I Told You So!

After that warning in the Times about the lack of balloon handling training, some wayward M&Ms careened into a lightpole, causing a lamp to fall to the ground, injuring a child:

A giant balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, swinging out of control in sudden bursts of wind, struck a light pole in Times Square yesterday, injuring two spectators and scaring scores of others in a replay of a 1997 accident that had prompted changes in the handling of the balloons.

The M&M balloon, 515 pounds of polyurethane filled with 13,335 cubic feet of helium, began to tip erratically as it entered Times Square about 11:40 a.m., witnesses said, before it hit the light pole near 43rd Street and was punctured. As the balloon collapsed, it pulled off a light fixture, which crashed to the ground amid a crowd of spectators.

Police and emergency workers descended on the scene, and the victims – a 26-year-old woman who was using a wheelchair, and her 11-year-old sister – were taken to Bellevue Hospital Center, where they were treated for cuts and bruises.

. . .

Several volunteers said yesterday that their training had been adequate but not stringent.

Anne Kelly, 57, of Mountain Lakes, N.J., a first-time volunteer who helped handle the Jojo’s Circus balloon, said she had missed two voluntary training sessions at the Meadowlands but had read instructions on balloon handling provided by Macy’s and had listened to directions from other handlers, a captain and a pilot. “I didn’t feel unprepared,” she said.

I don’t think they’re gloating, “I told you so,” but then again, ten reporters contributed to the Times piece, compared with seven for the Post’s article and four for the Daily News’ article . . .

Meanwhile, the Times notes that if you were watching the NBC telecast of the parade yesterday, you wouldn’t have known anything was amiss, leading to allegations of a coverup at NBC:

NBC did not interrupt its broadcast of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade yesterday to bring viewers the news that an M&M balloon had crashed into a light pole, injuring two sisters.

In fact, when the time came in the tightly scripted three-hour program for the M&Ms’ appearance, NBC weaved in tape of the balloon crossing the finish line at last year’s parade – even as the damaged balloon itself was being dragged from the accident scene. At 11:47 a.m., as an 11-year-old girl and her 26-year-old sister were being treated for injuries, the parade’s on-air announcers – Katie Couric, Matt Lauer and Al Roker – kept up their light-hearted repartee from Herald Square, where the parade ends.

“Will these classic candymen get out of this delicious dilemma?” Mr. Roker asked, referring not to the accident but to the premise of the attraction, a red M&M’s attempt to save his yellow counterpart, who had been blown from the basket of a hot-air balloon.

Ten minutes later, the upbeat broadcast ended without mention of the accident in Times Square. CNN carried a flash about the accident at 11:51, while the parade telecast was still going on. NBC’s cable news network, MSNBC, followed two minutes later. And WNBC, the New York affiliate, carried the news at 12:30 p.m.

But Cameron Blanchard, a spokeswoman for NBC’s entertainment division, which broadcast the parade, said that the anchors did not deviate much from the script because it was not clear at the time what had happened. “We had been alerted that there had been an incident,” she said. “But no further details had been conveyed to us.”

When the balloon failed to arrive at Herald Square at the appointed time, she said, “we rolled with some previously recorded footage.”

That said, the situation made for a jarring confluence of scripted and unscripted reality.

At 11:47 a.m., about 7 minutes after the accident, the screen image faded from live coverage of a high school marching band from Kennesaw, Ga., to last year’s tape of the M&M balloon. Ms. Couric, advising the audience that it was now looking at old tape, riffed on the balloon’s concept of M&M’s in distress.

“Now, because of today’s windy conditions,” Ms. Couric told viewers, “these characters are on video, and if we told you they were not in a panic, we’d be full of hot air.”

Mr. Lauer, Ms. Couric’s co-anchor on the “Today” show, chimed in: “You may be thinking ‘color us clueless’ as they flirt with trouble, with Yellow hanging on by a thread and Red struggling to keep his best buddy from flying off into the blue.”

Mr. Roker then spoke his lines: “Will these classic candymen get out of this delicious dilemma? Hard to say, but when it comes to sweetness, Yellow and Red continue to melt your heart, but not in your hand.”

Ms. Blanchard said she did not know what the announcers knew about the accident at the time.

If Only Gordon Gekko Had A Gun

Masters of the universe trade company picnics for the opportunity to blow away inanimate objects at a shooting range — think Gordon Gekko with a semi-automatic — explained in full in “Now, Accounting Can Get Its Gun”:

This past summer, members of a Manhattan law firm went on a field trip to Danbury, Conn., where they spent an entire day at a range without swinging bats or golf clubs. The members of Kobre & Kim LLP were there not to hit and hack, but to lock and load, and to experience the thrill of firing pistols, rifles and even submachine guns.

“We do very aggressive litigation and trial work,” said Michael Kim, a partner in the firm. “So we prefer an activity that dovetails nicely with that aggressive culture, and hitting a little white ball on the greens doesn’t do much for us.”

In the last few years, a growing number of professionals like Mr. Kim are abandoning traditional company outings like softball, golf or fishing, choosing instead to escape the pressures of their busy workdays by blowing off steam – and rounds of ammunition – at shooting ranges that give corporate retreats some of the atmosphere of military attacks.

. . .

Russ Savage, a Manhattan lawyer who took a shooting holiday earlier this year, said that some of the men and women who have pulled the trigger on the increasingly popular excursion, especially those in the world of high finance, may have done so to gain “a feeling of empowerment.”

