Racist Watermelon Soda Invades Harlem Target

Bloomberg, NYC, to Provide Free Flu Shots to All School Children

Mayor Bloomberg announced his plan to provide free flu shots to all city school children yesterday. The program will be administered by school nurses in the form of a nasal spray, both during school hours and on weekends.

The free vaccine is an effort to stop the spread of the swine flue and curb panic among the public. This comes after the White House recently stated that up to half the county could become infected with the serious H1N1 virus.

In addition to the vaccine, the city is implementing additonal measures to keep the public protected against the swine flu such as:

- putting information about the number of flu cases in a particular school on the internet.

- a marketing campaign on subways and buses to help spread information.

- health consultations through 311.

The website tracker of flue cases can be found: www.nyc.gov/flu.

New York State Young Democrats Straw Poll Results

The New York State Young Democrats held their straw poll for the upcoming Democratic Primary tonight in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn. Below are the results:

Public Advocate: Eric Gioia 45%, Bill Di Blasio 24%, Norman Siegel 17%, Mark Green 14%

Comptroller: John Liu 50.5%, David Yassky 43.8%, Melinda Katz 3.8%, David Weprin 1.9%

Mayor: Bill Thompson 85.1%, Tony Avella 14.9%

Yankees to Win World Series Due to....Obama?

There was an interesting comment made on WFAN 660 AM sports talk radio about the Yankees not winning the World Series whenever a Republican President is in office. Is this true? Let's find out...

To the video tape:

The world series wins in 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2000 were all while President Bill Clinton was in the white house.

Then there were the Yankees dark days of the 80's and early 90's while the country was led by Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush.

The next Yankee World Series wins came in 1977 and 1978 while President Jimmy Carter was in office.

Then there were even more dark days during the Ford and Nixon administrations where the Yankees only appearance in the World Series resulted in a sweep by the sword (or red robot arm) of Johnny Bench and the Big Red Machine.

We need to go back to the Administration of John F. Kennedy to find more Yankees Glory and the championships of 1961 and 1962.

Now, here is the hiccup in the theory: the 1953, 1956, and 1958 Yankees Championships while Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the Oval Office -- but everyone knows he was a liberal Republican moderate -- definitely not sharing the same political philosophy as Reagan, Bush 1 or 2, Nixon or even Ford.

The next two Democratic presidents Harry Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt saw 11 Yankees championships while they held the White House from 1933-1955. The Yankees won it all in 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1943, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, and 1952!

Republican presidents Herbert Hoover saw a Yankees World Series win in 1932, and his predecessor President Calvin Coolidge witnessed the first three Yankees championships in 1928, 1927, and 1923.

The final verdict:

The Yankees have won 26 world series championships: 19 while a Democrat was president and only 7 when a Republican was president. During the last 50 years, the Yankees have not won a single World Series while a Republican was preisdent.

The Bush Curse?

Everyone likes to say A-rod or Giambi may have been the curse that prevented any Yankees championship since 2000. Perhaps this is the true curse?

New York Post Says Public Advocate Office is Worthless

Today the New York Post made its (non) endorsement for the New York City Public Advocate race stating that:

"First of all, the office itself is a worthless appendix of municipal government: Vested with no real power, it serves only to waste taxpayer money in the service of its occupant's political ambitions.

Second: What sort of a person would even want such a job?"

The office of public advocate is the only such office in the United States, at least that is what all the candidates running for office claim. However, on the face of it, it is true that the Public Advocate has no specific duties that are exclusive to the office. For all intents and purposes, individual council members are available to field constituent concerns or develop city-wide issues through legislation.

To the defense of the candidates, all gave professional responses during debates and interviews when asked what exactly the office does and what they would do with the position should they be elected. One candidate in particular, civil liberties attorney Norman Siegel, even directly addressed concerns of the Public Advocate job description by producing a 14 point approach to the Office of the Pubic Advocate:

"No New Yorker would have to ask “what does the Public Advocate do?” if I were in charge of the office. The City Charter specifies in section 24g, “The public advocate shall establish procedures for receiving and processing complaints, responding to complaints, conducting investigations, and reporting findings, and shall inform the public about such procedures.” Accordingly, I’ve outlined fourteen procedures and approaches I would use to make the office more dynamic and accessible:"

The Full 14 Point Plan

Whether the office should exist or not is a moot point. The election will be held and the job will be filled, but the New York Post should be applauded for shining light on the fact that this office needs to either be remodled and granted more offical powers or eliminated to save money.

