Left Wing, Anti-Israel Egg Throwing, Hate, Violence

I just received this e-mail dated January 12 from Pamela Hall, who blogs about this demonstration (with photos) here:

This is a report just in from an associate. The persons assaulted asked to remain anonymous, but they participated in the rallies in Manhattan today:

""After walking home from the 42 Street & 7th Avenue Pro-Israel rally, I watched the Muslim rally participants march up 8th Avenue closely controlled by many NYC police to keep them moving along. Even so, it appeared that many of the young men and women were eyeing the bystanders on the sidewalk in threatening ways almost challenging
someone to disagree with their Death to Israel and God Bless Hitler chants.

I went back to my apartment where I met my boyfriend who had also just returned from the second Pro Israel rally on 39th Street & 7th Avenue. We walked outside the building and across a major midtown avenue on the West Side to buy some groceries. He was still carrying the Israeli flag and we were both wearing baseball caps with the American flag and USA on the brims. A large number of Muslims were milling around since it seems that their rally had reached its end point and was dispersing. Six Muslim men were being photographed with posters with the words, "Praise Hamas and Hezbollah, Reopen the Ovens" and were taking photos of themselves and their posters. Seeing us with the Israel flag, they began screaming, " You're assholes,
Kill the Jews, We are going to kill you, This is OUR country," etc.

We went into the corner deli and they began banging on the window and stood outside in a very threatening mob waiting for us to leave. I heard one man say, "She is a female" - very observant. I don't know what this was suppose to signal to his fellow terrorists. When we left the deli a mob of the original Muslims and others who joined
them came up to us screaming death to the Jews, and one man around 19/20 years old ran up and with force and hatred threw an egg into my friend's eye. This may not seem like much but I am sure the intent as for the egg shells to be lodged in his eye. The egg was not thrown from afar against his coat but was thrown like a rock would be - to inflict as much harm as possible. The assailant then grabbed our Israeli flag, threw it to the ground, and was spitting on it and wiping his feet on it. When we asked a traffic cop to make an arrest, the assailant ran away down the block but the traffic agent did not answer us nor did he call 911. He passively stood by doing NOTHING.

Two people standing on the street took photos of our attack and said they would email us with the photos to identity the criminals. We then walked back across the street to our building and were followed by a pack of Muslims - about 8 or 10 - who continued to threaten, mock and scream at us. They seemed surprised at our ferocious counter verbal attack. However, they came right within 6 inches of us saying
they would kill us. One of the men was about to attack me when my boyfriend saw the assault about to begin and said, "If you touch her, I swear I'll kill you." At that point the original traffic control cop came over and a second traffic agent joined him and forced the crowd to disperse. They asked us to go into the apartment building
lobby which we did.

We immediately called the police and asked to make a police report. Two NYC policemen came to the apartment about an hour later hour and took the information. They were very courteous and said they will file the report and a detective is to contact us tomorrow. They apologized for taking so long to come by but explained that there were many incidents of a similar nature that were taking place as the
Muslim rally broke up. They also shared that 2 NYC police officers had been attacked at the rally and that the Muslims are 'out of control.'

Without the photos, it will be near impossible to find the Muslims involved. Even with the photos, I am not sure if the police can find the assailant or make an arrest. I am told by an attorney friend, that just the act of following and threatening is a crime in and of itself. Whatever it takes, we'll take it as far as possible to prosecute.

Any ideas as how to pursue this would be welcome. This attack could happen to anyone. This attack happened in midtown Manhattan, a major American city on a Sunday afternoon. Our country is under attack from within. We need to do much more than attend rallies."

WAKE UP AMERICA. Can we be protected by our police? We must be concerned. We too have heard the taunts of this is their country and get out of here. We must take our country back before it's lost for good.

Bowen's Boondoggle

According to Sarah Garland of the New York Sun, in 2006, the New York City schoolteachers negotiated a contract that will expire in 2009. The contract gave the teachers a 7.1% annual raise over 2008-2009.

