Video - High Five New York

Footage of an Orthodox Jewish man high-fiving unsuspecting cab-hailers in New York City is spreading like wildfire online and has attracted the attention of major news outlets.

Aspiring filmmaker Meir Kalmanson told Fox 5 News on Tuesday that so far, he has received mostly positive reactions to his unsolicited outstretched arm.

“A lot of positive feedback,” said the Brooklyn native. “People are just sending me messages via Twitter, and Facebook, on YouTube, they’re like…’Wow that was amazing.’ Just so many types of reactions, but all positive.”

On Sunday, Kalmanson uploaded the video, titled “High Five New York,” to YouTube and, so far, it has attracted over 200,000 views. And it isn’t Kalmanson’s first clip to reach such a large audience either. He hit the 1 million “views” mark with his video “Sleeping on Strangers in the Subway,” which was uploaded to YouTube in November 2013.

Kalmanson said that with his high-five social experiment, he was trying to lighten up people’s frantic and serious moods as they wait for cabs.

“Especially when they’re getting a taxi they’re just there [thinking] nothing about anything else. They’re not even in the present they’re in the future just trying to get a taxi,” he told Fox 5. “So [I try] to bring them back to the now, to the moment and giving them a high-five.”

He added, “In a world of electronics, cellphones and all that jazz - which is great - we’re getting so caught up in, sometimes its great to have human connection.”

Video - Giant Mothership hovers over New York City.

If you have the technology to build this, then why not put a device to switch off the lights and go in stealth mode? Get us out of here Scotty! HT: MFS - Crazy and true.

Sandy: Live Updates and Analysis .

Hurricane Sandy: Live Updates and Analysis.

Hurricane Tracker Here.

Tracking map here.

The Weather Channel and weather.com continue to follow the progress of Sandy closely as it heads for the Northeast. Here you will find updates, analysis and the latest advisories for Sandy.



Sandy Cam - Hurricane Sandy Live 24/7: Chelsea, Manhattan, New York City. HT: BarracudaBrigade.

Iran can target New York City due to large Jewish population: NYPD.

Iran can target New York City due to large Jewish population: NYPD.(AA).New York City’s large Jewish population can make it a potential target for an Iranian-sponsored attack, a local newspaper reported on Wednesday. New York City’s police chief, Ray Kelly, warned that a possible conflict between Iran and Israel is a particular area of concern, given New York City’s large Jewish population, the New York Post newspaper quoted him as saying during an anti-terror conference called NYPD SHIELD. While New York is a melting pot city, its metropolitan area is home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel.
“We’ve been concerned about Iran for a while, and I think the history of those events throughout the world since January give us cause for concern,” Kelly added.
Another NYPD official, Lt. Kevin Yorke of the Intelligence Division, warned of a potential retaliation attack on the city by Iran and its staunch group ally, Hezbollah. “Within the last year, we’ve seen a worldwide increase in incidents involving the stockpiling of explosives, the surveillance of targets, and a number of very significant plots and attacks,” Yorke said. He said these incidents have a direct relation to Iran’s nuclear-weapons program and the tension surrounding it. “Obviously if there’s any action involving Israel and Iran we have to be very cognizant of the potential of retaliation here in New York City.” The West suspects Iran is seeking a nuclear weapons capacity, despite repeated denials from Tehran. While Israel has threatened military attacks on the Islamic Republic to prevent it gaining atomic weapons, the United States chose to exhaust diplomatic means before the use of any force.Read the full story here.

For Muslim Taxi Drivers in New York, Ramadan Gets Complicated.

                Prayer in front of Ar-Rahman Mosque on 29th Street and Broadway in New York City.


For Muslim Taxi Drivers in New York, Ramadan Gets Complicated.(TAC).It's afternoon in downtown Manhattan, and Mohammad "Tipu" Sultan, a 34-year-old taxi driver from Bangladesh, stands by his car at a gas station on the corner of Houston and Broadway. It's one of the city's warmest summer days, and Sultan is carrying a plastic grocery bag filled with about a dozen water bottles. "I'm going to need these soon, after the last prayer, around eight, when I can break it," he says. Sultan is of course referring to the intensified prayer and sunrise-to-sundown fast followed by devout Muslims worldwide during the month of Ramadan, which began July 19 and ends Saturday night. Refueling his car before beginning his 12-hour shift, he points to an empty corner at the back of the station. "Look, they're starting," he says. A small group of drivers has parked and unrolled prayer mats. Giant billboards towering overhead, the air filled with incessant honking, and the sidewalk packed with camera-clad tourists, they kneel eastward, praying toward Mecca. "We have until 7:45 or so to make this prayer, the fourth of the day, so people are going to be coming in and out to pray," Sultan explains.
This gas station is just one of hundreds of formal and informal destinations, from mosques to the parking lot of Kennedy Airport, where New York City's Muslim taxi drivers gather to pray five times daily (six during the month of Ramadan).
Taj Khan, a Pakistani driver among the worshipers, says, "We work, but we stop, we pray." Another driver from Bangladesh, Akhtar Alam, seconds this. "I stop at whatever mosque falls on my route. I make it work with the system."But drivers also say they face additional challenges behind the wheel besides intensified prayer and hours of fasting. According to Bhairvai Desai, director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, the largest taxi union in the country, taxi drivers are 30 percent more likely to be attacked on the job than any other worker. And when mixed with heightened anti-Islam sentiment in America, the threat to Muslim drivers—who make up over 50 percent of the city's driving community—is even greater. "They see a turban or taqiyah"—the short, rounded cap worn by observant Muslim men—"or read our name, and they think terrorist, terrorist," Sultan says. "Ever since I started driving, in 2002, I always have those passengers who get out and say, 'Go back to your country!' or 'You're a terrorist.'"Hmmm.....Is the meter running while praying?Read the full story here.

Video - New York Mayor picks up Bad vibrations which lead to 'premature evacuation' of free vibrator distribution.

Disgraced Weiner Eyes Run for Mayor of New York.

Disgraced Weiner Eyes Run for Mayor of New York.(TNYP).From a New York Post report: Anthony Weiner’s not shrinking from elected office. The disgraced former congressman - who’s sitting on a $4.5 million campaign war chest - is mulling a bid for citywide office next year and “seriously considering” a mayoral run, multiple sources told The Post. The pol is also open to the post of public advocate as a backup plan, said sources, who described the Queens Democrat as “desperate” to get back into politics. Weiner, 47, has even spoken to former staffers about going back to work for him, according to another source. And he wants to run soon because the public match on his campaign funds are due to expire after the 2013 election. “I’ve heard he is seriously thinking about getting into a citywide race in 2013 and would like it to be mayor,” said a source with ties to Weiner. “In his mind, he’s trying to figure out how to run for mayor.” He’s reached out to politicos to “talk about the landscape,” said a former staffer. The buzz in political circles is that Weiner has a better shot at public advocate - a $165,000-a-year job viewed as a “cleansing” post where he could put his character issues further behind him as he prepped for a 2017 mayoral run. Potential candidates for public advocate are state Sen. Daniel Squadron, City Council member Letitia James and Reshma Saujani, currently a deputy in the Public Advocate’s Office - none of whom has Weiner’s citywide name recognition or his deep campaign coffers. The pol has kept a low profile since resigning from Congress in June 2011. Weiner made the media rounds to applaud the US Supreme Court’s health-care decision last month - dipping his toe back into political waters. But he still has his political infrastructure intact if he decides to launch a campaign. A spokeswoman for Weiner declined to comment on his political future.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.

New minority label at CUNY: ‘Jewish’.

New minority label at CUNY: ‘Jewish’.(NYP).Something isn’t kosher about a CUNY scheme to single out Jews, angry professors charge. Touting a move to make its faculty more diverse, CUNY administrators have broken out Jews into a separate minority group: “White/Jewish.” CUNY insists “some faculty” want the label, instead of being lumped in as just white. But the theistic tag has outraged both Jewish and non-Jewish professors, and sparked a furor. “This is, as far as I know, the first time a religion has been introduced into any affirmative-action document,” said David Gordon, a history professor at Bronx Community College and the Graduate Center. “What would the response be to a category ‘White/Methodist?’ Silly? Irrelevant?”“It’s an insult and idiotic,” said Hershey Friedman, deputy chairman of the Finance and Business Management Department at Brooklyn College. “Most Jews are brown-skinned. We also have black Jews and Asian Jews. Once you mix religion with race you’re opening a Pandora’s box — and you look stupid.” The new White/Jewish category is discussed in a report on CUNY’s Diversity Action Plan, issued last month by CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein. The plan is aimed at boosting the recruitment and inclusion of minorities.Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who last week called on the state attorney general to investigate complaints of anti-Semitism in hiring at Brooklyn College, called the new Jewish category “abhorrent.” An Irish-Catholic professor at Lehman College quipped: “I can get yellow stars to put on my colleagues’ arms,” referring to the badges that Jews were forced to wear in Nazi-occupied Europe.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.