Leave Columbine To The Disaffected Psychopathic Teenagers . . .

. . . because after a certain point in your life, people start to treat such references as “terroristic threats”:

A Brooklyn teacher was arrested Friday after bragging about a Columbine-style plan to bring in a shotgun and “settle some scores,” sources said.

. . .

“This woman talked about pulling a Columbine and we take these threats very seriously,” a police source said, referring to the 1999 Colorado school massacre that left 13 dead.

“She made terroristic threats.”

About Those Ballfields They Promised . . .

The Times’ Corey Kilgannon notes that the ballfields that were to have replaced the ones that were razed to make way for the New Yankee Stadium are still unfinished, five years after the fact:

On Thursday, the New York Yankees begin their regular season at Yankee Stadium, a gleaming $1.5 billion behemoth that opened in the Bronx in 2009 as the new home of one of the richest franchises in sports.

But next to the stadium is a lingering eyesore — a protracted construction project that was supposed to have been transformed into three public ball fields months ahead of opening day. Instead, some coaches and neighborhood residents say, it remains a joyless Mudville.

Location Scout: Yankee Stadium.

Holi Moly

Cops shut down the yearly Holi festival in Richmond Hill on the grounds that “you can’t have powder”:

For some 25 years, Hindus in Richmond Hill have held a parade to celebrate the ancient religious holiday Holi — the Festival of Colors. Participants traditionally throw colored powder at one another, but Sunday cops seized loads of the powder from paradegoers. “They walked around and started grabbing from anyone they saw,” said parade organizer Vishnu Mahadeo, 50, president of the Richmond Hill Economic Development Council. “They said the law said you can’t have powder.”

More detail: “Phagwah parade,” Queens Courier, March 22, 2011.

See also: “The Problem With Community Boards”.

Location Scout: Phagwah Parade.

When In Doubt, Blame The Speechwriter

Sure, it’s always the speechwriter:

“Frank,” he called out to his speechwriter, Frank Barry. “I hope this speech goes better than the one you wrote for me at the Irish Historical Society. I mean really, what were you thinking?”

The throng of Irish leaders who had gathered to start off the St. Patrick’s Day celebration laughed. The mayor appeared to have tamed the mini-tempest that threatened to hang over the day: the bad joke he made last month about seeing “totally inebriated” Irish people hanging out a window at past parades.

But even on an unusually lovely afternoon, lingering touchiness over the gibe followed Mr. Bloomberg along the Fifth Avenue parade route like a stubborn storm cloud, showing itself in occasional comments from the stands, lusty boos shouted from windows and a handmade sign held up a block from St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

“Bloomberg … You’re a Drunk!” it read.

Those Who Can’t Lead Preach

And those who can’t lead also go for low-hanging fruit and crap on sad-sack towns like Buffalo:

“There’s an awful lot of free space up in Buffalo, New York, if you want to go there,” Hizzoner told a housing conference on Wednesday. “I don’t think you do.”

Bloomberg’s poke in Buffalo’s eye prompted a furious reaction from Byron Brown, the Democratic mayor of that cold but proud metropolis.

“When I heard those comments I was p—-ed,” Brown said. “It was a cheap shot. And thinking about those comments, listening to them two hours later, I’m still p—-ed off.”