Showing posts with label New York Post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York Post. Show all posts

Saturday, May 5, 2012

You've been served! Phil Mushnick calls the bluff of a rich celeb who profits off of crude imagery & bombast and ups-the-ante on sports going over to the crass side, and Jay-Z fans and sports media apologists can't handle the criticism of hypocrisy

New York Post
Don’t rely on media to evaluate bad behavior
By Phil Mushnick
Last Updated: 6:02 AM, May 4, 2012, 
Posted: 12:52 AM, May 4, 2012
http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knicks/double_standard_TFPqqilUHif01I9BKkQSkN


Could there possibly be a better and more delicious headline for an American newspaper column in the year 2012 than the one in this now controversial Phil Mushnick column? No!
It's pitch perfect.


Were that it was one plastered on the New York Times editorial page, esp. if it was the title above a remorseful column about why their own reporters can't seem to harness their own bias in reporting on news stories, despite constant complaints from readers and editors about it, yet constantly want to write about the horse race aspects of elections large and small, instead of exploring issues, as readers have overwhelmingly stated in poll after poll when they're actually asked what THEY want to see more of.
Meanwhile, Beltway reporters continue to ignore that fact and treat it like all the other inconvenient facts they choose to ignore. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/a-hard-look-at-the-president.html


I saw ESPN's usually-innocuous "Around the Horn" program late Friday afternoon while waiting for some returned phone calls from some folks in the area who'd promised me some details about the ins-and-outs of some upcoming political races around the region, local and otherwise.
You may know watching "Around the Horn" better in your own part of the world as 'killing time.'


To say that it was entirely predictable that all four assembled "writers" -and that's being VERY generous in describing what they actually do- had a problem with what Phil Mushnick wrote in his NY Post column is an understatement.
To say that they seemed strangely ignorant of the larger point he was making in exposing the rapper's rank hypocrisy in pretending he and his team don't know anything at all about what black & white logos have come to be associated with, goes without saying.


Yes, it's almost as if they had never seen or read any of the dozens and dozens of news accounts of the crime angle re gangs and sports logos, ones that even non-sportwriter you have already heard about many times, and that I recount thru the upcoming links for those who somehow haven't, perhaps because they live overseas. 
(Sort of like their collective ignorance of having nearly six-month old video, from November 16th, queued up as the most recent video of their show on their ESPN website.)


The assembled writers showed much the same sort of dumbfounded look that many visitors have shown me in this town the past few years when they'd drive-up at night to Hallandale Beach City Hall, just off of U.S.-1, because they just naturally assumed the low-slung building with the very dark parking lot was actually a hotel, because there was no sign identifying it otherwise. (Until a month ago.)


I know this because I have twice been the person stopped in the parking lot on my way to my car after a HB City Commission meeting, and asked where the "hotel office" was.
(And the second time it happened, the very attractive thirty-something woman behind the wheel asking for directions was a dead ringer for Erin Andrews, which is why it stays so fresh in my mind.)

Yes, it was as if they had somehow never read what had come from the mouth of the Mother Ship itself, which you can still find on its website.

ESPN The Magazine
Capology 
Raising the lid on the darker side of fan fashion 
Andrew O'Reilly
Updated: March 10, 2011, 1:25 PM ET


So what's the part you don't get?


Read this from the North Carolina Gang Investigators Association and take an aspirin:
http://www.ncgangcops.org/archives/Team%20Logos.pdf
You're welcome.


Starving for self-esteem?
Buy a black & white cap! 
Yes, that's the ticket!

In 2008, in Season 4, Episode 7 of TNT's The Closer, in an episode titled "Sudden Death," the younger brother of Det. Julio Sanchez is killed on the sidewalk near his home while his older brother is off-duty, busy working on his car in the driveway. 
We quickly learn that the younger brother had been killed while talking to a girl for the simple crime of wearing a ball cap with colors of a rival gang. 
A ball cap given to him by his older brother for his birthday, to Det. Sanchez's everlasting sorrow.
Video of Brenda's interrogation at: http://youtu.be/rK_lVXoh84k


This is by far one of the best episodes of this great TNT series I never miss, whose final six episodes air this summer, starting July 6th.


But this sort of fictional treatment of countless real episodes apparently doesn't compute in the minds of the apologists for the rapper-turned-sports owner.
They don't want to acknowledge what we already know.
I guess it just hurts their feelings that they're on the wrong side of the slippery slope, but then given how much sycophantic coverage this rapper gets from the mainstream media, it's not so surprising.


Yes, it's not your imagination, you really haven't seen anything on Entertainment Tonight about the conscious decision by him and his team to use that color scheme because ET wants to remain a "talent-friendly" venue for celebs, the publicist's friend, not one where actual public criticism of entertainers is ever given, unless it's of one celeb against another, in which case it's golden.


After all, if they did ever entertain the thought of actually asking him to explain why they made that choice, then the more-mainstream Beyonce wouldn't be available to them, so they just keep their blinders on so they don't have that become a possibility.


Which, of course, is why Phil was correct in saying, "I plan to continue to argue against the negative racial and ethnic stereotyping and the promotion of mindless violence, especially to the young and most vulnerable.


I remember over twenty years ago when I first had to explain the reality of this phenomena of criminal gangs and sports logos to my mother while I was down here one year from D.C. for the Christmas holidays, before the Marlins ever existed.

