Fleet Week 2012: Coast Guard's staged rescue thrills Staten Islanders

 

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Hundreds gathered yesterday at The Sullivans Pier to tour six powerful warships docked at the former home port for Fleet Week celebrations. But what really caught their attention was a surprise Search And Rescue (S.A.R.) demonstration by the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard executed the drill in New York Harbor to show the crowd what it does best -- rescuing victims at sea. It commenced at 2 p.m., when a Coast Guardsman, playing victim, jumped about 20 feet from a helicopter, treaded water and raised his right hand to signal for help. Another Coast Guardsman, playing rescuer, jumped into the water to secure his comrade. The two were lifted to safety by a rope. Patrick Murphy, 15, of Westerleigh, said he and his family enjoy the Fleet Week festivities each year. The S.A.R. demonstration, however, was a new experience for him. "My favorite part was probably when the guy just fell out of the chopper! At first I was a little confused, but then I realized it was a drill and that it wasn't so serious." Tourists were not the only ones who enjoyed the Coast Guard demonstration. Sailors dressed in their summer whites, black and tans, and Navy working uniforms watched with the crowd, offering details about the operation. Margo Miscatel of Dongan Hills said she was impressed by the sailors' accessibility and knowledge. Staten Island Advance/Irving Silverstein Caitlyn Hearn of Eltingville and Nicole Clark of Grymes Hill learn about the helm of the USS San Jacinto from sailor Isaiah Riddick. "The staff took their time to explain to us what was going on and how the drill worked. I thought it was fantastic. It really shows what they can do and how skilled they are." But fans of Staten Island Fleet Week -- which continues in Stapleton through Tuesday -- almost missed their opportunity to witness a genuine S.A.R. demonstration, which was scheduled for noon. "We delayed due to the cloud coverage. In these situations, the question is always whether the ceiling is safe enough to conduct any demonstration," said Charlie Rowe, a civilian U.S. Coast Guard public affairs officer who helped organize the event. According to the U.S. Navy Staten Island Command Center stationed at the pier, compromised visibility often forces helicopter pilots to hover close over the water's surface. This poses several dangers, requires consulting radar technology and is done only in an actual emergency situation. But by 2 p.m., the skies cleared and the demonstration began. Earlier in the day, Borough President James P. Molinaro hosted a "captain's call" at Borough Hall for the commanders of the four American ships stationed at The Sullivans Pier, including the USS San Jacinto, USS Mitscher, the USS Donald Cook and the USS Gonzalez. "I am pleased to welcome the commanding officers to Staten Island and I would like to express our gratitude to the fine men and women who defend our country and protect the liberties we enjoy. I hope they have a wonderful time as guests in our great city," Molinaro said in a statement. Visitors to The Sullivans Pier can tour the Navy ships from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. today through Tuesday or attend the Annual Splash Music Festival today and tomorrow from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Free tours of the Ships, also including KRI Dewaruci of Indonesia and the Cisne Branco of Brazil, are available today, tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free shuttle transportation from the south parking area, between Edgewater Street and Canal Street, to the front gate is available today, tomorrow and Monday from 12 to 5 p.m.

Rolling Thunder rolls in to commemorate Memorial Day

 

WASHINGTON - It's time to get ready to hear the rumble of Rolling Thunder. Hundreds of thousands of motorcycle riders are converging on D.C. this weekend for their 25th Memorial Day ride. Riders have already begun arriving for the weekend of events to remember prisoners of war and those missing in action. "I have a brother I lost in Vietnam in 1968," says Mark Given, a Desert Storm veteran. He joined Rolling Thunder to make sure the sacrifices of people like his brother are not forgotten - especially on Memorial Day. Given was one of about six riders from Rolling Thunder on Friday morning who laid wreaths at historic Congressional Cemetery in Southeast, paying tribute to the fallen as a bugler played taps. Given's 12-year-old son, Martin, came with him from New Jersey this year. The youngster is named after Given's brother, "I carry his name on for who he was and for serving our country," he says. At the grave of an unknown soldier, Carlos Hollifield says laying a wreath is appropriate. "Our mission is to ensure that in the future we have no unknowns." Hollifield says there are still more than 100,000 Americans from all wars still unaccounted for. "We work to make sure that political leaders and citizens never forget our prisoners of war and our missing in action." The riders also placed a wreath at the gravesite of several War of 1812 veterans. Congressional Cemetery was the first national cemetery established in 1807.

