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Icky.
Parents who are afraid of vaccinations are apparently making deals with like-minded parents who "mail them lollipops licked by children with chickenpox," according to the Daily News. The idea is that the uninfected kid will lick the lollipop and get pox on his or her own schedule. But there are some problems: Aside from the fact that this is idiotic (not to mention a waste of perfectly good lollipops), it's also illegal.
Pumped that his accuser didn't get specific.
After days of anticipation, one of Herman Cain's accusers has, with the blessing of the National Restaurant Association, finally released a statement through her lawyer. Here it is, in full:
In 1999 I was retained by a female employee of the National Restaurant Association concerning several instances of sexual harassment by the then CEO.
She made a complaint in good faith about a series of inappropriate behaviors and unwanted advances from the CEO.
James Murdoch.
A man believed to be Jamie Pyatt, the district editor of the Murdoch-owned tabloid The Sun, was arrested today outside of London "in connection with allegations of corruption," according to the police, and is suspected of making illegal payments to cops. His arrest marks the first in Scotland Yard's police corruption investigation outside of the company's News of the World tabloid, which was closed this summer in a dramatic attempt to minimize the ripples of the News Corp. phone-hacking scandal. As the New York Times reports, Pyatt worked at The Sun for more than two decades and never worked at the News of the World, but mounting evidence indicates that The Sun might have been involved in some phone hacking of their own. James Murdoch, Rupert's son and the head of News International, will surely tell us all about it when he appears before Parliament next week.
Journalist’s Arrest Spreads Scandal to 2nd British Newspaper [NYT]
Related: Elisabeth of the Murdochs [NYM]
No more .org for the protest movement: They've ponied up the money to buy occupywallstreet.net from a domain squatter who snapped it up in late September. (Dot.com was way too pricey.) "We would hesitate to use the term branding, necessarily, because of the corporate connotations to that," OWS-er Jake DeGroot told the WSJ, "but there are advantages to the identity of the movement. It's important that we have a full, robust Web presence and strategy." Sounds like smart branding to us. [Metropolis/WSJ]
Photo: Bill Sullivan
These photos by Bill Sullivan of straphangers at the moment they pass through the subway turnstile are not new, but they are great, and seeing them on Buzzfeed today got us thinking about different turnstile styles. Personally, we typically lead with the front of the thigh, but some people turn a little and use the side of the thigh. Others just use their hand, despite the germ factor, but then again, germs are everywhere. Our philosophy is touch everything, and eventually your immune system will become unbreakable, like Bruce Willis in that movie, Die Hard.
In lieu of bullhorns, the demonstrators down at Occupy Wall Street quickly adapted to using a "human microphone" method of communicating to large groups, in which one speaker's words are repeated back loudly (REPEATED BACK LOUDLY!) by a group so everyone can hear. Nicknamed the "people's mike", it has proven pretty entertaining, but it's also highly effective for interrupting, say, an anti-union politician from the Midwest. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was giving a speech at Chicago's Union League Club yesterday when a group of "covert protesters" in suits from Stand Up! Chicago and the local Occupy contingent started shouting over him, ending with the chant, "Union busting is disgusting." At least on video, the governor becomes very hard to hear.
A homeless man who has been staying Zuccotti Park, Jeremy Clinch, went on what the Post calls a "Godzilla-like rampage" yesterday, meaning he yelled some stuff and then kicked a tent, just like Godzilla. It ended when the relatively burly occupant of said tent emerged and knocked Clinch to the ground.
Incidentally, we talked to Clinch last week for a story on Occupy Wall Street; he's the one who suggested insulating against the cold with a combination of cellophane and newspaper. He was very calm, respectful, and helpful when we spoke to him, so maybe he was just having a bad day yesterday.
Photo: Via Humans of New York
Holly Van Voast, you may remember, is a lady who likes taking off her top in public, and, when arrested for said flashing, proceeded to flash the judge hearing her case. Shy lady!
Despite circulation numbers above their rival New York Post, the Daily News is unleashing a "downsizing" operation today, Capital New York reports, including journalists covering politics, City Hall, and the federal courts, along with Deputy Police Bureau Chief Bob Kappstatter, who has been with the paper for 43 years. [Capital NY]
A single page of Mark Kelly's upcoming book, Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope, is composed of "short sentences and phrases" authored by Gabby Giffords herself. According to the AP, which has a copy of the book already, Giffords proclaims, "I will get stronger. I will return." We'll hear more from her on November 14, when ABC airs Diane Sawyer's interview with Kelly and Giffords, which ABC conservatively predicts will be "simply the most extraordinary story you'll ever hear." [AP, ABC News]
This is not a joke. [Politico]
Yesterday, a lot of people online got a kick out of the little surprise that happens when one types "do a barrel roll" into Google. Whoa, dude! But because this is the Internet, someone is always there to correct minor mistakes: It's really more of an aileron roll. [Reddit]
Bloomberg in some kind of car.
