The Son Of God Is The Son Of Sam And Dave*

Sometimes it seems like the world needs electroshock therapy. First the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, now Son of Sam as a religious figure:

At first, MaryAnn explains, David was not a person for her but a number. “The Lord had given me, shot into my spirit and I could never shake it, the number 44,” she explains. Years before she met David, she’d even named her dog 44. “Periodically I would get the number 444, which was like the perfection of the number.” MaryAnn didn’t understand at first, but later the meaning became crystal clear. She says, “It was the identification of David Berkowitz.” Initially, the press called him the “.44-Caliber Killer,” because his six murders were committed with a .44-caliber pistol. Then two years ago, she ran into a guy she knew at the local Shop Rite, a Christian like her. They started talking, and soon he invited her to visit David in prison.

“When David walked in [to the visitors’ room], I knew,” she tells me. . . . “There’s nobody bigger than this guy. Oh, my God, this guy is an apostle of the Lord.”

. . .

Son of Sam was sentenced to 365 years in prison, which should have kept him out of the public consciousness for several lifetimes. But in prison, an amazing thing happened. The infamous serial killer became a holy man, holier because of his evil past. He’s now at the center of a growing Christian mission. His humility, his piety, his charitable, Christlike heart inspire Christians around the world — one African is even named after Son of Sam. (He’s Kwaku Berkowitz.) Fellow Christians overwhelm him with letters. They pray for him and crave his advice, his spiritual insight, his fatherly guidance. He produces videotapes and journals, gives interviews to Christian radio shows. David — he hates the words “Son of Sam” — works as a pastor, walking the prison halls with a Gideons Bible and a calling from God. He’s battling Satan, he says, his old friend. And David is sure Satan’s afraid of him, because David knows all his tricks. The monster who terrorized New York is now apparently on the road to redemption. “I’m heaven-bound and shouting victory,” he tells Christian audiences.

*And the soundtrack plays “Hold On, I’m Comin'”. Ba-dum dum.

Close Race

The primary in New York’s 11th Congressional District is a dead heat just days before the election:

The results of the poll, first reported by Daily News political columnist Ben Smith on his blog yesterday, show City Council members Yvette Clarke (D-Flatbush) and David Yassky (D-Brooklyn Heights) with 20% of the vote each.

State Sen. Carl Andrews (D-Crown Heights) and Chris Owens, son of retiring incumbent Major Owens, both got 19% of the vote in the survey conducted by pollster Tom Kiley and paid for by a private company.

That leaves 22% of voters undecided in the splintered race for the 11th Congressional District, which includes Crown Heights, Flatbush and parts of Park Slope.

Mastering the obvious:

“It means that nobody has yet cracked through, and they only have a few days to do it,” said political observer Hank Sheinkopf, adding, “The undecideds will decide this race.

Backstory: Score One For Opportunism; The Post Oppo Research Machine Chugs Along; See, The Thing Is Was, Senior Year Was Just Such A Blur For Me . . .; Excitement!; Well, That’s A Relief!; Pay To Campaign!; Recipe For Hitting The Front Page Of The Sunday Times: Just Add Sharpton; You Know You’ve Jumped The Shark When . . .; Unite To Stop White Individuals!; The Sad Thing Is That It Was Probably A Carefully Crafted Statement; How Do We Put This? Let’s Just Say Identity Politics Still Exists . . .; Barack Obama: Some Guy They Stuck In There; Nothing Against Your Policies, It’s Just The Color Of Your Skin.

At Least They Held Back From Flinging The Tea Sandwiches*

This is what you get when you appear at an event with a candidate a week before the primary:

Mayor Bloomberg threw some kind words yesterday toward congressional hopeful David Yassky — but they were easily the nicest things hurled about.

The news conference at Wyckoff Gardens in Brooklyn was interrupted by heckling, some cursing and a flying, circular object that landed near Bloomberg.

It was a doughnut.

Chocolate glazed.

Harmless as it was, it did cause Bloomberg’s gal pal, state Banking Superintendent Diana Taylor, to run for cover.

“Just another reason why we need cameras,” Bloomberg quipped. “All right, let’s focus back here.”

The purpose of the news conference was to announce that the city Housing Authority property was going to get security cameras, thanks in large part to Yassky, the Brooklyn councilman who is running in a nasty four-way primary for the Democratic nomination to succeed retiring Rep. Major Owens.

Although Bloomberg isn’t officially endorsing any of the candidates, he did take the time yesterday to praise Yassky as someone who “worked very hard for the city” and tries to “make life better in this city.”

But the unruly crowd, which included supporters of other candidates, did their best to ruin the visit.