Chernobyl Diaries’ is a disaster of a horror film

 

Poor decisions and bad luck are contingencies of most horror films. Marion Crane decides to take a shower at the Bates Motel. People on Amity Island continue to swim in sharky water. The kids on Elm Street can’t stop falling asleep. All that appears to be motivating anybody in “Chernobyl Diaries” to do anything is paltry screenwriting. Chris and Amanda and Natalie visit Chris’s brother, Paul, in Kiev. The plan is to go to Moscow, but Paul thinks it would be fun to pile inside a stranger’s van and head to the site of a town abandoned after the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in 1986. Movie Review CHERNOBYL DIARIES Directed by: Bradley Parker Written by: Shane Van Dyke, Carey Van Dyke, and Oren Peli Starring: Jonathan Sadowski, Jesse McCartney, Olivia Dudley, and Devin Kelley At: Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs Running time: 88 minutes Rated: R (violence, some bloody images, and pervasive language) There are scraps of interest. Four or five people in the audience might see these guys wandering around big, vacant, Soviet-era structures and wish to quench an urge to watch something by Andrei Tarkovsky. But they won’t say anything because that observation would be more interesting than what they are actually watching. There’s also the matter of style. The movie has been shot with a hand-held camera that suggests that someone in the group is a cinematographer. It looks like the found footage in stuff like “Chronicle” and “Project X” but with reverse shots, shifting point-of-view shots, and competent editing. When three characters find the cellphone of two missing characters, the explanatory video one of them made is actual found footage. We’re supposed to understand this is just nominally creepy camerawork. Anyway, it’s all assembled from a kit. Something is still alive — and it’s not the bear that jogs by them in an empty apartment complex or the dogs that might have ripped up Chris’s leg. The movie wants us to find this frightening, but there’s no suspense, no terrifying images. (There’s no diary, either!) No one runs for dear life. They just inch into one small, dark room after the next. There is a pitiful attempt to bring the nuclearness of things in on the action and a worse attempt to end it all. The plot twist has arthritis. The actors playing the four Americans — Jesse McCartney, Jonathan Sadowski, Olivia Dudley, and Devin Kelley — have natural enough rapport. They could be improvising. So could the two people playing the hippie couple that joins the tour. But the real stars of the movie are the tired devices and plot points. They’re famous, but they’re as old as Betty White: The Guide Is Dead, The Van Won’t Start, Her Shirt Has a Plunging Neckline, Don’t Go in There. That last one doesn’t happen for us this time. It’s more like: Please. Go in there. We want to go home.

Lolo Jones and Tim Tebow: Match made in heaven?

 

U. S. Olympics track and field star Lolo Jones said she is looking for a special bond, and cleared up her status on Twitter in March. According to the Sporting News, she wrote, "Yes I'm a virgin. #1 reason why I'm single bc guys deuce out when I won't put out. I do so to honor God & future husband." Jones will compete in the women's 100-meter hurdles. She called herself a “professional shoplifter” by the time she was in sixth grade. She said she took frozen dinners for her family, and she lived in the basement of a Salvation Army for a time, according to USA Today. HBO's "Real Sports" with Bryant Gumbel reported that the 29-year-old said she has tried dating services and Twitter to find a prospective boyfriend. She said it’s been difficult maintaining her virginity until marriage. Jones said, according to the Los Angeles Times, "If there are virgins out there, I'm going to let them know, it's the hardest thing I've ever done in my life — harder than training for the Olympics and graduating from college.” "I've had guys tell me, ‘If you have sex, it will help you run faster,'" she added. Jones runs fast enough. She was leading the100-meter hurdles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but tripped on the next-to-last hurdle and finished seventh. Meanwhile, a guy with similar morals to Jones named Tim Tebow has recently heard some chants of “Lo-lo!” from his teammates. Jones gave her thoughts on the matchup with Tebow on Twitter, according to an Associated Press report in the Chicago Sun-Times: “Ask Tebow if he wants a glass of milk. If he says yes, ask him if he prefers chocolate. If he says no, then no more Tebow date suggestions.”

