Important news: Jim Rendon, Williamsburg, Toddlertown, N.Y. Times, Jan. 21, 2011, at RE1.
Families are discovering that Williamsburg is much more than a playground for the postcollege, skinny-jeans set.
“You can go out in the neighborhood on a Friday night and feel sexy and single-ish,” Ms. Liebman says with a laugh. “And then wake up next morning with the kid and take him to the farmers’ market and the play center.”
Mayor John V. Lindsay walked along Jewel Avenue in Queens on Feb. 11, 1969, after a blizzard prompted loud criticism of his administration.
Forty years ago this week, a snowstorm struck New York City, eventually killing 42 people — half of them in Queens — and injuring 288 others. The blizzard prompted a political crisis that became legendary in the annals of municipal politics, nearly brought down the administration of Mayor John V. Lindsay and offered an instructive lesson to elected officials in the politics of snow removal.
Noah Rosenberg, City Will Require Police to Report on School Arrests, N.Y. Times, Dec. 21, 2010, at A30.
The New York City Council voted on Monday to require the Police and Education Departments to produce regular reports on arrests, summonses and suspensions of public school students, a victory for civil liberties advocates who say that the school police have sometimes been too aggressive in trying to keep order.
The measure, which was introduced in August 2008, was approved unanimously after compromises were made to satisfy the police and education officials….
Jennifer Medina, Los Angeles Schools to Seek Sponsors, Dec. 16, 2010, at A22.
The football field at a public school here, in the second largest school district in the country, soon may be brought to students by Nike.
Facing another potential round of huge budget cuts, the Los Angeles school board unanimously approved a plan on Tuesday night to allow the district to seek corporate sponsorships as a way to get money to the schools.
A rendering of a park centered on Noah’s ark, seen below in a 19th-century woodcut, planned for Grant County, Ky. Besides the ark, it would include a Tower of Babel, a first-century village and a journey through the Old Testament.
Laurie Goodstein, In Kentucky, Noah’s Ark Theme Park Is Planned, N.Y. Times, Dec. 5, 2010, at A15.
Facing a rising tide of joblessness, the governor of Kentucky has found one solution: build an ark.
The state has promised generous tax incentives to a group of entrepreneurs who plan to construct a full-size replica of Noah’s ark, load it with animals and actors, and make it the centerpiece of a Bible-based tourist attraction called Ark Encounter.
… The developers of Ark Encounter, who have incorporated as a profit-making company, say they expect to spend $150 million, employ 900 people and attract 1.6 million visitors from around the world in the first year. With the Creation Museum only 45 miles away, they envision a Christian tourism corridor that would draw busloads from churches and Christian schools for two- and three-day visits.
The New York Times has published another editorial again criticizing the Israeli government’s settlement policy in East Jerusalem. (Editorial, Mr. Obama and Israel, New York Times, Mar. 27, 2010, at A18). Somewhat more substantive than many of the articles to appear over the past two weeks (which refer to mainly the new settlement construction announced that “embarrassed Mr. Biden and complicated efforts to restart peace negotiations” as “an affront,” “an insult” and so on) with the online counterpart to the print edition carrying this map showing just how serious the settlement issue is:
The New York Times has run a story on CUNY School of Law’s proposed move from Flushing, Queens to Long Island City, Queens. Ferd A. Bernstein, Some At CUNY Law School Question Cost of a Move, N.Y. Times, Mar. 22, 2010, at A21:
The City University of New York School of Law trains students to be public interest lawyers — the kind who battle bureaucracies and fight injustice.
But now, some of its teachers and students are taking aim at their own administration. At issue is the school’s plan to move from its current home, a former junior high school in Flushing, Queens, to a newer, sleeker building in Long Island City that Citigroup completed in 2007.
Dean Michelle Anderson wrote a public response for alumni addressing CUNY Law’s mission and the new space, the cost, and other advantages of the 2 Court Square location.
William Glaberson has another article in today’s New York Times on the upcoming class action lawsuit at the Court of Appeals arguing against New york state to overhaul its indigent defense system (William Glaberson, The Right to Counsel, N.Y. Times, Mar. 21, 2010, at LI1). Today’s piece is the “story of this one defendant and her public defender, assembled through interviews and court records. . . about a woman who was barely making it before the legal system helped shove her off track.”
The juvenile incarceration system is wrecked, and there are no easy solutions. An excerpt from this morning’s New York Times:
Standing to address Judge Daniel Turbow in Family Court in Brooklyn, a city prosecutor confidently listed the reasons why the 16-year-old boy in the courtroom should be sent upstate to a juvenile prison.
He was a member of the Bloods, the prosecutor said, and he later joined another gang. He was arrested once for grand larceny and twice for assault. He went to school drunk and spat on the dean of students.
“He admits to going out to Bergen Beach to rob people,” the prosecutor continued, as the courtroom fell silent. “He stated that this is the way that he gets his money.”
Judge Turbow, looking anguished, was still reluctant to issue the harshest penalty: sending the teenager to a juvenile prison run by the state.
There was an editorial in this morning’s New York Times that reminded me of a lecture I wanted to attend the other day put on by Professors Frank Deale and Steve Zeidman on Pottawattamie County v. McGhee, Docket No.: 08-1065 (argued Wednesday, November 4, 2009), a case now before the Supreme Court on prosecutorial misconduct. The title of the editorial piqued my interest: “Are You or Have You Ever Been a Lawyer?” Liz Cheney and now Sen. Chuck Grassley and others are trying to make an issue of current Justice Dep’t employees who represented detainees at Guantanamo prior to being appointed to DOJ.
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