The Urban Grind

From my experience of living in Manhattan for most of my adult life, I can honestly say that many New Yorkers will go to great lengths and endure all sorts of inconveniences to prove how “with it” and “chic” they are. For example, I posted a while back about how a chef in a Manhattan restaurant was making dairy dishes from his wife’s breast milk. If you think that’s gross, then how about coffee made from animal poop, which sells for $30 a cup?

New York’s crappiest cup of coffee is also its most expensive.

At $30 a cup, “Kopi Luwak” is made from beans collected from the droppings of a small, cat-like mammal called a civet.

The java – often called “cat poo coffee” – isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and was nearly banned in Indonesia this month for being unsanitary.

Some New Yorkers, though, are saying bottom’s up to the strange brew. At coffee shops like Porto Rico in the West Village, the orders come about once a week, said owner Peter Longo, 58.

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The pricey coffee originated in Indonesia and the Philippines, where folks noticed the civets eating coffee berries, collected their droppings and picked out the beans.

Coffee consultant Michael Peter, 26, of Tamp Tamp Coffee Lab in New York, said the cats’ stomach acids produce a smooth-tasting brew.

Westerners took note and began exporting the kitty-poo joe stateside in the last few years, Peter said. Because of its unique processing, a pound can cost from $340 to $400.

I think it’s safe to call it crappy coffee.

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Do any of you remember that case of a young man who went to strip club the day of his wedding, and who afterwards rammed his car several times into a police van? I posted about it several times here, here, here, , and here. What do you think would happen if I were to ram my car several times into a police van?

Sean Bell was shot dead for his thuggish behavior. To make a long story short, the officers were acquitted. But Bell’s so-called widow still sued. Now she’s getting 3.25 million dollars.

The city made the announcement yesterday in a statement.

“The city regrets the loss of life in this tragic case and we share our deepest condolences with the Bell family,” Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo said. “The Sean Bell shooting highlighted the complexities our dedicated officers must face each day” and expressed the “hope that all the parties can find some measure of closure by this settlement.”

Paultre Bell, who legally took Sean’s last name after the slaying, called the settlement “fair.”

Bell and his two friends were celebrating his impending nuptials when they were shot by plainclothes and uniformed cops in a hail of more than 50 bullets outside a club.

Cops said they fired when Bell, who had been drinking, accelerated his car and hit one of the officers trying to keep him from leaving the scene.

After an extensive investigation, three detectives were indicted in March 2007. Two were charged with manslaughter, and the third with reckless endangerment.

In April 2008, all three cops were acquitted, triggering demands for a federal civil-rights investigation. The Justice Department dismissed the civil-rights claim in February, but the lawsuit, brought by his fiancée continued until yesterday.

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Being that Democrats are so non-chalant about spending other people’s hard-earned money (unless it’s for fighting terrorism), I just had to comment on this bit of news.

The openly gay Barney Frank caused a scene on the Fire Island Ferry when they wouldn’t give him a one dollar senior citizen’s discount.

Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank caused a scene when he demanded a $1 senior discount on his ferry fare to Fire Island’s popular gay haunt, The Pines, last Friday. Frank was turned down by ticket clerks at the dock in Sayville because he didn’t have the required Suffolk County Senior Citizens ID. A witness reports, “Frank made such a drama over the senior rate that I contemplated offering him the dollar to cool down the situation.” Frank made news last year when he was spotted looking uncomfortable around a bevy of topless, well-built men at the Pines Annual Ascension Beach Party. Frank’s spokesperson confirmed to Page Six that his partner, James Ready, asked the ticket office for a regular ticket for himself and a senior ticket for Frank, “but was turned down because Frank didn’t have a resident ID.”

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The judge that struck down most of SB-1070 is U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton, who of course is a Clinton appointee. Here are the parts of the law that were struck down.

• Requiring a police officer to make a reasonable attempt to check the immigration status of those they have stopped;

• Forbidding police from releasing anyone they have arrested until that person’s immigration status is determined;

• Making it a violation of Arizona law for anyone not a citizen to fail to carry documentation;

• Creating a new state crime for trying to secure work while not a legal resident;

• Allowing police to make warrantless arrests if there is a belief the person has committed an offense that allows them to be removed from the United States.

Here are parts of the law that the Obama administration *did not* challenge:

Making it a crime to stop a vehicle in traffic to hire a day laborer or for someone looking for work to get into a stopped vehicle;

• Requiring state officials to work with the federal government regarding illegal immigrants;

• Allowing Arizona residents to file suit against any agency, official, city or county for adopting policies that restrict the ability of workers to enforce federal immigration law “to less than the full extent permitted by federal law.”

Here’s Governor’s Brewer’s response:

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