Halloweek

Get ready! The 29th Annual New York's Village Halloween Parade is less than 2 weeks away. It is expected that over 2 million people will be in attendance.

There are events all over the city during Halloweek , including the Village Children's Parade on Halloween afternoon at Washington Square Park.

The main event will be In New York's Greenwich Village.

Lineup for those who want to join the parade is on 6th Avenue between spring and broome streets, from 6 to 7 P.M.

Can't make it to the parade? well, you're in luck, The entire Village Halloween Parade will be telecast live on NY1 News from 7:00 & 9:00pm on Oct. 31.

CitiBlog will be on the look-out.

The Halloween Parade is New York's Carnival. As the New York Times said "the Halloween Parade is the best entertainment the people of this City ever give the people of this City. It's a time to kick back, to take a deep breath, to connect to each other before the dark days of winter return." Halloween is our opportunity to play, to create. In our fast-paced city, even play is turned into a contest in which we must learn to compete in order to survive - many of us have forgotten what it's like to play for the sheer joy of it.

Guliani & Company

Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and former Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen have joined Rudolph Giuliani in a consulting firm. The team will do risk assessment and crisis management for business that can afford them.

Giuliani is also applying his crime fighting know-how to the problems in Mexico City in a $4.3 million dollar criminology experiment that will test his methods. The late Jack Maple, another Giuliani / Bratton alumni also took his expertise on the road to mixed successes.

The Economy or Iraq?

In recent days, there has been much public discussion as to which issue, the economy or the possibility of war with Iraq, will be decisive in the November elections. Polls show that Americans tend to rate congressional Republicans as better able to deal with issues of foreign policy, including the war on terrorism. At the same time, Americans tend to rate Democrats as better able to deal with domestic issues such as Social Security, education, and healthcare. Thus, it is generally assumed that if voters are mostly concerned about a possible war with Iraq, they will be more likely to vote for Republicans, and if they are mostly concerned about domestic issues, they will vote for Democrats.

But the current results suggest a somewhat different scenario. According to the poll, Democrats enjoy an electoral advantage among those who care most deeply about the economy and those most concerned with the possibility of war with Iraq, suggesting that there may be a protest vote on both issues. Likely voters who cite Iraq as the most important issue, for example, oppose invading that country by a two-to-one margin, 66% to 33%. They also indicate they would vote for Democrats over Republicans by a 16-point margin, 56% to 40%. By contrast, among all likely voters, opinion on war with Iraq is evenly divided (47% favor invasion, 46% oppose), as is the vote for the two parties.

Vote Choice in Congressional Elections Compared by Most Important Issue to Voter

Oct 3-6, 2002

Via Gallup.com

Historical Walking Tour

New York City Vacation Packages is conducting professionally-guided walking tours of Lower Manhattan, including a visit to "Ground Zero" from the official viewing area. The past does make a difference! Visit the single most historic area in the United States. Learn more about the exciting history of NYC and America -- you will care more about this very special and precious place in American History. Visit the former site of the WORLD TRADE CENTER TWIN TOWERS where you will be afforded an excellent permitted view of the 16 acre scene of great heroism and tragedy.


"Nine-eleven is part of modern history; it has been embedded in our memory, and people will always want to come to visit it," said Barry Tenenbaum, a native New Yorker and president of New York City Vacation Packages, a tour operator that has organized walking tours of Lower Manhattan and ground zero since January. "People are going to go down there regardless," he said. "We're just helping them to do it in a respectful way while exposing them to the history of Lower Manhattan that they didn't know about."

Tenenbaum, a history buff, feels that it is Lower Manhattan's legacy of great men such as Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton that makes tourists realize the impact that the terrorist attacks made on American freedom. His tours present ground zero as part of a continuum of the area's history.

Conveniently Timed

Bush is busy piling enough manpower and armor around the Persian Gulf region to pull off practically any regime change, according to an Oct. 14 AP report in Newsday.

