch the meetings wherein NBA players try to put together their own league.
Theo Epstein, the former general manager of the Boston Red Sox, has been hired by the Chicago Cubs.
My dream of a New York Yankees-Chicago Cubs World Series is slowly coming true.
Linda 3Starsi reviews A&E’s Bordertown: Laredo.
She gives it two and a half stars (but we’ll round that up to three).
The end.
Happy Hump Day!
The head of the Sept. 11th Victim Compensation Fund has expanded the eligibility area for people who claim to have “illnesses brought on by the attack,” adding the 10 blocks between Reade Street and Canal Street. So if you worked and/or lived in that area during the attack, you could be eligible for financial assistance. That is, unless you got cancer or “mental or emotional injuries, such as post-traumatic stress.”
(waves miniature American flag)
Michele Bachmann is now claiming that her recent comment (about how God sent an earthquake and a hurricane to convince politicians to be more conservative) was merely a joke.
Which is what people have been saying about Michele Bachmann for years.
“The ‘highest levels’ of chocolate consumption were associated with a 37 percent reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease and a 29 percent reduction in stroke, compared with the lowest levels, researchers said yesterday in the online British Medical Journal.”
Why am I not surprised that this appeared in the British Medical Journal? It’s like all of those reports in the Japanese Medical Journal about how great for you rice is. Or all of the reports in the Chinese Medical Journal about how rice is really good for you. Or the “Medical Benefits of Rice” series in the Mexican Medical Journal.
The father of Leiby Kletzky (Nachman Kletzky) is suing his son’s murderer (Levi Aron) and that man’s father (Jack Aron) for $100,000,000 in punitive damages — each.
Kletzky argues that Jack had to have known that his son had abducted and/or murdered Leiby because they live together in Jack’s home (which has a market value of $720,000).
I wonder if there’s an amount that Nachman would settle out of court for.
“Darren Morris, 27, allegedly fired twice at NYPD Officer Daniel Beddows before the hero cop managed to tackle and arrest him. But despite a very strong case, prosecutors dragged their feet and missed several deadlines — forcing a judge to drop the charges because Morris had been denied a speedy trial.”
Seriously, we have to stop calling it the justice system.
According to Page Six (today on pages 12 and 13), Darrell Hammond “is barely able to work after a recent Hamptons car crash.” He “suffered fractured ribs and a severe lower back injury.” Page Six snarkily notes that “Hammond, a stand-up comic, now can’t stand up for lengthy periods” (Bonus Points: The item’s headline is Sit-down comic).
Get well soon, Darrell.
Cindy Adams brags that (after Hurricane Irene struck) “from around the globe I received about 30 calls from Tokyo, Bali, Jerusalem, checking to be sure I’m OK. If you can believe anybody feeling sorry for me, I guess they were.”
What if I can’t?
A grainy black and white photo on page 17 features Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin walking in Paris, France. The article’s headline is OUI, OUI WEINER, and it begins, “Keep that Weiner away from your BlackBerry! Frisky former congressman Anthony Weiner and wife Huma Abedin were spotted strolling in Paris yesterday, where the pregnant wife wisely kept her smartphone away from her sexting hubby.”
Fun Fact: There is absolutely no possible way to see what Abedin is holding in the photo.
Newspapers that hire a prostitute to be a naked cover girl and columnist shouldn’t throw stones.
“A clinic in Madison, Wis., warned yesterday that as many as 2,345 patients may have been exposed to HIV and hepatitis because of the actions of a diabetes nurse educator over a five-year period. The nurse educator, who has since been fired, reused the handles of insulin demonstration pens and finger-stick devices from 2006 to 2011, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.”
More like health-don’t-care, am I right?
Seriously, though, the nurse should be prosecuted.
Staten Island’s Phil Anastasia writes in to complain about Bloomberg’s response to Hurricane Irene: “When Irene arrived, it was a welcome relief. I would rather endure 10 storms like that than listen to four days of nonstop hype and apocalyptic predictions from pompous news anchors and local politicians… We are Americans, and we are New Yorkers. We can adjust and adapt to any situation, and we surely know to come in out of the rain. Stop assisting in the wimpification of America.”
It should have been you, Phil.
(I’m referring to any of the 8 New Yorkers who died in the hurricane)
Michael A. Walsh’s THE ANTI-GOD SQUAD complains that the left is unfairly victimizing folks like Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry for being so religious. “The country remains overwhelmingly Christian, with 92 percent of the population expressing belief in God.”