As the City Council considers ending its use of super-sticky stickers on the cars of alternate-side parking violators, Mayor Bloomberg, who probably hasn't had to park a car in the city in three decades, has weighed in firmly on the side of the sticker supporters. “If people are complaining, then we should keep doing it,” Bloomberg reasoned on his weekly radio show this morning. He went on to reference the classic definition of chutzpah:
“I mean-don’t break the law. It’s almost like, you know, you murder your parents and then you say to the judge, ‘But I’m an orphan, you can’t put me in jail.’ Don’t murder your parents, you don’t have, you’re not an orphan, and in this case, don’t break the law you don’t have to worry about it,” Mayor Bloomberg said.
PourMeCoffee tweeted what?
The C.I.A.'s so-called "vengeful librarians" — a secret team of analysts armed with library science degrees and language proficiency — are monitoring social networks daily for useful information. Nearly every day, Barack Obama gets a briefing full of information pulled from Twitter and Facebook. Personally, we might ask for a rundown on what our middle school crush has been up to, but apparently he's getting insight on what the local mood is in certain troubled regions like Pakistan and Yemen (and surely the C.I.A is also tracking people and events a little closer to home).
AP Exclusive: Who’s following you on Twitter or Facebook? Maybe CIA’s ‘vengeful librarians [WP]
News Corporation's voluntary settlement program will begin taking claims today from victims of phone hacking, who could number in the thousands, at the hands of the Murdoch company's since-closed News of the World tabloid. Instead of going to court, the wronged can use the Internet for a "speedy, cost-effective alternative to litigation." It's like a real-life version of making $70 an hour working from home. [Bloomberg]
About a year ago, the legendary image-board 4Chan, most often recognized for its child-porn problem and for spawning the hacker group Anonymous, gave rise to another strange subset: self-proclaimed "bronies" (as in bro plus pony), young male fans of the remake of the little girl's eighties cartoon My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Seriously! Or not. Stinking partly of young men's first attempts at playing with irony, the in-joke has been taken so far — with websites, coast-to-coast meet-ups and conferences, homemade merchandise, and much more — that the media couldn't help but pay attention, garnering the bronies coverage in Wired, the New York Observer, and today, in a straight-faced, mostly context-free article from The Wall Street Journal.
Name: A-Rips, Ripples, or Alice Ripley
Age: Prime
Neighborhood: Long Island City
Occupation: Musician, Tony Award–winning actress, currently appearing in MCC Theater's Wild Animals You Should Know at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.
Who's your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional?
Deborah Harry. She pioneered and fleshed out the concept of the blonde bombshell rocker.
For no particular reason: Larry Taylor with Rick Perry.
Meanwhile, in Texas:
State Rep. Larry Taylor, at a legislative oversight hearing Thursday concerning the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, used the slur “Jew them down” when making the point that it needs to pay claims on time.
"Don't nitpick, don't try to Jew them down," he said, according to the Quorum Report. Taylor, a Republican from Friendswood who is running for a state Senate seat, quickly added, "That's probably a bad term."
The least fun you'll ever have at a fair.
The October employment report is out, and it's ... eh. The economy added a total of 80,000 jobs last month (104,000 in the private sector and -24,000 in the public sector), which is less than economists expected. On the bright-ish side, though, the Labor Department says that 102,000 more jobs were created in August and September than initially estimated. (It's possible that the government may be underestimating the October numbers as well, one economist tells the Times.) Also, the unemployment rate was nudged down from 9.1 percent to 9 percent. But, basically, the recovery continues to proceed very slowly, and might not reach the finish line for a long, long time. It's like a baby crawling its way through a marathon, stopping every so often to take a nap.
Report Shows a Mere 80,000 Jobs Added in U.S. in October [NYT]
Jobs report hints at some improvement [Reuters]
Zafaryab Ali and Peerzada Shah, Pakistani immigrants, tasted their first real New York bagels at Coney Island Bialys and Bagels, the city's oldest Jewish bagel shop, founded by a Polish immigrant in 1920. His grandson, Steve Ross, was nearly forced to close up shop, when Ali and Shah stepped in to take over the failing business, which they plan to keep kosher with some consulting from Ross. Can we get these guys working on some things for the State Department? [NYDN]
