Tales of a Deadhead

Bill Kreutzman, Bob Weir, Caliifornia, Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, New York City, Phil Lesh, Rock and Roll

Tales of a Deadhead

Because I couldn’t get into Boston University I got stuck at good Ol’ Ithaca College.

No offense, but another cold winter after a couple of years in the Berkshires freezing my butt off in High School and here I was stuck with a bunch of Long Islanders in the middle of nowhere.

In 1985 The Grateful Dead came to nearby Rochester and I jumped at the chance to go.

My brother from another mother -literally- lived in Northern California and was a big Head. I remember hearing “Uncle John’s Band” from his front room in our house when he was in High School. I was six or seven and thought it was secretly about me.

When Jerry Garcia died in 1995 I had seen over one-hundred shows. You’re either on the bus or off the bus but one must decide and my decision had been made long ago.

Twenty-four years later from that fateful day in Rochester New York, I’m back on the East Coast – in bloody New York City with a knockout wife and a beautiful blond four year-old little girl after five years in Santa Cruz and ten years in Venice California.

The Dead minus Mr. Garcia are not The Grateful Dead.

Much has been written since Jerry died;
much of it dreck.

I’ll never forget that *piece* that that woman wrote in the New York Times when the leader of the band left the stage.

But after all these years Mr. Hart, Weir, Kreutzman and Lesh can still bring Madison Square Garden to its knees and this very authentic cover band with original members did just that Saturday Night in the Big Apple.

Man o’ man, I hugged Avril ROSE extra tight the next day.

SETLIST- THE DEAD
April 25, 2009

Set I: Cosmic Charlie, China Cat Sunflower > Shakedown Street, Ship of Fools, He’s Gone, Cassidy, Sugaree
Set II: Drums > Cryptical Envelopment > The Other One > Born Cross-Eyed > St. Stephen > The Eleven > Uncle John’s Band > Unbroken Chain > Gimme Shelter > One More Saturday Night
Encore: Brokedown Palace
Only “Ship of Fools,” Only “Gimme Shelter”

PHOTOS: Jay Blakesberg

Peace,

The White Van: Were Israelis Detained on Sept. 11 Spies?

9/11, 9/11 Crime Investigation, Bin Laden, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, Israel, Manhattan, Mossad, New York City, Saudi Arabia, Twin Towers, WTC, wtc7

The White Van

Were Israelis Detained on Sept. 11 Spies?

ABC NEWS

June 21 —2002

Millions saw the horrific images of the World Trade Center attacks, and those who saw them won’t forget them. But a New Jersey homemaker saw something that morning that prompted an investigation into five young Israelis and their possible connection to Israeli intelligence.

Maria, who asked us not to use her last name, had a view of the World Trade Center from her New Jersey apartment building. She remembers a neighbor calling her shortly after the first plane hit the towers.

She grabbed her binoculars and watched the destruction unfolding in lower Manhattan. But as she watched the disaster, something else caught her eye.

Maria says she saw three young men kneeling on the roof of a white van in the parking lot of her apartment building. “They seemed to be taking a movie,” Maria said.

The men were taking video or photos of themselves with the World Trade Center burning in the background, she said. What struck Maria were the expressions on the men’s faces. “They were like happy, you know … They didn’t look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange,” she said.

She found the behavior so suspicious that she wrote down the license plate number of the van and called the police. Before long, the FBI was also on the scene, and a statewide bulletin was issued on the van.

The plate number was traced to a van owned by a company called Urban Moving. Around 4 p.m. on Sept. 11, the van was spotted on a service road off Route 3, near New Jersey’s Giants Stadium. A police officer pulled the van over, finding five men, between 22 and 27 years old, in the vehicle. The men were taken out of the van at gunpoint and handcuffed by police.

The arresting officers said they saw a lot that aroused their suspicion about the men. One of the passengers had $4,700 in cash hidden in his sock. Another was carrying two foreign passports. A box cutter was found in the van. But perhaps the biggest surprise for the officers came when the five men identified themselves as Israeli citizens.

‘We Are Not Your Problem’

According to the police report, one of the passengers told the officers they had been on the West Side Highway in Manhattan “during the incident” — referring to the World Trade Center attack. The driver of the van, Sivan Kurzberg, told the officers, “We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.” The other passengers were his brother Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari.