Nicely done, Vulcan Muppet! You made it seem like 92% of the country agrees on the existence of God! But what percentage sees God as Allah? Or as Black Gay Jesus? Or a (*gasp*) woman?
B’also? Bachmann is stupid. That she’s religious doesn’t help, but she’d be just as stupid without her God-crutch.
They announced the cast of this season’s Dancing With the Stars. Snooki and Queen Latifah are NOT cast members, but Ricki Lake, Ron Artest, Kristin Cavallari, David Arquette, Chynna Phillips, J.R. Martinez, Nancy Grace, Rob Kardashian, Hope Solo, Elisabeta Canalis and Chaz Bono.
No word on which stars will be appearing.
(If there really is a God, Nancy Grace will irreparably shatter her legs on the season premiere).
And that’s Tuesday.
Off to rehearsal. Tonight’s Let’s Have A Ball (7:30 at the UCB) should be a blast. Come if you can!
Once again, I’m going preface today’s entry by reminding you what the Post wrote on June 2nd: “Unable to resist awkward double entendres, [Weiner] said that the situation ‘didn’t rise’ to a federal investigation…” And now, today’s paper.
WEINER: I’LL STICK IT OUT
First sentence of the accompanying text: “He’s taking a hard line.”
Headline of the follow-up on pages 6 and 7 (not to be confused with Page Six, today on pages 10, 11 and 12):
WEINER: I’M STANDING FIRM
Tells Post he refuses to resign — even as Dems rise against him
First sentence of that article (by Kevin Fasick, Geoff Earle, S.A. Miller and Andy Soltis): “He’s hanging tough.”
Banner at the top of pages 6 and 7: BATTLE OF THE BULGE.
Bonus Points: According to a new poll, “56 percent of voters in his congressional district want him to stay in office.” So shut up, Reince Priebus.
Bonus Bonus Points:
There’s a photo on page 3 of a gorilla hanging out with a duckling at the Bronx Zoo.
I miss Teresa.
Julie Taymor is suing the producers of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark for over $300,000 in royalties. “As long as her work is being used, she should be paid for it,” said Laura Penn (executive director of Taymor’s union, The Stage Directors and Choreographers Society). “They’re using her property unlawfully.”
I consider the way Taymor used Marvel’s properties for this show to be criminal, so maybe they should just call it even?
“Rep. Peter King said yesterday he is holding another hearing on the terrorist threat growing out of the radicalization of US Muslims. This one will focus on prisons.”
Oh, goodie. And if this one if twice as effective as the last one he held, it’ll be a colossal waste of time.
Over 60,000 people waited for hours in the sweltering heat yesterday to see the Black Eyed Peas in Central Park. But the show was ultimately cancelled because of thunderstorms (despite the concert being promoted as happening “rain or shine”).
Maybe the band behind “Don’t Lie” should take their own advice?
Page Six reports that “new Transformers hottie Rosie Huntington-Whiteley” told Maxim that her guilty pleasure is eating. “I just don’t stop doing it. I love eating really bad, bad things, like roast dinners.”
What is so “really bad, bad” about a roast dinner (whether she means a dinner that has been roasted or a dinner featuring a roast)? Is it possible that Rosie, like every other emaciated supermodel, is lying about her eating habits? [SPOILER: Yes.]
Look out! Cindy Adams is trying to be funny again today (And you think your job’s hard)!
It begins, “Worst jobs: Besides doing Anthony hot-dog Weiner’s p.r… Besides subbing for D. Trump’s vacationing hairstylist… Not many applicants for such employment as: following a circus elephant. Swabbing a giraffe’s throat. Fitting a teeny weeny polka-dot bikini onto a zebra. Hanging a leather handbag on an alligator… Also: Proctologists who ask the patient: ‘Was it good for you, too?’ Cheapo caterers who ask, ‘What wine goes with this slop?’”
And the last (and I’d assume worst) “worst job” on her far-too-long list? “Editing me.”
Touché.
“Fans of The Hangover Part II could see star Ed Helms with a different tattoo when the flick comes to DVD this year. Warner Bros. lawyers have told a federal judge the studio will redo the tattoo — a copy of Mike Tyson’s face ink — if it can’t settle a suit by a Missouri artist who claims a copyright on the design.”
If I were you, I’d go out and buy 1,000 copies of this poster:
It could be worth millions soon!
(not really)
Rapper Flo Rida (real name: Tramar Dillard) was arrested for driving drunk in Florida (real name: Florida). He blew a .185 on a Breathalyzer (twice the legal limit) after he was pulled over (in “his $2 million Bugatti”).