The Sun quotes the United Federation of Teachers' President Randi Weingarten:

"Pointing to a total increase in teacher salaries of more than 40% since 2002, Ms. Weingarten said, "Finally we are making real progress."

In contrast to 40% gains in teacher salaries, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), the union that represents the faculty of the City University of New York, in the last contract that ran from 2004 to 2007 negotiated a 6% increase over three years.

On June 23, 2008 Barbara Bowen, the PSC president, released a letter describing a new contract that runs from 2007 to 2010. It includes the following increases:

****3.15%, effective September 20, 2007
****4.00%, effective October 6, 2008
****3.00%, effective October 20, 2009

In other words, the Barbara Bowen and the PSC negotiated increases at about half of what New York City's schoolteachers received. And this on top of increases less than half of what the schoolteachers received in the last contract as well. In comparison to the 40% from 2002-9, the PSC has won 16% from 2004-10, about 40% of what the teachers have won.

Despite this dismal performance President Bowen writes in her letter:

"The tentative contract is a principled, creative settlement that combines increases throughout the salary scale with special increases at the top and the bottom. It includes a breakthrough on parental and family care, introduces a system for sharing sick days with those in need, adds a hundred new Lecturer lines reserved for experienced part-time faculty, and holds the line against management's agenda of corporatizing the University. The tentative settlement also includes new equity features, such as a salary differential for College Laboratory Technicians and Assistants to HEO with relevant masters or doctoral degrees, and an extra increase in each step of the Lecturer title. The tentative agreement comes with the strong support of the PSC negotiating committee."

Just a few days before the deal's announcement, the indomitable Sharad Karkhanis in his Patriot Returns newsletter expressed dismay at the union leadership's performance; its inept management; and governmental officials' indifference to the union leadership. He exhorts Bowen:

The PSC's propaganda paper (Clarion) boasts of your trips to Albany and your meetings with the mighty and powerful. But it seems to us that all this is baloney. Neither the New York media nor government authorities consider you relevant or powerful. You can be safely ignored, laughed at, forgotten. We wouldn't care, except that also forgotten, as a consequence, are the people you represent. No wonder you cannot get a good contract for CUNY faculty. Your tactics have deemed you irrelevant to the real media and those in decision making positions in the state. You are a failure in the eyes of the membership. They will not return you to that office again next year, Barbara.

For how long will the CUNY faculty be willing to tolerate the PSC leadership's incompetence?

Fraud in Mayor Bloomberg's Test Results?

The current issue of City Journal features a Sol Stern article in the "Soundings" section entitled "Gotham's Telltale Reading Tests". In it, Stern describes a press conference in 2005 in which Mayor Michael Bloomberg claimed that PS 33 in the south Bronx, among the poorest districts in the state, had increased its pass rate from 35.8 percent in 2004 to 85.3 percent in 2005. Mayor Bloomberg claimed that this was evidence of his (laughable) claim that education achievement has improved during his tenure. The principal, Elba Lopez, retired that year with a $15,000 productivity bonus which increased her pension by $12,000 for life (a present value of roughly $120,000). However, in 2006, according to Stern's article, the school's fourth grade pass rate plummeted back to 41 percent, probably not statistically different from the 2004 pass rate. Mayor Bloomberg did not hold a press conference to reveal this information, according to Mr. Stern.

My mother was an elementary school teacher in P.S. 7 in Manhattan during the 1970s and 1980s. She retired early because of frustration with the corrupt system in those days. Needless to say, gaming and fraud were commonplace in reporting official test results. Mayor Bloomberg claims expertise in management because he has built one of the most successful companies in New York City. However, his management expertise does not seem to have spared him from being duped. Much as Ken Lay was held accountable for breaches of fiduciary duty, Mayor Bloomberg ought to be held accountable if there was fraud in PS 33's test results.

There neeeds to be an investigation of corruption in the reporting of test results. If Mayor Bloomberg is running for president on his record as an "education mayor" (as a college professor in New York, this sounds to me a ridiculous claim), he needs to account for potential fraud in the test results that he has touted, and needs to explain why he was so easily duped.*

*Perhaps it's his Harvard MBA. He should have gone to NYU!