Under the guise of field training, tens of thousands of U.S. troops pumped full of vaccines against anthrax and other killer chemical agents are quietly surrounding Saddam Hussein on aircraft carriers, in special operation ground assault troops, and with all the gear that comprises the rear. Why, even America’s current celebrity war commander in waiting—Gen. Tommy Franks—will pick up and move his command post to that new airbase in Qatar next month. Simply a test of the new deployable headquarters, said Franks, who painted the strategic positioning of his h.q. as some kind of lucky coincidence. "This just happens to be a very good time, a very good place and a very good way" to do the exercise, Franks said.

Sign of the Times

The first anti-terrorism retail store in America?

Where else but NYC.

People walk past the new Safer America store in New York's financial district Tuesday.

Whether you're looking for a Biohazard suit, Potassium iodide pills, a parachute for jumping from a burning high-rise building, you can now find it all under one roof. New Yorkers need not worry about their emergency-preparedness shopping, Safer America is now open for business..

(AP Photo)

"We want to empower the public," said Harvey Kushner, the terrorism pundit and a co-owner of the store. "The fear factor can be crippling. We believe the public needs and wants to have some control of their own destiny. If the world was in different, more pristine times, these products wouldn't be necessary."

Kushner, the author of several books on terrorism and a staple of television talk shows, said the store brings gear that has long been the province of mail-order companies into a more conventional retail market.

Customers will be trained to use the equipment properly, as well as offered safety seminars.

Psycho

There’s a story about the sniper case in USA Today that touches on something a friend and I were discusing today.

Newsweek magazine put the sniper on the cover this week with the headline: The Tarot Card Killer, a reference to a tarot ''Death'' card found at the scene of one of the shootings last week.

The New York Post calls him the Beltway Psycho Sniper or the Psycho Sniper. CNN and Time magazine weighed in with the Beltway Sniper.

But criminologists and investigators in the case fret that enhancing the sniper's public persona by giving him any nickname may only encourage him to keep shooting.

Notorious crime figures have been attracting nicknames since Jack the Ripper prowled the streets of Victorian London.


In the 1970s, the New York City news media named David Berkowitz, who fatally shot six people in New York City in 1976 and 1977, Son of Sam, after Berkowitz referred to himself as ''Sam's creation'' in a series of bizarre notes he wrote to newspapers and the police.

Howard Kurtz, critic for The Washington Post, says the news media can't help themselves when it comes to giving a killer some title, especially in the age of cable television, when every story has its own logo.
---------
In a related story, CNN's Larry king spoke to criminologist Jack Levin last evening about the sniper:

KING: Is he definitely -- are there certain definite things about him? Is he definitely white? Is he definitely angry? And he is definitely crazy?

LEVIN: Well, he's definitely not crazy. He may be white. You know if he were a guy with an AK-47 who went into a shopping mall and sprayed bullets at everything that moved we'd say, you know, he's psychotic. He's crazy. He talks to dogs. He hallucinates. He hears voices in an empty room commanding him to kill.

Full transcript Here

Kung Fool

The Associated Press reports that a holloween costume distributor said Wednesday it has stopped shipping its "Kung Fool" outfit to retailers after Asian-American groups complained it was racist.

Groups including the Organization of Chinese Americans, the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium and the National Asian American Student Conference said the Halloween costume perpetuates stereotypes. They also called for Disguise Inc. to remove it from retail stores.

The company, headquartered in Poway, Calif., said the adult costume -- which includes a mask with buckteeth and slanted-eyes -- has already been shipped to retailers across the country, including Party City and Wal-Mart. No more will be distributed.

In protest of the costume, the Asian-American news Web site Yellowworld.org started an online petition drive. "Asian-Americans don't want to be Halloween masks," said Elbert Oh, founder of the site.

I'm sure this controversy will cause these costumes to fly off the shelves. looks like someone on E Bay has already jumped on the band wagon.

