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January 31, 2006
WNBC TRIES OUT A NEW IDENTIFIER
18-year-old Mariana Edkins was killed a few weeks ago when the car she was a passenger in was struck head-on by a drunk driver traveling the wrong way down a Staten Island street. The 21-year-old responsible now faces a second-degree murder charge, among a raft of other charges. The weird thing about this story as told by WNBC.com, the online site of News Channel 4 here in New York, is that it identifies Edkins primarily as a blogger.
Man Faces Murder Charge In Crash That Killed Teen Blogger
That's the headline of the story above and it's repeated in the article's lede:
NEW YORK -- A young man who told police he had been drinking and was speeding away from another vehicle before his SUV slammed into a car, killing an 18-year-old blogger, was indicted Monday on a second-degree murder charge, prosecutors said.
Not "18-year-old area woman" or "student"? According to another article I read, Edkins was an alumnus of both Staten Island primary and high schools and was a freshman at the College of Staten Island. Her description as a blogger apparently springs from her membership at the personal profile site MySpace.com. I couldn't view her blog without joining MySpace.com, but her personal homepage is here [WARNING: contains automatic playing of a song called "I'm Sprung" by someone named T Pain, which will disturb co-workers]. According to this site, a recent article in USA Today reported that there were recently 47.3 million MySpace members. That's a lot of people. It also makes WNBC's description of Edkins as a blogger due to her MySpace membership akin to describing someone as an e-mail user. But blogs are hot! So anyway WNBC.com can shoehorn the term into a headline to generate some sizzle for a story; it looks like they're ready to do it.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 1:00 PM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
NO RESTAURANT IN UNION SQUARE?
The New York Sun is reporting that several lawmakers are protesting the proposed addition of a seasonal restaurant to the northern section of Union Square Park. The eatery and refurbishment of the pavilion bordering 17th St. would be part of a $14.5 million project to improve Union Square.
Initially, the city's plan called for a year-round restaurant after a refurbishment of a crumbling 80-year old pavilion on the park's north end. Then, in response to neighborhood concerns, the city announced last summer that the project would house a "seasonal" restaurant between April and October. The new plan also would nearly triple the amount of space devoted to playgrounds, add new bathrooms, and upgrade the area that houses the park's famous weekly farmer's market.
While I'm generally not in favor of the commercialization of public spaces, I think restaurants in NYC parks are a great way to make sure the parks are kept up and become a source of ongoing revenue via license fees for the space that is occupied. This is hardly a radical idea. Tavern on the Green in Central Park is a New York landmark. The Bryant Park Grill sits on the back veranda between the New York Public Library branch on 5th Ave. and the lawn at Bryant Park. Even Danny Meyer's Shake Shack has helped to revitalize Madison Square on 23rd St. in Manhattan. Restaurants mean that park bathrooms must be well maintained, vermin are better controlled, and that physical infrastructure is not allowed to fall into disrepair, as it has in Union Square. Hopefully, this won't be a project that fails due to legislative obstructionism.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 12:32 PM | NYC | Comments (0) | TrackBack
GOING POSTAL MAKES A COMEBACK
It's possible that younger readers may not even know the origins of the phrase "going postal", a somewhat crude idiom describing someone who lashes out violently or homicidally. It dates back to the 80s and early 90s, when there was a rash of multiple shooting incidents by postal workers at their workplaces. Until last night, the phrase seemed to be on the verge of "going Columbine" as mass shootings unfortunately shifted from postal facilities to schools and the perpetrators weren't employees but students.
