New York City for sale; Airtrains of death.

Pepsi Presents: TriBeCa!

It seems Snapple's sponsorship of the New York City school system has been giving other corporations ideas. While there's nothing new about corporate control over various aspects of our lives?we've been living with that for at least 50 years now?it's simply never been as blunt or widespread as this before. Controlling government and the media is one thing, but now it's creeping much closer to home. Nowhere is this more true than in New York.

First the schools, then the newsstands and now this.

It was announced last Monday that Song?a discount subsidiary of Delta Airlines that offers its passengers MP3 players and videogames at every seat?has decided to "sponsor" the Meatpacking District.

A lot of questions come to mind. If you're going to sponsor a neighborhood, why not sponsor a neighborhood that needs some sponsoring? An East New York or a Bed-Stuy? The Meatpacking District is loaded with trendy restaurants, galleries, clubs and boutiques. Sponsoring it is like sponsoring the Upper West Side or Soho?what's the point? You don't see Sally Struthers doing tear-filled commercials for the forgotten and starving children of Copenhagen, do you?

An even bigger question is: What will this "sponsorship" entail? Will they pump money into the neighborhood? Help fix up the streets and renovate some buildings? Give small, locally owned businesses a boost? As it was reported, it seems that this so-called "sponsorship" amounts to Song Airlines ponying up for a publicity campaign encouraging people to visit the neighborhood, because the people who would go there are "the kind of customers the new airline wants."

Are the rest of us not welcome? Will the people who live there be required to fly on Song Airlines as a result of this sponsorship? And does the Meatpacking District really need an advertising campaign? It seems to us that the young, trendy, affluent assholes Song is trying to attract already know all about it.

We have to wonder if there's not more going on here than we're being told. Is the mayor secretly selling off chunks of the city to wealthy business interests, the way his predecessor did? Will we all soon be required by law to wear Tommy Gear, eat at the Olive Garden, own Gateway computers and use Nokia phones? And how long will it be before the City Council is replaced by a board of directors?

Airtrain?or ticket to Hell?

During a test run on Sept. 27th, 2002, the Port Authority's light rail AirTrain to JFK entered a curve going 55 mph, when it should have only been traveling 25. The train derailed and slammed into a concrete wall, suffering an estimated $4 million in damage. The driver, 23-year-old Kelvin DeBourgh Jr., was killed after being crushed by several concrete blocks that had been placed aboard the train to simulate a large crowd.

The investigation that followed concluded that DeBourgh had not been properly trained, and that the communications system was down, which meant DeBourgh was not warned to slow the train before entering the curve. A computerized tracking system was down as well, so no one knew exactly where the train was at the time of the accident.

One of the lead contractors, Bombardier, accepted the conclusions, insisting that the crash had nothing to do with the basic design of the train or the tracks.

As you may know, once the AirTrain begins operating regular passenger service, it will be completely automated. That is to say, the presence of an operator aboard the train in the first place was simply for the test runs. Once actual paying customers start climbing aboard, we're going to be on our own, putting our lives in the hands of a few computer chips, praying there are no glitches.

This has left the TWU Local 100 more than a little irked. It's all an attempt to run a non-union operation, they claim. DeBourgh himself, they point out, was a Bombardier customer service representative, with no training whatsoever. He was only there that day because Bombardier wanted their (non-union) customer service reps to know how to run the damn thing in case there were ever an emergency.

After the accident, the Port Authority assures us that repairs and improvements have been made, and that new safety guidelines are in place. Still, there have been unconfirmed reports that during another test run within the past two months, the AirTrain began rocking so violently that it actually bounced off a train parked on a parallel set of tracks.

The Port Authority announced last week that the AirTrain will start carrying passengers out to JFK within the month?but you know what? We think we're gonna stick with the bus for a while.

Thanksgiving is a time when we are all supposed to pause a moment and remember everything we have to be thankful for. Tops on our list was the fact that we weren't shot in the ass last week. That happened to a few New Yorkers, who undoubtedly had to eat their holiday meals perched atop a few pillows.

At about 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 22, an 18-year-old was shot in the ass while sitting on a bench in Inwood. He later told police that he had no idea who shot him, or where the bullets might have come from, given, of course, that his back turned at the time. We can say for certain, however, that the assailant was no Lee Harvey Oswald.

Slightly over six hours later, a 28-year-old man was likewise shot in the ass in the Tremont section of the Bronx. Police are equally stumped in that case, for the same reason. Both victims are sitting a little gingerly these days, but will be just fine.

It wasn't just ass shootings to be on the lookout for last week?stupid asses were afoot as well.

Take for instance the case of Julio Castillo, the NYPD officer who visited a local Home Depot last weekend. Castillo forgot that he was supposed to pay for that fancy new screwdriver he had in his pocket, and was arrested as he tried to leave. Castillo has since been suspended from the force, and is being charged with petit larceny.

Nobody really seems clear on how a maintenance worker for the Transit Authority came up with such a scheme?or even what the scheme was, exactly?but nevertheless 49-year-old Arturo Hoyte was arrested last Monday for "cheating on his Con Ed bill." Normally you'd think Con Ed would just shut off the power and leave it at that, but in this case they're pressing charges. Must be one sneaky scheme that sneaky-assed Hoyte was trying to pull.

Encountering a loud, drunken asshole in a Bay Ridge bar is nothing to write home about. But when the asshole in question is a female school safety officer, well, then it's just kind of funny.

Our guess is that by 8:30 Sunday night, everybody in that bar looked like a 14-year-old miscreant to 53-year-old Maria Santos. She began shouting insults and swearing at everyone, so the bartenders decided that she'd about had enough. As they walked her to the door, however, she became a bit of a 14-year-old miscreant herself, trying to kick one of them in the balls, before sinking her teeth into the shoulder of the other.

But wait?that's not all! On her way to the door, she also allegedly popped another female patron right in the nose before biting her on the hand.

As you can imagine, the police were called, and Santos was taken into custody. She now faces numerous charges on top of losing her job.

Update: For those keeping score, the Bootleg Smoke Wars stubbed out another life last Tuesday, as 19-year-old Cody Knox was murdered in broad daylight near Brooklyn's Fulton Mall. Apparently Knox got into a dispute with two men concerning illegal cigarette sales in the area. After chasing him through the crowd, they knocked him down, stabbed him multiple times in the back, then fled. Police are still searching for his killers.