On The Volatility Of Markets

You know, just because the Dow has tanked for a couple of weeks now doesn’t mean you’re allowed to stiff the waitstaff:

Stingier restaurant tips and smaller company parties are adding to the fiscal fallout from Wall Street’s market slump.

“Tipping has gone from about 18 percent to 12 to 14 percent,” moaned Rene Santiz, a waiter at City Lobster on West 49th Street, which caters to a Midtown finance crowd.

“When you hear your co-workers complaining, it’s definitely happening. People used to have a cocktail or glass of wine with dinner and now it’s just water. You can feel the stress,” he added.

. . . sort of makes stuff like the Hedge Fund Regatta seem like a quaint relic of the (bygone?) New Gilded Age.

That Made In New York Film Production Tax Credit Is At Least Partially To Blame . . .

After making inroads with 9/11 first responders and the City Council, The Church of Scientology spreads its influence up to 125th Street:

Harlem, beware! The neighborhood long weary of gentrification may soon have to deal with the likes of Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kirstie Alley.

The Church of Scientology, known for its celebrity devotees, is making a big push to expand its empire along 125th Street, purchasing three properties there last week, and planning a major recruitment drive in the neighborhood.

The Rev. John Carmichael, president of the church in New York, declined to give details about the purchase, but reports put the total sales price at $10.2 million.

Carmichael said the three buildings — 228 through 232 E. 125th St. — will house a main Scientology complex and a community center that will offer literacy programs and drug counseling.

Two of the properties were formerly owned by St. Samuel Church of God in Christ, which moved a block away.

The church will be exempt from property tax in New York City, Carmichael said, and added that the church has no plans to buy any more property on that block or in the neighborhood.

“It’s 50,000 square feet in all,” Carmichael said. “It’s a pretty generous space.”

Studies Find That Outrage Increased In The Period Between August 2005 And August 2007

As a Sunday Styles piece, it’s a convenient way to mollify fickle offspring. In the hands of the New York Sun, it’s one of the most disturbing trends to hit our thoroughly debased culture:

For New Yorkers without the time, space, or willingness to commit to owning a dog, a new share program launching in Manhattan next month offers pets for rent.

Singles who don’t own pets but want excuses to chat up dog lovers at city parks, for example, can break the ice with Jackpot, a midnight-black Labrador retriever billed as a “happy dog who loves everyone,” who can be a best friend for a month, a week, or an hour.
While researchers tout the positive impact of spending time with pets, the rent-a-dog program, FlexPetz, is seen as a “shocking” development by veterinarians, dog trainers, and longtime pet owners. Veterinarians say renting out dogs could inflict permanent damage to their psyches, as multiple owners could muddle their understanding of loyalty.

“The whole point of having a dog is having a relationship,” a veterinarian and health director of the doggie day care center Biscuits & Bath, Deborah Sarfaty, said. “It’s not like wearing a piece of jewelry. Dogs get attached quickly and then it’s lifted away from them, which is cruel.”

. . .

FlexPetz members pay a monthly fee of $50, a “daily doggy time charge” of up to $40, and a yearly membership fee of $250. The dogs, most of which Ms. Cervantes and her team adopt from local shelters, are put through extensive training before they are sent into homes. Members also go through a rigorous screening process, Ms. Cervantes said. The dogs, most of which sleep at day care centers when they’re not working, can be delivered to a member’s home or office for $18 a trip.

The Obvious Answer: Rename Turtle Pond

Because maybe you’re wondering how a turtle can be an invasive species in “Turtle Pond”:

In Chinatown, turtles are the center of a tug of war whose ramifications are being felt at the Central Park Turtle Pond.

One side makes turtles into soups that are ladled into the bowls of the elderly, the pregnant, and the recently born in the hopes of imparting longevity.

The other group, mostly Buddhists, is buying up turtles from food markets and “setting them free” into the East River.

Neither side appears to know that the quiet war of ideas over reptiles is leading, in part, to a proliferation of a non-native species in the Turtle Pond.

. . .

A group of Chinese Buddhists — no one knows how many — take their belief to the extreme on holidays and special occasions, casting turtles into the East River to set them free. The practice is called fangsheng, or “release of life,” and dates back to the 6th century. Setting turtles or other animals free increases a Buddhist’s merit, which is believed to translate into a better rebirth.

The species of turtle most commonly found in Chinatown — and consequently the East River and the Turtle Pond — is the red-eared slider, which originates from the tributaries leading into the Mississippi River. It cannot survive in the brackish waters around Manhattan, according to herpetologists.

. . .

A reporter observed the “fangsheng” practice on August 1 — the 19th day of the sixth month in the lunar calendar. On that day hundreds of years ago, Princess Miaoshan, the human manifestation of the Buddhist bodhisattva Guanyin, left home to begin practicing religion, according to Buddhist texts.

The women painted red symbols on the backs of the turtles, including the “svasti,” the symbol adopted by the Nazi party. They said a prayer over the turtles and then pushed them over the edge into the water five feet below. The women declined to be interviewed.

You Can’t Flight City Hall

It’s a good week for city employees to slack:

Some of the most senior officials of the Bloomberg administration seem to be itching to get out of town early on Fridays.

Calls to 25 city agencies last Friday found that 10 top officials had left early or were gone for the day. One was vacationing in the West, another had just begun a weeklong holiday with his family, and others had skipped out of the office early.

A spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, Stuart Loeser, did not appear concerned about the missing officials, telling The New York Sun via e-mail that when a commissioner is out of the office, it’s typically the first deputy commissioner who takes charge.

With the state Legislature on break, the City Council calendar nearly empty, and New York settling into the quiet stretch of summer that begins with August and doesn’t end until after Labor Day weekend, there could be more of that going on than usual.

. . .

The head of the New York Civic, Henry Stern, a former parks commissioner, said the old adage “When the cat’s away, the mice will play” is true for city agencies. “When the commissioner leaves the building, you don’t expect much business to be transacted in his wake,” he said.