Annual Jets/Giants Preseason Game

The annual Jets/Giants game is the first sign that football is near. This year, with rookie quaterback Mark Sanchez leading the Jets offense and Eli Manning charged with shouldering a young wide receiver corps, the game had even more meaning for coaches, players, fans and pundits.

The Giants started most of their regular season first team, minus Antonio Pierce and Aaron Ross, both injured but expected to play week 1 against the Redskins at Giants Stadium. The anticipated regular season offensive line all played together for the first time so far this preseason. On the Jets side, Mark Sanchez, the Jets' eleventh starting quaterback since 2000, made his first appearance since being named Jets stater by new head coach Rex Ryan, a mountain of a man who makes former head coach Eric Mangini appear lean in comparison.



The Giants play calling looked the same as last year: predictable and often boring. The Giants run on first down, then run again if 2nd and long or pass if 2nd and short, and then pass again on third down. Although the play calling seemed awkward, the strong offensive line was able to score a touchdown on a Manning pass to running back Brandon Jacobs. The most impressive part of this touchdown pass was the fact that Manning had great protection from his offensive line and was able to look off covered receivers to finally find Jacobs open. When the Giants did call smart plays, there were large gains. For instance, a 22 yard play action pass to Kevin Boss in the second quater on 1st and 10 showed what smart play calling could yield.

In addition, the Giants running game looked as solid as ever. Even when the Jets anticipated a run and stacked the line of scrimmage, the Giants offensive line were able to plow the Jets off the ball and allow Brandon Jacobs to thunder over defenders for modest gains. The second running back Ahmad Bradshaw looked explosive and a perfect complement to Jacobs' bulldozer style, although due to his small size, injury and durability must be a concern.

It does appear that Head Coach Rex Ryan already has an impact on the Jets. The play calling seemed much more interesting. In the first quarter, the Jets called a end-around play that yielded only 4 yards, but kept the Giants defense uncomfortable. Off of an Eli Manning interception, the Jets -- with great field position -- were able to barely score a touchdown due to an impressive Giants goal line defense. Mark Sanchez looked like a rookie at times, throwing floater passes almost being intercepted. Ryan, however, did make good play calls to minimize potential for mistakes and the Jets running back trifecta of Thomas Jones, Leon Washington and Shonn Greene looked outstanding.

The first half of the game was very entertaining. Despite the Giants sloppy play, they looked very good. The Giants defensive line is going to be a force to be reckoned with this year, with Mother Tucker and Osi healthy. The wide receiver crew did look promising, despite an awful dropped pass by Steve Smith. Eli Manning shrugged off the play in which he made a perfect deep pass, saying, "These things happen. It's good that it happened now. I trust that Steve won't drop a pass like that again." This is a sign of true leadership. In a way, this season will be the first test to see if Eli Manning is a true franchise quaterback, able to carry an entire offense.

The Jets looked like a solid team. Rex Ryan is a much needed improvement over their previous coach. Mark Sanchez is an exciting player, but obviously very much a rookie. Although this Jets team may be fun to follow, no one is predicting the team to go very far. Although, the solid running game and decent defense might be able to turn the Jets into this year's Cinderella story.

Welcome to Your Bx News

This site/blog is an attempt to fill a void in local journalism. It seems like the print newspapers covering the Bronx have settled for convention and "going along to get along" at the express of true journalism and objective reporting. When a local newspaper that shall remain nameless print entire press releases from elected officials, something is wrong. When News 12 the Bronx fails to cover anything other than breaking news, something is wrong.

In the next few days this site will cover local elections, news, and sports. But in addition, it will also have investigative pieces on items that got reported once or twice, then were pushed to the backburner when the next news item appeared. Stories like the parkland that was supposed to be built on the old Yankee Stadium property, pending construction projects and zoning issues, politcal corruption and more.

The site will also have unconventional items such as a meta-ranking feature for politcal mailers and literature, commentary on local news and politics, and profiles of newsmakers.