Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Holiday Crime Wave Hits NYC Hits of Press Racism: Was A Black Mayor Dinkins Treated Differently By the Press On Crime Than White Pols?

Bronx Murders Up 28%

Police Could be below 33,000 cops by the fall

In October 2000 40,800 officers * After the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, the police force shrank. The head count hovered around 28,000 in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to the Budget Office

Not One Quote Asking the Mayor to Do Something Eight dead by gun violence during bloody Memorial Day weekend(NYDN)

Was A Black Mayor Dinkins Treated Differently By the Press On Crime Than White Pols?

During the Dinkins administration a front-page headline in the New York Post had screamed: “Dave do something!”— a direct call to then mayor David Dinkins to get crime down fast. What Dinkins' did with the help of Albany was dramatically increase the size of the NYPD. As the number of NYPD increased during during the next 20 years crime when down to record levels. With budget cuts this year the number of NYPD will be down to the level before the Dinkins and Giuliani increases. We have a press and political system that allows mayor and future mayors to chose the issues that are covered in the media. We know the mayor wants to go on Meet the Press to talk national issues, mayoral candidate Quinn wants gay marriage, Weiner will do anything to get himself a headline, Liu wants to drop audit bombs on the mayor contracts to win him points with unions while hiding in the comptroller office, Stringer wants to rebuild the infrastructure and deBlaiso will think of of angles to get in the paper. But nobody want to talk about the growing crime problem and the press will not hold today's incumbents feet to the filed like that did former Mayor Dinkins

Fighting femmes (NYP)

Victim’s two-year-old “keeps saying ‘Mommy, mommy’ and pointing to his face where she got shot,” said relative

Slain in front of her son (NYP) * Bronx Woman Fatally Shot, Still Clutching Her 2-Year-Old (NYT) * Bronx Mother Killed in Shooting(WSJ)

Couple slain 'over drugs'(NYP)

Upper East sex fiend attacks woman, 85 (NYP) * Police Say 85-Year-Old Was Sexually Assaulted (NYT) * VIDEO: Perv caught on tape in sex attack on 85-year-old woman (NYDN) *NYPD Continues Search After Alleged Sex Assault Against Elderly Woman(WCBS) * Woman, 85, sexually assaulted on UES (WABC) * Elderly Woman Sexually Assaulted on UES(NBC) * Police Investigate Pair Of Deadly Bronx Shootings(NY1) * Two Killed, One Injured In Sheepshead Bay Shooting(NY1)

Tape of Guy Who Rape 85 Year Old Woman

Nearly half of NYPD's crime reports feature criminals caught on tape

"Just because a hacker broke into his Twitter account and sent a bawdy crotch photo to a co-ed is no reason to get the police involved, Rep. Anthony Weiner said yesterday" NYP

NO FBI Trace?

CNN Reporter To Rep. Weiner: This “Distraction” Might Go Away If You’d Answer Some of the Questions That Are Out There… (Video)

Weiner cops out, hires att'y(NYP) * Congressman, Sharp Voice on Twitter, Finds It Can Cut 2 Ways (NYT) * Rep. Weiner Lawyers Up In Twitter-Hack Scandal (NYDN) * Rep. Anthony Weiner hires attorney to fight Twitter scandal(AMNY)

Will the Press Cover Weinergate Like They Did the Craigslist scandal that felled ex-Rep. Chris Lee?

Thomas Nast Cartoo

Weiner's Picture

In the New York of the late 1800s, Boss Tweed famously complained about Thomas Nast cartoons: Though many immigrants in the city couldn’t read, even the illiterate could understand “those damn pictures.” Rep. Anthony Weiner and his staff now face a similar problem. Too many coincidences in Weiner's tale(NYP) * Weinergate: What we know (Update: Weiner hires a lawyer) * Weiner’s Tweet: Hasn’t filed report with capitol police * Weiner’s Tweet: Won’t name attorney he’s hired. Schumer “virtually certain he had nothing to do with this.” * Rep. Anthony Weiner snaps at reporter asking about lewd picture that came from his Twitter feed(NYDN) * Rep. Anthony Weiner Gets Combative With Reporters About Lewd Twitter Photo Congressman Wants Weiner Probe(Fox) Weiner asks media to 'respect' silence on alleged hacking incident (Wash Post) * Anthony Weiner's Playboy Past (MSNBC) * Weiner's women (NYDN) * Video: Weiner gets roasted by the press * Congressman Assails Reporters Over Photo (NYT)

He’s More Like Rudy Than Mario; Doesn’t Answer Questions . . .

Michael Powell captures Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s need to control without questioning: “The state is his muscle car, and he’s not letting go of the steering wheel.” (NYT) * The Senate Republicans might be fiscally conservative, but even they can’t completely resist pension sweeteners.