Might he get out of this? Nope. Why not? Because not only did he fail the sobriety test, but he also declared, “Officers, I can’t do this. I don’t feel I can walk in a straight line.”
Maybe he can bunk with Ja Rule!
Former policeman Darrin Nemelc, 44, claims he found a 14-year-old runaway in a park near his Riverside Drive home just after midnight on New Year’s Day. He told police, “She was acting weird and spaced out, and was crying. She then asked me to use my bathroom, which she did.” He also referred to her as a “little White girl.”
She claims he raped her; he insists he never touched her. But prosecutors have charged him with “rape, criminal sex act and sex abuse” after finding his DNA on the (alleged) victim’s body.
I hope none of the police officers testifying for the prosecution is involved in the ticket-fixing investigation, or a jury might decide Nemelc is innocent.
Over in Weird BUT true, Todd Venezia shares this item (reprinted in its entirety):
“A 66-year-old woman who said she wanted to shower ‘poor Mexican women’ with gifts went into a randomly selected discount store in San Diego and paid for a $5,000 shopping spree for 50 señoras and señoritas. Then, out of nowhere, benefactor Claudia Smith shouted profanity at the women as they checked out and yelled, ‘Aye, Aye, Aye, Aye, Aieeeee!’ Smith insisted she wasn’t drunk, although she once had a ‘drinking and drugging’ problem.”
(waves miniature post-racial American flag)
Yesterday, while sitting in an air-conditioned coffee shop and writing about the Post, William Barposen, 28, of New Jersey was arrested three doors down at the Park Slope Key Food for taking pictures up a woman’s dress.
I didn’t even hear a siren (though, to be fair, I had my headphones on and was watching The Real World: Las Vegas and The Electric Barbarellas).
I was going to reprint a number of letters sent to the Post today (all about Anthony Weiner), but I’ve decided to just share the first two sentences of one of them.
Whitestone’s Gary Posch writes, “Since the introduction of ObamaCare, Weiner has been one of its most ardent and obstinate defenders. Time and again, he’s gone out of his way to confuse the issue with crazy facts and figures and ridiculous political doublespeak.”
He’s gone out of his way to confuse the issue with crazy facts.
If ignorance is bliss, Gary Posch is ecstatic.
Jack Rafuse (of the Rafuse Organization) writes the pro-fracking op-ed Behind the Greens’ Phantom Fright. He concludes with, “New York needs to look at the big picture and see the benefits of shale gas to its communities and the nation’s energy independence — to say nothing of our trade balance, foreign policy and the global environment — and not get scared away by phantom fracking risks.”
He’s actually saying that fracking is good for the global environment.
Fun Fact: Neither Jack Rafuse nor the Rafuse Organization are listed in Wikipedia.
MOVIE REVIEWS!
Kyle Smith gives half a star to Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer (“sure to appeal to kids of all ages from 6 to 9 who are female and have no taste or sense of humor”), three stars to The Trip (“intermittently semi-brilliant quasi-documentary”), and one star to Just Like Us (“In between bad bits, we observe bland sightseeing footage”).
V.A. Musetto gives three stars to both Queen of the Sun (nothing to worry about) and Trollhunter (violence). I cannot explain this.
Lou Lumenick gives two stars to Road to Nowhere (“has a great setup but not much in the way of a payoff”), and three stars to Bride Flight (“lush, epic romantic weepie”).
Not only did the Red Sox sweep the Yankees, but it looks like Joba Chamberlain will be getting season-ending Tommy John surgery.
Shut up.
Linda 3Starsi reviews The Glee Project. She gives it…
…three stars.
FYI: Jane Lynch and Bill Maher will be doing a dramatic reading of Anthony Weiner’s notorious Facebook chats on Real Time with Bill Maher tonight.
MTV has cancelled Skins after just one season.
Not enough pregnant teenagers, I guess.
And that’s Friday.
Have a great weekend, everybody!
Today’s cover story is NAKED TRUTH: Weiner bares his betrayal and lies. The caption under a photo of Anthony Weiner wiping a tear from his eye begins, “Weeping Weiner comes clean yesterday.”
Pages 2 and 3 share a giant headline — WEINER BAWLS (on page 2) IN CONFESSION (on page 3) — and the accompanying article (by Dan Mangan, S.A. Miller, Geoff Earle, Lachlan Cartwright, Carl Campanile and Wilson Dizard) is a hastily thrown together example of schadenfreude at its worst (it begins with the sarcastic “What a tear-jerker.”), complete with glaring typos (or did Weiner actually say “For most part, these…”?).
