Wednesday, February 5, 2014

In The News

• Mayor de Blasio won’t march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, because it bars pro-gay messages. But he won’t stop uniformed city workers from marching. [Politicker]

• Four people were arrested with more than 350 bags of heroin in connection with Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death, the authorities said. [New York Times]

• Police are investigating the death of a 2-year-old girl in Far Rockaway. [New York Post]

NY Times

48 comments:

Michael Haz said...

@Eric The Fruit Bat:

Just did 120 squats. Awaiting assistance so I can get out of this chair.

chickelit said...

Heartbreaking news in the third story. Some close friends of ours have been fostering two little brothers from abusive birth parents. They hope to adopt but the State is not on their side and they may lose them.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

(1) Good Lord, man! That's a great many squats.

Congratulations are in order.

(2) I can't imagine that the Ancient Order of Hibernians is all broken up over the mayor's high principles.

(3) I should think that a heroin overdose is one of the more painless ways to go.

None of us might be so lucky.

(4) You know what I hear is pretty good for muscle cramps? Heroin.

The Dude said...

It's a great cough suppressant too.

deborah said...

Last night at cards my niece was bemoaning Hoffman's loss. Yes, it's sad, but I said I feel more sorry for his kids. And she said yes, but she will miss all the great movies we'll miss out on, and that he's a superb actor. I don't think I've ever seen one of his movies (though I've been wanting to see Doubt). So now I think I'll ask my son to have a Hoffman film festival...Capote, Doubt, and Moneyball.

Michael Haz said...

It's a great cough suppressant too.


Dead men don't cough.

Amartel said...

deborah, try "Almost Famous". He's got a bit part that's the most memorable thing in the movie which is saying something since the movie also features Frances McDormand who's one of my faves.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Dead men don't cough, true, but they can still act in movies.

Philip Symour Hoffman would be a shoe in to get the lead if they ever do a remake of Weekend at Bernie's.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Too soon?

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I mean, come on, the guy's already embalmed.

Think of all the money they'll save on makeup alone.

Michael Haz said...

"And with Phillip Seymour Hoffman as 'The Stiff'"

chickelit said...

A really dark movie about unexplained addiction starring PSH is Love Liza.

Shouting Thomas said...

The Needle and the Damage Done.

deborah said...

"Dead men don't cough."

Sounds like a title from a Fifties Detective Book Club novel.

deborah said...

Thanks, Armatel and chick, will look into those also.

ricpic said...

DeBlasio can count. The number of Irish-American New Yorkers is much reduced compared to what it was before the massive white ethnics outmigration to the suburbs and to other states. On the other hand if the Puerto Rican Parade excluded gay groups DeBlasio wouldn't dare vacate his place in the first row of marchers.

Michael Haz said...

I don't know anything about heroin addiction, other than what my neighbor the MD told me. And that is that heroin causes parts of the brain to get unwired such that thereafter heroin is the only jumper cable that can make the brain function sorta normally.

But then the wires get farther and farther apart, so more and more heroin is needed, until the body dies from the amount of heroin used.

And addiction begins with the first use, period.

I do not understand why anyone would try this.

chickelit said...

Keith Richards:

I have no clear recollection of the first time I had heroin. It was probably slipped in with a line of coke, in a speedball -- a mixture of coke and smack. If you were around people who were used to doing that in one line, you didn't know. You found out later on.
'That was very interesting last night. What was that? Oh.'
That's how it creeps up on you. Because you don't remember. That's the whole point of it. It's suddenly there.


"Life" p. 259

The Dude said...

Clapton, Keef, Ray Charles back in the day - now those were guys who could handle their heroin. Not like kids these days - feh!

Amartel said...

It is astounding that Keef can still form thoughts into sentences. I saw a documentary once where he was mumbling away in the control room at a studio and Jagger comes in, interrupts the mumbling and just takes over.
However, in fairness, apparently Hoffman got a "hot shot" (either pure heroin or heroin mixed with some agent that somehow increases the effects of the heroin).

ndspinelli said...

Keith Richards was a rarity, a self disciplined, smart junkie. He always knew what he was getting. He only snorted clinical Merck cocaine. With heroin, he saw people who ODed were always trying to get higher, which doesn't happen. You just OD or pass out. Richards was meticulous in his dosage.

ndspinelli said...

PSH junk was reportedly lasced w/ Fentanyl a powerful clinical painkiller.

chickelit said...

He only snorted clinical Merck cocaine.

What about his dad?

Trooper York said...

I don't really feel sorry for junkies. Whitney Houston. The Glee mo. This Truman Capote guy. You took the needle and put it in your arm.

chickelit said...

@Nick: I suspect that Richards learned some tricks of the trade from W.S. Burroughs when they met up in Tangier.

Trooper York said...

de Blasio is on a mission to disenfranchise and drive middle class white ethnic New Yorkers out of the City. Along with Governor Andy Cuomo he has explicitly stated this.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio emphatically backed New Governor Andrew Cuomo’s controversial remarks that “extreme” conservatives – which he defined as being pro-life, second amendment advocates, or supporters of traditional marriage – “have no place in the state of New York.”

“I stand by that 100 percent,” de Blasio told reporters at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

“I agree with Governor Cuomo’s remarks. I interpret his remarks to say that an extremist attitude that continues the reality of violence in our communities or an extremist attitude that denies the rights of women does not represent the views of New York State,” he added.


The people he are talking about are white ethnic Catholics. The type of people who march in the parade.

Trooper York said...

You see NYC took the needle and put it in it's arm.

We know how that is going to end.

Winter is here.

Trooper York said...

Here's the thing.

If the cops rousted know junkies like they did in this case they would arrest dudes with 350 bags of smack everyday and twice on Sundays.

But that is not the priority. Drugs is big business. And if you think people are not getting paid off to look the other way you are smoking something.

chickelit said...

@Trooper: Where de Blasio and Cuomo are clearly wrong is to label pro-life, second amendment advocates, and supporters of traditional marriage as extremists. It's the kind of hubris that one wants to see rewarded with failure and/o Schadenfreude.

Shouting Thomas said...

Wild Horses Couldn't Drag Me Away.

Take your choice.

Stones

Or

Susan Boyle

Amartel said...

ndspinelli said "Keith Richards was a rarity, a self disciplined, smart junkie."

That's one of the stories that Keith repeats. You have accepted it as fact and there may even be factual elements to it. He may think about his doseage and plan around increasing his addiction. That's not going to stop a hot shot, though. He has no idea how he got hooked in the first place and suspects it was someone slipping it into his coke. Someone could just as easily have slipped him a hot shot.

deborah said...

Nick
"PSH junk was reportedly lasced w/ Fentanyl a powerful clinical painkiller."

I heard it was medical cocaine mixed with a chemotherapy drug. Labeled.

Amartel said...

Trooper said "But that is not the priority. Drugs is big business."

This whole "War on Drugs" thing is just a side show. There's no political will to "win" it. Kind of like there's no political will to control illegal immigration, become energy independent (fracking), decrease government waste, cut back the scope of government, use military victories to attain foreign policy goals, and do a lot of other things that would benefit regular Americans (but cost the political classes and their cronies).

Chip Ahoy said...

I am very impressed with your squats achievement.

Who was counting?

Were some partial squat?

Are you holding onto anything?

You just gave me something to prove. This is going to change my life!

Trooper York said...

Big deal Haz.

I squatted about 180 times today.

Of course I had Mexican food last night so it doesn't count.

Michael Haz said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael Haz said...


Squats.

I did three different foot positions.

feet pointed ahead, shoulder width apart, 20 reps x 2 sets.

Feet pointed ahead and wide apart, 20 reps x 2 sets.

Legs spread far apart, feet pointed at 45 degrees, 20 reps x 2 sets.

Body weight only. I had a trainer check and correct my form a couple of weeks ago so that I don't damage my back. Essentially, begin by sticking your butt out, then squat. Don't cup your back. Knees should not be forward of your toes. I honed this technique by practicing facing a wall or the back of a sofa. Toes against the wall or sofa, squat, knees should not touch the wall or sofa if you're technique is correct.

I do my own counting. It's only up to twenty per set, but I can handle it even though I went to public high school and university.

Take a 30 second rest between sets, less if you can handle it.

The Dude said...

It works better with about 600 pounds on your back. The counting is simpler, too.

YoungHegelian said...

@TY,

It is simply amazing how ugly Cuomo's speech & DeBlasio's doubling down on its sentiments are. While many of us here & at TOP have our tendencies to conservative pearl-clutching, that a speech like this would have been made by the Governor of the second most populous state in the Union, and seconded by the mayor of the most populous city is truly frightening. It simply reeks of totalitarian thinking. "There are people among us, many of them, who do not have the right thoughts. They are no longer welcome among us."

This will not end well. For New York state or for the country.

Trooper York said...

It is never good to push people into a corner.

rcocean said...

"While many of us here & at TOP have our tendencies to conservative pearl-clutching,"

Really? Who are are "us"? And you are female, right?

Icepick said...

I did five squats this morning. Then had to sit on the floor with my daughter for Story Time at the library. Not a good idea!

Icepick said...

Yes, I suspect my technique sucked. I mean, I'm in horrible shape, but still.

Also, I can't believe people here aren't all over the Zimmerman/DMX story. But then, I was in a very small minority of people that thought that Zimmerman shouldn't have been charged in the first place, but that he was STILL a knucklehead.

chickelit said...

When is the fight and where?

Trooper York said...

That is just more of the racial circus that morons enjoy. I mean what does it prove?

That case that Legal Insurrection is following is a lot more interesting. That dude that shot those kids in the gas station is obviously a maniac and it looks like the judge is trying to save his ass.

It looks like Florida's courts are even more fucked up than NY. I didn't think that was possible.

rcocean said...

George Zimmerman needs to go into a hole somewhere.

Icepick said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Icepick said...

Chick, they haven't set a venue or date yet, at least not when I saw the story on CNN earlier today.

(At the time it was their second story behind the Philip Seymour Hoffman death. They have covered that more than pretty much every other story combined since it happens. I guess the folks in Atlanta were really pissed off about the Falcons season, and are pretending that the season was long over. Hell, who watches the Super Bowl anyway?)

Anyway, the Celebrity Boxing promoter is behind it. So it must be true! Anyway, I don't think it will happen. I have no idea if DMX knows how to throw a punch or not, but Zimmerman's skills aren't. His MMA trainer pretty much called him worthless as a fighter.

It looks like Florida's courts are even more fucked up than NY. I didn't think that was possible.

Back in the late 1980s, the state of Florida decided that it needed a new slogan to get people to vacation in Florida. They came up with this beauty:

Florida: The Rules Are Different Here!

This was during the last days of the cocaine cowboys, and when Florida was almost as famous for serial killers as it was for orange juice. The campaign didn't really take off, but it did give people something to mock for a couple of years.