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'Godfather' actor killed by bus

Actor Richard Bright, 68, was hit by an Academy bus at 6:30 pm Saturday on Columbus Avenue. The driver did not even stop. When interviewed at the Port Authority, the driver claimed to be "not aware that he had hit anyone."
Let's mull this over a minute. Bus strikes and kills a man—never mind that he's a famous actor—and the driver does not even know he hit something or someone. He does not even stop. That's totally plausible, right?
Fact is, too many senseless and brutal fatal traffic accidents occur just in Manhattan alone. Sure, we hear every year about the most dangerous intersections in New York—usually places like Fordham Road in the Bronx and Queens Boulevard are near the top. But in recent memory, there have been a number of famous and not famous people plowed down in broad daylight in Manhattan. There was the philanthropist Andrea Bronfman, who was crossing the street with her dog a few weeks ago. It was early in the morning, before 7 a.m. She wasn't hit by just one vehicle—she was hit by two.
Last Fall, there were two stories about elderly female Holocaust survivors. One was quite short, under five feet tall. She was brutally plowed down by a truck at an infamous 14th Street intersection. The driver didn't even see her; in fact, it was claimed that there was no way he could have seen her because he was sitting so high up in his huge truck. Whatever. The irony is not lost, that a woman who escaped Hitler's death camps couldn't escape a cruel fate of being plowed down on 14th Street.
And you might remember some years back, a group would spray-paint stencil outlines of a human body at intersections where pedestrians had been killed. They would also spray in white block letters: "A pedestrian was killed here".
You might just say: we've become a more brutal society, we've taken to monster trucks and supersized SUVs. You might think traffic accidents are on the rise. But in comparison to 70 years ago, probably far fewer people are getting mowed down on city streets. Yet the weirdness remains: Richard Bright was struck by a bus and the driver claims not to know anything about it.

Tags: academy bus, godfather, port authority, richard bright

Posted on 2/19/2006 ( Permanent Link )

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February 02, 2006

Verizon plays Evil Monopoly game

Business Week has a big article that begins: Is Verizon a Network Hog? The telecommunications giant wants to devote most of its capacity to its own traffic, to Internet companies' dismay. Synopsis: legendary comp-sci guru Vinton Cerf, now a VP at Google, wrote to Congress that major telecom companies could take actions to jeopardize the future of the Internet.

While antitrust lawsuits against good ol' Verizon have already been filed, Verizon's newest filing is the most deeply troubling, one that every American has got to be concerned about. Because new documents filed with the FCC underscore that Verizon is reserving 80% of its network capacity for its future television services to be carried over its fiber-optic network. Everything else is relegated to the slow lane.

Congress broke up AT&T, f/k/a Ma Bell, in the mid-1980s, around ten years after initial court filings began in 1974. What a difference two decades can make, huh? In 2006, AT&T has glued itself to SBC, and Verizon is now a big monster whose voice was f/k/a the Evil Empire's Jedi warrior in a black plastic hat. AT&T wants you to love it again; I even saw an ad in Chinese the other night extolling how wonderful it is. (If you've ever called AT&T for customer service, then you know in any language how much it sucks.)

What can you do? Well, next Tuesday, February 7, there's a big hearing in the Senate about telecom reform. Need a talking point? Here's one: "The Bells have designed a broadband system that squeezes out the public Internet in favor of services or content they want to provide," says Paul Misener, vice-president for global policy at Amazon.com. Want more freebies and giveaways for the multinational giants? Then keep your mouth shut. Otherwise, call Senator Schumer and Senator Clinton right now and let them know you are concerned about anti-competitive practices at the companies formerly known as Baby Bells. Even though the CEO of Vonage is going to testify at that hearing, your senators need to hear from you. So do it now, before your 'Net connection slows down and your Vonage (or other VoIP) crawls to a halt.

Tags: alternative tentacles, broadband, business week, content delivery, copper, dsl, evil monopoly, phone line, verizon, voip, vonage, wired

Posted on 2/2/2006 ( Permanent Link )

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