“‘I’ve never had sex outside my marriage,’ the rep bizarrely interjected at one point at the hastily called press conference at the Sheraton Hotel in Midtown.” Really, guys? Bizarre? At a press conference about his penis?
Andrea Peyser isn’t any better (page 3’s Marriage headed for a crotch-photo finish). “On the day Anthony Weiner needed his wife the most, she vanished — poof! — like his harem of feisty Twitter chippies during a power outage. The gorgeous and furious Internet cuckold Huma Abedin refused yesterday to stand by her man. She did not show up to walk the plank of public humiliation, the way doormat Silda did for her whoremonger husband, Eliot Spitzer.” Maybe she didn’t want to give you a chance to call her a doormat? Or maybe she was busy doing her job?
And now that BATTLE OF THE BULGE has been replaced at the top of Weiner-related pages by NAKED TRUTH, Mandrea finds a new way to besmirch our veterans: “Yesterday, the anniversary of D-Day, Weiner, 46, threw a little sneak invasion of his own. He stood behind a podium — sobbing, blubbering and begging for forgiveness for his fetishistic fixation with phone sex, e-mail sex and sexting gross photos to a half-dozen chicks, many young enough to be his children.” So “sneak invasion” actually means “sobbing, blubbering and begging for forgiveness”? So… she’s saying our boys at Normandy… were cowards? B’also? Why must you call women “chicks,” Mandrea? And whycome Ellen Barkin should be applauded for sleeping with someone 31 years younger than she is, but Weiner should be vilified for flirting with someone 25 years younger than he is?
“Earth to Huma: Arrogance and a sense of entitlement doesn’t vanish when a man says, ‘I do.’… Some women accept their husbands’ quirky habits. Mine likes to watch football.”
Well, I guess if “sneak invasion” means “begging for forgiveness,” then “watching football” could mean “molests extremely young children.”
Jeremy Olshan and Kate Sheehy’s THE DORK KNIGHT analyzes the newly-released text exchanges between Weiner and various women. It also features a bunch of typos (“in one of more than lewd 220 sexts and Facebook messages” and “he also sent her photos of his naked, shaven chest, as well one with two cats” are my favorites).
John Podhoretz’s Liar, liar, big boob’s pants ARE on fire is mostly the author screaming “I told you so” while slapping himself on the back (he called Weiner a liar a few days ago and crows, “The use of the word ‘liar’ in that column was somewhat bold at the time”), but it also includes this: “Being a colossal boob isn’t a crime, of course. Nor is being a liar. Nor is being a 46-year-old man who sends suggestive photos to a woman 25 years younger than you — a crime against elementary decency, of course, but not a violation of statute. (Assuming she was, in fact, the youngest…)”
Here are some Fun Facts about classy John Podhoretz: He turned 50 this year and his current wife is nine years his junior. His first marriage, in 1997, ended in divorce after less than three months. It probably ended amicably. (Assuming he wasn’t, in fact, caught fucking their dog…)
Finally, Geoff Earle and Jeremy Olshan’s HE & WIFE WORLDS APART criticizes Weiner for waiting until his wife was out of town before he conducted “steamy online sessions” (“When the wife’s away, Weiner will play.”).
Of course, if he was doing it while she was in the other room, the authors would’ve been OK with that.
Page 8 is a full-page, full-color ad for The Wall Street Journal, with the name of the paper written in giant letters across the middle of the page — except the word WALL is replaced with BOLD.
Is it possible that the paper is trying to move away from the negative connotations that Wall Street currently enjoys?
“The round-trip peak charge for the Port Authority’s bridges and tunnels is expected to go up by a steep 25 percent — from $8 to $10, The Post has learned.”
This is expected to happen by the start of 2012.
I am really looking forward to Apocalypto.
“A Queens judge ripped into a father who shook his baby son to death, calling the crime ‘monstrous’ and then sentencing the dad to 18 years in prison.”
Saul Cortez, 25, “became frustrated and angry” when his 8-month-old son started crying, so he “repeatedly shook and punched the infant in the back.”
Cortez “faces deportation to Mexico upon completion of his sentence.”
Let’s hope he gets killed in prison before that happens. Preferably by being repeatedly shook and punched in the back.
If you know what I mean.
The Clean Up Albany Act of 2011 has a new name. It is now The Public Integrity Reform Act of 2011.
Please make a note of it.