She was driving me in her car thru the Coconut Grove area -where my family had spent so many sunny summer weekends when I was younger in the '70's, usually over at Peacock Park-  and we were talking about things that used to be there when she suddenly turned to me and said she couldn't figure out why so many African-American kids in Miami would be wearing black & white LA Raiders and Chicago White Sox caps.

Me having been such a huge sports fan while growing-up, it was not at all surprising that she recognized the caps when she saw them, but I was actually laughing after she asked because I thought it was common knowledge what the reason was, and everything else being equal, my mother was usually much better-informed than the average person, so this struck me as very 
incongruous.


When I began explaining it to her, she actually thought I was exaggerating, despite how many examples I could give her, esp. via the gang use of the Georgetown Hoyas' "G" in places very far from D.C., like Chicago.
Something I knew from actually living there in the mid-1980's, as it happens, for a year, next to the offices of Inside Sports magazine near downtown Evanston.

The sort of writing device that Mushnick employs here is regularly employed by many non-sports columnists around the country, particularly among liberal columnists, but they seem to think it's okay when they do it, not so much when the shoe is on the other foot.

In South Florida, upping-the-ante or deliberately using over-exaggeration or gross generalization to zing someone or some group they oppose -usually because unlike them, it's solidly supported by a majority of local, state or national citizenry, or clearly in the ascendency while their own P.O.V. is on the slippry slope of an argument- is regularly employed by the Herald's Fred Grimm and their editorial board, to say nothing of its use by the Herald columnist who doesn't actually live in Florida, but which is, of course, never publicly acknowledged by the Herald
They call him Mr. Pitts.

It's not unlike the way that State Rep. Joe Gibbons NOT actually permanently living here in his district in Broward County, while his wife and kids live up in the Jacksonville area, is never publicly acknowledged by other Broward public officials who know it's true, like Elaine Schwartz or Perry Thurston or... well, all of them, and instead it's treated like a perpetual case of instant amnesia.
Despite the fact that Gibbons illegal charade has never worked, but as I'm always saying here, curiously, he never ever gets charged for violating state eligibility rules.  

(Now that Florida House District 100 extends well into Miami-Dade County, I wonder if Gibbons has filed docs with the M-D Election Supervisor listing that fake home address of his? When is a house a 'beard'? Hmm-m...)

In the case of Grimm and Pitts, this device of over-exaggerating to make a point, or its cousin, connecting one unrelated thing to another to stand for what hundreds or thousands of people you disagree with might actually say or do or think, is something they do seemingly every other week, if not every other column.

For those of you living far from where I am, this particular parlor trick was regularly employed by the two of them in the Herald in their absurd and untruthful depictions of Tea Party supporters calling for greater government funding scrutiny and transparency issues in the weeks and months prior to the 2010 Congressional elections that kicked Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party out of the driver's seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and meant Obama didn't have both parts of Congress on his side.
That election was very much a great surprise to them I hardly need mention, given their continuing myopia and rose-colored glasses about the reality around them.

You continue to see it today in their biased columns about the state's Stand Your Ground Law, which was not adopted against the wishes of the populace, but rather far longer after it'd have done some real good, esp. in South Florida.
But then that's the lot of columnists like Grimm and Pitts, always having to miss both the trees and the forest if they are to peddle their wares.
Always forgetting to mention all the hundreds of senseless killings in this state of genuinely innocent people by criminals who knew they had the means to end any conversation.
Unarmed innocent people -the way that the Sunshine State's army of criminals prefer them.

Funny how Grimm and Pitts and their like-minded friends at other Florida media organizations never think to take a visit to one of our many fine prisons and jails in this state full of captured criminals -as opposed to the ones who got away because they killed the witnesesses, huh?- to ask the convicts the most obvious question there could be.
The question they and the rest of the Sunshine State's MSM never actually deigns to ask.
If they had to do it all over again, if they knew there was a good chance that someone they were menacing would fire first and ask questions later, what would they do?
Well, Grimm and Pitts don't visit and don't ask that question for obvious reasons.
Criminals don't want anything close to a fair fight in an encounter that decreases their odds of succeeding.

Oh, and in case you're either too young or too distant from the sports equipment and gang affiliation connection to simply take my word for it, I've got a piece that was written 22 years ago by professionals who studied it, perhaps to death, who tell the truth.
So what's changed? 
Nothing.

In the Dept. of Common Sense and civic society labeled "Symbols of Gangs and Gang Membership," this still connects-the-dots pretty well
http://www.chucksconnection.com/articles/your-sneakers-or-your-life.html


Chicago Crime Commission's 2012 Gang Book:

Saturday, October 22, 2011

The prescient wisdom of N.Y. Post sports columnist Phil Mushnick, longtime HBB favorite, reveals itself yet again as 'Thermal Cam' enters our lexicon

Whether you call it "Hot Spot" or -mockingly- "Thermal Cam," Fox Sports' latest borrowed tool is yet another thing the American sports fan does NOT want to see polluting the TV screen during a telecast.
The prescient wisdom of N.Y. Post sports columnist Phil Mushnick, longtime HBB favorite, reveals itself yet again as 'Thermal Cam' enters our lexicon
So, speaking of the Herald's perfectly dreadful and half-assed coverage of the 2011 World Series between the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals as we were in our last post, I wanted very much to share something with you Sunday night and yet my oversight, and the sudden emergence Wednesday night of this latest bit of sports porn in the first game of the series -that quickly became a sore subject for sports fans, national sports radio personalities and sportswriters- only re-emphasizes the need to share what I'd meant to do Sunday in this space: share some wisdom not my own.

