Death By A Thousand Resolutions

Another City Councilmember makes her feelings known on yet another issue crucially linked to the vital day-to-day operations of the metropolis:

Joining an international campaign to keep dangerously thin models off the catwalk, a city councilwoman introduced a resolution yesterday that seeks to ban super-skinny models from Fashion Week runways.

“New York City is one of the leading capitals in the global fashion industry,” said Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan), who introduced the resolution. “It is now our responsibility to actively promote a healthier concept of beauty in our society.”

Brewer’s bill comes just a few days after Assemb. Jose Rivera (D-Bronx) introduced a bill in Albany to create statewide nutrition standards for actors and models under age 18.

Last month, the Council of Fashion Designers of America, a Manhattan-based trade group, issued guidelines about maintaining a healthy body weight and providing healthy food for models backstage. The guidelines also call on the industry to watch out for models who appear to have an eating disorder, and to refer them for counseling.

While those guidelines are voluntary, Brewer’s bill calls on the Council of Fashion Designers to make them binding for all fashion shows in the city. The biannual Fashion Week starts today and runs through Friday.

And then there’s the N-word . . .

City Neighborhoods Simply Crawling With “Sex Sickos”

They act like being a convicted sex offender is a bad thing:

Nearly a third of the city’s most dangerous sex offenders live within just two blocks of an elementary or middle school — and authorities have no power to make them move farther away, the Daily News has learned.

The sobering findings emerged from the most exhaustive examination ever conducted of the state sex offender registry.

The disturbing report, completed by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn), shows that about 670 of the city’s 2,114 worst sex offenders live within two blocks of a school.

The clusters of sickos grow even larger a few more blocks away.

More than 85% of the city’s Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders — the worst of the worst — live within a quarter-mile of a school, Weiner’s examination found. “Every day my kids when they leave the house I say a little prayer that they won’t cross one of these sex sickos,” Bronx mom Cynthia Hawkins, 35, said as she walked her kids home from Public School 33 in Highbridge.

Anthony Weiner: master of the low-hanging fruit.

And The Ford Foundation Is Named For A Virulent Anti-Semit . . . The Horror!

How many Brooklyn Paper reporters does it take to write a cheap and easy gotcha piece? Three:

The future home for the Brooklyn Nets will be emblazoned with the corporate logo of a British bank that was founded on the slave trade, collaborated with the Nazis and did business with South Africa’s apartheid government.

Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner announced his mega-deal with Barclays Bank on Thursday — but critics slammed the developer for plastering the controversial bank’s name atop the arena after having courted African-American support for his mega-development.

. . .

At a press conference at the Brooklyn Museum on Thursday, Mayor Bloomberg joined Ratner and Barclays CEO Bob Diamond to officially announce the deal.

When a Brooklyn Paper reporter asked Diamond about his company’s historic connection to the slave trade and apartheid, Bloomberg jumped in and, answering for Diamond, said: “Barclays is a great corporation. We could not have picked a better one. Barclays is as good as we could have found.”

He added that Barclays and Ratner would work together to rebuild basketball courts all over Brooklyn — and then abruptly closed the press conference without allowing follow-up questions, or even letting Diamond answer the original question.

There Oughta Be A Law . . . Or At Least A Resolution Calling For A Symbolic Moratorium

When you get 51 people together, more than a few dumb ideas will slip through:

Democrat Leroy Comrie is so disgusted by the rampant use of the racial epithet that he has submitted a resolution to the Council calling for the “symbolic moratorium on the use of the N-word in New York City.”

“Stop using the N-word,” Comrie (D-Jamaica) demanded yesterday. “It’s racist, it’s negative, it’s demeaning. It boils my blood, the usage, even in a personal tone between people.”

Comrie said the resolution will be formally introduced to the Council Feb. 1, the first day of Black History Month.

“The timing is right,” he said. “Monday is Martin Luther King’s birthday. February is Black History Month.”

The widespread use of the N-word gained considerable attention last year during the hate-crime trial of Nicholas (Fat Nick) Minucci.

Minucci claimed he used the slur as a friendly greeting before beating a black man with a baseball bat in Howard Beach in 2005. He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Beyond the issues of the scrupulously precise wording (if this were an actual law, wouldn’t you have to write out what “N-word” you were talking about?) and the murkiness of what a “symbolic” moratorium means (not an actual moratorium?), I have to say that I had absolutely no idea people took offense to this word. Guess you learn something new every day.

Earlier: What Up, My N-Word?

Underground Cell-Phone Reception Overtaken By Technology; Apparently All Of Those Unsightly Towers Are Actually Doing Something!

The question “How are you getting reception in here?” is answered:

Thanks to advancements in cell phone technology and an ever-growing number of cellular towers, New Yorkers are increasingly able to get a signal in the subways even though the system isn’t wired.

“I talk whenever I can,” said Lateik Howard, 23, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, who often uses his phone while in the Jay St. station in downtown Brooklyn. “Cell phones are a necessity now.”

“I never used it in the subway before because I didn’t think I could,” said Vincent Palange, 77, staring with surprise at his working T-Mobile phone on the 66th St. No. 1 platform. “It’s ringing!”

With stations and tunnels that get reception scattered around the city, technology experts believe several conditions are necessary to allow the previously impossible underground phone call.

“The proximity of an antenna and the depth of a station has a lot to do with it,” said Nicole Lee, an associate editor who specializes in cell phones for CNET.com. “Certainly, the closer you are to street level, the better chance you have of getting a signal, especially with a newer phone.”

A number of subway lines, particularly the 2/3 line along the upper West Side into Brooklyn and the 4/5 along the upper East Side, can support a signal from the platform, and for a short time — up to 30 seconds, the Daily News found — in train tunnels.

And if you thought Rep. Weiner couldn’t possibly find some way to grandstand in this piece, you underestimate his special ability to do so:

Many straphangers and pols have pushed for the enhanced service so riders can call 911.

“Without emergency cell service, you can’t say something if you see something,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn, Queens).

Nice work!