Cindy Adams tells a delightful story about how a woman went to Borders because she wanted “a Woody Allen movie CD.” That’s what they called “soundtracks” in the 1640s.
She also offers this: “Anne Heche and partner James Tupper at Ona Spa. His ‘n’ hers facials. The family that spas together tra-la’s together?” That’s how they said “stays together” in the 1640s.
In today’s Weird BUT true, we’re told that police in Germany are recruiting vultures to help them find hidden corpses. The Post provides names for three of the vultures: “Sherlonk, Miss Marple and Colombo.”
I just did a quick search online and my suspicions have been confirmed: Their actual names are Sherlock, Miss Marple and Columbo.
This is a terrible newspaper.
“Members of [a four-person] gang replaced the keypads on ATMs at Chase branches in Midtown, Chelsea and across from the United Nations in March and April of last year [and skimmed at least $1.5 million from customers' accounts]… If convicted, the suspects face up to 60 years in prison.”
Because stealing money from an ATM is more than three times as bad as beating your 8-month-old to death.
(waves miniature American flag)
I thought we had gotten through all of the Weiner stuff, but I hadn’t counted on the editorial on page 28 — Erections Have Consequences. It insists that accepting “the full consequences” of his actions would “require his resignation.”
Rather than list the Republicans that the Post hasn’t demanded the resignations of — despite their committing far worse offenses than Weiner — I’m going to just gently pat this editorial on the scalp and slowly back away.
I’d like to share snippets from three letters sent to the Post.
Plainview’s Eugene Biegel writes, “Anyone contemplating a run for the president of the United States should know that Paul Revere was primarily warning the Americans, not the British. He or she should also know that the battles of Lexington and Concord took place in Massachusetts, rather than New Hampshire, and that our nation has 50, not 57, states.” I see what you did there, Eugene. Except Michele Bachmann and Barack Obama corrected their mistakes almost immediately after making them. Sarah Palin continues to insist that she made no error. That’s kind of a major difference. B’also? Anyone writing about the highest office in the land should have the respect to capitalize it properly.
Bloomfield, New Jersey’s Tom McGrath writes, “During the campaign for president, then-candidate Obama lost track of how many states there are — but that was just a ’slip of the tongue.’ It must be great to be a Democrat and have one’s mistakes blithely explained away.” Did Obama go on the TV and explain how there actually are 57 states and that he wouldn’t have made the mistake if he hadn’t been given a gotcha introduction before his speech? Palin continues to blithely explain away her mistakes — while never admitting they’re mistakes. It must be great to be an idiot and have one’s ignorance published in letter form.
And Hicksville’s Bret Wallach writes, “Why all the ruckus over the Palin comment? Aren’t people allowed to misspeak? I forgot. She’s a Republican, and Republicans are not allowed to make mistakes. Once again, the mainstream media’s biases are showing. Obama made the comment that he visited 57 states, but was there an uproar over it? Was he immediately called names? Was his campaign over? He got away with it, but Palin will be raked over the coals.” Let me answer your questions in order, Bret: People love a train wreck; Yes, but only if they admit they misspoke; Yes, from people like you; Yes; and No. When you say Obama “got away with it,” what punishment did he escape? What do you think should have happened? Also, who cuts up your meat for you?
Kaja Whitehouse has an article on page 32 that includes the phrase “Freeman, who has pleaded guilty and is cooperating the prosecutors, said…”
Well done, Kaja.
Another full-color, full-page ad for The Wall Street Journal on page 49. It’s identical to the one on page 8 except the word WALL is replaced with HUMAN.
Bonus Points: On page 8, the photo is of people in metallic bodysuits holding lit flares. On page 49, it’s two people in full animal costumes kissing (they’ve lifted the costumes’ heads up). I had no idea the Post was pro-furries.
I have not seen a single episode of AMC’s The Killing, but I saw the Danish version it’s based on (Forbrydelsen, which was amazing). So I can’t speak to the similarities between the two series. What I can say, though, is that Linda 3Starsi’s Who’s the killer?: Linda breaks down the ‘Killing’ suspects is broken into two sections — suspects who Linda has already eliminated and suspects she hasn’t. And at the top of the list of suspects she has eliminated is the character who is revealed as the murderer in the Danish version.
Hilarious.
And that’s Tuesday.
According to Amazon.com, Cambridge, Massachusetts is “the best-read city in the United States.” If this is true, it must be incredibly frustrating to be so well-read and yet so close to Boston.
In the Post’s latest anti-teacher expose (TEACHER GUTTER MOUTHS: 10 guilty of harass), we learn that the Department of Education’s Office of Equal Opportunity found 10 teachers guilty of “sexual harassment or verbal bias.”