Sportscaster Dan Patrick of DirecTV's weekday "Dan Patrick Show" on the discussed the camera on his show Thursday morning and came down very negatively on the subject, as did Michael Wilbon on "Pardon the Interruption" later in the afternoon on ESPN, a.k.a. "The Mother Ship," labeling it "JUNK."
October 20, 2011 screen-grab by South Beach Hoosier.

That wisdom not my own comes from a great source, a longtime Hallandale Beach Blog favorite and font of information, knowing analysis, common sense and prescience: sports media columnist Phil Mushnick of the New York Post.
He warned against this sort of dog-chasing-its-tail sports clutter on the TV screen even before ever seeing it!

Now that's the kind of insight I like!

Last Sunday afternoon, I read that column myself while munching on an Asiago bagel and some Hazelnut coffee at the local Panera Bread, my first time there on a Sunday afternoon in quite a while, since the Dolphins at Jets ballgame was on Monday night, so I didn't have to worry about missing it.
Let Phil Mushnick's column's internal logic and wisdom now wash over you as it did me...

New York Post
Time for sports TV to ‘go another direction’
By Phil Mushnick
Last Updated: 6:59 AM, October 16, 2011
Posted: 12:47 AM, October 16, 2011

What would happen — the worst that could happen — if one of the NFL’s or MLB’s partner TV networks truly decided to “go in another direction.”

What possible down side would there be if a network committed itself to eliminating the worsening on-screen and in-ear clutter that now systemically make so many live telecasts insufferable as a matter of mindless, follow-the-leader excess?
Read the rest of the spot-on column at:

I alluded in my last blog post to having to be at an ER facility Thursday night due to a medical situation involving my family, where I needed to transport someone to the Aventura ER facility of Mount Sinai Hospital, just north of Aventura Mall at 2845 Aventura Blvd., which is, literally, a million times faster than the ER situation at nearby HCA's Aventura Hospital, farther north on U.S.-1 & N.E. 209th Street, whose bureaucratic snails-pace horror stories I have first-hand experience with that I don't even want to have to relive here, no matter how instructive to you they'd be.

That glacial pace in treating patients -and getting them rooms if necessary- at Aventura Hospital is THE very reason we didn't go there Thursday night, and why I have been advising friends in the area for many months to go to Mount Sinai if you have a choice in the matter.

This Mount Sinai facility is where I watched the masterful pitching performances in game two of the World Series on an amazing PDI Communications Systems brand Persona LCD TV, which are mounted on a movable, flexible lightweight swing arm that allows you to bring the action and the sound as close to you as you want.
They're amazing, and while the photos I have posted here have it located just a few inches from the wall, you can actually move it so that it's right in front or above you on the hospital bed if you like.
I could really go for one of these when I'm lying on the couch at home!

And, best of all, they're Made in America - Springboro, Ohio!

October 20, 2011 screen-grab by South Beach Hoosier.
October 20, 2011 screen-grab by South Beach Hoosier.
October 20, 2011 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

City of Hollywood presents its side Monday night re Hollywood's Sept. 13th referendum re Police & Fire pension costs

Hollywood civic activist and blogger extraordinaire Sara Case recently sent the following note out to folks to remind everyone in SE Broward about Monday night's HCCA meeting on the referendum taking place in two weeks.

From: Sara Case
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 4:23 PM
Subject: HCCA's Public Education Meeting on Pension Referendum

Hi All,

Here are the details of HCCA's public education meeting on the Sept. 13 pension referendum election. Please notify your all your association members and friends as this meeting will provide a good opportunity for voters to learn the implications of this special election.

Date: Monday, August 29, 7 PM

Place: Fred Lippman Multi-purpose Center, 2030 Polk Street (large meeting room)

Purpose of Meeting: To provide fact-based information on how the referendum will affect city operations, city services and employees, and city taxpayers -- both if it passes and if it is defeated.

The Interim City Manager Cathy Swanson-Rivenbark will make the presentation.

The exact ballot language can be found at this link on the city website:


Sara
See Sara's July 20th Balance Sheet Blog post titled Financial problems in Hollywood

-----

Why-oh-why can't the union officials who represent the individual members of the City of Hollywood Police and Fire Dept., Jeff Marano and Dan Martinez respectively, accept the fact that no matter how many times they say it to reporters or their members, the City of Hollywood CRA funds are not "found" money for the Hollywood City Commission to do with as they choose for whatever purpose?

(For that, you have to go to where I live, Hallandale Beach, There, things are so upside-down in the logic and common sense dept., that a perfectly preposterous idea for putting TVs/monitors -that run nothing but local ads- in HB businesses and public areas of condos NOT even in the CRA zone, got approved 4-1, with little to show for it but money down a rat hole. Money that the city is NOT trying very hard to get back from some of the individuals involved, once it went kerplunk.)

