December 28, 2005
Motel that functioned as brothel padlocked, reports the AP. Even more disgusting is that some girls as young as 13 were working as prostitutes there. Have you ever taken a drive in the neighborhoods near JFK? You would be in for quite a surprise if you aren't already aware of the frightening third-world conditions in the surrounding areas. Heard about the gang of car thieves in Queens thieving doors right off Toyota Camrys? Just how woefully ignorant is law enforcement about these sorts of crimes? Too many cops sitting in patrol cars eating doughnuts and cellphone calls to their girlfriends, and not enough foot patrols? Or too much crime to handle?
NEW YORK (AP) A motel near Kennedy Airport that served as a haven for pimps and prostitutes including underage runaways has been shut down, authorities announced Wednesday.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said the 44-room Executive Motor Inn was padlocked last week under a court order sought by his office and the police following a pre-dawn raid in which the night clerk and a 41-year-old John were arrested.
"Numerous complaints were received by the NYPD and my office over the past few months from area residents about the activities at the motel and a burgeoning streetwalking problem in the area," Brown said. He said the prostitutes arrested at the motel have included teenagers as young as 13.
Update: Here's what the Daily News has to say: A night clerk helped turn a Queens airport motel into a brothel that catered to predatory pimps and underage hookers young enough to be his granddaughters, authorities charged yesterday. Teenage streetwalkers signed in with names like "Mary Poppins" and "Betty Boop" - and made the working-class neighborhood around the Executive Motor Inn look like a seedy red-light district.
Tags:
jfk, pimps, prostitutes
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Posted on 12/28/2005
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December 19, 2005
AP: The mayor said a strike would freeze traffic into ''gridlock that will tie the record for all gridlocks.''
AP: If the union's executive board calls for a walkout, buses will drop off all passengers and return to their depots. Subways will finish their trips as turnstiles are chained and locked.
This is a nightmare. Maybe it's time to go skiing? I saw this post on Craigslist:
Need a ride to ANY ski mountain
Reply to: comm-119325042@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-12-19, 5:58PM EST
If you are driving to day-ski anywhere this mid-week, let me ride with you! (share gas/tolls). I just want to ski!...
this is in or around NYC
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Posted on 12/19/2005
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December 17, 2005
I'm no labor historian, but organized labor has taken some serious hits in recent years. The last contract the MTA came up with three years ago was painful for the average union employee. The 3 percent raise barely kept pace with inflation. True, when the dust settles the TWU members will likely have a decent contract. But for now, the MTA's asking for givebacks on health care is really a joke. With a $1 billion surplus and half-price rides every weekend in December, that's not a very powerful bargaining position for the MTA, whose management is generally inept and terribly bloated. And you—are you unhappy with the work slowdowns you've experienced in the past weeks? Of course you are. Of course those subway doors are staying open longer; you're not imagining it. But it's been a cold and nasty December so far, and for those who drive the trains and buses, who toil deep underground in the scorching summers and freezing winters, who sit in those miserable token booths that don't sell tokens, this is about the bottom line. About putting food on the table for families, about buying their kids Christmas presents, about trying to put them through college. So many working-class families have prospered for decades working for the MTA, and their hard work has translated into a decent standard of living. Going the General Motors route—with cuts in health care, with great uncertainty as the future looms—frankly scares the living daylights out of the rank and file. As the Washington Post puts it, In Pricey N.Y., Transit Workers Feeling Pinched. Meanwhile, GM is teetering near bankruptcy, and the MTA knows its golden years are past. While there will always be steady daily ridership, the infrastructure obviously is aging and the numerous years of disrepair translate to lots of repairs now. Of course, if you're trying to get to or from Brooklyn this weekend (even at half-price), you already know that. So taking your anger out on the employees you see—the motormen, the bus drivers, the conductors—might be a bit displaced. Ask yourself: who is being Uncle Scrooge here, and who is being Goofy?
Tags:
mta, strike, twu, union
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Posted on 12/17/2005
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December 16, 2005
Only on Long Island, the corporate Wal-Mart grinch sics the police on Christmas carolers who allegedly create a fire hazard at the megastore. Har har...what a joke.
A sour note for choir at Wal-Mart
BY CHRISTINE ARMARIO
December 16, 2005
A festive group of high school choir students from Central Islip singing at an Islandia shopping center discovered over the weekend that some people were not in the holiday spirit.
After entering a Wal-Mart store, the choir was quickly asked to leave before even starting to sing its first song.
The Central Islip High School concert choir had just finished a performance at the United Methodist Church off Veterans Memorial Highway, when the students proposed to go caroling in the shopping center across the street.
Their director, John Anthony, approved the move and the group of about 30 students found warm welcomes at the Stop & Shop grocery store and other shops in the center. That is, until they entered Wal-Mart.
Right away, a store manager approached the award-winning group, announcing that they did not have an appointment and that the sheer size of the group posed a fire hazard, Anthony said.
The teens then sang one song - "Guide Me," a classic Welsh tune - to the delight of the customers.
"Sing more!" Anthony said the shoppers were screaming. But Wal-Mart was adamant and even called police. The students left peacefully before police arrived and no arrests were made.
The choir's merriment quickly disintegrated, the director said. "The kids were just 'Bah humbug!'" he added.
Wal-Mart officials released a statement this week saying the choir's appearance was unscheduled and created a fire code violation. "For their safety and the safety of our customers, we asked them to move," the statement read.
Wal-Mart has offered the school an opportunity for the choir to return at a scheduled time. The store also made an undisclosed donation toward the choir's trip next summer to Austria, where they will be one of three student choirs from the United States to perform at a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birth.
Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.
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christmas carolers, long island, newsday, wal mart
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Posted on 12/16/2005
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December 15, 2005
The third incarnation of King Kong has hit the silver screen, and the critics love it. Many well-known themes make the concept of King Kong a perennial favorite: beauty and the beast; modern capitalist society exploiting the backwards ape; the civilized vs the primitive; man vs beast; the law of civilization vs the law of the jungle; the postmodern world vs colonialism, and so on. But so much has changed since the original 1933 movie. Jim Pinkerton of Newsday asks if it's racist; he writes: "Any movie that features white people sailing off to the Third World to capture a giant ape and carry it back to the West for exploitation is going to be seen as a metaphor for colonialism and racism." Fair enough, I guess.
What else has changed this time around? For one, the starlet Fay Wray died last year, and her passing is memorialized (where else?) in a charming and slightly tacky display case in the lobby of the Empire State Building. So much of the 1933 King Kong really is about the Empire State Building. Our Art Deco masterpiece of empire building got displaced in the 1976 edition of King Kong—Kong's downfall was in a hail of bullets outside the World Trade Center—but now has again regained its place. Since 9/11, the Empire State has again been New York's tallest, and therefore the tallest ape vs. the tallest building seems, well, somehow natural. Although we no longer live in the age of empire building (unless your name is Rumsfeld or Cheney) or Art Deco, this stunning remake is an incredible flashback. Go see it.
Tags:
empire state building, king kong, world trade center, wtc
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Posted on 12/15/2005
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