Monday evening, however, it appears that a female ex-postal worker went on a rampage at a USPS mail processing plant in Goleta, CA, which is nearby UC Santa Barbara. The woman killed six employees and wounded at least two others before apparently turning her gun on herself. Two things stand out to me here. One is that the killer was a female, which is pretty unusual for these mass murder incidents. The other was that she was an ex-postal employee. Given the level of surliness from employees I get at most of my visits to the Post Office, one must have to be extremely disgruntled to find onesself an ex-employee. Expect lawsuits from all the family members of those killed for shoddy security. Most workplaces don't let former employees near the front door, especially what should be a secure facility like a mail processing center.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 11:59 AM | Current Events | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 30, 2006
HOYAS ON THE RISE
The Daily News appraised the resurgent Big East conference this weekend and zeroed in the re-ascendent program at Georgetown University, which is coming off a long stretch of disappointing seasons. The Hoyas stunned the nation two weekends ago by knocking off the top-ranked and undefeated Duke Blue Devils with pinpoint passing and excellent shooting.
But the team that has made the most dramatic strides has been Georgetown. The formerly stagnant Hoyas - who were mired along with the Johnnies at the bottom of the league in 2004 - have been a revelation under second-year coach John Thompson III, who brought along his own version of the Princeton offense when he returned to his hometown from that Ivy League school and has rejuvenated Georgetown a year ahead of schedule.
The team is currently 14-4 overall and 4-2 in the conference halfway through the season, but face several more tough games down the stretch in the cannibalistic Big East. What's interesting is that the Georgetown program is also making great strides in recruiting, which could reinvigorate a team that will always be judged against its gold standard performance of the early 80s that included three Final Four appearances in four years and one national championship.
The frightening part for Georgetown's opponents is that the best is yet to come. Thompson and assistant Kevin Broadus, who helped Karl Hobbs recruit the nucleus of an A-10 championship team when he first arrived at GW, are starting to lock up the Baltimore-D.C. area again, much like Thompson's father did in the '80s. The Hoyas have signed 6-9 DaJuan Summers from McDonough School, the best prospect in Baltimore, along with Doc Rivers' son, Jeremiah, a skilled guard from Winter Park, Fla., and have reopened the pipeline to the Tidewater area with the signing of 6-10 Vernon Macklin from Hargrave, Va., Military. Thompson also has gotten a commitment from 6-4 junior guard Austin Freeman of DeMatha, the first time the Hoyas have gotten a commitment from a player from that fabled Maryland program in three decades.
It's an interesting article and worth reading if you're into college basketball. Hat tip to HoyaSaxa.com for noticing this one first.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 8:55 PM | Sports | Comments (0) | TrackBack
]KAC[
And speaking of new sites, my friend Kerry Cheeseboro is in the process of building a site of his own that he will use to display his creative talents in broadcasting, music, photography, and apparel design. It's a work in progress right now, but one can get a taste of what's to come by visiting his photo sharing site at Flickr or subscribing to his regular podcasts via iTunes. I look forward to seeing what else he has in store.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 8:34 PM | Culture & | Comments (0) | TrackBack
SABBATICAL OVER
Well that was a long six months, but Lexiphane.com is now back online. I still need to do some work getting the archives in order and resurrecting the Lexiphoto galleries and that should occur in short order. The hard part seems to be behind me now, however, and I hope all my old readers and some new ones will check back regularly for some of the finest commentary on the Web. For those unfamiliar with the site, I recommend subscribing to Lexiphane.com's RSS feed that will appear on your Yahoo! home page or RSS reader (click Yahoo! button at the top right of this page). Or if you'd like to receive notifications via email, please go ahead and subscribe in the appropriate area at the top left-hand side of this page. For now, I'll just thank all of you in advance for finding your way back here and hope you visit again soon.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 8:16 PM | Current Events | Comments (1) | TrackBack
PO-TOWN REPRESENTS
TurnHere is a great site someone directed me towards recently that features dozens of short films profiling neighborhoods, towns, and residences around the country. And while most of the films focus on more urban environments, there's one on my hometown, Poughkeepsie, NY.
Tagged:Posted by Lexiphane at 8:00 PM | Culture & , Film | Comments (0) | TrackBack
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- WNBC TRIES OUT A NEW IDENTIFIER
- NO RESTAURANT IN UNION SQUARE?
- GOING POSTAL MAKES A COMEBACK
- HOYAS ON THE RISE
- ]KAC[
- SABBATICAL OVER
- PO-TOWN REPRESENTS
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