When the men were transferred to jail, the case was transferred out of the FBI’s Criminal Division, and into the bureau’s Foreign Counterintelligence Section, which is responsible for espionage cases, ABCNEWS has learned.

One reason for the shift, sources told ABCNEWS, was that the FBI believed Urban Moving may have been providing cover for an Israeli intelligence operation.

After the five men were arrested, the FBI got a warrant and searched Urban Moving’s Weehawken, N.J., offices.

The FBI searched Urban Moving’s offices for several hours, removing boxes of documents and a dozen computer hard drives. The FBI also questioned Urban Moving’s owner. His attorney insists that his client answered all of the FBI’s questions. But when FBI agents tried to interview him again a few days later, he was gone.

Three months later 2020’s cameras photographed the inside of Urban Moving, and it looked as if the business had been shut down in a big hurry. Cell phones were lying around; office phones were still connected; and the property of dozens of clients remained in the warehouse.

The owner had also cleared out of his New Jersey home, put it up for sale and returned with his family to Israel.

‘A Scary Situation’

Steven Gordon, the attorney for the five Israeli detainees, acknowledged that his clients’ actions on Sept. 11 would easily have aroused suspicions. “You got a group of guys that are taking pictures, on top of a roof, of the World Trade Center. They’re speaking in a foreign language. They got two passports on ’em. One’s got a wad of cash on him, and they got box cutters. Now that’s a scary situation.”

But Gordon insisted that his clients were just five young men who had come to America for a vacation, ended up working for a moving company, and were taking pictures of the event.

The five Israelis were held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, ostensibly for overstaying their tourist visas and working in the United States illegally. Two weeks after their arrest, an immigration judge ordered them to be deported. But sources told ABCNEWS that FBI and CIA officials in Washington put a hold on the case.

The five men were held in detention for more than two months. Some of them were placed in solitary confinement for 40 days, and some of them were given as many as seven lie-detector tests.

Plenty of Speculation

Since their arrest, plenty of speculation has swirled about the case, and what the five men were doing that morning. Eventually, The Forward, a respected Jewish newspaper in New York, reported the FBI concluded that two of the men were Israeli intelligence operatives.

Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of operations for counterterrorism with the CIA who is now a consultant for ABCNEWS, said federal authorities’ interest in the case was heightened when some of the men’s names were found in a search of a national intelligence database.

Israeli Intelligence Connection?

According to Cannistraro, many people in the U.S. intelligence community believed that some of the men arrested were working for Israeli intelligence. Cannistraro said there was speculation as to whether Urban Moving had been “set up or exploited for the purpose of launching an intelligence operation against radical Islamists in the area, particularly in the New Jersey-New York area.”

Under this scenario, the alleged spying operation was not aimed against the United States, but at penetrating or monitoring radical fund-raising and support networks in Muslim communities like Paterson, N.J., which was one of the places where several of the hijackers lived in the months prior to Sept. 11.

For the FBI, deciphering the truth from the five Israelis proved to be difficult. One of them, Paul Kurzberg, refused to take a lie-detector test for 10 weeks — then failed it, according to his lawyer. Another of his lawyers told us Kurzberg had been reluctant to take the test because he had once worked for Israeli intelligence in another country.

Sources say the Israelis were targeting these fund-raising networks because they were thought to be channeling money to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, groups that are responsible for most of the suicide bombings in Israel. “[The] Israeli government has been very concerned about the activity of radical Islamic groups in the United States that could be a support apparatus to Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” Cannistraro said.

The men denied that they had been working for Israeli intelligence out of the New Jersey moving company, and Ram Horvitz, their Israeli attorney, dismissed the allegations as “stupid and ridiculous.”

Mark Regev, the spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, goes even further, asserting the issue was never even discussed with U.S. officials.

“These five men were not involved in any intelligence operation in the United States, and the American intelligence authorities have never raised this issue with us,” Regev said. “The story is simply false.”

No ‘Pre-Knowledge’

Despite the denials, sources tell ABCNEWS there is still debate within the FBI over whether or not the young men were spies. Many U.S. government officials still believe that some of them were on a mission for Israeli intelligence. But the FBI told ABCNEWS, “To date, this investigation has not identified anybody who in this country had pre-knowledge of the events of 9/11.”

