happykittn

Oh, are hotel prices really a lot cheaper now? I'll have to check that out, thanks... any hotel recommendations or places to avoid?

My friend will be coming to visit this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. He's an aspiring investment banker, and will have interviews with Goldman, Morgan Stanley, etc. while he's here (don't worry, he's definitely not a sketchy guy... really chill and laid-back). Is anything particularly interesting going on in the city this weekend? What would you recommend doing/going to? Any special events/parties/etc.? He's never been to NYC before, and I want to give him an accurate taste/feel of the place. Can you recommend any restaurants, places to go, things to do, etc... for both day and night? We're both 21, and want to have as much fun as we can. Thanks so much in advance!

Okay, here's the deal. One of my good friends from college is coming to NYC this weekend for some interviews, but he doesn't have a place to stay. I'm in MA, and I'd like to chill with him in the city... we're not too excited about paying big bucks for a hotel, and we were wondering if any of you would be cool enough to let us crash with you for two nights? We're just friends (purely platonic), so you won't have to worry about strangers knocking boots in your place. I'll be exploring the city all day (and all night) with him, so we'd only need a place to sleep. He's a good guy, just about to graduate from school (drug free), and I'm a pretty normal girl at a college in MA. I know this must seem kinda sketchy, but I figure it can't hurt to ask. Feel free to PM me, thanks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011019/aponline115840_000.htm NY Post Employee Has Skin Anthrax By Karen Matthews Associated Press Writer Friday, Oct. 19, 2001; 11:58 a.m. EDT NEW YORK –– A New York Post employee has contracted skin anthrax, a television station affiliated with the newspaper reported Friday. The woman had been tested with 10 other employees considered at high risk but the first test came up negative because she was on antibiotics for an unrelated illness, WNYW-TV reported. The publisher's statement said the victim was "already regarded as cured," according to WNYW. It's the fourth anthrax case in New York City, all involving media companies, and the seventh nationwide in the weeks since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The woman, whose name was not made public, works at the News Corp. building at 1211 Sixth Ave. WNYW said no other cases have been found at the building, which also is the headquarters for Fox News. The Fox television station and the newspaper are owned by News Corp., a worldwide media organization headed by Rupert Murdoch. :worry2:

Words of wisdom. BTW, kitty... Jenna slipped your cell # in my box (we went out this Saturday... to Amherst, yay ), and I'll go retrieve it sooner or later. Still haven't made it out to Exit, and I've heard they've made some nice new renovations. Sucks that I'm taking the GRE Halloween weekend.

... offering 50 grand for every captured American soldier, $3000 for each uniform, and $1500 for each gun. I don't even want to start to think about what would happen to captured soldiers. God bless the Special Forces teams over there in Afghanistan. :worry2:

I like Paris. She worked with my boyfriend's best friend on SF's website, and now that they're all buddy-buddy we never have to wait in line. Just walk right up to the front and go straight through (which was nice when I wasn't 21 yet, didn't have to bother with an ID). Paris is a tough cookie who's had a rough past, and I really respect her knowing what she's been through. See you Saturday.

At 4:30am? Was there a line??

Was it packed? Too crowded? Just right? What kind of outfits did you see? Did a lot of people dress up? And I was all ready with my leather/latex. Damn, damn, DAMN. Is there anything going on next week? I'm DEFINITELY going to be there next Saturday night.

Anyone?

God bless you, Casey. An angel, always.

http://www.jonathanpeters.com/America.mp3

Mmmm, bagel and cream cheese... onion rings and salad over here.

My boyfriend is. He graduated from West Point (the best military institution on earth - world leaders send their sons and daughters there for training and education), and is a Lieutenant in the US Army at Ft. Bliss right now, specializing in Patriot missiles. He's scheduled to meet with General Abrams by the end of the week (he's the TRADOC commander, which is basically the head guy for all US military training schemes). A lot of his friends (other West Point grads and Sound Factory regulars ) are active, too. A few are going to try to come back to NYC from their bases across the country (Georgia, Texas, etc.) to try and pay SF another visit in October. Most of you in here have probably danced your ass off right next to someone who's more ready than ever to defend our country's freedom.

Subject: Letter from an American Afghani writer Dear Friends, The following was sent to me by my friend Tamim Ansary. Tamim is an Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most brilliant people I know. When he writes, I read. When he talks, I listen. Here is his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in. -Gary T. Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread: I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done." And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what’s going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing. I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters. But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they’re starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan—a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban. We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that. New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans. They don't move too fast - they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban - by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time. So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done," they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that, folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West. And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he’s got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong - in the end, the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else?

So true. The sad and scary thing is, most people (Americans especially) don't know the definitions of (or distinctions between) Sikhs, Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, Pakestinians, Israelis, etc. At this point, it seems like anyone wearing a turban or in traditional Islamic dress is a target for ignorant, hate-filled people. A few Sikh (some of whom weren't affiliated in any way with Bin Laden or Afghanistan) Americans were killed recently - random hate crimes in gas stations, convenience stores, etc. I think the media seriously needs to address the issues here to prevent future hate crimes. Otherwise, it's Japanese internment camps all over again. :worry2:

tribal ~ you're welcome... I think some of these cartoons have pretty intense messages... definitely worth thinking about. I think it's particularly important we look back at history and avoid repeating our mistakes. I'll be back in the City soon, and hope all your friends and family are well. The guilty should be punished... but let the innocent live.

It depends. Latex is MUCH pricier, but if you buy the good stuff (and take good care of it), it'll last forever. PVC is the cheap stuff; it just doesn't look/shine/feel like latex. I have a pretty extensive collection myself, if you need any site recommendations let me know - does anyone know when SF's S&M party is this year?

Aw, thanks... Tell your friend happy birthday, too. I would go out right now, but I have 2 classes tomorrow (one at 9am and another one at 10:30am, ugh).