Bloomberg, the Second Amendment and the police

stephen flatow
NYC's Mayor (or would-be-if-I-could-Emperor) Michael Bloomberg has slipped again when he called for police to go on strike over the lack of stringent gun controls.  This was his reaction to the horrific movie theater shooting rampage in Colorado.

Mr. Bloomberg's self-appointed role as the leader of the anti-gun movement among politicians is mostly self-financed and I have no beef with that.  What I do object to is his non-stop use of his elected pulpit to spout nonsense about gun violence and gun control in the U.S.

This editorial from the New York Sun brings home the point that the mayor is operating in his own universe.

Mayor Bloomberg and Ice-T

Anyone out there sorry that Mike did away with term limits?

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow

Living kidney donors deserve our admiration

The New York Times features a story about the efforts of one man to make a difference in organ donation by establishing a registry to match donors to recipients.

Rick Ruzzamenti admits to being a tad impulsive. He traded his Catholicism for Buddhism in a revelatory flash. He married a Vietnamese woman he had only just met. And then a year ago, he decided in an instant to donate his left kidney to a stranger. alisa flatow stephen organ donation

It's a fascinating story of connections and paying forward, worth a read.

Well, that's what I think.

PS - I submitted a very short comment on the article and was pleasantly surprised to see it was the second most recommended comment.

Sticky things on my newspaper

Where'd they come from?  You know, those sticky notes that block out the headlines of my home delivered daily newspaper?
It seems readers of the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, Florida had the same question.

Those sticky notes that appear atop the front page get a lot of attention - and they generate reader complaints.
The 3-inch-by-3-inch squares often obscure parts of carefully crafted headlines and stories, somewhat to the chagrin of journalists who think of the front page as sacred ground.
Worse, when readers try to peel them off, the newspaper sometimes tears right through the headline.
How smart is it to allow such a thing to intrude on the normalcy of daily reading? Not very, according to some.

According to the story, the advertising works well, but the paper had to respond to complaints that the glue was too strong because it lifted text or tore the paper.

As for me, well, I just peel off those little suckers, roll them into a ball and toss them.  Maybe, instead, I should make them into a ball and use it to play catch.
Well, that's what I have to say. Stephen M. Flatow

Alternate-Side Parking Brings Peace

An ode to alternate side of the street parking from the New York Times Op-ed pages.

As European countries try to integrate immigrants from Africa, South Asia and the Middle East, they have found the transition from a homogeneous society to a multicultural one painful. The economic fallout from the euro zone debt crisis is likely to make assimilation even harder.

In its search for solutions, Europe would do well to look to the streets — of New York City. Seriously.

And what is this God-send?  Alternate side of the street parking, of course.

Over decades, the calendar has grown to include numerous holidays that are sacred to various religions. And we’re not just talking Passover and Good Friday, Yom Kippur and Christmas. There’s Id al-Fitr and Id al-Adha for Muslims; the Solemnity of the Ascension, the Feast of the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception for Roman Catholics; and a raft of Jewish holidays from Shavuot and Succoth to Shemini Atzeret and Simhat Torah. The parking rules are also suspended on certain cultural holidays, like the Asian Lunar New Year, Rosh Hashana [sic] and Diwali, the South Asian festival of lights.

I know that Jews cannot drive on their religious holidays and that public employees don't work on national and state holidays, but Diwali?  Id al-Fitr?  They have no similar work restrictions; the same for the Feast of the Assumption.  So, let's do it for Halloween, after all, the Great Pumpkin is acomin'.

Should have known it was written by a "political scientist."


Read the full Op-Ed Alternate-Side Parking Brings Peace.

A different take on the rainbow from Rabbi E. Zwickler

Rabbi Zwicker of Congregation AABJ&D in West Orange addresses the colors of the rainbow.  Are they distinct and why are they so?

Well, that's what I have to say. Stephen M. Flatow

Joe Biden, Jonathan Pollard and the Jews

One has to hand Vice president Joe Biden some credit. For a guy with no filter between his mouth and brain he has risen very high in national government. Not only is he vice president under Obama, in many ways he's the Obama Administration's point man with the Jewish community.

I don't have access to the latest polls, so I don't know the answer to this question: Do American Jews favor the release from prison of Jonathan Pollard? Pollard pleaded guilty to an espionage charge that resulted in a life sentence. Many people think that was a harsh sentence for someone who admitted to spying for an ally, in this case Israel, and a sentence that was the same for men convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. In the latter case, American agents died.

Comes today Dry Bones commenting on the Biden remarks:

And now the artists's comments-

Biden: Pollard pardon over my dead body "The NYT reported Saturday that in a recent meeting between Biden and 15 rabbis in Florida – meant to bolster the Jewish community's support of the presidential campaign – the vice president was asked about the Obama administration's reluctance to release Pollard, who was imprisoned in 1986, after he was convicted of spying for Israel. “President Obama was considering clemency, but I told him, 'Over my dead body are we going to let him out before his time,'" Biden reportedly told the group. “If it were up to me, he would stay in jail for life.” (Ynet)

 And more details here:

Biden prevented Pollard clemency, NYT reports October 2, 2011 (JTA) -- "President Obama was considering clemency for convicted spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard until Vice President Joseph Biden prevented it, the New York Times reported. “President Obama was considering clemency, but I told him, ‘Over my dead body are we going to let him out before his time,’ ” Biden said during a meeting with rabbis in Boca Raton, Fla., according to the newspaper. “If it were up to me, he would stay in jail for life,” he reportedly added. Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for spying for Israel. He is scheduled for mandatory parole in November 2015. In recent months, Obama has received a flood of appeals from Congress members and former government officials to grant Pollard clemency. Pollard recently successfully underwent kidney-related surgery. Obama is relying on Biden for help in his reelection campaign with American-Jewish voters, the New York Times article said."

I met Joe Biden once at an intimate fundraiser that had a similar sound, he was critical of then Israeli prime minister Sharon.  I guess I'm waiting to see if there's any financial price to pay for Biden's remarks.  I suppose there won't be much among my co-religionists.  After all, we like being dumped-on as long as we get the photo-op.

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow

alisa terrorism

Weather reporting back in the day

Sitting down the Jersey Shore looking at the fog roll in made me think back to the earlier days of TV and weather reports.

What made me nostalgic for those days was the inconsistent and, ultimately, wrong, weather reports touted on all the TV networks over the July 4th holiday weekend

Oh, how I hate the phrase “back in the day” but I now have some inkling as to what it means.

Back in the day of TV, there was no doppler radar, there was no satellite imagery, and the weather was not broken up into 3 minute tidbits spread throughout the half-hour and hour long newscasts we suffer through today.

Back in the day, we had weathermen and weatherladies. We didn’t have professional meteorologists (or optometrists masquerading as meteorologists.)

No, instead of meteorologists, we had Joe Bolton, Jan Crockett, Gloria Okun, and the king of them all, Tex Antoine and his prognosticator puppet-head Uncle Wethbee.

And instead of news hosts turning to their professional weatherperson time and time again during the broadcast, we had a succinct 3 minutes of weather in which we’d learn the forecast—in other words, do you bring the umbrella to work tomorrow or leave it home? And that seems to have suit the viewing public just fine.

I suppose we all like the sound of authority around us, after all, we like to rely on others. And there's no better person than the person who speaks with confidence. And that applies to our meteorologists, too. Unfortunately for us, that authority has overlooked one inescapable fact—being a weatherman is the only job you can keep even when you are consistently wrong.

In fact, our meteorologists cost us millions each year as we rely on their forecasts of highs and lows, storms and hurricanes, rain and snow, and plan accordingly. A forecast for bad weather keeps people away from resort destinations, such as the Jersey Shore, and weather forecasts promising sunshine and clear days that turn out to be wrong cause folks to waste their money on those trips. There’s nothing worse than a damp motel room, soggy boardwalk or over-crowded game room.

And there's nothing worse than hearing about weather in Manitoba that's coming our way in a week.

So how about a return to those thrilling days of yesteryear when weather was 3 minute report? No radar, no US Weather Bureau, nothing fancy. Just tell me, is it going to rain or be sunny, and let me take it from there.

Well, that's what I have to say.

Stephen M. Flatow