The publisher of this web site grew up in Western New York. Be nice to him about this play.

Henry Hynoski 28, New England Patriots 0.

I just thought I’d lead off with my prediction for the game. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I’m almost certain that’s how the game will unfold.

Where do you want to watch the game this year? I’m keeping it simple for myself – will just be my son and I at home. I hosted an apartment party last year, but can’t really be bothered with the hassle this year. Pizza from DaVinci’s, and I’ll probably fry my own Buffalo wings. Thinking I’ll go with red wine over beer. Yeah, man: pizza, Buffalo wings, wine, and football. Life is grand.

Of course, if it weren’t for children who are too young to go out to bars*, I’d probably be going out Sunday night. It’s fun to see the Super Bowl in a bar already frequented by one of the participating teams’ fans, i.e. watching last year’s game in a Steelers bar. For this year’s game, I don’t think Giants bars are going to be so hard to find. They’ll be in the yellow pages under “bars.”

*I’ve been going out to watch sports in bars since I was 16. My dad thought it would be nice if I could watch him shoot pool. I just wanted to be in a place that got the channel that was carrying the hockey game.

In fact, I might think about going to one of these places.

• Lone Star Bar & Grill (8703 5th Avenue) – Free buffet during game, $50 drink bracelet or pay-as-you-go. Early bird (noon-3pm) drink special: $3 domestic, $4 imports. Raffles & giveaways.
• The Wicked Monk (8415 5th Ave) – $35 buffet and open bar, or pay-as-you-go. Buffet includes flank steak, Buffalo wings, pork kebabs, salmon oreganata, chili, grilled corn with chipotle butter, and Mediterranean salad (which is Turkish for “Greek salad”). Prizes and giveaways. Post-game karaoke.
• Yellow Hook Grille (7003 3rd Avenue) – $25 unlimited draft beer
• The Pour House (7901 3rd Avenue) – $45 open bar and free buffet. Giveaways, snowboard raffle
• Delia’s Lounge (9224 3rd Avenue) – $60 open bar and food (reservation). Herb crusted lamb chops, Buffalo wings, sliders and fries.

Where will you be watching?

Photo: Gounardes campaign Flickr

This past Saturday outside of Fort Hamailton High School, Democrat Andrew Gounardes officially launched his campaign to unseat incumbent Republican Marty Golden in the State Senate. A 26-year-old attorney, Gounardes works for Citizens Community of New York City, and has previously worked as an aide to Council Member Vincent Gentile and US Senator Robert Menendez.

Sheepshead Bites and Bensonhurst Bean publisher Ned Berke caught up with Gounardes recently and asked a few questions about his run for office.

It’s a lovely building in it’s own right. Something about it, though, compels me to play around with sepia filters in online photo labs.

The Third Jihad, a Clarion Fund-produced Islamophobic film, includes such inflammatory images as a black-and-white Islamic flag flying over the White House.

The director of a Bay Ridge-based Arab-American organization has called on Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to step down over his role in appearing in an anti-Muslim film, having it screened during mandatory counter-terrorism training sessions, and for the program of surveillance aimed at Arab and Muslim communities in New York.

When initially challenged by the Village Voice a year ago, the NYPD first denied that any officer had seen The Third Jihad, a film produced by The Clarion Fund (itself an offshoot of Aish Hatorah, described by Atlantic Monthly columnist Jeffrey Goldberg as “just about the most fundamentalist movement in Judaism today”). The Department eventually admitted that “some” officers had seen it, but it wasn’t until a Freedom Of Information Act request by The Brennan Center For Justice came to fruition did the full impact become known – the film was screened on “continuous loop” to 68 lieutenants, 159 sergeants, 31 detectives and 1,231 patrol officers.

The Third Jihad shows “72 minutes of gruesome footage of bombing carnage, frenzied crowds, burning American flags, flaming churches, and seething mullahs” according to the Voice, while stating that “Americans are being told that most of the mainstream Muslim groups are moderate, when in fact if you look a little closer you’ll see a very different reality. One of their primary tactics is deception.”