Over-and-over for years I have heard whining from them and Hollywood beat cops about there being this magic pot of gold over the rainbow.
But showing in many cases the very poor value of a Florida public school education, many persist in ignoring the facts and constructing arguments that result in them getting more, more, more.
It's NOT your money!

Given that taxes in Hollywood will still go up 11% even if this is approved, I believe that if it is rejected, the City Commission should fire about 300 City of Hollywood employees, not the 170 or so suggested in the Herald article below by Carli Teproff that appeared in this morning's newspaper.
Consider the extra people fired both a margin of error and a shot across the broadside that there are far too many people in the city's employ who are NOT earning their paycheck.
I know, I see it every week with my own eyes and have experienced it many times.

The condescension is the worst part.

People with Masters Degrees who think they know everything and are NOT interested in what you say about something, even when you have photographs that show that THEY are doing something that is NOT appropriate or safe, and even likely to lead to injuries to the public.
Nope, they just can't be bothered with your facts, they have workshops to go to.

-----
Miami Herald
HOLLYWOOD
With YouTube video and city mailings, Hollywood residents are learning about upcoming pension referendum
The gloves are off and both sides are coming out swinging with their campaigns to educate Hollywood voters on why they should or shouldn’t vote to change the city’s pension system
By Carli Teproff
-----

Please be sure to read this excellent overview of the government employee pension situation by the Tallahasse Democrat's Senior Political Writer and Columnist Bill Cotterell.
I meant to mention it here weeks ago when the controversy over whether or not the City of Hollywood and the Police and Fire unions would work things out without a referendum being necessary.

Tallahassee Democrat
Things are tough all over
Government employees everywhere feel the pinch
Bill Cotterell
July 25, 2011

------
Here's an interesting article from a year ago that I circulated at the time via an email.

New York Post

City taxpayers foot 90% of municipal pensions
By Susan Edelman
Last Updated: 10:31 AM, July 11, 2010
Posted: 2:10 AM, July 11, 2010

Taxpayers kick in an average $8.60 for every dollar that city employees contribute to their pensions, a sweet deal costing the Big Apple a bundle.

Even though their own retirements are less secure, as private businesses have shifted from traditional pensions to riskier savings plans like 401(k)s, taxpayers' support for rock-solid public employee pension plans is growing. That's because pension funds are guaranteed to grow 8 percent a year -- and taxpayers have to make up the difference if they don't.

Taxpayers' share of city pension costs has skyrocketed more than 900 percent in the last decade -- from $703.1 million in 2000 to $6.5 billion in 2009, according to the city comptroller's annual reports.

The cost is expected to hit $7.6 billion this fiscal year and $8.7 billion next year.


"It's a double-whammy for taxpayers," said E.J. McMahon, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

"If they're privately employed, they shoulder the risks of saving for their own retirement. At the same time, they have to pay a steadily mounting cost of guaranteed pensions for government workers."

Teachers get the biggest bang for their pension contributions -- the city puts in $15.50 for every $1 they contribute.

Taxpayers pay $10 for every $1 firefighters put in, $9 for every $1 from cops and $5.60 for every $1 from transit, sanitation and other civil servants, the 2009 report shows.

"The cost has risen because employee benefits were dramatically increased in 2000, just as the [stock] market began to collapse," said John Murphy, former executive director of the New York City Employee Retirement System, NYCERS, the largest city pension fund.

"In retrospect, it was one of the most irresponsible things to have done," he said.

Many private companies cut back or suspended matching contributions to employee 401(k) plans after the most recent dramatic market downturn in 2008. Some have begun to restore contributions, depending on profits.

Teachers hired after 2008 contribute 4.85 percent of their salaries for their first 10 years, then 1.85 percent a year thereafter.

Cops and firefighters make annual pension contributions depending on their age at swearing in, at most 8 percent at age 20. But in a benefit called "Increased Take Home Pay," the city subsidizes 5 percent of that.

Cops and firefighters are guaranteed an 8.25 percent return on their contributions, and can take loans from the plans up to twice a year, interest-free.

It's only fair, said Anthony Garvey, who recently retired as executive director of the Police Pension Fund.

He said the benefits befit the Finest and Bravest who risk "getting shot or running into burning buildings."

Retire it's on us

Taxpayers kicked in $7.35 billion to the city pension funds last fiscal year, while employees contributed $853.5 million.

An average of: $8.60 to $1

TEACHERS
Average pension: $54,268
Taxpayer contribution: $15.50 to $1

FIREFIGHTERS
Average pension: $53,347
Taxpayer contribution: $10 to $1

POLICE
Average pension: $41,319
Taxpayer contribution: $9.13 to $1

SANIT., TRANSIT, OTHER
Average pension: $24,889
Taxpayer contribution: $5.60 to $1

Source: Comprehensive Annual Financial Report of the NYC Comptroller for fiscal year 2009.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Somewhere between Hipster, Intentionally Ironic or Camp is a "Happy Ending," my favorite new TV show


excerpt from ABC-TV's Happy Endings, Season 1, Episode 7
Max teaches Penny how to be a hipster to make it easier for her to fit in with her new guy - a lethargic and pretentious hipster with hipster friends.

Somewhere between 'Hipster' and 'Intentionally Camp & Ironic' is a Happy Ending.

At 00:32 the adorable Elisha Cuthbert finally says something in this clip...
Love her!