Bye Jay

Jacobs Uncertain Of Future as State Dem Chair(NYO)

On December 6th True News Said Jacobs Will Go

NYS Democratic Leader Jay Jacobs Will Have To Go Part II

Pay to Play Boyland Almost Played Out

Ethics Commission Finds ‘Reasonable Cause’ For Boyland(YNN)

First Building Department Fake Crane Inspection Now Elevators . . . They Can't Even Find An Illegal Fire Trap Sublet

Elevator safety inspectors say they are pressured to fake reports (NYDN)

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City steps up efforts to thwart restaurant inspection bribes (AM NY)

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4 NY Failed Education System Receives F for Results A for Spending

New York spends $18,126 per high-school pupil, 73 percent higher than the national average of just $10,499, according to the Census Bureau. Logic would dictate that spending this much on education should yield decent results. Well, logic can buzz off. Just 73.5 percent of state high schoolers graduated in 2009 -- ranking New York an abysmal 39th nationally. Big bucks, bitsy bang(NYP) * Pleeze help me! Principal can't write well, but wants support(NYDN)

Another street-naming battle is brewing in the NYC Council.

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No Indian Illegal Cigarettes Crackdown No Anger At Pols

Mind-boggling leap in buttlegging at Long Island Indian reservation cries out for a state crackdown(NYDN Ed)

Celebrity photographer Edita Sherman in her Carnegie studio

Carnegie's Ousted Residents Agree: Film Has Sad Ending (NYT)

5 The Post reported that detailed floor plans for top terror targets can be downloaded from the Department of Finance's Web site

Floor Plan WTC

Terror-target Web-wipers (NYP)

* Developer Sees Pricey Market The Durst Organization has finalized a deal with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to buy a stake in One World Trade Center (WSJ)

Mapping Trees

A Labor of Wonder: Mapping 19,993 Trees in Central Park(NYT)

English as 'sign' language (NYP) * Bill Would Require English Store Signs (Fox 5)

Chinatown-bound bus overturns in Virginia, killing four (NYP)

Tour Bus Crashes on Way to NYC, 4 Dead(NBC)

Cab firms hail-bent on breaking the law(NYP)

Book by Mayor’s Daughter Is Fiction, With Tell-All References

All-male crew cleans up at Strauss-Kahn's arrest house(NYP)

The Butler Maid Did It

Maid Likely Focus of Strauss-Kahn's Case(WSJ)

Groped maid at superposh Pierre: cops (NYP) * Assault Charges for Hotel Guest (NYT) * Egyptian Businessman Arrested in Alleged Assault on Hotel Maid(WSJ) * Egyptian exec charged with groping hotel maid two weeks after Strauss-Kahn bust(NYDN) * High-Profile Egyptian Banker Awaits Arraignment In Alleged Sex Assault On Housekeeper (WCBS) * Strauss-Kahn Hires All-Male Cleaners (Fox 5) * Another alleged sex assault on NYC hotel maid (WABC) * Businessman Accused of Assaulting Hotel Maid (NBC)

Woman who said cops raped her left shattered by jury's verdict(NYP) * Officers’ Accuser Says Verdict ‘Brought Me to My Knees’(NYT)

Medicaid: Feds track spending per beneficiary; hospitals measured on “efficiency.” Raske says it’ll “discriminate against inner city hospitals.” * Healthcare: Costs going up in NY.

Housing Prices Still Falling

'Double-Dip' in Housing Prices Even Worse Than Expected
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/nyregion/index.html

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Other Views

On October 15, 1958, veteran broadcaster Edward R. Murrow delivered his famous "wires and lights in a box" speech (VIDEO) The Last Lion of Tammany HOW JIMMY McMANUS, MANHATTAN’S LAST GREAT TAMMANY DISTRICT LEADER, HELPED TO REVIVE HELL’S KITCHEN AND THE THEATER DISTRICT c By James S. Kaplan f On January 13, 2011, the law firm of Proskauer Rose moved into 11 Times Square, which is located on 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. In moving west to the final building of the City’s Times Square redevelopment, the Proskauer firm joined such other major law firms as Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Covington & Burling, Roberts & Holland, and the advertising firm of Ogilvy & Mather. That such major professional firms, along with a number of newly constructed luxury apartment buildings on 42nd Street from ninth to eleventh avenue and trendy restaurants and off Broadway theaters would be located west of 8th Avenue in midtown would have been almost inconceivable fifty years ago. Tammany Last Stand Continued

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"I don't care a straw for your newspaper articles, my constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures." Boss Tweed

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In the beginning of the last century, Lincoln Steffens and Jacob Riis were the muck rakers. Steffens tried to rouse the public to take action against the misdeeds of government and corporate leaders. Jacob Riis, a Danish immigrant, was the pioneer of photo journalism. He took his camera into the miserable tenement slums of the city. Depicting the plight of the poor, he wrote a book called “How the Other Half Lives.”

"Through the years of the 20th century even the most mercenary of newspaper owners were, above all, conscious of their duty to inform the public and they backed their reporters to the hilt. It was not just a matter of right or wrong---but common sense. The ethics of good journalism in this era, alas, seems to have been forgotten." Gabe Pressman

"A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues." Theodore Roosevelt

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