RapFix – Pusha T Drops ‘Exodus 23:1′ Video Teaser Clip

 

On Wednesday night Pusha T shook things up with his new single "Exodus 23:1," which includes a feature from The-Dream. The track caught the attention of Lil Wayne, who tweeted a pretty blunt message in reply, and today the G.O.O.D. Music rapper has released a 30-second teaser clip for the song's full video titled "My Life is Real." Check out the video above. Pusha T Teams Up With The-Dream For Debut Album Pusha debuted the new single on Wednesday night (May 23) from Cannes, France, where he tweeted about the premiere of Kanye West’s new short film “Cruel Summer. A few lines in particular seemed to be aimed at Drake and YMCMB ("Contract all f---ed / Explain up I guess that means you all f---ed up / You signed to one ni--- that signed to another ni--- that's signed to three ni--- / Now that's bad luck") but Wayne’s tweet was still a surprisingly blunt reply to the new track. This wouldn’t be the first time that the two MCs have had issues with each other, although in 2011 it seemed that all was well between the two camps.

NOLA's 'Times-Picayune' to cut paper to 3 days a week

 

The changes announced Thursday were combined with similar moves at three major Alabama daily newspapers also owned by the Newhouse family group's Advance Publications. The Birmingham News, the Press-Register in Mobile and The Huntsville Times will switch to publishing three days a week as part of a new focus on online news. At all four papers, there will be unspecified staff cuts. All four papers will continue to publish continuously on their websites, and online access will remain free. Newspapers have struggled in recent years as consumers increasingly get their news online. Print advertising declined as the economy went into recession, and newspapers have yet to learn how to make online advertising as profitable as its printed counterpart. "For us, this isn't about print versus digital, this is about creating a very successful multi-platform media company that addresses the ever-changing needs of our readers, our online users and our advertisers," said Advance Publications' president of local digital strategy, Randy Siegel, in an interview with the Associated Press. "This change is not easy, but it's essential for us to remain relevant." Siegel didn't say how much money the reduced print runs in Louisiana and Alabama would save, nor how many staff members would be laid off or hired in the new online units. "To get good quality information is not cheap," said Jennifer Greer, chair of the journalism department at the University of Alabama. "What you are seeing is people trying to figure out a business model that works in a digital age." The decision was met with sadness by some residents in New Orleans, where The Times-Picayune won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Staffers continued reporting despite being forced out of the newspaper's offices amid widespread flooding and power outages. The storm drove away thousands of residents, some of whom never came back. The city — and its newspaper — struggled to recover in the years since. The paper was a lifeline for the Southern, working-class city, providing government announcements, obituaries, Carnival and scoops on local corruption, said Cheron Brylski, a 53-year-old New Orleans-based political consultant. Not having the paper every day is like losing a sports team, she said. "Where is New Orleans headed since Katrina? This is not something that helps our recovery," she said. The papers in Alabama also have long histories. The Mobile paper has roots to 1813 with the founding of the Mobile Gazette and became a daily in 1832, according to a history of the publication on al.com. And in 2007, the Birmingham News won a Pulitzer Prize for a series on corruption in Alabama's two-year college system. Birmingham News employees were told during morning meetings that longtime Editor Tom Scarritt will retire this fall when the new companies are created, according to two reporters who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the changes for the company. In New Orleans, a new company, the NOLA Media Group, would be created to oversee both The Times-Picayune and its affiliated website, NOLA.com. The announcements mirror changes Advance Publications made in Michigan. In 2009, the company shut the Ann Arbor News but created AnnArbor.com, a news website that still publishes print editions on Thursday and Sunday. In February, it launched the MLive Media Group, which runs MLive.com, to focus its efforts in Michigan digitally. Meanwhile, all of its eight other newspapers in the state offer three days of home delivery with newsstand sales from three to seven days a week. Newspaper analyst Ken Doctor, who writes the Newsonomics blog, said the company is trying to hold on to declining print ad revenue for a few more years, and expects Advance to eventually cut print runs at its other newspapers in New Jersey, Oregon, Ohio and elsewhere. The company owns The Oregonian in Portland, Ore.; The Plain Dealer in Cleveland; and The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J. "It's a big bet to retain profitability and hope that in the shock therapy, there are profits on the other end," he said. Print circulation has been dropping steadily over the years at the four newspapers affected by Thursday's announcement, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. On average, the four papers' circulation in the half year through March fell about 6% from a year ago. Nonetheless, TheTimes-Picayune remains one of the nation's most successful newspapers. Of the top 50 large-sized markets, the newspaper has the highest rate of readership of its daily edition in the U.S., according to Austin, Texas-based Scarborough Research, a firm that tracks the industry. The Times-Picayune's average paid circulation was 133,557 in the six months through March, down 49% compared to March 2005, a few months before Hurricane Katrina hit. The Birmingham News' circulation of 103,729 is down 29% from five years ago; the Press-Register's of 82,088 is down 18%; and The Huntsville Times' of 44,725 is down 15%. Die-hard supporters and even Mayor Mitch Landrieu pledged to make sure the newspaper remained a part of New Orleans culture. "Through wars and floods, the 'Aints and a Saints Super Bowl victory, the TP has been and remains an integral part of our daily routine and our culture," Landrieu said. Anne Milling, a longtime member of the advisory board to The Times-Picayune, said an online-focused model wouldn't work in New Orleans. She said she and other supporters were exploring bringing in new owners committed to a daily paper, or even starting a new daily publication. "We always do things differently," she said. "It's part of our tradition: You wake up with a cup of chicory coffee and read the newspaper."

