Why I’m Not Running For Dog Catcher

All the broken dreams fit to print. The paper of slackerdom. The Times seems to be the place where you announce you’re not going to do something — three and it’s a trend! First Bloomberg’s Why I’m Not Running For President, then Wiener’s Why I’m Not Running For Mayor and now Harold Ford, Jr.’s Why I’m Not Running For the Senate.

It’s always about being better able to “focus on the issues,” by the way.

Not Just A Job, It’s An Entire Language, Too

And now you know some of what they’re saying:

Cop-speak is a point of pride among officers, a key element of NYPD style and, as is particularly true of numeric “radio codes,” a way for cops to communicate so civilians won’t understand.

For outsiders, “a lot of it goes over your head or you don’t pick up the nuances or in-between meanings,” Bosak said, “but guys on ‘The Job’ pick up on it right away and understand.”

The radio command “10-4,” meaning “acknowledged,” has established itself in the vocabularies of many civilians. Others, not so much — like “10-98” (back on patrol), “10-30” (robbery in progress) and the urgent “10-13” (officer needs assistance).

Then there’s the favorite, “I’m going 63.” It’s short for “10-63” — a meal break. “That’s the most popular — they gotta eat well,” a retired officer said.

Trees: The Gift Down Below

Not only do trees kill but they slowly wreak havoc on our infrastructure as well:

The devastation tree roots can have on sewer pipes is another problem.

“The older sewer connections were put together with cement, and the tree roots penetrate the connections. It happens frequently,” said John Figliolia, president of the New York Association of Water and Sewer Excavators. “You’re talking thousands and thousands of dollars.”

“No way would I want a tree planted in front of my property,” said Steven Kogel of Harris Watermain and Sewer Contractors in East New York, Brooklyn. “As a master plumber, I know what a tree can do to the sewer and the sidewalk. It’s a mess.”

And when there’s a tree in front of a house and the sewer pipes have to be changed, the contractor must take out a Parks Department permit and hire an arborist who will oversee the excavation and installation of the sewer, said Kogel. “The job, which would take two days, takes twice as long.”

The city is responsible for any trip-and-fall cases involving tree roots in front of a three-family home or smaller. The city Law Department said it had to pay out $39 million in judgments and settlements last year for cases involving sidewalk defects.

Don’t You Always Sneer At The People Who Use The Grandstand At A Parade?

If there’s one thing New Yorkers seem to like, it’s parades. Now Bloomberg wants to save $3.1 million — $3.1 million! — out of a $60 billion budget! — by mandating that they end earlier:

On Monday, the department announced that starting on April 1, the city’s parades must cut the distances they cover by 25 percent — and also not be more than five hours long. The scaled-down celebrations will cost $3.1 million less for police presence, the department said, and will help it avoid cuts in “essential police services,” like investigating crime and terrorism threats.

. . .

Several city officials, however, said cuts to parades made sense, given the dire financial times.

Deputy Mayor Edward Skyler noted that his boss, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, said that New Yorkers could not afford a tax increase and that “we can’t take our eyes off the ball when it comes to keeping crime low.”

He added that whittling the size and duration of parades was preferable to downsizing the Police Department.

Another Mystery Solved!

Apparently they don’t just use the hot dog water as someone might have told you one time or another:

Health inspectors, cracking down on unattended vendor carts across the city, revoked his permit last week when a bathroom emergency forced him to leave his stand in lower Manhattan.

“Everybody has to go sometimes,” [Nuts 4 Nuts vendor Shiraj] Islam, 42, who had been a fixture near J&R Music World, told The Post.

“Now, I am losing a lot of money. I have a wife and four children, and I have been sick.”

Leaving a food cart unattended — even for a minute — is a violation of revised city health codes that went into effect Jan. 1, sparking the crackdown.

. . .

Under the law, street-sold hot dogs, pretzels and nuts become “imminent health hazards” the moment the carts are abandoned because the food could be contaminated.

Normally, Islam would have a friend watch the cart during the one or two bathroom breaks he took each day, but since he was diagnosed with a tumor on his colon, the frequency of his trips to the toilet have increased.

Islam’s cart is dropped off each day two blocks away from the electronics and music store on Park Row, but the veteran vendor said that on that day, as he went to haul it to its usual spot in front of the shop, he knew after walking 10 feet that he wasn’t going to make it without a pit stop.

“My stomach was feeling very bad,” he said. “I went into a pizza place on Fulton Street where they know me, but there was a line.”

Islam said he waited and used the restroom, but “when I returned [to the cart] 15 minutes later, the decal [permit] was gone.”

See also: Food Carts, Nuts 4 Nuts.