Talk Bronx New York

For the New York Yankees, this is the worst October since 1986, when America’s most decorated team paused in the early stages of a 13-year playoff drought to watch the cross-town Mets and the hated Red Sox meet in the World Series.

2008 MLB playoffs

In fact, this October is less appealing to the Yanks than that one. Even though the 2008 Mets offered some comfort by choking on muscle memory, this postseason is a house of ungodly pinstriped pain.

It’s a cross between the fall of the Roman Empire and a revival of the Broadway musical “Damn Yankees.”

Joe Hardy has been replaced by Joe Torre, who must’ve made some Faustian deal to score this devilishly sweet proposition: a chance to take the Dodgers to the World Series while the censors who deleted his contributions from that closing Yankee Stadium ceremony do the slowest Bronx-is-burning burn.

Only this goes way beyond a bum-rushed manager seeking payback with the aid of a slugger, Manny Ramirez, who has a distinguished history of sending Yankee mystique and aura over the outfield wall.

Sure, the Steinbrenners already look foolish for presenting Torre an offer designed for him to refuse after he’d earned them a dozen straight playoff berths. Torre extended his personal streak to 13 in L.A. while his replacement, Joe Girardi, ended the Yankees’ streak at 13 (Buck Showalter started the run) and, in the process, failed all the human condition exams Torre forever aced in the clubhouse and press box.

But in the end, Torre is managing a faraway team in a faraway division of an entirely different league. As much as it would hurt the Yankees to see him win it all with the Dodgers, they’ll get over it.

The Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays? There’s no getting over them.

The Sox and Rays are right out of the American League East. Boston and Tampa are young, tough, hungry, and athletic. They’re everything the New York Yankees are not.

If the introduction of the wild card in ‘95 provided a safety net the Yankees needed only twice in Torre’s time, there is no insurance policy for the third-best team in anyone’s division.

Boston is the larger long-term problem, of course, because it has won two of the last four championships and won’t run into the budget limitations that could ultimately temper Tampa’s ambition. The Sox are loaded with 20-something starters, relievers and position players who are proven winners, all a credit to a front office that has assembled the kind of burgeoning dynasty Gene Michael, Bob Watson and Brian Cashman once pieced together in the Bronx.

NLCS-bound Joe Torre is having the last laugh on the Yankees. (Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press) Read more..

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NEW YORK, NY — Oval Drugs of the Bronx has partnered with Robert Bernardini’s Super Safe Child Program in the fight to stop children from being abducted, kidnapped, injured, lost, and entering into other dangerous situations.

To help keep local area children safe, Oval Drugs will donate the unique, effective, and doctor approved safety program, called Fourteen Days to a Safer Child™, to Public School 102. The program teaches children as young as two-years-old how to recognize danger and do the right things to stay safe.

According to the FBI, an American child is reported missing every 41 seconds. Each year, 58,200 children are abducted by non-family members and 40 percent of children abducted in stranger kidnappings are killed. Not as well publicized are the facts that every year 6,700 children die and another 50,000 are seriously injured in accidents and every day mishaps.

With the help of lovable Sterling the Safety Seal, The Fourteen Days to a Safer Child™ program addresses these issues along with other areas that are major concerns for every parent such as:

* What children should do if they get lost
* How to avoid poisonings and household injuries
* How to react if a stranger tries to kidnap them
* What to do in case of lightening
* What the child should do if he or she finds a firearm
* Fire safety
* And more

The program comes with a Fingerprinting/ Identification Folder with emergency phone numbers and contact information in case a child goes missing.

“Fourteen Days to a Safer Child™ focuses on preventing tragedies, not just reacting after they occur. Prevention is especially important, since an abducted child who is killed is usually killed within 3 hours after they are taken. That’s barely enough time for a parent of guardian to realize they are even missing,” says Robert Bernardini, author of the Fourteen Days to a Safer Child™ program and founder of the Super Safe Child Program. Read more..

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NEW YORK (AP) — State environmental officials said Wednesday they were taking steps to reduce putrid odors emanating from a sewage-processing plant that has prompted years of complaints and a recent lawsuit from residents.

The privately run New York Organic Fertilizer Co. plant in the Bronx must install an air pressure alarm to help keep odors from escaping, among other measures, as part of an agreement to renew its permit, said state Department of Environmental Conservation regional director Suzanne Mattei.

The company also must prevent unprocessed sewage sludge from building up excessively and must pay for an independent monitor, Mattei said.

“We needed to do a major technical review of all of their operations to identify all the different points in the sludge process that could generate odors,” Mattei said, adding that the new requirements target “each of the areas that odors can come from.”

“I can’t promise we’ll get to perfection, but we believe substantial improvements can be made,” Mattei said.

The plant transforms city sewage into fertilizer pellets. It is owned by Houston-based Synagro Technologies Inc., which operates in 33 states as America’s largest recycler of organic waste. Synagro didn’t immediately respond to a telephone message Wednesday.

State regulators plan to modify the company’s permit further to include even more specific odor monitoring and control measures, but so far the company hasn’t agreed to the additional steps, Mattei said.

State regulators also said they intend to tighten regulations that allow the company to release emissions through stacks, Mattei said. She said they aimed to do so when the plant’s air pollution permit comes under review for renewal, Mattei said.

Specifically, regulators want to test additional chemicals and tighten controls on the equipment used in that process, she said.

“We know more about the sludge pelletization process than we did when this plant first opened” in 1993, Mattei said. “We really want to modernize the controls at this plant.” Read more..

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