The drums of War

[An Iraqi woman fires into the air from her Baghdad balcony yesterday in celebration of Saddam Hussein’s victory.]
(AP Photo)

There was only ever going to be one result: Every single one of the 11,445,638 eligible voters came to the polls, and every single one voted 'yes' to seven more years of Saddam Hussein's presidency, Iraqi officials said.

"Someone who does not know the Iraqi people, he will not believe this percentage, but it is real," said Izzat Ibrahim, Hussein's top lieutenant. "Whether it looks that way to someone or not. We don't have opposition in Iraq."

The result left some of the hundreds of foreign journalists invited to observe the referendum wondering what statement the Iraqi president might be making to the world with this unprecedented unanimous approval. Surely he could not hope to convince the world that every single person in his country stands by his side. More important, perhaps, was another message: Hussein still retains absolute power inside Iraq, and if the United States believes it finds him at a moment of weakness, it is wrong. [more]

Via NY Newsday

In a related story, The Associated Press has this article

Facing strong opposition from dozens of nations, the United States has backed down from its demand that a new U.N. resolution must explictly authorize military force if Iraq fails to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors, diplomats said Thursday.

That seems like a good development, I just don't feel that tough wording explicitly threatening Iraq upfront is a necessarily a good diplomatic move from the global perspective, we've been down that route before.

Decisions

We know drugs are illegal as of course they should be.

What possible fun could they be?

How much fun is it to suck clouds of acrid smoke into your lungs?

Sniff abrasive acidic crystals into the sensitive linings of your nostrils.

Ram a razor sharp needle into your veins.

The actual physiological effects are as much fun as doing figure eights upside down in a rickety biplane. I'm saying.

Afroman makes the point better Here.

Up in the sky ... it's ...

The Anchorage Daily News reported yesterday that over the past weeks, several residents of southwestern Alaska have reported seeing "a huge bird that's much bigger than anything they have seen before." These are people, keep in mind, who live in big-bird country, and who are quite used to seeing eagles and the like. But this thing? Estimates put the wingspan at some 14 feet.

The scientific community, of course, is pooh-poohing the reports because it’s their job to do so—until it’s too late.

"I'm certainly not aware of anything with a 14-foot wingspan that's been alive for the last 100,000 years," said a federal raptor specialist.

Mr. Raptor specialist, I’m sure there are several cryptozoologists around the country who would beg to differ.

Who knows, maybe Rodan is back.

Lord Help Us

Whatever happened to good old fashion manners? seems to have disappeared entirely, at least in my neck of the woods it has.

No more cheery greeting of a stranger on a sunny Sunday morning.

No more offers of helping old ladies across the street.

No more polite smiles as you cross paths in the street.

No more asking for directions or giving them.

No more showing interest in children and parents playing in the park.

What the hell?

Avert your eyes, turn the cold shoulder, harden your heart, listen to no one, respond to nothing, hurry on. Helpfulness is a risk.

The Advice Brigade

(Extemporaneously Delivered Rambling du jour)

The world is full of meddlers who all seem to think they know how you should conduct your personal affairs.

The interesting thing is that I don't have to ask for this advice, it comes my way gratis.

In ancient Greece, if a person wanted guidance, it involved a long arduous, expensive journey to the oracle of delphi. These days, if you want advice, just unplug your ears.

In addition to the traditional sources of advice givers - family, friends etc. there are also an unlimited number of professional and amateur advice peddlers. I call them the advice brigade.

Folks like Miss Cleo, Oprah, Dr Phil, personal trainers, credit counselors, image consultants, barbers ... just to name a few.

There's so much advice being peddled that one would think that pretty soon it will be impossible to make a mistake. But yet, people are still f-in-up.

In most instances, I suppose, advice is good, for example, The other day my wife tells me:

Ray, "Get your cholesterol checked" "Save for a rainy day" "floss regularly"

Did I listen? No. But it's still good advice nonetheless.