Sources also said that even if the men were spies, there is no evidence to conclude they had advance knowledge of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. The investigation, at the end of the day, after all the polygraphs, all of the field work, all the cross-checking, the intelligence work, concluded that they probably did not have advance knowledge of 9/11,” Cannistraro noted.

As to what they were doing on the van, they say they read about the attack on the Internet, couldn’t see it from their offices and went to the parking lot for a better view. But no one has been able to find a good explanation for why they may have been smiling with the towers of the World Trade Center burning in the background. Both the lawyers for the young men and the Israeli Embassy chalk it up to immature conduct.

According to ABCNEWS sources, Israeli and U.S. government officials worked out a deal — and after 71 days, the five Israelis were taken out of jail, put on a plane, and deported back home.

While the former detainees refused to answer ABCNEWS’ questions about their detention and what they were doing on Sept. 11, several of the detainees discussed their experience in America on an Israeli talk show after their return home.

Said one of the men, denying that they were laughing or happy on the morning of Sept. 11, “The fact of the matter is we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event.”

ABCNEWS’ Chris Isham, John Miller, Glenn Silber and Chris Vlasto contributed to this report.

Answers About New York Weather

Cold, New York City, Rain, Snow, Weather, Wind

March 4, 2009 T I M E S B L O G

hemp-96

Answers About the Weather

By The New York Times

Taking Questions Ask the Meterologist

I. Ross Dickman is answering City Room readers’ questions.

Biography »
Ask a question »

Following is the first set of responses from I. Ross Dickman, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service team serving New York City and the metropolitan region. This week, he is answering City Room readers’ questions about his experience and observations working with weather, community planners and emergency managers in the region. Post a question for Mr. Dickman in the comments box below. Please note that this Q. and A. was scheduled before Monday’s snowstorm.

Maybe you could describe the chain of events leading up to the forecasts for this particular storm. When is a decision made to put out an alert or a warning? How did it play out in this case? How precise can you be about the timing of a storm, when it will hit? What data goes into that prediction?

— Posted by Weatherman

For the March 2, 2009, snowstorm, the forecasts were right on target. The local National Weather Service forecast office here in Upton, N.Y. on eastern Long Island issued winter storm watches and warnings with more than 24 hours of lead time as well as heightened awareness of the event that occurred several days in advance. As you might imagine, timely and reliable dissemination of forecasts and warnings is critical to the protection of life and property. When forecast confidence increases to at least 50 percent based on the interpretation of forecast model output, a watch is issued. When forecast confidence increases to at least 80 percent, a warning is issued. Our goal is to issue watches with lead times of 24 to 36 hours and warnings 12 to 18 hours in advance of the storm. For this storm, we provided longer lead times than our goals.

The National Weather Service follows a specific forecast process for all weather situations before putting out a forecast or warning. The process goes something like this: Observations including satellites, upper air data and radar are collected by the local forecast office and then checked for quality, analyzed, and then infused into a suite of computer models at the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. Millions of calculations occur with these models to generate predictions of storm behavior and the general conditions of the atmosphere. The model results are then evaluated and used in the National Weather Service forecast and warning process.

Unfortunately, these models cannot account for all of the short-term changes in the atmosphere, resulting in forecast error or uncertainty. Interpretations of the model guidance are then translated into forecasts and warnings that are coordinated between the national centers and surrounding local forecast offices to ensure consistency. Once completed, the issuing office generates forecast and warning products for release to the public and emergency management groups.

Somehow it seems that New York City is becoming windier. What is causing this, and where do these strong winds we’ve been having recently come from? Thank you.

— Posted by Darinka Zaharieff

Winds in New York City are greatly affected by the buildings, which can greatly increase speeds. We do not have any indication that winds have been on the increase in recent years. Statistically, February and March are the windiest months for New York City, and August and September have the least wind. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service operates the National Climatic Data Center in Ashville, N.C. The Climatic Data Center is the world’s largest archive of climate data, much of which is online for researchers and the public to query.

When the water surrounding Lower Manhattan rises, what is the projected annual rate of increase? Are the rising waters expected to affect the Hudson and the East Rivers similarly, and what measure do engineers recommend to revamp the seawall?

— Posted by Rima Blair

While I can’t comment on the engineering aspects, I can affirm that rising sea levels and other phenomena like hurricanes are a real threat to the New York City region.

