Mall Strike!
For years I’ve wanted to picket a shopping mall. Low wages, tacky store names urban sprawl and poor design are the crimes that leap immediately to mind. Add union-busting to the mix. At the Simon mall chain, which owns the Walt Whitman, Smith Haven, Source and Roosevelt Field malls here on Long Island, the employees of the firms that are subcontracted to clean the malls are members of the janitors union, Local 32BJ – all except for the food court cleaners. Now they too are organizing to join the union and are facing the typical barrage of threats, harassment and intimidation. The federal government’s National Labor Relations Board has ruled that management’s activities are illegal Unfair Labor Practices, and on Friday the union will stage a one day strike to protest this illegal activity.
There will be a rally on Friday the 15th at 5:30 PM at the mall entrance at 630 Old Country Road in Garden City (right off the Meadowbrook Parkway). I’ll be there with bells on.
Things Overheard on the First Day of College
1. “Dude, our dorm is, like, the loudest dorm on campus. We were playing Blink 182 really loud all night long.”
2. “Excuse me. Can you tell me where room L77 is?”
3. “So, my mom called me this morning at, like, a quarter to seven, and she’s like, ‘I just want to know how your first day of school was,’ and I was like, ‘Mom, give me some space.'” (Whining italicized.)
4. “Is room L77 in the basement?”
5. “They’re selling dorm posters by the bus stop. I got this cool ‘Scarface’ poster.” “Cool.”
6. “Are you looking for room L77, too?”
7. “Cute shoes. Are you a biology major?”
8. “If we can’t find room L77, does that mean that class is cancelled?”
More Notoriety
You can’t even pump your gas in this town without people interviewing you for a newspaper article (See next to last paragraph).
A YELLOW LIGHT FOR POLICE’S RACE PLAN
Experts and LI drivers say Suffolk police should proceed with caution in project to record race of those stopped for traffic violations
BY JENNIFER MALONEY
Newsday Staff Writer
July 12, 2006
Law enforcement experts and Suffolk residents reacted with skepticism yesterday to the Suffolk police department’s plan to gather data as a check against racial profiling.
The opinions came a day after Suffolk police said they are recording the race of drivers stopped on the Long Island Expressway and Sunrise Highway for routine traffic violations in an effort to document if cops are profiling residents by race. The department, which began the initiative about two months ago and will continue for the next six to 12 months, hopes the data gathered will help prove that Suffolk officers don’t give tickets more often to members of a particular race.
But many drivers interviewed yesterday objected to the method of gathering the data — and particularly to the fact that officers note the drivers’ race without consulting them.
“They’re assuming the race,” said Erica Lopez, 23, of Huntington Station. “What if I’m Italian? What if I’m black? That’s not going to get anything except some statistics that prove nothing.”
Peter Moskos, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the data gathered will be meaningless unless it is compared with statistics on how often different races commit traffic violations.
In New Jersey, a similar project showed that more blacks were pulled over for speeding than other races, he said. But an academic study later showed that blacks there were more likely to speed, he said.
“If it’s skewed, you need someone else to figure out if that’s justified or not, because it might be,” Moskos said.
Suffolk police spokesman Tim Motz said the department will consider “all potential statistical variables” when it analyzes the data. “It’s a very complex issue. They’re looking at everything.”
Motz did not say whether the department has access to statistics on how often different races commit traffic violations.
While many Suffolk drivers agreed yesterday that racial profiling occurs, some said gathering data on race will only exacerbate the problem.
“So they’re going to conduct racial profiling to test how much racial profiling they do?” said Shaun Richman, 27, a Queens resident who commutes to Hauppauge.
Others applauded the department’s effort. “I think it’s proactive,” said Marie Orlando, 43, of Brightwaters. “It’s not like they’re ignoring it.”
Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman
Given my relentless campaign to promote “the Q” (that’s the totally rad nickname that all the hipsters will soon be calling my neighborhood, Kew Gardens), I was delighted to find that Hollywood produces blocked off much of the intersection of Austin St. and Lefferts Blvd. this past weekend to shoot scenes for Spiderman 3 (there’s already a teaser trailer, even though the movie won’t be out until next summer).
Hopefully, Spidey will swing past the Kew Gardens Cinema slowly enough for viewers to admire the fine selection of independent and art house flicks being offered, grab a knosh from Baker’s Dozen (which Alan Amalgamated promotes as “Scrumptious Bagels” – oh, yeah, he’s on “the Q” team!) and land for a slice at Dani’s House of Pizza. That way, next summer, throngs of movie fans will swarm to “the Q,” and raise the property value of my own real estate empire. Muahahaha!
At the very least, the movie will be a slightly less unsavory claim to fame for Austin and Lefferts than being the spot where Kitty Genovese was murdered.