Here's a second fact that I always tell people to add some perspective about this flute:

I live in Brooklyn, New York. Brooklyn is part of Long Island. Long Island is a glacial moraine, formed after the last major glacial retreat.

That flute is older than Long Island. And the short version of my factoid is "Music is older than Long Island".

tear it down

you really should see a doctor if your mid-day poop hurts that much, James.

Not my fault you're a vindictive dolt.

I was pretty sure but for a moment I thought you might be talking about a different Levine. Anyway, as long as his heirs aren't also quite terrible I see no problem with the Met and his heirs making money off stuff his estate has a stake in.

Isn't Levine dead?

But he's dead. So he doesn't get the money. Are his heirs terrible also?

Well I guess from now on, they're gonna have a clause in their contracts that says it's void if you openly support a genocidal autocrat.

Blandest neighborhood in the city has a predictably NIMBY community board.

This city needs a fast-track process that lets city inspectors identify urgent repairs and give landlords a very short window to get them done.

Like, after 48 hours, the city needs to be able to hire contractors to do the work to city specs, and add the cost to the landlord's tax bill for that year.

We also need a way to quickly put repeat offenders into receivership or fine and lien them so hard they're forced to sell.

It takes way way too long to force a landlord to fix serious safety and habitability violations. If someone can't afford to maintain their building they shouldn't be a landlord.

Also one of the most annoying things about all the lists of terrible landlords that we see published every year is that they don't include clear face photos of the bastards. People should be nervous about social consequences of being this awful.

TLDR.

just skimmed enough to glean that now, in addition to being long winded and sadistic, you're also being smug.

if you breed and live by the garbage you preach, may your progeny take revenge for their beatings when you are old and helpless.

(mutes replies)

the ratio of corporal punishment studies that say "don't do it" to studies that say it's OK is similar to the ratio with climate realists and climate deniers.

If your parents hit you they were bad parents. Look at their absolute failure on display right now in the form of your ignorant ass putting a lot of energy into defending hitting children.

It should be illegal in your home. A country where it's illegal to assault an adult but it's legal to assault a kid is sick.

Ah. Thanks for the info. Turns out I'm just old enough to have had friends in the last few classes before they stopped doing it, hence my need to ask.

How have we not banned corporal punishment of children entirely, including at home, like most of the free world?

There have been tons of scientific studies about it and the conclusion is almost universally that it causes long term harm and doesn't improve behavior.

article:

New York State lawmakers have introduced several bills that would ban corporal punishment in private schools after The New York Times reported that students in some Hasidic Jewish religious schools have been regularly hit, slapped or kicked by their instructors.
Democrats and Republicans in both chambers have introduced at least four bills to outlaw the practice, which is prohibited in public schools but not explicitly barred in all private schools. Several lawmakers said they expect the measures to pass without opposition.
“No so-called educators or educational administrators have a right to put their hands on anyone’s kid,” said Charles Lavine, the Nassau Democrat who is chairman of the Assembly Judiciary Committee and sponsor of one of the bills. “It’s as simple as that.”
The legislation is part of a broader push by some state lawmakers to increase oversight of private schools, especially all-boys schools in the fervently religious Hasidic community, in response to the Times investigation, which revealed that those schools had received more than $1 billion in taxpayer funding while providing only paltry instruction in English, math and other secular subjects.

The failings occurred despite a state law requiring private schools to provide an education that is substantially equivalent to the one offered in public schools. The Times report, drawing on 911 calls and interviews with dozens of recent students, also showed that teachers in many Hasidic schools made regular use of corporal punishment to keep students in line during hours of grueling religious lessons.
Representatives of the Hasidic schools say that their instructors do not use corporal punishment and that any isolated incidents occur less frequently than in other schools.
Last month, during a joint legislative budget hearing, lawmakers questioned a spokesman for Agudath Israel of America, an Orthodox Jewish group that advocates for Hasidic schools. The spokesman, Rabbi Yeruchim Silber, defended the schools and said they had no tolerance for corporal punishment.