The Center for Climate Systems Research at Columbia University cites these threats. According to the researchers: “Regional sea level trends of the past century range between 0.08 to 0.16 inches per year (2 to 4 millimeters per year). From a suite of sea-level rise scenarios based on an extrapolation of historical trends and outputs from several global climate model simulations, the researchers projected a rise in sea level of 11.8 to 37.5 inches (30 to 95.5 centimeters) in New York City and 9.5 to 42.5 inches (24 to 108 centimeters) in the metropolitan region by the 2080s. Flooding by major storms would inundate many low-lying neighborhoods and shut down the metropolitan transportation system with much greater frequency.”

Severe hurricanes and associated storm surge have the most serious immediate threat to the coastline. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Sea, Lake and Overland Surges From Hurricanes model (SLOSH) shows a Category 3 hurricane on the worst-case track projection has the potential to bring nearly 25 feet of water into Lower Manhattan and surrounding areas.

Is it likely that we will have another big snow event during the rest of the season (winter-spring 2009)? Statistically speaking, where is the coolest place in Brooklyn to chill out during the dog days of summer?

— Posted by Brooklynite

While we could have another significant snowstorm (six inches or greater) this month, it is not likely. Typically, New York has one big snow a year, most commonly in February. On average, March has only a 1 in 5 chance of a significant snowstorm. Interestingly, we have to go all the way back to March 13-14, 1993, to the last time that we had a snowfall of six inches or more, though we came close on March 16, 2007, with 5.5 inches.

As for where to cool off in summer in Brooklyn — Coney Island is the place. The daily sea breeze keeps temperatures the coolest around during a hot summer afternoon.

How can I be a Weather Service storm spotter?

— Posted by David

Your National Weather Service offers the Skywarn Spotter Program to volunteers who are willing to assist Weather Service meteorologists in making warning decisions. A free three-hour spotter training class will be offered this spring, which will be posted to our Skywarn Web site by April 3. You will have to register for a class. You will be trained to recognize and report features associated with rapidly developing, mature, and dissipating thunderstorms that cause hazardous weather. For further information on our Skywarn program, please contact Brian Ciemnecki.

Get New York City Transit Info on Google Maps

Bronx, Brooklyn, Google Maps, Manhattan, MTA, New York City, NY Subwat, Queens, Staten Island

Michael Bloomberg is Seeking to Revise Law and Run Again For Mayor

Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, New York City

NEW YORK TIMES

October 1, 2008

Bloomberg Called Ready to Announce Third-Term Bid

By MICHAEL BARBARO and DAVID W. CHEN

After months of speculation about his political future, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg plans to announce on Thursday morning that he will seek a third term as mayor, according to three people who have been told of his plans.

The extraordinary move promises to upend New York City’s political world.

Right now, Mr. Bloomberg is barred by law from seeking re-election. But he will propose trying to revise the city’s 15-year-old term limits law, which would otherwise force him and dozens of other elected leaders out of office in 2009, the three people said.

In his announcement, Mr. Bloomberg, a former Wall Street trader and founder of a billion-dollar financial data firm, is expected to argue that the financial crisis unfolding in New York City demands his steady hand and proven business acumen.

The move represents an about-face for Mr. Bloomberg, who has repeatedly said he supports term limits and once called an effort to revise the law “disgusting.” He will apparently try to do so through legislation in the City Council, rather than the ballot box.

Mr. Bloomberg’s gambit carries significant political risk. The city’s term limits law was passed twice by voters, in 1993 and 1996, and several polls show widespread popular support for keeping it in place. Under the plan Mr. Bloomberg has outlined to associates, those voters will have no say in the matter, raising the possibility of a backlash.

Mr. Bloomberg, 66, who in public statements in recent weeks has become equivocal about term limits, has discussed in detail with his friends and advisers the pros and cons of changing the law and running again. “This has been thoroughly thought out by the mayor,” said a person who has advised the mayor in the past.

The mayor’s press office, which had limited staffing because of Rosh Hashana, did not immediately return a phone call on Tuesday.

Over the last few weeks, Mr. Bloomberg has taken pains to showcase his financial experience, trading phone calls with the heads of struggling banks, like Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch and the nation’s top financial regulators at the Federal Reserve and the Securities Exchange Commission.

