Extra, Extra

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: five separate "all hands" fires in Queens, a "large fight" at Tottenville High on Staten Island, and a fatal pedestrian vs. car at 145th and 8th Avenue in Harlem.
Hot 97 has released the first rap song about the Queens shootings: Papoose's 50 Shots. Sample lyric: "pigs out here shooting n-----r's like it's legal, niggers got to get gun licenses, if they run up on your car, give it to them... dedicated to all those f---ing pigs who shot that boy dead..."
Park Slopers are incensed about crappy mail delivery-- apparently the Mailmen (and women) are dumping the mail by the garden gates, instead of carrying it up the stoop and sticking it through the mail slots.
Did you know that people are legally allowed to beg on the streets of New York, as long as they aren't being "aggressive or threatening"?
Breaking news from Mahopac, N.Y.: "A man broke into a barn, spray-painted three pet goats and scattered pages of pornographic magazines on the floor."
A "one spot foxface rabbitfish" almost killed a man working on his aquarium in East Rockaway on Tuesday. Apparently to a rabbitfish, caressing it's dorsal fin is a bad touch!
The feds are releasing a harder citizenship test: "the old test used to ask what the three branches of government were. Now it will also ask why there are three branches. Another question asks applicants to explain Martin Luther King's dream for America." Feel free to place your sarcastic answers in the comments below.

Dark Light, by Santi-Jose.

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By Jake Dobkin in Miscellaneous on November 30, 2006 6:00 PM

Comments [rss]

bdo

The United States does not claim English, or any other language, as the official language. Some states do, but there is no official national language.

uncommon sense

"I wouldn't mind if everybody had to take some kind of test rather than being given automatic citizenship just by being born here. Some of them are damn stupid."

And you don't think that that might have as much to do with the education system than the people it's "educating?" Because of course, you surely don't mean that we should deny rights based on the government's own failings or that we should impliment a system that would surely never be used to discriminate. And of course it's never been a problem when third generation native-borns don't have citizenship rights; that had absolutely nothing to do with the riots in France last year at all.

Stewart

Martin Luther King would weep openly if he knew how the equal opportunities he fought so hard far have been squandered.

Isaiah

Didn't MLK's dream involve mattresses or something? Yeah, now I remember. http://fecundmellow.blogspot.com/2006/01/start-rumor-monday-company-in-trouble.html

Brightliner

I wouldn't mind if everybody had to take some kind of test rather than being given automatic citizenship just by being born here. Some of them are damn stupid. I remember seeing on one of the newsmagazines quite a few years ago that a lot of Americans didn't know what the Electoral College was. One nitwit thought, "Is that where election people go to school?"

BTW, just to jump on the knock others for knocking others for knocking others' language skills bandwagon, I notice there have been three iterations of the message and nobody bothered to notice that English should be capitalized. I don't believe there's any such thing as a lowercase "english" in any of its noun or adjective forms.

Mollygizer

Being that your a Good, grammatically correct Citizen, I'm sure You meant "Is there an english literacy evaluation as part of the citizenship test?"

And being that you're a good, grammatically correct citizen... learn the difference between your and you're before you go criticizing anyone else's grammar.

Cop Hata

here are my lyrics for a new rap I wrote:

"I'm gonna shoot those guys in blue, you know the guys who prevent crimes and direct traffic. Those guys deserve to die cause they stop me from selling drugs and raping women and shooting old people in the faces! UHHGGGh yeah!"

smitty

Ooh! ooh! Legistlative, judicial and executive. Phew, I can still be a citizen!

Our education system in this country is such shite, I bet a lot of current U.S. citizens can't answer that question.

x-new yorker

Is there an english literacy evaluation as part of the citizenship test. It is much needed considering the kind of immigrant elements in cities like nyc and miami.

S.D.

"Now it will also ask why there are three branches."??

GW Bush has been asking the rubber stamp Congress that for Years!

Chris

It was meant to be asked rhetorically:

"Why are there three branches of government?"

warren

I know, I know! Martin Luther King's dream was that, someday, we would have a president who would lie about a threat in another country and then invade it based on those lies so that 3,000+ Americans and even more Iraqis could die for a reason not discernible to anybody would doesn't believe the government's propaganda.