I sure hope that ABC gives this show enough time for the cast and writers to really come together even more and for a larger audience to find it and support it, since I personally find this show's writing to be some of the funniest and most trenchant observational humor since Gilmore Girls left the scene.

There's nobody in the cast I don't like and they all seem to have that sense of magic and timing to make it always look like it's the first time they're mouthing their lines, not the twenty-first

(But the suits at ABC -particularly the ones in affiliate relations and PR- ought to be more diligent about making sure that the show's promotional information on the Internet is consistent and doesn't mention multiple dates and time slots for the show.There's far too much conflicting information.
Don't f-up a good show with promise simply because nobody is paying attention to the details.)

And seriously, as someone named Dave, how can I possibly NOT love a show where a character named Dave was supposed to marry Elisha Cuthbert?
(I mean her character, Alex.)

Elisha Cuthbert is a smasher!

She's straight out of Stureplan via Canada if you know what I mean.
She's double-vetted for talent, charm and good looks!

Happy Endings homepage at ABC-TV is at http://abc.go.com/shows/happy-endings

Hulu supposedly airs the entire episodes of the last 5 shows to air on ABC at:



Meanwhile back in Flatbush...


New York Post video: Soap & Suds - Brooklyn, NY laundromats as "happenings"

Didn't I read in an essay in -yes- The New Yorker, many years ago, that this laundromat-cum-music hall craze originally got passe around the late '80's or so?
There are some parts of the USA -and entire states- that the fad never ever successfully migrated to.

By the way, when you do a search in The New Yorker's index, there are currently 250 entries for the word "hipster."
Here's the most recent, an essay from last November by Richard Brody in their The Front Row blog titled Hip Replacements:

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

City of Hollywood gives you chance to socialize/hobnob/people watch and shred your inhibitions -along with your old docs on Saturday at City Hall

Above, Hollywood City Hall, looking west from the half-circle in front of the Hollywood branch of the Broward County library. June 2, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
(When you look up Hollywood City Hall on Google Images, my photo is the first one you see.
And the third!)

Finally, one of those shredding parties you've heard about and seen videos of at odd hours of the night on YouTube or one of the TV cable nets when you couldn't fall asleep, but never actually knew about beforehand, so you always missed out.
Well, today's your lucky day, because now you know!


Below, the press release just coming over the Hallandale Beach Blog transom from Hollywood City Hall about Saturday's event in their parking lot


It's been my own experience that local TV stations around the country love these events almost as much as the people with boxes and boxes of docs to shred, since it often provides a fascinating look at what people -and Americans in particular- hang on to (or hoard) until there's finally a time to cast it off.


Good Riddance Day - New York Post

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1jhSEICf-k

Of course, IF there was a night-time bonfire and a nearby barbecue, say, for some local charity, now THAT would be a great double-feature!


Maybe that's what we'll do in Hallandale Beach one day in the future between HB City Hall and the Cultural Center, when the day finally arrives that the city employees running City Hall are actually responsive to citizen taxpayers and have their best interests at heart, something that's definitely NOT the case today.

And when that happens, the first thing to be burned at the charity bonfire would have to be -to steal the thunder from my friend Rob, a local business owner on the city's beleaguered Fashion Row- the city's overly-large code compliance book, which is full of things that nobody alive in the city understands, which even the city's own professional staff was forced to admit at a public meeting recently held at Dekka.

And why does the City of Hallandale Beach continue to be one of THE biggest violators of its own code book in the city, and also NOT follow many existing common sense state laws and statutes?

The evidence for those violations are right in front of you -everywhere- if you just open your eyes, and yet it goes on day-after-day, month-after-month, year-after-year, because HB City Hall consciously chooses to ignore the laws they don't like.


So what does Red Tape sound like or smell like when it's being either shredded or burned?
Probably chicken!

-----

City of Hollywood, Florida

Office of the City Manager


PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 2, 2011

Contact: Raelin Storey

Public Affairs and Marketing Director

Phone: 954.921.3098

Cell: 954.812.0975 Fax: 954.921.3314

E-mail: rstorey@hollywoodfl.org


Shredding Saturday: Free Shredding to Help Protect Your Identity

Saturday, February 5, 2011


HOLLYWOOD, FL - The City of Hollywood's Office of the City Clerk, Records and Archives Division in partnership with International Data Depository (IDD) is sponsoring a free opportunity for businesses and residents to shred the records and documents they no longer need. On Saturday, February 5, 2011 from 10 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., IDD will bring its commercial shredding truck to the parking lot at Hollywood City Hall, 2600 Hollywood Boulevard.


By properly disposing of your personal and business records, you can reduce your risk of becoming a victim of identity theft. Criminals often engage in "dumpster diving"-going through a person's garbage in search of copies of checks, credit card statements, bank statements or other records they can use to gain access to your accounts and in the most serious cases, assume your identity. According to a report by TIME magazine online, Florida has the nation's highest rate of identity theft (122.3 reports per 100,000 people). Identity theft is a growing crime that can affect just about anyone, regardless of how careful you think you are. "Our objective is to help prevent identity theft within the South Florida community and promote the importance of shredding," says Jorge Bohorquez of IDD.


Aside from the loss of money, identity theft costs its victims time and can damage their credit. Bring those old checks, credit card statements or other personal and business records that put you at risk to the City's Shredding Saturday event this weekend.


