Now If We Could Just Do Something About Tony Avella, Too

It almost makes up for his shameful sucking up to Scientologists . . . a firm stand to finally take care of our geese problem:

Geese have a new enemy: embattled state Sen. Hiram Monserrate.

The Queens Democrat and Sen. Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn) called on the Port Authority Monday to completely eradicate the threat of geese at area airports. The birds were blamed for last week’s US Airways crash.

The lawmakers said they would introduce legislation to force the PA to act if it doesn’t do so voluntarily.

Can I Quota You On That?

I don’t get it — there isn’t some meaningless resolution they need to debate instead? We have not just one but actually a second useful bit of legislation in the last month or so:

City Council member Simcha Felder, D-Brooklyn, wants traffic agents to grant drivers a five-minute grace period after a muni meter’s expired or alternate-side parking rules have taken effect.

“Tickets should be issued to encourage compliance, not to rake in bucks,” Felder said yesterday.

“People shouldn’t feel there’s a vulture waiting to give them a ticket the second they’re in violation. Agents are ticketing people exactly on the dot — that’s unacceptable.”

Felder’s proposal, which he called the “Gotcha bill,” could pass quickly: “I haven’t found one elected official that’s not in support of this,” he said.

2009 Shaping Up To Be Year Of The Slacker

From Rochester to Riverhead, ne’er do wells rejoice:

Gov. David A. Paterson will propose that private employers be required to offer health insurance to workers’ dependents who are ages 19 to 29, part of what the administration hopes will be a step toward universal health care coverage in New York.

Mr. Paterson plans to call for the legislation during his State of the State address on Wednesday afternoon.

“This year, we will take another important step as we move toward increasing access to coverage for all New Yorkers,” Mr. Paterson said in a written statement on Tuesday.

Currently, employers are not required to offer health insurance to dependents who are older than 18 or, if they are in college, 22.

The proposal would amount to a wide expansion of coverage to some 800,000 people 19 to 29 years old who are uninsured. And it ties into a continuing initiative by Mr. Paterson, who is asking the State Legislature to approve deep cuts in spending this year, to enhance the kinds of social safety nets that are overwhelmed during an economic downturn.

My Mouse Soldiers — They Move

The one thing you want to avoid saying is “we want the attention,” and that could be either because you aren’t worthy of the attention and it looks lame to say you “want” it or because what you have is really actually pretty great and then once you finally get the attention you probably won’t want hundreds of gawkers clogging your street each December. But that said, we should definitely check this out:

Dyker Heights, where elaborate Christmas decorations have become as much a holiday tradition as a trip to Mona Lisa bakery, has a new rival in the borough.

Tired of playing second fiddle, a growing group of Bensonhurst residents are making a run on tinsel in a bid to be crowned the new kings of Christmas.

“We got the nutcrackers, we got the soldiers on the pedestal, the carousel, the Wonder Wheel and the musical Christmas tree,” said 82nd St. resident Debra Schempp, all in one breath. “I got my elves with the reindeers, my mouse soldiers — they move — and I got my nutcrackers and I got those new lights that came out this year that go with music, and the ceramic pieces with the Santa on the sled.

“I mean, we got everything they got in Dyker Heights but none of the attention,” added Schempp, who said several other neighbors on her block have been decorating for more than a decade. “We want the attention.”

See also: Dyker Heights Christmas Lights.

[Thx, 8.]

Fatima, Lourdes . . . Jamaica, Queens?

And somewhat more elegant than the usual cheese-on-toast type of sighting:

To most people, the purple flower that sprouted between two concrete slabs in a Queens backyard would be just a hardy vestige of summer.

Sam Lal sees something more.

The Jamaica man is convinced the mysterious blossom is an incarnation of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh — and neighbors and friends are flocking to see it.

The nearly 4-foot-tall flower grew in June and began to resemble an elephant’s head and trunk in August. Lal said that the ailments that had plagued him for months disappeared.

“This formation came to heal my illness,” the 60-year-old Hindu man said of his relief from pain due to a bone spur near his spine and bulging discs in his neck.

“They say God comes in many forms. I figure this has taken the form of a plant to come into my yard to bless me,” said Lal, who immigrated from Guyana three decades ago.

Experts at the Queens Botanical Garden identified the plant as a member of the amaranth family, which is native to Africa, India and southern Central America but not the U.S. Horticulturalists at the garden have never seen an amaranth take an elephant-like shape, garden spokesman Tim Heimerle said.

“For it to have that long trunk like this is not a natural thing,” he said.

Lal believes the flower’s position — growing through concrete, facing a garage he converted to a prayer space — is evidence of a connection to Ganesh, revered as the Remover of Obstacles.