You probably want to know over what period of time these findings cover. So do I but this is the Post, so they don’t provide that minor detail. They do, however, list six of the offending teachers, what they did and what their punishment was. For example: “Juliet Salcedo, a teacher at Brooklyn’s James Madison HS, flipped out after a student asked her about Cinco de Mayo. ‘Do I fucking look Mexican?’ she told a staffer. ‘I’m sick of all these fucking Mexicans… They’re all in gangs and are ruining the school since they came here.’ Salcedo refused to talk to investigators. She and assistant principal Maria DiLorenzo, who failed to report the incident, received letters of reprimand and underwent sensitivity training.”
If this is true, then Salcedo should never set foot in a classroom again. But which “staffer” made this accusation? Did the assistant principal not report the alleged offense because she thought it lacked credibility? I only ask these questions because the Post loves to make teachers look greedy/incompetent/racist but rarely provides context for their alleged misdeeds. On account of they’re so fair and also balanced.
I considered adding “Are all of the Mexican students in gangs?” to my list of follow-up questions, but I think we all know the answer to that one.
(The answer is no, racists.)
“A judge has ruled that the campaign-finance law banning corporations from making contributions to federal candidates is unconstitutional… [US District Judge James] Cacheris says that under the Citizens United decision, corporations enjoy the same rights as individuals to contribute to campaigns.”
How about this: Corporations can enjoy the same rights as individuals when they pay the same taxes as individuals. Sound like a plan?
All 7,000 pages of the Pentagon Papers are finally going to be made public next month… except for 11 words on one page.
It doesn’t say whether it’s a single sentence or not, but I’ve been trying to come up with an 11-word sentence that threatens national security enough to not be released with the rest of the Pentagon Papers.
The best I could do is “All work and no play makes Richard Nixon a dull boy.”
Feel free to submit your own.
“A Bronx man was arrested yesterday for threatening to blow up WPIX-11 headquarters if it kept airing reruns of the suspended Two and a Half Men, sources said.”
Wait… when did Charlie Sheen move to the Bronx?
“A Staten Island Catholic high school has pulled prom privileges for one-quarter of the graduating class after the pranksters Facebooked a night of vandalizing and drinking on school property. The Moore Catholic HS students spent the night on the football field guzzling beer, overturning equipment and spray-painting the word ‘seniors’ – often misspelled – and images of male genitalia, parents said.”
Ah, Catholics.
According to page 11 (today on page 11), Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been getting a lot of deliveries at his new residence (“water, food and patio furniture”) but he isn’t sharing any of his $150,000 IMF severance package with any of the deliverymen.
“’They never tip,’ said a sweaty Danny Cotto after dropping off a box from Espresso Coffee at around 6 p.m.”
The article is accompanied by a photo of the guy who delivered water and another of someone who tried to deliver balloons but was turned away.
I have an idea. Who wants to go to 153 Franklin Street with me later this week? We can wear costumes or form a human pyramid or spell a word with our bodies or dance The Robot – whatever we do, there’s a 90% chance a photo of us will be in the following day’s Post.
Lockheed hack attack begins, “Hackers may have broken into the computer system at weapons maker Lockheed Martin. It wasn’t clear if any sensitive information was stolen, but the company has beefed up security in the wake of the incident, the Wall Street Journal reported.”
Let’s recap: One of Rupert Murdoch’s papers ran a piece about how Lockheed Martin might have been hacked, and then another one of his papers ran a piece about how the first paper ran their piece.
If you’d like to find out if Lockheed Martin was actually hacked (and if so, whether anything was stolen), find a newspaper that isn’t owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Gil-Scott Heron has died at the age of 62.
His funeral will not be televised.
(seriously, though, he was a true pioneer and will be missed)
Atul Shah, 49, and Mahaveer Kankariya, 45, were sentenced yesterday to 1 2/3 to 5 years in prison for staging a robbery at their jewelry store. They filed a $7,000,000 theft claim with their insurer, but the security-camera tape (that they thought they had erased by pouring drain cleaner on it) showed them “methodically emptying their large safe and carrying the contents into another office two hours before the heist.”
The fake robbers and the jewelry that went missing have never been recovered (the Post is unclear as to how much jewelry is still missing). Additionally, Kankariya tried to bribe the judge two months ago. So why are these guys getting such a relatively light sentence – “the lowest allowed by statute for felonies carrying a maximum of 15 years in prison”?