I Can’t Believe I Ate The Whole Thing: Score One For Opportunism; The Post Oppo Research Machine Chugs Along; See, The Thing Is Was, Senior Year Was Just Such A Blur For Me . . .; Excitement!; Well, That’s A Relief!; Pay To Campaign!; Recipe For Hitting The Front Page Of The Sunday Times: Just Add Sharpton; You Know You’ve Jumped The Shark When . . .; Unite To Stop White Individuals!; The Sad Thing Is That It Was Probably A Carefully Crafted Statement; How Do We Put This? Let’s Just Say Identity Politics Still Exists . . .; Barack Obama: Some Guy They Stuck In There; Nothing Against Your Policies, It’s Just The Color Of Your Skin.

*Believe me, I tried.

The Only Things More Phallic Than The Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower Are Headlines In The Brooklyn Papers

Leave it to the Brooklyn Papers to make dick jokes out of the latest Atlantic Yards news — “Size matters; State not discussing Atlantic Yards shrinkage with Bruce Ratner”:

State officials moved swiftly last week to deny they were negotiating behind the scenes with Bruce Ratner to decrease the size of his Atlantic Yards mega-development.

After the New York Sun reported on Tuesday that the Empire State Development Corporation had discussed “a reduction in the size of the project” with Ratner, ESDC blasted the report as untrue.

“ESDC has not been in discussion with Forest City Ratner about reducing the size of the project,” spokeswoman Jessica Copen told The Brooklyn Papers.

But the agency is under pressure — even from the project’s loudest supporters — to scale back Atlantic Yards.

At last week’s public hearing, Borough President Markowitz — the official perhaps most identified by his support of Atlantic Yards — told ESDC that it needed to “get real” about the impacts of the $4.2-billion, 16-tower, arena, hotel, residential and commercial development slated for the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues. “This project needs to be reduced.”

Fellow supporter, Assemblyman Roger Green (D-Fort Greene), went further, calling a 30- to 40-percent reduction in scale “a moral imperative.”

The state’s own draft environmental impact statement outlined numerous “significant” adverse effects, including increased traffic, more-crowded subways, long shadows, and the need for a new school to handle thousands of Yards kids.

After all is said and done, Gersh explains how this could all happen . . . and you do realize that this whole thing has probably been one big negotiating ploy, right? Er, suck on that . . .

Location Scout: Atlantic Yards.

The Iraq War As A Distraction . . . From The Battle Of Brooklyn

Perhaps I dismissed too hastily the power of Jack Murtha’s endorsement. I had no idea that the main issue for voters in the 11th Congressional District is the war in Iraq*. And the candidates are now tripping over themselves to prove that they’re more antiwar than the competition:

For the four Democrats running for Congress in central Brooklyn, there may be differing views on a host of subjects. But on one topic there is strong agreement: They all contend that the United States’ military involvement in Iraq is a bad thing and that the troops should be pulled out as soon as possible.

All the candidates contend that the war is an issue that could energize voters to support them. But with their unanimous opposition to the war, the candidates find themselves trying to outdo each other in fashioning themselves as the antiwar candidate in what has become the city’s most fiercely contested, unpredictable primary battle.

One candidate, Chris Owens, has recorded an antiwar song that he is trying to get radio stations to play. Another, City Councilwoman Yvette D. Clarke, trotted out an icon of the antiwar movement, Representative John P. Murtha, to appeal for votes in brownstone Brooklyn yesterday.

The 11th Congressional District includes neighborhoods like Park Slope and Prospect Heights, hotbeds of antagonism toward the Bush administration. And the candidates say these are areas where voter turnout is expected to be higher than in the rest of the district, and where the issue of Iraq looms large.

So each of the candidates has been looking for attention-worthy methods of playing the Iraq card. Those methods range from the traditional to the highly unconventional.

. . .

For his part, the younger Mr. Owens is not content to confine his outspoken opposition to the war to position papers on the Internet or mailings to voters. The song he composed and recorded, “Love Is the Way,” was originally written as a protest tune during the administration of President Ronald Reagan. But Mr. Owens has refashioned the tune in a fusion of Middle Eastern and reggae styles with lyrics demanding that President Bush withdraw the troops from Iraq.

Mr. Owens said that he was trying to get the song played “in stations that focus on young people,” adding that it could motivate younger voters to go to the polls for the Sept. 12 Democratic primary (the song opens with Mr. Owens, the lead vocalist on the recording, identifying himself).

. . .

For Mr. Yassky, the issue has been the centerpiece of three of his many mailings to voters. One piece states: “The best way to honor our troops is to bring them home.” “I have strong feeling about this war,” Mr. Yassky said yesterday. “But I must say, I haven’t recorded a song yet.”

You can download Chris Owens’ “Love Is The Way” by visiting his website.

*By the way, is there anyone in the country who wants more war in Iraq? And wouldn’t this have been a more substantive issue in, say, 2002?