When Was The Last Time You Did Anything Really Really Useful?

Few people, especially ad people, get to use their skills this way:

“I was trying to think what I could do,” Kay recalled Monday. “One thing I know how to do is advertising.”

On 9/12, Kay was in his Manhattan office, asking himself the same question he and his colleagues did at the start of a big Honda campaign or when conceiving a Xerox commercial for the Super Bowl.

. . .

He recalled a famous phrase from World War II.

“‘Loose lips sink ships’ spread across the country,” he said. “If I could come up with a 21st century version of that …”

He again considered what would be the best message in this new war.

“What really do I want to say?” he asked himself. “I want to say, ‘People, be alert.'”

As always, the idea just popped into his head. He wrote it down on one of the 3X5 cards he keeps handy for when inspiration strikes.

“IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING.”

. . .

His agency had done business with the MTA, and he figured this would be a perfect way to spread the message. He picked up the phone.

“Very shortly thereafter it was in the subway and buses and trains,” he said.

The phrase kept spreading over the years, generating 159 million mentions on Google, imprinting itself on the psyches of even more individuals.

Those individuals included Orton, who was selling T-shirts on W. 45th St. Saturday evening when he saw something in the form of a suspiciously parked SUV emitting acrid smoke. He immediately said something to the mounted cop he saw nearby, Police Officer Wayne Rhatigan.

Now That The Storyline Is Intact, We Can Make It Look Like 24 Again

Now that it’s clear that the mayor was wrong (and our apologies to the governor for doubting his national security intelligence credentials), and that this was Full-Fledged Terrorism With International Links!, it’s important to raise the stakes again — try freaking the fuck out of everyone for no fucking reason, to start:

The car bomb planted in Times Square came within a “millisecond” of causing “mass casualties” with a 30-foot high fireball, an explosives expert said.

Kevin Barry, a retired NYPD bomb squad supervisor and the head of the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators, painted a gruesome picture of what might have been if the bomb had gone off Saturday night.

“Several hundred” could have been killed or maimed by a fireball exploding from the Nissan Pathfinder found loaded down with firecrackers, fertilizer, gasoline, propane and alarm clocks.

A “millisecond”?

Arizonans Will Read This And Think New York Taxpayers Are All A Bunch Of Suckers

The government of Mexico is outsourcing the education of its citizens to the CUNY system:

New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn has launched a free pilot program that aims to get Mexican restaurant workers to go back to school, even if they’re undocumented.

“For me, it’s going to open a lot of doors,” said Salvador, a 45-year-old busboy from Mexico City who illegally moved to the city nine years ago.

. . .

The first class at the CUNY branch started in February. It gives bussers, line cooks and other restaurant staffers — some of whom dropped out decades ago — 15 weeks of hospitality management training combined with English and math.

. . .

Students end up with a City Tech certificate that’s also recognized in Mexico. CUNY officials said the program, funded by a $100,000 grant from the Mexican government, is likely the first of its kind in the country.

Though many city agencies, such as public schools and hospitals, are required to provide services for immigrants regardless of status, the CUNY program goes further and actively courts even illegal immigrants.

More Daily News articles like this and we’ll probably get the same kind of wack legislation the Arizona State Legislature likes to try . . .

We Are All Seattle Now

If by “Seattle” you mean spend more on a cup of coffee than you would for a cocktail:

At $12 a cup, the coffee at Cafe Grumpy makes Starbucks seem like a bargain brew.

Made from handpicked beans grown and coddled in Ethiopia, the pricey grind will be sold starting today at the chain’s locations in Park Slope and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and Chelsea.

“There are flavors you would expect in a really nice glass of wine — it’s a cacophony of nuances,” said Steve Holt, vice president of Ninety Plus Coffee, the company distributing the beans.

“You detect flavors of apricot, pineapple, bergamot, kiwi and lime. The deeper tones are levels of chocolate, and the finish is super clean.”

Just don’t ask for cream and sugar.

Say Something, See Something In The Daily News About What You Said

The great thing about free speech is that you can be held accountable for stuff you had no connection with later on:

A Queens Islamic group that warned the creators of “South Park” of retaliation for lampooning the Prophet Muhammed denied involvement Sunday in the Times Square bomb plot.

Younus Abdullah Muhammed, who runs the Web site RevolutionMuslim.com, said he was in Times Square at the time the car bomb was discovered, but he insisted he was not involved in the botched bombing.

“What do you think, I commanded somebody to blow up a building in the middle of Times Square?” a testy Muhammed told the Daily News.

NYPD detectives are looking into whether the attempted bombing is linked to a warning issued last month by the Revolution Muslim group against the Comedy Central animators.