Rat sighting #1 of 2006, scowling woman in black leather, Central Park West at night, Joe Lieberman and George Bush's NSA defeat, Red Sox at The Riviera, Think Outside The Bronx
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I SAW MY FIRST RAT LAST NIGHT - on my fourth full day in New York. The place? 53rd & 7th. B train uptown. The time? 6:45 PM.
To see my first rat two years ago, took six weeks, last year a couple of weeks, and now it has happened in a mere four days. Maybe because I am now filled with an ABUNDANCE OF SENSITIVITY, like the RIAA, I notice things in a different way. This rat seemed gentle and delicate, exuding an ABUNDANCE OF SENSITIVITY. In fact, had not the B train been so slow in arriving, I think this rat with an AOS, would not have reared her sensitive brown head at all and stayed out of the view of us commuters.
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I got to play in the West 80's and Columbus neighborhood last night. Our excellent waitress knew my friend's husband - that small world thing again.
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I was most fortunate to get to walk home last night from West 86th along Central Park West to Columbus Circle and then home to 51st, a perfect walk on a perfect evening. I got lapped by a small dog, almost hit by a kid skateboarding off of the steps of the American Museum of Natural History (here's a beautiful north-looking view), witnessed a bad fight between two lovers (she was so mad at him and he would not lose his cool), a cab driver trying to get a guy in a Lincoln to get out of his car so he could hit him - he wanted to do this IN the Columbus Circle rotary - usually these people just beep and swear, but this was a STEROID-IC type of male thing going on. I also got to see happy people leaving The Color Purple on Broadway.
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Before my walk home, we got to walk through a big movie set on West 85th. There was a beautful scowling skinny twenty-something actress/model in her important "action on the set" chair in lots of very shiny black leather sitting on the sidewalk reading a fashion magazine. I thought she make for a perfect Cat Woman. I knew better than to talk to her or interrupt the crew many of whom were distributing guacamole on their break. Bright lights, scowling leather chic chick, guacamole, West 85th late at night, grips gaffers. best boys, best girls, scowling chick (did I mention that there was a scowling chick on the set and that she wore black leather?)...... Imagine her looking like this only with black hair, much more black leather, a scowling expression and a fashion magazine. Even the crew was afraid of her.
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RED SOX YANKEES 5-games-in-4-days showdown begins today with a doubleheader in God's Park (AKA Fenway Park) in Boston. Unfortunately, I still do not have TV so I will have to go to one of those SAFEHOUSES today to see my Red Sox play at 1 PM and later for the second game. The best of the CULT BARS/RED SOX BARS/SAFEHOUSES iin Manhattan is the Riviera by Sheridan Square but another good one is 212-Boston at 1009 2nd Ave. bet. 53rd and 54th Sts. They've got an excellent slogan:
THINK OUTSIDE THE BRONX!
I need to add that I have no fear about being a Boston fan in NYC as I wear Boston and Red Sox and Patriots and Celtics and Cambridge stuff everyday here. By SAFEHOUSES I simply mean a place where the most intelligent fans (the non-Yankees fan) can get together away from the foolish masses (the NY Yankees fans).
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OF COURSE I WOULD BE REMISS IF IF I DID NOT PRAISE THE TALENTED AND BRILLIANT Judge Anna Diggs Taylor who ruled that....
"the National Security Agency's program to wiretap the international communications of some Americans without a court warrant violated the Constitution, and...ordered it shut down."
The ruling was the first judicial assessment of the Bush administration's arguments in defense of the surveillance program, which has provoked fierce legal and political debate since it was disclosed last December. But the issue is far from settled, with the Justice Department filing an immediate appeal and succeeding in allowing the wiretapping to continue for the time being.
In a sweeping decision that drew on history, the constitutional separation of powers and the Bill of Rights, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of United States District Court in Detroit rejected almost every administration argument.
Judge Taylor ruled that the program violated both the Fourth Amendment and a 1978 law that requires warrants from a secret court for intelligence wiretaps involving people in the United States. She rejected the administration's repeated assertions that a 2001 Congressional authorization and the president's constitutional authority allowed the program.
IN JUDGE TAYLOR'S WORDS:
"It was never the intent of the framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly when his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights. The three separate branches of government were developed as a check and balance for one another."
OF COURSE MANY REPUBLICANS and Joe Lieberman SOON condemned her for being an Islamic fascist and said that they would abandon any abundance of sensitivity to her ruling and appeal her terrorist-comforting decision.
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