Everything You Thought Was For Your Protection Actually Just Makes It Worse

Great, now you tell us:

The concrete and metal barriers put up outside buildings in Manhattan deemed possible terrorist targets after Sept. 11 are being removed.

Counterterrorism experts said the planters and traffic medians known as jersey barriers caused pedestrian traffic problems, were in some cases never really needed and could shatter into dangerous flying debris through an explosion in others.

Barriers have been removed at 30 of some 50 to 70 skyscrapers, office buildings and museums, a Transportation Department spokeswoman confirmed last night. [Emph. added because what the fuck!?]

Next you’ll tell us that Operation Hercules is a bad idea because it leaves vulnerable too many police officers in one place . . .

Graduation And Retention Rates Or . . . Affirmative Action For Italian-American Staffers?

More than 60 years after Little Flower left office, Italian-Americans are still shockingly underrepresented in the CUNY system:

As Columbus Day approaches, a number of prominent Italian-Americans are expressing concern that the City University of New York has a vendetta against them.

Nearly 30 years after that ethnic group was included in CUNY’s affirmative action program, Italian-Americans still face discrimination there, according to a university-commissioned report.

A three-member panel appointed by CUNY officials and the Calandra Italian American Institute determined there has been no significant progress in boosting the proportion of Italian-Americans in CUNY’s faculty and staff since 1977. The figure that year was slightly more than 6%. The panel’s report found that number largely unchanged today.

“One would have to say it’s disappointing, considering that Italian-Americans have been identified as an affirmative action group,” said panel member Richard Alba, a sociology teacher at SUNY-Albany.

The panel report was mandated by a 1999 settlement of a landmark class-action civil rights suit filed by Bronx native Joseph Scelsa, former head of the Calandra Institute, which was named after the late Bronx state Senator John Calandra.

Local leaders in the Italian-American community are blasting CUNY over the report.

“It has been 30 years of affirmative ‘inaction’ against Italian-Americans,” said Bronx Columbus Day Parade Committee member Jay Savino.

Is part of the reason CUNY supposedly sucks so bad that they’re dithering over affirmative action for Italian-Americans?

Two Terms You Wouldn’t Expect To Find In Proximity To One Another Are “Brooklyn” And “Wildlife Poachers” But There They Are

Poachers are stealing Brooklyn’s wild parrots:

Who is bird-napping Brooklyn’s wild monk parrots?

The many who dislike the colorful birds might not care — but Max Ovadia of Midwood does.

Ovadia believes parrot poachers have been loose in the Brooklyn wild late at night.

“We heard them squawking,” he said. “At night, that’s not normal.”

Around midnight one day last month, Ovadia said, he saw a man with a huge net on a 25-foot pole. Accompanied by two teenagers, the suspected poacher even had pole extensions to reach high nests, he said.

The trapping of wild animals, including monk parrots, is illegal without a license.

Ovadia said he scared off the poachers twice, but the nests the parrots called home are now empty. “Only sparrows are going in there,” he said.

. . .

The story of Brooklyn’s monk parrots has come full circle. Native to South America, the first birds were trapped to be brought north as pets.

But many of the original birds were either let loose by pet owners who no longer wanted them or, as legend has it, escaped from a broken container at Kennedy airport in the 1970s.

Large colonies of the birds now live on the walled Brooklyn College campus and Green-Wood Cemetery, where they are protected.

Not all borough residents are thrilled. Homeowners have complained the birds are loud and dirty.

You Saw The Concert, Now Buy The Tour Shirt

Take a stand on the issue of economically unsustainable benefits packages for the working man and, oh yeah, support Roger Toussaint’s TWU Local 100 reelection campaign by purchasing official Roger Toussaint transit strike merchandise:

Roger Toussaint’s reelection campaign is hawking $2 signed photos of the Transport Workers Union Local 100 president from the union’s big battle with the MTA.

One photo shows Toussaint at a rally and one shows him leading a march across the Brooklyn Bridge as he headed to jail for leading the three-day December walkout.

A third simply shows an empty bus shelter with a “TWU on Strike” sign.

The photos are going for $2 each, or three for $5. The campaign — through the Web site www.rogertoussaintvictory2006 — also is selling T-shirts. They bear the inscription, “It’s About Respect. NYC Transit Strike 2005.”

“There is a market out there for mementos or memorabilia from the strike,” Toussaint said. “After all, the strike was historic, there’s no doubt about it.”

That market goes beyond transit workers because, he said, the union took a stand to protect pension and health benefits, which resonates with all workers.

. . .

Token booth clerk Gloria Browne, however, said she just might buy a few T-shirts for family members, and a Toussaint photograph for herself. The T-shirts are selling for $17.50.

How could they not mention the Livestrong-esque Transit Strike bracelets which are also on sale? Sweet!

Not To Sound Too Skeptical, But Name The Last Nasal-Voiced, Short, Jewish Mayor Unaffiliated With Any Political Party To Become President . . .

Bloomberg ’08 passes an important, important first hurdle — apropos of nothing in particular, somehow convincing the Observer editorial board to print a fawning endorsement of a bizarre pipe dream to see Hizzoner in the White House*:

When Mike Bloomberg came into office in January 2002, downtown New York was in ruins, and the city’s financial and emotional health were precarious at best. Mr. Bloomberg, new to the business of governing, immediately grasped what needed to be done. He came to grips with the city’s finances, made public education his personal crusade, vowed to build on the anti-crime successes of his predecessor, and reached out to New Yorkers in all five boroughs.

. . .

He has presided over the transformation of the New York Police Department into a world-class counterintelligence agency. Amazingly, even as that transformation has taken place, the NYPD continues to win the battle against more conventional street crime.

That is a record that commands attention. That is the record of a Presidential contender.

. . .

As a businessman, Mr. Bloomberg simply went out and did what he had to do. And he succeeded.

As a Presidential candidate, he has a chance to do the same. He ought to think about it.

Here’s a wonderful possibility: Mr. Bloomberg runs as an independent, Mr. Giuliani wins the Republican nomination, and Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee. Can he beat those two in a three-way race? You bet he can.

No country in the world deserves that last part.

*Is this an example of New Yorkers being incredibly insular or just shamelessly, totally un-self-aware?