I ordered Chinese food the other day, after feasting on egg foo yung, I decided to open my fortune cookie. I realized right away that even fortune cookies are now giving advice. Instead of the traditional "you're going to come into wealth" that one might expect, my fortune read: "Be kind to your friends", I suppose that in an uncertain world, being kind to your friends could be considered a fortune that's worth it's weight in gold.

I digress.

Getting back to the subject at hand, why is it that those giving advice at times seem to be unqualified to do so? As in, their own lives are in shambles. I don't have the answers.

But my friend Joe puts it this way: "you only need one foot to be a crutch".

Joe, you are a philosopher, you are my oracle of delphi.

so, make no mistake about it, the advice brigade is here to stay and means well. From now on, I will evaluate advice based on its merits and then decide; but chances are, I will likely continue to take my own advice.

Harry steps up

Harry was on CNN last night chatting with Larry King. Larry asked him (among other things) if he would like to meet with Powell, his reply:

"I'd love to"

It's good to see that my advice was taken into consideration. The interview went just as I expected, Harry played the "my-words-were-taken-out-of-context" card well, I thought, but to his credit, his perspective was quite persuasive.

Meanwhile, our friend on the west coast, George, also takes a look at the subject and provides some interesting links and commentary.

CNN provides a full transcript of the interview.

Heidi, Tyra, ... thank you for visiting my "citi" and gracing it with your pleasant smiles, (among other things).

Smile and the world smiles with you.

Reefer Madness

John P. Walters, our nation’s never-say-die drug czar, made stops in Arizona and Nevada last week to denounce both states’ upcoming pot legalization votes. The Arizona measure, if passed by voters, would decriminalize possession of up to two ounces of marijuana, and ensure free pot for medical purposes (with a doctor’s recommendation). Similar measures are either under consideration or have already been passed by several other states, as well as in England and Canada.

This sort of thing really irks Walters. After all, you legalize it, what’s left for him to do, except maybe concentrate on drugs that actually hurt people?

Forget about it

Before the Mayor took office, he was asked if he intended to continue the previous Mayor’s crackdown on local strip clubs and adult bookstores.

At the time he refused comment, which I took to be a good sign.

It was a foolish thing to think, because not only is Mayor Bloomberg not dismantling anything, he’s rolling on ahead in an attempt to wipe out the sex industry altogether.

On Nov. 1, the New York Post is reporting, a new city ordinance is going into effect that will essentially ban all strip clubs and porn shops from New York City—despite the efforts by some club owners to stop this.

The debate began last week in Manhattan's supreme court with the "gentlemen's club" Tens arguing the city's new ordinance is unconstitutional.

It’s unclear what will happen to, say, gallery exhibits of nude photography, or the new Museum of Sex, or even Broadway shows like The Full Monty. But it doesn’t sound like the city really cares much about such implications.

9/11 widower allowed to remain in U.S.

I reported on this in previous post and it's good to see that matter has been resolved

A Russian immigrant, threatened with deportation after his wife was killed in the World Trade Center attack, will be allowed to remain in the United States.

Vasily Ryjov, 38 _ his face quivering with emotion _ told a packed news conference Monday that the decision in his favor by the Immigration and Naturalization Service meant that he and his two sons could "move on."

"Everyone needs closure. It's about life and moving forward," said Ryjov, sandwiched between sons Alex, 15, and Daniel, 9. "When something's not solved, you can't move forward."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who interceded on Ryjov's behalf, said, "They can stay here and lead their lives as proud Americans."

You might live in New York City if...

You say "the city" and expect everyone to know that this means Manhattan.

You believe that being able to swear at people in their own language makes you multilingual.

Your door has more than three locks and is made of steel.

You pay more each month to park your car than most people in the US pay on their mortgage.

You haven't seen more than 12 stars in the night sky since you went away to camp as a kid.

You pay $5 without blinking for a beer that cost the bar 28 cents.

You have 27 different take-out menus next to your telephone.

Going to Brooklyn is considered a "road trip." Of course, you only go there to attend weddings or funerals.