For event information, please contact the Records and Archives Division at 954.921. 3545.


For media inquiries, please contact Raelin Storey, Public Affairs Director, at 954.921.3098.


# # #


Raelin Storey
Public Affairs and Marketing Director
City of Hollywood
954-921-3098 (Office)
954-812-0975 (Cell)
954-921-3314 (Fax)

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Amazing N.Y. Post exclusive: "Sanit bigs boozed amid snow chaos." Go-slow a union tactic or just a few malcontents?



Red Eye: New Yorkers rip Bloomberg over Snow Removal
,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlUR2u63atQ

Red Eye
airs on Fox News Channel Monday-Friday at 3 a.m. and is hysterical.





A Slow NYC Snow Cleanup - New York Post

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEdZA7u545Q


------

New York Post

Sanit bigs boozed amid snow chaos: witnesses

By Reuven Blau and Brad Hamilton

Last Updated: 9:19 AM, January 2, 2011

Posted: 2:10 AM, January 2, 2011


EXCLUSIVE

Instead of plowing, they got plowed. A group of on-duty Sanitation supervisors is under investigation for allegedly buying booze and chilling in their cozy department car for hours Monday night after the blizzard stranded a bus and three snowplows blocks away.

The city Department of Investigation is probing the incident after witnesses said four snow blowers blew off their duties to get blitzed, buying two six-packs of beer from a Brooklyn bodega. The workers then walked five blocks to their car, which was in 20 inches of snow in the middle of 18th at McDonald avenues near the F train entrance, passing the stuck bus and idle plows on 18th Avenue between Third and Fourth streets.


Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/slushed_sloshed_fX907nPJIEevDILBvlYAtK


-----



Did Unions Intentionally Delay Snow Cleanup in NYC?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9skEQJzGHUo

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RedEye Recap YouTube Channel
:
http://www.youtube.com/user/RedEyeRecap

Fox News Channel's YouTube
page: http://www.youtube.com/user/FoxNewsChannel

New York Post YouTube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/NYPost

Sunday, July 11, 2010

2010 Summer swelter budget blues, NYC's ballooning pension costs and cutting-back elected officials perks

KNVB -Koninklijke Nederlandse Voetbalbond

Sunday July 11th, 2010
Just biding my time waiting for
The Netherlands to beat Spain 4-2 in today's World Cup final.

Per the spot-on New York Post article below, City taxpayers foot 90% of municipal pensions, it'd be nice to see a South Florida news media organization that could produce a reliable chart indicating what those pension numbers are for South Florida's myriad cities and counties.
Don't hold your breath!
It's summer after all.

In two weeks here in Hallandale Beach, the city's staff will have their public budget workshops with the City Commission that they could've actually conducted weeks ago when more of the city's populace was actually still here, and hadn't fled the summer swelter, so they'd have had more time to go over the staff's numbers and projections in devising questions of their own.

In case you forgot, that was yet another motion made by Comm. Keith London that lost 4-1.

But that's fine... now I and many other concerned residents just plan on spending more time asking
LOTS of specific questions for Comm. Ross, Sanders and Julian to personally answer about what specific city programs they want to cut or pare-down, as well as explain why should the community trust their judgment given how reluctant they've been to fully carrying out their legal oversight role of the City Manager's Office and keep an eye on the the Depts of this city, almost all of whom believe they are princely kingdoms of which there can be no criticism.

Though I'm not opposed to it in the abstract, since there's something to be said for attending conventions, a very good place to start cutting the city's budget is the city's travel expense account.


Can you name another city in South Florida, much less, one as small as Hallandale Beach, that routinely sends ALL of its City Commissioners to the Florida League of Cities' convention in Orlando, usually noted for its anti-taxpayer agitprop and propaganda?
http://www.floridaleagueofcities.com/

But that's what happens here every year, as if it's an entitlement written in the city's charter.

Why do they
ALL have to go at our expense?
It's pretty ridiculous when you think about it.


It's like rewarding people who don't pay attention to their own city, and telling them they can take a travel junket to a place where nobody knows what a truly abysmal job they do.
Actually, it's not "like" that, it's exactly our reality.

At least this year's event is at the
Westin Diplomat in Hollywood, from August 19-21, right before the primary election, so there will doubtless be lots of statewide candidates milling about, eager to talk to anyone who will listen.

Can't be sure but I'm guessing that considering FLOC's bluster on this and so many other public policy issues, there will be at least a few hours of one day spent debating(!) the question,
Will Amendment 4 really destroy Florida like we said it will, or are we just angry that FL citizens will no longer defer to our infinite wisdom as elected officials?

And what about HB instituting a prohibition like many other South Florida cities on city taxpayers paying the hotel expenses for any city employee or elected official attending an event, forum or convention in Miami-Dade or Broward County -
and something with real teeth?

I'd be in favor of forcing HB City Hall to put all taxpayer-paid travel expenses for city employees and elected officials on a designated page on the city's website within 72 hours, with name, title, total costs and description of event.

Why do I think this?

