I try. I really do. But it is hard to keep track of all of the school zones in my neighborhood. And to make it worse, they are barely marked. But, since the local law changed recently, none of that really matters. Anyone who lives or works in Nassau County knows what I am talking about.

Having nothing to do one afternoon, my son Max and I went to see Annabelle.  I have always been a fan of horror movies.  There are basically three kinds.  Monster movies, movies where young people are ripped or shredded to pieces, or movies about demons and the devil.  For me that last catergory is by far the scariest.

An article in the Wall Street Journal today stated "A third of Kurdish Fighters are Women, Defying Mideast Attitudes and Altering Kurdish Sociatey."   These Kurdish women are training and fighting on the front lines against the Islamic State and having success. It is such a total departure for the role women play in the Middle East. They have joined for many reasons but mostly to fight an extremist regime that "...has reinstituted slavery, prohibited women from working and threatened to kill those Muslims, including Kurds, who don’t adhere to their ideology."

On Tuesday night October 21, 18 Gothamites who are also members of the Friars Club will meet for drinks in the Club's Lucille Ball Bar to discuss important issues of the day. On the agenda is expanding Friars Club membership in the Tribe. At present, the following Gothamites are fellow Friars: Bruce Swicker, Daniel Hochler, Danny Mizrahi, David Stein, Yours truly, John Hess, Joan Rothermel, Judy Mauer, Mel Lazar, Michael Appell, Norm Spizz, Raj Goel, Scott Bloom, Tom Gallin, Ben Jamron, Jason Bonus, Miguel Freire and Friars applicant Seraray Basarir.

It was a large group -- about forty people -- invited to cocktails in the penthouse apartment on the sixteenth floor with a nice view of the city (not New York).   The sole elevator came down to the lobby to carry a second group to the penthouse. We watched as the elevator loaded. It looked a little too crowded. We weren't going to make it on for this trip and would wait. The doors closed but the elevator did not move. The doors wouldn't open.  

If you haven't been watching the Major League Baseball Playoffs, something incredible is happening.  The Kansas City Royals, perennial impoverished bottom-dwellers, made the playoffs for the first time since 1984.  They finally built a team that was young and fast with great defense and pitching.  Those are all things that people knew about heading into the playoffs, but they didn't expect this.