I think we should start planning now to once again annually celebrate Evacuation Day in NYC on November 25th, for it is the day the last of the British troops departed from NYC in 1783 after occupying NYC for seven years during the Revolutionary War.  How many New Yorkers know NYC was once occupied, so here’s the scoop.

Though not celebrated officially in recent years,  Evacuation Day is an important Day in NYC history, and one I did not know about until recently.  The British evacuated NY Harbor on November 25, 1783, after occupying it for seven years, starting on November 16,1776 when George Washington retreated with his Continental Army.  Evacuation Day was celebrated annually until 1844, and then intermittently afterwards , as Thanksgiving Day became the priority celebration starting with Abraham Lincoln.

I call for an annual celebration of Evacuation Day in The Battery or Governor’s Island starting in 2016, where people stood, watched and cheered as the British ships left the Harbor back in 1783.  This would be 240 years after the British first occupied New York City, and 233 years to the day when they high-tailed out.

Last Fall, I walked past the NYCHA Houses at 103^rd & Second Avenue where  Police Officer Randolph Holder was fatally shot, literally the  week before, looking for the way to Randall’s Island, and was told by the Police Officer stationed there on the street with his van that he could not send me through the NYCHA Houses as I would risk being shot, as he said that’s how many guns and how dangerous it is, so he sent me a few blocks out of the way, to cross at 102^nd and head back up to the bridge crossing.

So, I was horrified when I heard that Officer Holder was fatally shot.  He did not have the choice I had, and gave his life in carrying out his responsibility to chase down, and apprehend a man who  was in the process of suspected criminal activity.

To know that an area is such a danger, and that lives are at risk every day, I find unacceptable.  We must find a way to put an end to it.  I call for zero tolerance, and that in the name of Officer Holder, we bring together community leaders, and mandate a way to take those guns, and create a safe zone in those NYCHA Houses.

To say this past year has been disconcerting, would be a grand understatement, as we watch leaders in the NYS legislature in Albany being indicted, and convicted.  Yes, integrity, honesty and holding an elected office should go hand-in-hand, and we can expect it, and demand it. Time to demand the highest of ethical behavior from our elected representatives.

Many ideas are being kicked around already, as it is expected that there will be new legislation again this year to try to deal with this condition.  Yes, it appears that it had almost become an accepted manner of behavior among some, so one can only assume that to some extent it is the culture of Albany that must be dealt with.

Let’s look to the real possibility of term limits, or a full-time legislature with no outside income, or a part-time legislature, or no fundraising during the legislative session, and zero tolerance.  And let’s put a much lower cap on giving, both for the individual, and most particularly for the corporate and LLC crowd, the special interests, including, yes, unions , with consequences if those guidelines are ignored.

Time for action, and we all do expect it now, in the 2016 legislative session.   The shame is that most of the legislators, many of whom I know well, are hard-working, dedicated public servants, who are living a difficult life being in Albany half the year involved in legislation, and yet expected to handle their district constituent responsibilities in the days they are home and throughout the  year, truly 24/7.  They are being seen in this broad-brush of Albany, and I would expect them to act, both for us, and for themselves.

Bagel scoopers are ruining NYC

Tucker Christon fondly remembers the bags of steaming-hot bagels his family shared growing up in Fresh Meadows, Queens. But when he moved back to the city 10 years ago, a nefarious trend had overtaken bagel eaters in New York: People were scooping out their bagels, as a way to cut down on carbs.

“That’s heresy!” he recalls thinking. “That’s bulls - - t.”

Heresy has its temptations, though: One Friday a few years ago, suffering a “bagel hangover” from too many carbs, he decided to give it a try. Christon become a convert.

“It’s still chewy, it’s still delicious,” he says of his regular order of whitefish, lettuce and tomato at Bagel World in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. “But the [counter] guy looked at me like, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ ”

Few things inspire more passionate disdain among New Yorkers — bagel scoopers are lumped in with people who eat their pizza with a fork or wear flip-flops on the subway. Part of the anger is aimed at the literal gutting of a food New Yorkers regard with beatific pride; part of it is the waste involved — all scoopings go directly into the trash.

Modal Trigger A Brooklyn woman says seeing her now-ex-boyfriend scoop out his bagel was a dealbreaker.Photo: Brian Zak

“It was the moment I realized my ex was a monster,” Lisa Rosenberg, a 27-year-old graphic designer living in Bushwick, Brooklyn, says of a guy she dated for about a year. “Even watching someone eating [a scooped-out bagel] is completely repulsive.”

The controversy is covered in a new book “Should I Scoop Out My Bagel?” by dietitian Ilyse Schapiro and Hallie Rich, out Tuesday.

“Scooping a bagel won’t leave you missing anything important,” they claim, “but it will help you cut excess calories and carbs.”

But the number of calories saved is minimal, other experts counter. “You’re saving maximum 75 calories by scooping it out,” argues nutritionist Marissa Lippert. That’s about as the same calories as an apple.

The authors recommend downright sacrilege: buying lower-calorie packaged bagels from the supermarket. “The taste may not compare, but we love our asses in our favorite jeans more.”

Jillian Steinhauer, a 31-year-old editor in Park Slope, Brooklyn, doesn’t buy that argument.

“In that case, why are you ordering a bagel?” she asks. “You may as well just eat the cream cheese on its own.”

Like it or not, scooping is now here to stay. Top bagel shops including Terrace Bagels, Bagel Pub, Ess-a-Bagel and La Bagel Delight scoop on request. Notoriously fussy Murray’s Bagels in Greenwich Village, which only changed its no-toasting policy in September, has a “Scoop Both Sides” option at registers.

“The customer comes first,” says Melanie Frost, chief operating officer of Ess-a-Bagel.

Dan Pashman, host of the WNYC podcast “The Sporkful,” describes scooping as a symptom of a larger alarming trend: The classic NYC bagel is disappearing due to “bagelflation,” caused by transplants who come to New York accustomed to huge, doughy rolls masquerading as bagels.

He’s come up with a compromise: trifurcation — slicing the bagel twice across and removing the middle disc.

“You improve your ratio of spread to bagel,” he says. Still, a real New York bagel is meant to be work, not a health food.

“If you eat two bagels,” he says, “your jaw should be a little sore.”

Hanukkah is a special time of year, and Sammy Samuels filled the only remaining Synagogue in Myanmar to the rafters, as he takes on the mantle of leadership in the year after the passing of his wonderful father, the late Moses Samuels..  They single-handedly have carried on the tradition of Judaism in Myanmar, and having visited with Moses at the synagogue in Yangon a number of years ago, I am so thrilled to see this beautiful synagogue in such a special brightness of the holiday, now led by my friend Sammy.

“It was such a beautiful evening to host Ambassadors, Government officials, former commander in chief, leaders from Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, Bahai and Hindu community and many other distinguish guests at the Yangon Synagogue. In other part of the world getting together of all religious leaders would be impossible but in Myanmar it’s real and it’s possible.

We miss my father very much but I am sure he will be very happy to see that we continue to keep the Spirit of Hanukkah alive in this beautiful city of Yangon.”

  

“Roll your eyes all you want, but you have to have a vision for what you want.  You have to picture it in your mind.”

– Lady Gaga, giving advice to someone on getting his ex back, with the same method that she used to carry out her single minded ambition, visualizing early on, of one day playing Madison Square Garden.