Perhaps you forgot about this telling story about HB Mayor Joy Cooper from 18 months ago:

My mayor went to the Inaugural but all I got was the bill and her imperious attitude!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-mayor-went-to-inaugural-but-all-i.html


New York Post
City taxpayers foot 90% of municipal pensions
By Susan Edelman
Last Updated: 10:31 AM, July 11, 2010
Posted: 2:10 AM, July 11, 2010

Taxpayers kick in an average $8.60 for every dollar that city employees contribute to their pensions, a sweet deal costing the Big Apple a bundle.

Even though their own retirements are less secure, as private businesses have shifted from traditional pensions to riskier savings plans like 401(k)s, taxpayers' support for rock-solid public employee pension plans is growing. That's because pension funds are guaranteed to grow 8 percent a year -- and taxpayers have to make up the difference if they don't.

Taxpayers' share of city pension costs has skyrocketed more than 900 percent in the last decade -- from $703.1 million in 2000 to $6.5 billion in 2009, according to the city comptroller's annual reports.


Read the rest of the story at:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/you_pay_the_price_hNooJsBk9MtO67HvinglHP

Monday, June 14, 2010

Michael Riedel in N.Y. Post: 'Tony' producers "want to make pots of money sending out harmless musicals to hick audiences around the country"

Today's episode of the creative culture vs. corporate entertainment wars brings us to to New York Post theater critic Michael Riedel's column, wherein he quite accurately takes the measure of the Broadway establishment and gives us his variation of the classic Stix Nix Hix Pix, where Broadway Inc. brings the corn-pone to the Corn Belt via their votes for the Tony Awards.
Yes, say hello again to our old friend, "Coals to Newcastle."

I watched 99% of the Tony awards last night and having read so many stories and reviews of the shows involved, as well as similar criticisms that even for cynical critics, a new nadir was being reached, I tend to give Michael Riedel the benefit of the doubt on this issue, especially when you read his column and discover exactly who has been specifically prevented from voting this year. To him, the "fix" was in.

And be sure to notice while looking at his column the new New York Post article layout, sponsored by search engine Bing,
with articles superimposed over a great color photo of Central Park.
Very Cool!


For the Miami Herald to be as cool down here by incorporating some geographical representation of the area into their current articles, they'd probably have to go
old-school and dig up some of those photos of Cristo and Jeanne Claude's Surrounded islands, the iconic project from the early '80's which my Mom helped out with as one of the dozens of volunteers, while I was away at IU in Bloomington.
If I'd been here. I'd have lent a hand, too.


See http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/si.shtml and NY Times article at bottom.


-----
New York Post
More Tony baloney
Lame 'Memphis' beats fab 'Fela!'
Last Updated: 1:55 PM, June 14, 2010
Posted: 1:42 AM, June 14, 2010
By Michael Riedel
http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/theater/more_tony_baloney_2gIuPLUHE9FLH820o0WMHN

Riedel's prediction column

New York Post
Blood on the red carpet

Last Updated: 10:12 AM, June 11, 2010,

Posted: 12:24 AM, June 11, 2010,

By Michael Riedel

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/theater/blood_on_the_red_carpet_vw0QeIw48ggfh6NIUEdF6J


New York Post
And the winners aren't ...
Hailing actors Tony won't love

Last Updated: 2:11 PM, June 9, 2010

Posted: 1:58 AM, June 9, 2010

By Michael Riedel

http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainment/theater/and_the_winners_aren_3TZgMxnGnZoPMylafy33iP

Katie Finneran’s Acceptance Speech - Best Featured Actress in a Musical for Promises, Promises


Glee's Lea Michele & Matthew Morrison performing at the 2010 Tony Awards

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlPZjWLLcYQ



It seemed to me that the Orchestra definitely played a little too fast at the beginning, but Lea Michelle was spectacular -as usual!


See more photos and video from last night's Tony telecast on CBS at http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/index.html and http://www.cbs.com/specials/tony_awards/video/

The
New York Times' complete coverage of last night's Tony Awards, including Patrick Healy's take on the Broadway juggernauts that never were this season, is at: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/theater/theaterspecial/index.html

Before I leave today, I want to share with you an idea that's been percolating in my head for a while about a Broadway show that -with the right music and cast, of course- would be a money-making hit while it skewered contemporary American pop culture, the loathed MSM and the East Coast professional political class. (Sure!)

Drum roll... a show about John & Elizabeth Edwards, Rielle Hunter, hypocrisy, the plucky National Enquirer, Oprah as confessor and the sad-sack MSM who were so desperately in love with the idea of the Edwards Family, that they could not bear to see or report on what was right in front of them: galling hypocrisy of the worst sort by someone who aspired for the highest office in this country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/arts/television/30oprah.html

But Slate's Mickey Kaus saw him for what he was, just like me.
That's just one of the reasons why I've been reading kausfiles for so very long.
See http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/kausfiles/default.aspx

Maybe Martin Amis will take up the idea and take pen to paper.
And win a Tony.

-----

New York Times

Christo Drapes Miami Isles in Pink
May 5, 1983

MIAMI, May 4 - The color of dawn, breaking over Biscayne Bay this morning, found its match in masses of shiny pink fabric as hundreds of workers began to release the first of the voluminous skirts that will surround 11 tiny islands in a two-week, $3.1 million extravaganza by the artist Christo.

Dashing from island to island in a speedboat, followed by a swarm of boats and helicopters filled with newsmen and photographers from this country and abroad, the artist shouted orders to his hired hands through a bullhorn. He paused to tell his wife and project partner, Jeanne-Claude Christo, who hovered in a nearby boat, that things were going well, even though a forecast of wind and rain suspended the proceedings this morning for several hours. The project is scheduled to be completed Thursday, with the skirts contouring each island and extending 200 feet out.

"Surrounded Islands," as the Miami spectacular is called, is the fifth of Christo's major exercises in ephemerality. Others include the 1972 suspension of a fabric curtain between a pair of Colorado mountain peaks and the construction, in 1976, of a 24-mile nylon "running fence" in northern California. By the artist's design, the works are dismantled after being recorded on film. And so, after two weeks, will the "Surrounded Islands" project, whose 6.5 million square miles of fabric are intended as a surface that will "translate the rich colors of the sky and the bay and the physical movement of the water."

Skirts Float in the Bay

The spoil islands, as they are called, are man-made. They were formed in the 1920's when an intercoastal waterway was built. Uninhabited and until now garbage-strewn - the garbage has been removed by Christo's crews - they run north to south more than five miles in Biscayne Bay, the shallow, sparkling body of water that separates Miami from Miami Beach.

The skirts, of pink, woven polypropylene fabric - likened to the color of frangipani by some writers, to that of bubble gum by others - cover the beaches of each island and float out 200 feet into the water, attached at the end to Styrofoam booms that are anchored to the bay's bottom.

The Bulgarian-born artist has had the notion of the Miami project in his head since 1974, when he did a small version of it, what he calls a "sketch," for a sculpture festival in Newport, R.I. After stretching fabric on the water and beach of a cove, he decided to undertake a larger project showing the relationship between land and water.

"I had visited Miami earlier, and was very influenced by the flatness and horizontality of the landscape; also the way earth and water mix gently here," he said. "And then there's the relationship of people to it. They use Biscayne Bay as a water, rather than a grass, park." Refers to Monet

The horizontality of the fabric float gives the project the aspect of a painting, Christo noted, smiling as he added, "If some people want to say the islands resemble Monet's 'Water Lilies,' that's O.K." He chose pink for a number of reasons. It's a "Latin" color, he said, and he admires what he called the "Latinity" of Miami. Pink is also a man-made color, he said, different from natural earth and water tones, and an "extremely sensitive" color for reflections.

"Surrounded Islands" was originally scheduled for completion in 1982 as the visual arts centerpiece for Miami's financially disastrous New World Festival for the Arts. It was delayed by Christo's own testing procedures, the need for 10 permits from government agencies, seven public hearings and the protests environmentalists, who were concerned about nesting ospreys and the bay's manatees, large plant-eating aquatic mammals. This morning, by court permission, an environmental group known as the National Wildlife Rescue Team, headed by Jack Kassewitz, an opponent of the project, was out patrolling the islands in a speedboat.

For Christo, the complications are all part of his art process. "Listen, for two and a half years hundreds of thousands of people in South Florida have been discussing the project," he said. "They've been thinking and fantasying about it.

"Imagine, in one of our court hearings, a Federal judge, usually occupied with grimmer matters, spent four days discussing birds and flowers." Artist Provides Financing

As has been the case with all of his projects, Christo is financing "Surrounded Islands" himself, with money from the sale of artworks related to this and other projects. He has also borrowed $700,000 from Citibank, possibly the first instance of a bank's lending money to an artist who has used his own work as collateral.

Today, a number of art followers -mainly from New York - and hundreds of news people, including those from televison networks in this country and abroad, converged on the Pelican Harbor Yacht Club, headquarters for the project.

As helicopters buzzed overhead, speedboats raced through the water and bullhorns blared, the scene had more the aspect of a full-scale media event than an esthetic experience. Yet from above, as seen by many observers from the tall office and residential buildings that overlook the bay, the first tentative blooming of the fabric played stunningly against the shifting blue-greens of the bay, giving the impression of a trail of giant flowers on the water's surface.

"Thanks to Christo, people will now see those once-grubby islands as jewels," said Jan van der Marck, director of Miami's new Center for the Fine Arts, who as co-sponsor of the New World Festival invited the artist here to do the project.

"Aside from the painterly beauty he's given the islands," he said, "50 years worth of garbage have been removed from them. Those people who've complained about the environmental impact should do as much to enhance it as he has."

Noting that Dade County tourism officials had estimated that 20,000 visitors would come to Miami solely to see the islands, Mr. van der Mark added, "Besides, he's filling hotels and restaurants and putting local people to work."

Christo had been offered $200,000 of financing from the Festival, Mr. van der Marck added, but the artist refused it on the ground that he wanted to support his projects himself. The estimated $3.1 million cost to the artist includes $50,000 for the rental of a staging area from the state, a $13,000 per month rental for the islands, pay of $28 a day for the more than 400 workers and substantial gifts of artworks to state and local governments.

Today, the artist, who is still working on proposals to wrap the Reichstag in Berlin, build a giant mastaba of oil drums in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, and plant 27 miles of walkway in New York's Central Park with banners attached to steel gates, smiled mischievously as he spoke of himself as a corporate entrepreneur.

"With the $3 million cost of this project," he said, "my company, C.V.G. (for his full name, Christo Vladirov Javacheff) comes third after Exxon and Philip Morris in spending money on the visual arts."