Maybe it’s because their attorney is… Ben Brafman?
Page 19 features a brief story about how rural Utah is experiencing “a pesky equine herpes outbreak” (as opposed to a pleasing equine herpes outbreak?), but that the Davis County Sheriff’s Mounted Posse Jr. Queen Contest (a “beauty-pageant riding contest”) was held anyway.
Here is the accompanying photo:
I don’t think you can call that a riding contest.
Or a beauty pageant.
Manhattan’s Stephen Wolosker writes in to say, “[Rich] Lowry’s piece on Republican nominee contenders seems to miss a few. Did he deliberately skip Sarah Palin and think we wouldn’t notice? To not mention her at all is a real slight. Lowry should shake up the box a little – it’s what America was founded upon.”
America was founded on shaking up the box a little?
I can see why Palin appeals to Stephen – they both have an equal (mis)understanding of American history, you betcha.
Here’s the fourth paragraph of Garrett Sloane’s Microsoft full-court press:
“Citi analyst Walter Pritchard wrote in a report yesterday that one manufacturer, HTC, pays Microsoft a $5 licensing fee for each Android phone it sells after the two settlement their patent dispute in”
This is a really terrible newspaper.
Today’s PULSE section recommends what couples can put in their picnic baskets before heading into some of the city’s parks. For example, if you’re going to Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center, they recommend going to Epicerie Boulud first and spending $77.05 (plus tax).
And if you’re going to the Prospect Park Bandshell, they recommend going to Christie’s Jamaican Patties, which is at least 20 minutes away from the venue (but significantly cheaper than Epicerie Boulud).
Former Chicago Bull Scottie Pippen told ESPN radio that “[Michael Jordan] is probably the greatest scorer to play the game,” but that LeBron James “may be the greatest player to ever play the game.”
True story: Scottie Pippen never tips at restaurants, despite ringing up enormous tabs. That’s how he earned the nickname “No-Tippin’ Pippen” from Chicago’s waitstaff community (I waited tables in Chicago for years, but never waited on Pippen. I do, however, know people who did and they confirmed the accuracy of the nickname).
Also, he’s a jealous and ungrateful prick for even suggesting that James is a better anything than Jordan (except maybe baseball player).
Also, this is his ugly face:
Jeff Conaway, 60, was found unconscious on May 11th. He was taken off life support yesterday.
I was going to make a snide remark, but I recently learned that he was in a movie that I watched 1,000 times as a child Pete’s Dragon.
I also have fond memories of watching Wizards and Warriors, though I couldn’t tell you why.
Rest in peace, Jeff. And say hi to Gil for me.
And that’s Saturday.
Before we begin, this:
You’re welcome.
Every so often, the Post will criticize other media for running offensive content on their TV programs or in the pages of their newspapers. I especially enjoyed the shellacking they gave Oprah Winfrey for having the chimp-maul lady on her show (and revealing to her viewers what the woman now refers to as her face) — while running a still from the TV show on their cover (at least twice!), not to mention in the columns of the people who were feigning offense.
And let’s never forget Rex Ryan’s uni-fingered salute
I can’t remember which Post lackey got all hot and bothered by Ryan’s gesture, but I’m sure none of that anger was directed at the folks who plastered the image on the front page.
I bring this up because today’s paper features a photo of Osama bin Laden with the headline GOT HIM!: Vengeance at last! US nails the bastard. If only there was a way to run that story without resorting to vulgarities (I guess monster, murderer or terrorist don’t have the necessary oomph that bastard does).
Pages 1 through 9 are all devoted to the story of the assassination of bin Laden. Here are the interesting things I learned by slogging through them:
James Childress, 34, told the Post that “Osama is dead, and there’s love in New York again” and Atlanta’s Geoff Rowson said, “I feel like its retribution for 911″ (I like to think that, in Atlanta, 9/11 is referred to as either “nine-hundred-and-eleven” or “nine-one-one”); the Post’s editorial staff is even dumber than I imagined — on page 2 (credited to Geoff Earle, S.A. Miller and Cathy Burke), Obama os quoted as saying (about 9/11), “Nearly 3,000 citizens were taken from us, leaving a whole in our hearts.” The quote is repeated (in giant type) on the following page; Charles Wolf said of bin Laden’s demise, “You can be sure that God is going to throw this man’s soul into the depths of hell. That’s hell with a capital ‘H.’” (not to be confused with hell with a lowercase h — Philadelphia); “The State Department also issued a travel alert warning Americans to stay out of Pakistan” (which could cost Pakistan as many as 400 dollars); and Michael Goodwin says of the death of bin Laden, “If this isn’t winning, it’s damn close.”