The film includes pieces of an interview with Commissioner Kelly, which the Department initially claimed was culled from old interviews and used without permission. But it turned out that was more deception from the NYPD – it was eventually revealed that the film producers sat down with Kelly to interview him specifically for the film. Gothamist took care to document 10 high-profile cases of the Department lying to the press (or at least 10 times they got caught lying to the press).

Linda Sarsour, the director of the Bay Ridge-based Arab American Association of New York, has spoken to various press outlets, demanding that Ray Kelly be replaced as Commissioner. BK Southie contacted her directly and asked about the connection between this film screening, Kelly’s participation, and the pervasive state surveillance documented extensively by the AP last year. Sarsour replied:

This recent controversy over the showing of The Third Jihad to 1500 police officers is but one piece of a larger pattern of religious and ethnic bias against the Muslim-American community by the NYPD. While Commissioner Kelly and his Community Affairs department of One Police Plaza visit mosques and local centers to demonstrate partnership, they have been secretly infiltrating and spying on the very people and institutions in the Muslim community they called their friends. This was confirmed by the revelations that continue to surface through the AP investigative reports. For God’s sake, they have a Demographics Unit that focuses on 28 “ancestries of interest” including Black American Muslims. The ancestries of interest are Arab and predominantly Muslim majority countries.

If that’s not ethnic and religious profiling, I don’t know what is.

The issue now is not about one film, it’s about integrity of public officials those tasked with our tax payer dollars to protect all New Yorkers, but instead they are protecting most from the threat of “these people” who fall into one of the ancestries of interest.

Some call it “terrible judgment” that film was showed. There is no room for terrible judgment and I believe that current leadership of NYPD think they are accountable to no one. That is unacceptable and they need to go.

Mayor Bloomberg has also spoken out against the screening of the film, and described it as a black eye on the department and Kelly’s credibility. But, he continues to support Kelly to remain as Commissioner and is resisting calls for his termination.

Mark Murphy will run against Congressman Michael Grimm in November 2012. (Photo source: Mark Murphy For Congress)

Last week, Mark Murphy – son of former Congressman John Murphy and a former aide to Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio – announced his candidacy for the 13th Congressional District, currently held by Michael Grimm. The move generated considerable interest on Staten Island – including strong support from the Richmond County party chairman and some notably less-strong encouragement from elected officials, including Staten Island/Brooklyn State Senator Diane Savino. Reaction from Bay Ridge – roughly one-third of Grimm’s district – was notably absent.

BK Southie reached out to Justin Brannan, the President of the Bay Ridge Democrats political club, to get a sense of the feeling among party activists on the Brooklyn side. Brannan told us:

“We need someone who understands and will fight for local values and put our interests first before the party’s agenda. The current Congressman is simply not in tune with the district he represents. He spends too much time on TV and too little time listening to the concerns of the people. If you’re a leader your #1 job should be to listen; Mark Murphy listens. I’m glad he stepped up.”

Proposed district boundaries for the Assembly and State Senate were released yesterday. At the time of our publishing deadline, there is still no word on the new Congressional districts, which must reduce the number of New York State representatives from 29 to 27. With that reduction in mind, it stands to reason that the new District 13 will need to reach further into Brooklyn than it already does – potentially into areas that have a Democratic registration edge. That prospect, along with the general competitiveness of district and a new poll suggesting Democrats have a chance to take majority control of the House this election, may have the effect of boosting Murphy’s campaign. Working against Murphy is the fundraising head start that Grimm holds over him ($1 million dollars to zero as of the last FEC filing), and the fact that the elder Congressman Murphy left politics in disgrace, marred by an indictment in the Abscam scandal that led to the bribery conviction of five of his House collegues.

The impact of Murphy’s Hollywood career, including roles in my college-era favorite show, Pacific Blue, remains to be seen.

