Definitely a New York moment... Walked out the front door of my froggy hotel this afternoon on the way to the theater, and witnessed an assault in progress just off the curb. Some guy in a suit was reaching in the driver's window of a taxi, apparently trying to strangle the driver, who was leaned back sideways in the front seat trying to kick the guy away with both feet. I watched for a few minutes, and figured out the attacker was the driver of a black Suburban private car (limo) stopped behind the taxi. Never did figure out what caused the fracas, although the way the vehicles were stopped the taxi might have cut the other guy off. As I left he was straightening his tie out and starting to load baggage in back for passengers he was picking up at the next hotel up the street. And directly across the street was the home of the NYC Bar Association. Guess neither of them was going to need a lawyer, though, as no cops showed up. Or maybe none were called.
So I walked on down the street. A block away is an IRS office with a big electronic sign counting up the national debt (which is about to roll over to $10 trillion, exceeding the capacity of the sign. A tourist couple were standing across the street, enjoying dirty-water hotdogs from a cart, and I heard the guy say to his (presumed) wife, "I don't know why they don't have the mint just print up enough money to pay it off." With that kind of grasp of economics among the masses, is it any wonder they relected a dweeb who promised to run endless wars while cutting taxes? Or that the dollar is heading down the sewer?
On my last two trips here, I wandered into a huge street celebration in Times Square of Kosovo's declaration of independence, then a pretty ugly counter-demonstration by Serbs against that independence. Today they had a couple blocks of Broadway blocked off for a protest of the Turkish slaughter of Armenians back before WW I, calling for a recognition of it as genocide, something both the US and UK governments refuse to do in deference to their alliance with Turkey. Wonder who will be marching the next time I visit...
Ah, the pure joy of the Big Apple - *always* something going on...
Enjoy your trip!
Posted by: C Velo | April 28, 2008 at 11:35 PM