Dear Billy Crystal:

Get Bent.

Gray Area

Got stuck between floors on an elevator today. Then it started shaking and I was out of limbo, that is, after some turbulence, normal operations resumed.

This happened before I could think beyond "So am I supposed to push the emergency button after more than two minutes?" to, say, "In an elevator? This is it--really?"

Priorities

It's a four-step shuffle, keep it movin

Watching footage from City Council Speaker Christine Quinn's version of an uplifting speech, one that involves pratting on about "the energies of New Yorkers" as if she's talking to, or is that about?, eight year olds, just gave me a cramp.

Meanwhile, the city is planning to close 33 schools today, only three of which are in Manhattan, surprise. So, soon there may be no more Flushing High School, where my grandfather went decades ago; forget about these kids today, though, right? They’re all just a bunch of criminals. Or will be.

Must build more prisons.

Charter schools!

Money.

NYPD

NYPD. Recent past-times include:

a gang beating of an unarmed, not white 19 year old who was on the ground already

lying about it later, though it was caught on film

the execution of an unarmed not white 18 year old in his bathroom in front of his not white grandmother, whose house they broke into

lying about it later

holding this grandmother against her will at the precinct for 7 hours, i.e., witness intimidation

lying about it later

planting drugs on multiple innocent "suspects" then crying on the witness stand to avoid jail time

getting caught with a massive stash of photos showing children under 16 performing sexual acts on one another, after running a "youth sports program" for years

chaining a transgender woman up in a precinct and mocking her for 28 hours, via comments like "Faggot" and "So you like to suck dick?" after arresting her for "illegally using her father's fare card"

-- and that's just this year.

Pretty scary and even scarier to me is how many white people are perfectly fine with these behaviors -- most especially with blaming the victim, after he is vilified and then, having been vilified, beaten or murdered. I mean, let's nuke Iran. Kill! Violence! Kill! America, we're the best and most just-est! If you don't agree, well, you're mean!