With his decision, Mr. Bloomberg is overruling the advice of this top three aides at City Hall — Edward Skyler, Patricia E. Harris and Kevin Sheekey — who have all told associates that they oppose a third term.

Those aides have told the mayor — at times forcefully — that any campaign to challenge the term limits law would look like an end run around voters, and could sully his strong legacy over the last eight years, according to people familiar with the conversations.

In the business community, however, the prospect of a Bloomberg third term is overwhelmingly positive. In dozens of private meetings and telephone calls over the last few months, executives ranging from the financier Steven Rattner to the chief executive of the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, have encouraged him to seek a third term.

As the city’s economy has become imperiled over the last two weeks, support for such a move has intensified.

“He has the confidence of the business community and the executive ability to run the city,” said Stephen M. Ross, the chief executive of the Related Companies, a major developer. “This is a good time for him to do this. People are scared.”

The chances of passing legislation in the City Council are strong, according to interviews. In August, a New York Times survey of council members — two-thirds of whom are scheduled to be forced out of office in 2009 — found that a majority were willing to amend the term limits law.

If successful, Mr. Bloomberg would be only the fourth New York mayor in modern history to win a third term.

Charles V. Bagli and Jim Dwyer contributed reporting.

FBI searches Hollywood home in NY blast probe but no link found

9/11, Berkeley, Bomb, Civil Liberties, N.Y.C., New York City, NYPD, Patriot Act, terrorism, Times Square

By MICHAEL R. BLOOD Associated Press Writer

Article Launched: 03/07/2008 01:28:22 PM PST

LOS ANGELES—FBI agents scrambling for leads after the bombing of a military recruiting station in New York’s Times Square quickly had one in hand—literally.Members of Congress had been receiving letters in recent days that included a photograph of a man standing in Times Square with the words, “We Did It,” printed below the photo. It raised immediate suspicions after the early morning explosion, and the return address on the envelopes was the Hollywood home of lawyer David Karnes.

FBI agents pulled over the Harvard graduate Thursday after he left a workout at a gym, and after questioning him and searching the home investigators concluded he was not involved in the crime. It turned out that “We Did It” referred to the Democratic Party taking control of Congress in 2006.

Neighbors said plainclothes FBI agents sealed off the quiet, hillside neighborhood during the search, flashing badges and urging them to stay indoors.

The episode left Karnes’ shocked, but a day later he was trying to take it in stride, said his mother, Frances Karnes, 82, who lives in Orange County, Calif.

David Karnes did not respond to phone messages Friday, and no one answered the doorbell at his home.

Ironically, he wasn’t aware of the details of the New York bombing.

At first “he was in shock,” his mother said in a telephone interview. “I just spoke to him. He seems quite calm. He realizes it’s going to blow over.”

He’ll be OK. He wasn’t involved,” she said. “My son, he’s a very bright and intelligent man. He would never do anything like that.”

Nonetheless, the episode left the family rattled, since Karnes was as unlikely a bombing suspect as one could imagine.

Karnes, who is single, graduated from Harvard University in 1979. He went on the take a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and also earned a doctoral degree there in American history.

The lengthy anti-war letters were sent to as many as 100 members of Congress, officials said. Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman in Los Angeles, said “there is no evidence linking the letters, which contained no threat, to the bombing.”

Neighbors described Karnes as an outgoing man who liked to talk politics and wasn’t shy about expressing his liberal views. He was so generous, one said, he allowed a neighbor to leave a car in his driveway, no small gift in a city famously short on parking spaces.

Max Roth, a 25-year-old software engineer, used to live two houses away and was visiting the neighborhood Friday. Roth said Karnes was politically active and had tried to enlist him to write letters on political issues.

“He was very politically aware, politically active,” Roth said.

Frances Karnes said the she considered the saga “a big coincidence.”

“It’s just the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard,” she said.

Hillary Clinton on David Letterman | Feb 4 2008 | Part Two

Barack Obama, Blogs, Broadcatching, D.C., Election 2008, Film and Video, Hillary Clinton, Iraq, New York City, Obama, PNAC, Tullycast

I thought Hillary was pretty good tonight on David Letterman.
Obama is a great politician and an inspirational man but Hillary is going to absolutely wreak havoc in D.C. in the best of ways because she knows where all the bodies are buried and how the system can work a President and she’ll work it right back getting us all back on track as a reasonably decent nation….