Eye on the Island

MTA’s Albany Rescue

Need to raise a quick $1 billion? The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the New York State Legislature can show you how.

Employing incredible understatement, the MTA issued a press release on Nov. 18 saying its “2010 Final Proposed Budget is balanced with no fare increase or reductions to scheduled service, with the help of rescue legislation enacted in Albany in May.”

Democrats’ Decade

Nassau’s Democrats took control of the county Legislature in January 2000, and the November 1999 Election Day victory which made it possible was memorialized on The New York Times’ front page.

A decade later, the Democrats’ loss of their 10-9 edge in the county Legislature was chronicled far from the Times’ front page, as was the still too-close-to-call county executive race between incumbent Thomas Suozzi and county Legislator Edward Mangano (R-Bethpage).

Hofstra Aims High

The Hofstra men’s basketball team is not afraid of a challenge.

To open their regular season on Friday evening, Nov. 13, Hofstra is traveling to Lawrence, Kansas to play the University of Kansas Jayhawks. Kansas is the top men’s college basketball team in the nation, according to a recent ESPN/USA Today coaches’ poll, and two of the Jayhawks’ starters were named to the Associated Press’ pre-season All-America team.

2010’s Election Cycle

Election Day 2009 is history so voters will now be given a respite from political mail and television commercials as well as candidate train station visits.

Elections Inc., however, is a big business, and operates year-round. Indeed, Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2010, and Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2010 are marked already on the industry’s calendars because, while county and town contests provide nice profit margins for direct-mail, polling, and media-buying companies, the 2010 state and federal election cycle may boost their collective bottom line even more.

News Outlets Adapt

Cablevision-owned Newsday is charging $5 a week for access to newsday.com effective Wednesday, Oct. 28, a fee it is waiving for subscribers to Newsday’s print edition or Cablevision’s Optimum Online Internet service.

I can understand why Cablevision is trying to boost its bottom line. News-gathering is a labor-intensive process, and what’s the sense of giving the final product away ‘for free,’ even though online advertisers are contributing financially to the undertaking?

Waterfront’s Origins

Budd Schulberg, who lived in Westhampton Beach, died in August at the age of 95, with almost every obituary rightfully highlighting that Schulberg was the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of On the Waterfront, which was also named 1954s Best Picture.

Filmed in Hoboken, New Jersey in late 1953, On the Waterfront’s origins are at the heart of Fordham University Professor James T. Fisher’s just-published On the Irish Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York (Cornell University Press), and Schulberg’s exploits fill many of its pages.

Battle for Mineola

It is hard to imagine an election season maneuver backfiring more than county Legislator Joseph Scannell’s (D-Baldwin) effort to tout the relocation of the Nassau County Police Department’s (NCPD) 1st precinct headquarters.

First announced this spring, Legislator Scannell, who is seeking re-election on Tuesday, Nov. 3, clearly thought October was the right time to remind his constituents that the precinct’s main office was staying in Baldwin, albeit leaving an aging building for a more modern facility. To commemorate the upcoming relocation, the county posted a municipal sign bearing Scannell’s name alongside county executive Thomas Suozzi’s atop the shopping center storefront where the NCPD is headed.

Islanders’ New Look

The New York Islanders are opening their 2009-2010 season this weekend as the team’s owner continues his ardent push for the refurbishment of Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum and intense development of the area adjoining the Islanders’ home arena.

Those attending the Islanders’ first home game on Saturday, Oct. 3 at 7 p.m. will not only see them play the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins but also get a firsthand look at a revamped roster. The team’s second home game, to be held on Monday, Oct. 12 at 2 p.m. against the Los Angeles Kings, should have a lot of kids in attendance because schools are closed for Columbus Day.

White House Request

The front page headline in last Sunday’s New York Times was a stunner: ‘Obama Requests That Paterson Drop Campaign.’

Governor Paterson is said to be resisting this White House request, the article says. Well, wouldn’t you? No where in the Times story is there any mention of what President Obama might be offering, if anything, to the governor in exchange for his departure from elective office: an ambassador’s job; a cabinet post; a high-paying private-sector gig?

The Insult Comic

Comedienne Lisa Lampanelli has made a name for herself on cable TV’s Comedy Central roasts, where show business figures are subjected to an endless array of insults.

To give you a flavor for her style, Lampanelli offered this gibe about the follicle-challenged KISS band member Gene Simmons when Comedy Central roasted the aging rocker. “Now how did you come up with that hair style, genius? Did you catch Planet of the Apes on cable and say, hmm, now there’s a look?”