We Look Forward To Hearing The Testimony Of Both Sides

The proposal to ban the “b-word” (you know which one) is facing fierce opposition in some quarters:

The New York City Council, which drew national headlines when it passed a symbolic citywide ban earlier this year on the use of the so-called n-word, has turned its linguistic (and legislative) lance toward a different slur: bitch.

The term is hateful and deeply sexist, said Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, who has introduced a measure against the word, saying it creates “a paradigm of shame and indignity” for all women.

But conversations over the last week indicate that the “b-word” (as it is referred to in the legislation) enjoys a surprisingly strong currency — and even some defenders — among many New Yorkers.

. . .

While the bill also bans the slang word “ho,” the b-word appears to have acquired more shades of meaning among various groups, ranging from a term of camaraderie to, in a gerund form, an expression of emphatic approval. Ms. Mealy acknowledged that the measure was unenforceable, but she argued that it would carry symbolic power against the pejorative uses of the word. Even so, a number of New Yorkers said they were taken aback by the idea of prohibiting a term that they not only use, but do so with relish and affection.

“Half my conversation would be gone,” said Michael Musto, the Village Voice columnist, whom a reporter encountered on his bicycle on Sunday night on the corner of Seventh Avenue South and Christopher Street. Mr. Musto, widely known for his coverage of celebrity gossip, dismissed the idea as absurd.

“On the downtown club scene,” he said, munching on an apple, the two terms are often used as terms of endearment. “We divest any negative implication from the word and toss it around with love.”

Darris James, 31, an architect from Brooklyn who was outside the Duplex, a piano bar in the West Village, on Sunday night was similarly opposed. “Hell, if I can’t say bitch, I wouldn’t be able to call half my friends.”

. . .

“I think it’s a description that is used insouciantly in the fashion industry,” said Hamish Bowles, the European editor at large of Vogue, as he ordered a sushi special at the Condé Nast cafeteria last week. “It would only be used in the fashion world with a sense of high irony and camp.”

Mr. Bowles, in salmon seersucker and a purple polo, appeared amused by the Council measure. “It’s very ‘Paris Is Burning,’ isn’t it?” he asked, referring to the film that captured the 1980s drag queen scene in New York.

When You Lie Down With Joe Francis You Wake Up With Fleas

Because of course everybody loves firefighters:

Fire officials poured water yesterday on the wildly popular calendar featuring the department’s hunkiest hunks after a video featuring this cover boy waving his God-given hose began making the rounds of gay porn sites.

“We will no longer be participating in this. There will be no more calendars,” said FDNY spokesman Francis Gribbon.

The embarrassing video of 22-year-old firefighter Michael Biserta of Brooklyn’s Ladder Co. 131 and his enormous member is featured in the 2004 Joe Francis-produced DVD “Guys Gone Wild.”

. . .

In the clip, the female camera operators goad Biserta to show them his fire pole. When they ask him to dance for them or get up on the bed, he refuses, but does agree to get in the hotel room’s shower in the nude.

Officials said Biserta won’t be disciplined because the video was made before he was hired. But officials at the department’s fund-raising arm — the FDNY Foundation — said the decision to cancel the calendar was a huge disappointment, because at $15.99 a pop, it brought in on average $150,000 a year for them.

That’s Just Sic

David Chase has a lot to answer for:

He wrote them threatening letters, telling them to stuff a paper bag with $10,000 worth of twenties and fifties and drop it off in a secluded area of Clove Lakes Park.

If they didn’t do as he said, their jewelry stores would be damaged and their families would face the consequences, he wrote.

He signed the letters, “Cosa Nostra.”

The extortionist, police say, was not some mobster or wannabe tough guy.

Instead, they say he was a teen-ager from Sunnyside. The 15-year-old Sunnyside boy allegedly wrote extortion letters to nine jewelry stores, demanding the stores’ owners leave $10,000 in a brown paper bag in Clove Lakes Park or face the consequences, according to authorities. His name is being withheld because of his age.

One letter, sent to Buono Jewelers on Hylan Boulevard in Grasmere last Friday, instructed the owner to drop the cash behind “a rowboat half buried verticaly (sic) opposite the entrance to the lake club” at 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

“If Law Enforcement is notified or intervines (sic) with the exchange you can be sure that not just your store will be harmed but also your family,” the teen allegedly wrote. “If you wish that no damage or harm come to your store or family you will pay.”

But when he showed up at the park, the teen found a paper bag filled with nothing but paper — and the police, waiting for him, according to law enforcement sources.

“I thought it was a joke, and I just handed it to the Police Department,” said the owner of Buono, who spoke on condition of anonymity, saying that he has been robbed in the past and doesn’t want to speak publicly.

The letter arrived in the mail Friday, he said. ‘The letter came, ‘To the owner.’ It wasn’t addressed to anybody,” he said. “The wording was all misspelled.”

The Thing About Traffic Is, It’s Just Sooo Boring

The problem with perseverating on traffic issues is that you have to start seriously considering other mitigation schemes — even if they don’t come with a giant pot of money:

Mayor Bloomberg, who once insisted the proposed Cross Harbor Tunnel would “destroy neighborhoods,” said yesterday he would be willing to take another look at the plan.

Bloomberg told U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a proponent of the tunnel, that he and Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff would meet with him to discuss the plan — which would connect Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island with the national railroad freight network.

“I’m not so sure he’s wrong,” Bloomberg said after being quizzed by Nadler during a speech to the New York Building Congress. “It’s not the worst idea. It has some problems and who knows?”

The mayor’s comments came as a surprise to members of a Queens community group who had hailed him as a hero during Bloomberg’s 2005 reelection campaign when he declared, “We should not build this tunnel.”

Go Ahead, Ask Him About Any Celebrity’s Ankles — He Knows Them All

Allowing the Times to interview the guy who cleans coins out of all the fountains on the premises must seemed like a good idea at the time to to the Met’s press department:

In the hour before the museum opened the other day, [Metropolitan Museum of Art employee David Mendez] filled about a third of a large white bucket. As he worked he talked about everything from the 40th president (a hero of Mr. Mendez’s whom he calls “Mr. Reagan”) to the museum’s director, Philippe de Montebello (“I love the way he talks. He just knows how to say whatever he’s saying.”).

He talked about V.I.P.’s who have visited the Met in the 19 years he has worked there, including Queen Sofía of Spain.

“Mrs. Juan Carlos,” he called her, referring to the king. “She had super-thick ankles. He was so tall and handsome, and she was so petite. I guess it was an arranged marriage. You know how those things are.”

Other quirky (museum) jobs that are probably just quirky jobs include.