Of course, if Obama had said that, Goodwin would have responded with something about “horseshoes and hand grenades” and insisted that our POTUS needs to try harder, not rest on his laurels.
According to Page Six (today on pages 10, 11 and 12), Newt Gingrich said of Donald Trump, “He’s a character, but he can do whatever he wants to do. I’m not a character. I’m a real person, and I am running for president.”
Fun Fact: Gingrich and Trump are both married to their third wives. And they both have an equal shot at being our next president.
There’s an ad on page 14 that lets everyone know that Star Jones will be signing (and reading from!) her new “book,” Satan’s Sisters, at the Upper East Side Barnes & Noble on Friday. The fine print warns that she will only sign Satan’s Sisters — “No other books or memorabilia, please.”
Well, if I can’t get her to sign one of the garbage bags of her liposuctioned fat that I bought on eBay, then I’m not going.
Cindy Adams tells us that, despite it’s owner not announcing his candidacy, “Trump Tower is readying readiness. Tenants hear security might bump up… Soon billionaire residents might need ID to get into their apartments.” Gee, it sure sounds like the man who absolutely won’t run for president is leaking misinformation to people too stupid to know better!
And despite the fact that the first 10 pages of this rag are spent congratulating Obama for doing what Bush couldn’t, Cindy’s next sentence is, “Actually, Donald could do better than whats-his-name who’s there now.” But what do you expect from someone who probably owned slaves?
Mayor Bloomberg told Meet the Press how he’d solve the problems of illegal immigration and the demise of many American cities: “Take a look at the big old industrial cities — Detroit for example. The population has left. You got [sic] to do something about that. And if I were the federal government, assuming you could wave a magic wand,… you pass a law letting immigrants come in as long as they agree to go to Detroit and live there for five or 10 years, start businesses, take jobs, whatever.”
I can already hear the illegal immigrants saying, “Detroit? Um… maybe I’ll just stay in Mexico.”
Andrea Peyser spends most of her page of being angry at… Superman? Oh, right — in Action Comics #900, he told someone from the government that he was “tired of having my actions construed as instruments of US policy.” To which Mandrea responds (in Supe gets his tights in a twist):
“Holy America-haters, Batman! When did our flag-waving, crime-fighting superheroes become a bunch of Muslim-friendly, politically correct US-bashing weasels?”
1) I love that she thinks “Muslim-friendly” is an insult. She really is despicable.
2) He isn’t “US-bashing” — he’s merely (finally) figuring out that the world considers him an American and, if he intervenes in Iran (which he did just prior to his decision), he doesn’t want the world to assume that the government put him up to it. He’ll still fight evil, but now he won’t be fomenting any anti-US sentiment when he does.
Mandrea goes on to say that Supes is “pointing his Krypton-powered middle finger directly at the United States” and that his actions are the equivalent of “a massive, intergalactic hissy fit.” Then she refers to the United Nations as “America-despising” and complains that Marvel Studios is changing the title of Captain America: The First Avenger to The First Avenger when it is released in South Korea, Russia and the Ukraine — “So as not to offend anti-American sensibilities.”
1) He isn’t powered by Krypton — he’s powered by Earth’s sun. Krypton is the planet he’s from (which got blowed up). In fact, any pieces of Krypton (also known as Kryptonite) that he comes into contact with adversely affect him.
2) “America-despising”? Really? Then why don’t they move their headquarters?
3) This reminds me of when the III was removed from the title of The Madness of King George III for American release because they feared that we would think it was a sequel.
“Today, moral clarity has fallen out of fashion in the popular culture. Liberal values and fear of offense have trumped old-fashioned notions of good and evil. And these lessons in global wimpiness are aimed directly at your kids.”
Here are some of those “old-fashioned notions” of evil: Divorce, interracial marriage, homosexuality… actually these are still considered evil in many parts of the country.
(waves miniature American flag)
But Mandrea isn’t the only person who tells us how angry they are at the make-believe actions of the make-believe superhero from the make-believe planet. Rick Meyer, of Pinehurst, North Carolina, writes in to say, “The news that [Superman] is renouncing his citizenship officially ends any residual affection I still held for the thankless traitor. Superman is now really dead to me.”
Lex Luthor has apparently lost his ranking. Superman’s new arch-enemy is willful ignorance.
AT&T has joined Comcast in charging customers based on their broadband use.
R.I.P., net neutrality.
And that’s Monday.
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