In the wake of the recent high profile assaults of hotel maids, hotels are handing out panic buttons to their employees in an effort to keep them safe from maniac members of the public. Now, The Pierre is taking it one step further, by training its maids in self-defense. But are they being lulled into a false sense of security? Let's examine, via the NY Post report on the self-defense class:
Bars exist for people to hang out with their friends, watch the game, unwind, and maybe play a game of pool or pick up a bit of strange for the evening. What bars are not for are all your silly games that are not only annoying, but dangerous. People are getting sued!
Gay New Yorkers can now get married. That's great news, of course, but let's not forget that there is no bigger logistical or etiquette nightmare on this planet than planning a wedding. Since the traditional roles for a male-female wedding go out the window for gay nuptials, here are some ground rules an suggestions to get you started.
Thomas Dunikowski of Marine Park, Brooklyn, has become a folk hero of sorts among the "I really loved that movie Falling Down" demographic for leaning out of his window with a rifle and opening fire on a group of rowdy teenagers who were raising a ruckus outside his house. (See "purported" video of the shooting here.) Completely unnecessary! It is, in fact, possible to deal with the depths of teen awfulness without resorting to gunshots.
Unemployment is falling in half the country, but not the most important half: Wall Street. There, the beleaguered derivative-shufflers are facing a third straight month of rising unemployment. Literally thousands of former bankers are now wandering our city's streets, driftless. How will they adjust to life in the post-banker world?
Ah, the luxuries of life in a world with more media outlets than ever. A world where any ambitious young aspiring journalist can... move to New York, and work for a blog. Hmm.
Perhaps you think of yourself as a "rational investor," and you're not normally "the type" to make major investment decisions based on the shrill urgings of a pop culture internet blog. Until now. Sell your gold! It's not too late!
If you're a fugitive, it's probably in your best interests to keep that a secret from people you encounter. Like Richard R. Vermalyea, 32, of Rehoboth, Delaware, who kept the two warrants out for his arrest a secret when he checked in to the Traveler's Motel in Delmar, Maryland. Unfortunately for Vermalyea, however, his secret did not last for very long. Because his neighbors "heard a man yelling during a phone conversation that there was a warrant for his arrest and called police."
Ed Schultz, the fake, lefty Rush Limbaugh whom MSNBC trots out for an hour each night to botch debased versions of Democratic talking points, had some nasty words for right-wing babbler Laura Ingraham on his radio show yesterday. While Ingraham is certainly an unsavory character, did Schultz really need to resort to the descriptor "slut," twice, over some ephemeral Obama-drinks-beer-in-Ireland nontroversy?
Remember Lena Chen? She was big on the internet a few years back for being a compulsively oversharing sex blogger while she attended Harvard. Anyhow, she graduated, and stopped sex blogging, and we forgot about her. Now she's back! And we're going to use her story as a peg for some completely unsolicited advice-giving.
Air travel in America is becoming increasingly scary, with napping air traffic controllers, First Lady near misses, and so on. Who can we turn to in these trying times? Heh, we should be ashamed for posing such a rhetorical question. The Daily Beast caught up with the only man we need to hear from, Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, to get his thoughts on the crisis gathering in America's skies. Besides the fact that Captain Sully never met a flying schedule he couldn't man up and handle, we learn that proposed cuts in the FAA's budget scare him:
In February, federal agents raided the home of a man in Buffalo (throwing him down the stairs in the process) and arrested him for possession of child pornography. It took three days for the authorities to realize they had the wrong guy: The suspect's neighbor had accessed his unprotected wireless network and used it to share child porn. Something similar happened to a man in Florida last year, and to another man in Syracuse, N.Y. in 2009 (upstate New York agents may want to rethink their process); the point is, password-protect your wireless network, because your neighbor is probably a pedophile. [AP]
Georgia father Eugene Ashley pleaded guilty this week to tattooing his three-year-old son with the initials "DB"—short for "Daddy's Boy." Really, dude? "DB"? You couldn't have come up with something better than that?
As part of our ongoing attempt to help our readers navigate the lonely, terrifying modern world, we offer this advice: If you are arrested for driving while intoxicated, do not bring "a bag full of beer" to your court hearing. This is what Keith Gruber, 49, of Swan Lake, N.Y., did on Monday; the judge at the hearing was not pleased, and threw Gruber in jail without bail. But we may all learn from Gruber's unfortunate experience, and take the following advice:
