Friday, July 10, 2009

Other Socioeconomic News of Interest Today

•NYT reports the econ downturn has sparked a new flood of people from Ireland into Bronx and Queens, as was the norm before their own economy started taking off in recent years — this’ll mean a lot more Irish-accented bartenders, like when I first got to NYC, I suspect.  Indeed, I just noticed yesterday that my local karaoke bar, Iggy’s, is suddenly showing off its Irishness, with shamrocks and the like — and still doing karaoke.

•In stranger emigration news, NYT also reports today that laws restricting where sex offenders can live are so restrictive they’ve had the “perverse” effect of creating a shantytown under a bridge in Miami where seventy sex offenders live.  I hope children don’t wander down there.

•And a WSJ cover article today notes the war between a smalltown mayor and the participants in an annual Moon over Amtrak event held at the local traintracks by pants-dropping revelers.  Are traditionalists pro-mooning if it’s been going on since 1979?  I think libertarians have to be.  The real solution, of course: abolish Amtrak.

If the mayor insists on stopping Moon over Amtrak, maybe they should relocate it to the bridge where the sex offenders are.  Synergy!

4 comments:

Gerard said...

I hate Irish bartenders.

Gerard said...

Oh, speaking of immigrants, did you catch my ten second-long sound bite on the ten o’clock news broadcast by Ch. 9 on Wednesday? I realize the answer is probably “no,” but humor me. It’s probably the last time I’ll be a participant in a segment that leads a network newscast.

Todd Seavey said...

Hey, just because they criticize your performance of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” or whatever it was doesn’t make them all bad people.

Speaking of alcohol stories, here’s one reminiscent of _Wind in the Willows_:

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5683O720090709

Gerard said...

I’m insulted. It was a Pogues-Dubliners collaboration!

BTW, Michael Evanchik dragooned me into an impromptu pub crawl after this month’s Lolita Bar debate, which culminated in our ejection from a bar by an Irish bartender/waitress.

More on that later.