The Bodega: A Brief History of an Urban Institution

 

In some parts of America, it’s called a “party store.” In others it’s called a “corner store.” And elsewhere it’s a “grocery”. In New York City, the term for a small, local retailer that sells everything from beer to diapers  is “bodega,” and it was in the stockroom of one of these stores that 6-year-old Etan Patz lost his life 33 years ago today. On Thursday, a former bodega employee named Pedro Hernandez told police that on a sunny morning in 1979, he had lured the boy into the basement of a store in Manhattan’s SoHo district, choked him to death and then hidden the body in a trash bag. He is accused of second-degree murder. (MORE: Are We Witnessing the Death of the Big-Box Store?) While most local outlets went ahead and called the crime scene a bodega, TIME refrained from using the term in our story on Etan today;  not everyone in the country is familiar with the Nuyorican, Caribbean or Noo Yawk patois that spawned the term. The word is from the Spanish la bodega — grocery store — and years ago, referred primarily to those found in Spanish speaking neighborhoods in the city, where the shops sprang up on streetcorners in residential neighborhoods, as opposed to the more established retailers along major avenues. But the convenience of having a convenience store within arms reach of one’s apartment appealed more and more over the years to New Yorkers. Delis, Korean groceries and bodegas — the terms are fairly interchangeable, no matter what neighborhood you’re in –  now number number more than 13,000 in New York City alone, many still owned by Puerto Rican and Dominican retailers. “In Central and South America and the Caribbean, they have bodegas on every corner to serve the poor,” said Fernando Mateo, spokesman for the Bodega Association of the United States. The term is used in cities with large Spanish-speaking populations elsewhere, of course; but it’s taken firmer root in the Big Apple than anywhere else. “New York City is basically the largest urban community in the world. Bodegas serve people who are used to that service in their native countries.” Mateo explained that bodegas have traditionally served a need in the inner city because where a large retailer will charge $5 for a gallon of milk, a bodega owner might charge $1.50 for a quart; someone who has an immediate need will go for the more convenient option several times a week. “But also they become a place where people get together and go over their daily news, and people become part of their communities,” he said. “It’s unique that supermarkets have not been able to put the bodega owner out of business.” (VIDEO: Extreme Couponers Get Groceries for (Almost) Free) But because the bodegas have also been the targets of armed robberies and complaints about food choices, the stores are not without their detractors. In 2002 the city launched an initiative to install security cameras in many of the stores after 12 bodega owners were killed in stickups. The city, adopting the term itself, launched its “Healthy Bodega Initiative” to help owners offer healthier alternatives for their customers. Politics, however, have found their way into bodegas as well. Mateo disagrees with what city health officials are trying to do. “It’s a political initiative, not a real initiative,” he says. “You’re not going to change the habits of people who are used to eating a certain kind of food.”