“For major corporate executives whose job it is to lead, this is a much more powerful way for them to maintain a sense of aura than by simply taking their people on a company picnic,” Mr. Savage said. “It’s an exhibition of strength and power.”

That said, the question remains whether this is a healthy activity to engage in:

“They might not be the best thing for a society that is already way too aggressive,” Dr. Kenneth Porter, a Manhattan psychiatrist, said. “When you look at what is in the media, and what kids growing up are exposed to, something like this could have a negative effect on the overall mental health of the population.

“However,” Dr. Porter continued, “shooting can be viewed as a legitimate sport and can be seen as a constructive outlet to express aggression, so it cuts both ways.”

Then, the reveal:

Seconds later, Dr. Porter, sitting at a picnic table at the Highland Lakes site with his fiancée and her son, picked up a long-range rifle and began firing at a wooden bull’s-eye, shell casings flying behind him as he squeezed off round after round, his body recoiling slightly after every blast.

“Before today, I thought something like this was unequivocally harmful,” he said. “But now I’ve learned otherwise.”

No word on whether the Postal Service has plans to institute such team-building exercises, for obvious reasons.

Halal Turkey

Another Thanksgiving, another super-cloying Times article about how new immigrants celebrate that ur-immigrant holiday:

Every November, Thanksgiving – a celebration of the original immigrant feast – plays out in this city of immigrants as the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians could have hardly fathomed in 1621: a cross-cultural hodgepodge holiday improvised by new American families often inspired and instructed by some of their youngest members. The children of immigrants act as pint-size ambassadors of all things Thanksgiving, urging parents throughout the world to prepare all-American turkey meals that they learned about in school and sharing their incomplete yet innocently sweet knowledge of the holiday’s origins.

. . .

Sometimes, the children are not so much teachers as they are cheerleaders. Occasionally, they are simply culinary advisers. Maha Attieh, 47, a Jordanian-born Palestinian, takes her children to the market when she goes shopping for Thanksgiving, which she usually celebrates at her home in Midwood, Brooklyn, with a turkey stuffed with rice, chicken cutlets, nuts and raisins.

“They make their own menu,” said Mrs. Attieh, who works at the Arab-American Family Support Center in Brooklyn. “What they hear in school, what they hear from friends, they want the same thing. I say, ‘As long as it’s halal meat, I’ll do it.'”

Snarkity Snark-Snark-Snark

My idea of hell is willingly surrounding myself with people who self-identify as “snarky.” But that was before I considered the possibility of interviewing the applicants who answer the Craigslist ad “Snarky Writers Wanted to Cover Nightlife”:

A local publisher is looking for snarky, talented & responsible writers to contribute a MINIMUM of 100 nightlife reviews over a 4-month period (Dec. thru April) for a new nightlife guide. Experience with nightlife writing and/or professional publications is a big plus. Must be able to write in a clever, snarky, informative way. We are looking for writers who can commit to a large workload and work with our style. Ideal for a freelancer living in Manhattan. Think Gawker, not City Search.

To apply, please send a resume (no attachments!) and a short review (50 words) of your favorite bar…impress us with your snark and style! [Emphasis added . . . duh!]

Impresarios everywhere ought to be shaking in their boots, “Oh no! Please don’t skewer me with your acid tongue and that poison, poison pen on your mildly influential weblog! I’m so scared!”

Bonus Points: Other Snark; Snark . . . So 2003 (“Plucky and sharp upon first arrival, poor Snark skyrocketed to ubiquity and, predictably, soon became overused, overexposed, and had its meaning completely (and ironically) overhauled; the very use of the word (oftentimes uttered with the same petulant tone and pointing finger as one would use to bark, ‘J’accuse!’) became a demonstration of its definition. To call snark was to commit it, thereby rendering it as a word a self-fulfilling self-parody, and as a concept a paradoxical meta-oxymoron”).

On Jumping Off Of Bridges

Are we to assume that you can jump off of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge but not the George Washington Bridge?

First, a 19-year-old apparently survives a jump from the Verrazano:

A Brooklyn teen told cops he survived a leap off the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge last night.
Pavel Kononov, 19, was soaking wet when he flagged down an off-duty cop who was driving onto the Belt Parkway from the bridge at 7 p.m. Earlier, cops had responded to reports of a possible jumper, but nobody saw one.

At its highest point, the bridge is 237 feet above the water, but it’s not clear how far he fell.

He was taken to Lutheran Hospital in critical condition but was later upgraded to stable.

This comes on the heels of the death of a man on Monday after diving headfirst from the GWB:

A lover’s spat between two gay men driving over the George Washington Bridge ended in tragedy yesterday when the driver stopped the vehicle mid-span and dived headfirst into the Hudson River, police and witnesses said.

“It was terrible, just terrible — something awful to see,” said Gus Guerra, who was in his boat under the bridge and got to the victim first. “He was shaking a bit and moving in the water when I pulled him out. His face was pretty bad and blood was coming out of his ears.”

The jumper, 45, was pronounced dead a short time later.

The nightmarish drama began at 11:30 a.m., when the two men got into an argument as they headed toward New Jersey on the upper level.

Police said the driver pulled the car over by the bridge’s New York tower, climbed over the railing and took a 220-foot dive.

Guerra, a mechanic at a marina, said a cop told him the driver had flipped out during an argument with his lover.

“He landed head first. He looked pretty rough. There was no way he could have survived,” Guerra said.

Visual comparison: Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and the George Washington Bridge.