“These schools produce citizens who are well-rounded in all areas,” Rabbi Silber said. “Businesspeople, professionals, every walk of life, family life, communities that are low in crime, low in drug use.”
This week, representatives of several Hasidic schools did not respond to requests for comment.
The bills aimed at raising educational standards in religious schools include proposals that build off the state Education Department’s new regulations for all private schools. The regulations, which officials had considered for years, were adopted days after The Times investigation was published in September. They offered a road map for holding private schools to minimum standards, requiring the schools to prove they are providing a basic education or risk losing funding.

One proposal, introduced by Assembly Democrats Kenneth Zebrowski and Deborah Glick, would clarify and strengthen the state’s existing law. Another pair of bills, by Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal, would require instruction in certain subjects, including prevention of child abuse. A third piece of legislation, from State Senator Robert Jackson, would cut off funding for any private schools that fail to certify that they are providing education in specific secular subjects like math, technology and geography.
Mr. Jackson, a Manhattan Democrat, said in an interview that he had unsuccessfully pushed the bill in previous years. He said he had long supported budget increases for public education but believed schools that accepted public dollars without providing basic instruction in reading or math were “committing a fraud.”

“If you’re receiving the money, you need to do what you said you were going to do,” Mr. Jackson said. “If not, you’re going to be in trouble.”
All the bills aimed at improving secular instruction in private religious schools face significant opposition.
In January, eight Republican members of Congress from New York State wrote a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul asking that she not interfere with Jewish religious schools — known as yeshivas.

“We urge you to do all in your power to support and empower New York’s yeshiva schools to teach their students on their own terms,” wrote the lawmakers, including Representative Elise Stefanik.
State Senator John Liu, the Queens Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said in an interview that he believed that further legislation was unnecessary because state officials had handled the issue last year when they adopted new regulations.
The proposal to ban corporal punishment in private schools, by contrast, has garnered considerably more support, including from Mr. Liu and many others.
At least four such bills have been introduced, but lawmakers appear to be coalescing around one filed by State Senator Julia Salazar and Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher, both Democrats who represent Williamsburg, Brooklyn, home to some of the most insular Hasidic communities in the state. At least six other senators have signed on as co-sponsors.

The proposal defines corporal punishment as “any act of physical force upon a pupil, however light, for the purpose of punishing such pupil or modifying undesirable behavior.” It states that no teacher or school employee may use corporal punishment.

The bill is now pending in the Senate Children and Families Committee.
Another proposal, from Assemblyman David McDonough, a Republican from Long Island, defines corporal punishment to include the use of timeout rooms.
Aside from the Times articles, The Albany Times-Union reported last year on more than 1,000 instances of corporal punishment that have illegally occurred in public schools in recent years.
The Times articles sparked debate among officials over corporal punishment laws. While the law clearly says that corporal punishment is only barred in public schools and certain private schools that are registered with the state, some officials pointed out after the Times investigation that “child abuse” already was illegal under state law, and that corporal punishment could be considered abuse. The state Education Department even issued a formal opinion saying that was its interpretation of the law.
Still, several lawmakers said they believe more clarity is needed, especially as it relates to yeshivas.

State Senator Liz Krueger, a Democrat from Manhattan, said she hoped that any corporal punishment bill the Legislature passes would include clear enforcement measures and penalties for schools that break the law.
“Frankly, there have been some decent laws on the books,” Ms. Krueger said, “but they haven’t been enforced.”

This article is exclusively focused on Yeshivas. But do private Catholic schools in NY still use corporal punishment, too?

Why would it not be when the bridges and tunnels clearly are?

if congress won't send us money, how about Biden sends the DOJ to investigate all the damn graft, so we don't have to spend as much money?

Gjim Shabaj has an IMDB credit for "Albanian Gangster", lol.

I was gonna say that I was glad to see law enforcement finally doing something about wage theft, but this isn't that. These dudes are goons. One already did time for grand larceny.

Seems pretty unlikely that we're gonna see a trend of local DA's actually targeting the more common forms of wage theft, which are all too often treated as a civil matter, when they shouldn't be.

nobody wants to work anymore!

see above

Tens of thousands of bureaucrats are employed by the government to do the job of determining whether or not people are "deserving" of government services, so that trash like you can be satisfied that people you disapprove of aren't getting help.

If we fired them all, we'd have a lot more money to spend on providing universal free emergency care.

we're not a civilized country.