You have jaywalking down to an art form.

You take a taxi to get to your health club to exercise.

You don't hear sirens anymore.

You live in a building with a larger population than most American towns.

Your doorman is Russian, your grocer is Korean, your deli man is Israeli, your building super is Italian, your laundry guy is Chinese, your favorite bartender is Irish, your favorite diner owner is Greek, the watch-seller on your corner is Senegalese, your last cabbie was Pakistani, your newsstand guy is Indian, your favorite falafel guy is Egyptian, and your neighbor is Swedish...

The Big Apple

New Yorkers have a certain grit for which they are famous. In a melting pot country, there is no greater melting pot city than New York. Washington is perhaps next in cultural diversity, possibly followed by Miami and then Los Angeles.

But New Yorkers are known for a certain attitude, an ability to cope and deal with anything that comes their way, including the disdain, scorn and sometimes outright animus of others, even from nearby locations.

The fact is, we are a people of many peoples. We get along, either interacting or just living alongside each other with minimal interaction. Here, you’ll find the American Jew, living among Pakistanis and their mosque, right by a Catholic church, and nearby enclaves of people from the Dominican Republic, Polish immigrants, various middle eastern groups, a teeming Irish area, Chinese, Italian and communities of all sorts and so forth.

There is also a very large Haitian and Jamaican community. And, the numbers of Mexicans, Guatemalans, Ecuadoreans, and others from Peru, El Salvador and other countries from South and Central America seem to grow larger by the year. Yet, The majority of the people appear to be as American as Apple Pie.

The point is this: we all live alongside each other and we tend to get along.

For some, New York looms in the imagination as an almost mythical place, a vast organism of steel and glass and concrete that sprawls over several islands and sets its edges deep into the continental soil around its towering heart.

Eight million people call this legendary monstrosity home, each sees a different city, each functions as a different cell in the body of the Beast.

We are all here for the same reasons, and the same reasons our varied ancestors came here. This is a place of safety and certain freedoms, as well as opportunity.

Hey now, all you sinners
Put your lights on, put your lights on
Hey now, all you lovers
Put your lights on, put your lights on
Hey now, all you killers
Put your lights on, put your lights on
Hey now, all you children
Leave your lights on, better leave your lights on
Cause there's a monster living under my bed
Whispering in my ear
There's an angel, with a hand on my head
She say I got nothing to fear
There's a darkness, deep in my soul
I still got a purpose to serve
So let your light shine, into my hole
God, don't let me lose my nerve...

put your lights on / supernatural / santana

________

High Stakes for LI NY tribe

New York Newsday gas this story

When Abbie Langhorn was a girl in the early 1900s, land was a birthright on the Poospatuck Indian Reservation. She and her 11 siblings were all offered small plots near their great-grandmother's house on the Mastic reservation as they came of age. And when Abbie's sons and their children grew up, they, too, built modest houses within shouting distance of her lifelong home.

Somewhere down the line, though, the land ran out. "My great-grandchildren will have to live somewhere else," said Langhorn, 97, a petite woman in a blue-and-white flowered house dress and leather moccasins. "There's no place left for them here."

To keep the Unkechaug Indians together, tribe members this summer announced plans to take advantage of one of the few perks that they say their heritage allows them: The right to run high-stakes bingo on what they say is their ancestral land.

With proceeds from the business, they would either buy more property in Mastic, or hire lawyers to help them take back some of their ancestral land in the area. "Whichever is easiest," says tribe chief Harry Wallace.

Whether living in one of the two reservations on Long Island NY, the Shinnecock in Southampton and the Poospatuck Reservation in Mastic, are proud of their distinct cultural traditions and their survival as ethnic groups. The Powwow at Shinnecock may be the most visible manifestation of their identity, but other cultural patterns are equally important, including the continual struggle to protect, or reclaim, communal ownership of land, the renewal of family and tribal ties at traditional gatherings, distinctive foods and customs, as well as self identification and pride in being Native Americans.