Grimm is currently leading a controversial effort to weaken federal whistleblower protection by directing complaints to in-house reporting mechanisms before federal regulators.

The proposed State Senate District 20 - covering Crown Heights, Sunset Park, and, um... a bunch of side streets between 4th and 5th Avenues.

The proposed Assembly and State Senate districts for elections beginning this November were released yesterday. No one was very happy, especially with the Senate districts.

Queens Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr. called District 12 a “baby alien popping out of a stomach.”

Councilman Lew Fidler, who is running to replace Carl Kruger in a March 20 special election but has has district boundaries redrawn to put his house in Minority Leader John Sampson’s district in November, called the process “disgustingly partisan.”

Governor Cuomo, through a spokesman, promised a veto.

BK Southie, which earlier this week proposed eliminating eight Senate districts (citing general economic conditions and legislative dysfunction), is now suggesting we eliminate the State Senate altogether. OK, we’re just kidding this time, but seriously, District 20. Seriously.

As expected, a new, 63rd district has been proposed, a move largely seen as a move by Senate Republicans to protect their slim majority. Former Mayor Ed Koch complained, “I am disappointed in this result and in the dishonorable lawmakers who openly pledged to do things differently this year, and then reneged when it wasn’t to their political advantage,” specifically referring to a pledge made by legislators in both parties to his movement to allow for redistricting independent of the Assembly and Senate. The same Rochester Democrat & Chronicle article quoted a NYPIRG spokesman saying population deviations exceeded a 3% good-governance guideline in 50 of the 63 districts – only 19 of the 62 districts exceeded such guidelines 10 years ago.

If there’s a silver lining for Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights, its that Senate Districts 22 and 23 – currently held by Republican Marty Golden and Democrat Diane Savino, respectively – aren’t gerrymandered… much more than they have been for the last ten years.

The proposal for District 22...

...as compared to Golden's current district.

Golden’s district will still have most of Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights at its core, with parts of Bensonhurst. He would pick up a portion of Manhattan Beach, carved up from Carl Kruger’s old district. It still goes down a narrow corridor through Sheepshead Bay to reach the friendly confines of Gerritsen Beach.

The proposal for Senate District 23...

...and Diane Savino's current district.

Diane Savino’s district continues to go to great lengths to avoid Bay Ridge. In fact, she would lose most of her existing Bay Ridge constituents. Her district would still hug the Shore Parkway to reach parts of Bath Beach, and she would pick up some ground in Gravesend, Coney Island, and Brighton Beach.

• Michael Mele, a 26-year-old convicted sex offender, plead guilty this past Monday to the 2008 murder of Bay Ridge resident Laura Garza. [NY Times]
• A mentally ill Army soldier briefly escaped from the VA Hospital in Dyker Heights. He was found a short time later. [DNAinfo]
• A 60-year-old woman was critically injured Sunday night after being struck by a car at 72nd Street and Fort Hamilton Parkway. [DNAinfo]

I always get a kick out of this scene. A Burger King, a Five Guys, a Popeyes, and an old-school luncheonette all literally within a stone’s throw of each other, all vying for a share of consciousness.

On the contrary. The article didn’t mention Brooklyn until the end, mainly to say this:

Another hurdle — probably the biggest — is that no one Bay Ridge knows who he is. Murphy has yet to introduce himself to voters and many Bay Ridge Democrats are holding back their support until he hones his message — and crosses the Verrazano Bridge.

“I think he’s handsome, but I have no idea what he stands for,” said one Bay Ridge Democrat.

Yikes. I knew the Richmond County bosses – in both parties – hold most of the cards when it comes to official party support. But for Bay Ridge partisans to be completely in the dark? Yikes. Wait – I said that already.

Redistricting could conceivably alter boundaries such that Bay Ridge is no longer linked to Staten Island (much the same way Diane Savino’s State Senate District covers Sunset Park, Bensonhurst, Coney Island, and Staten Island’s North Shore), but it is presumed that the status quo will remain in place.

In related news, NY Observer political writer (and former Brooklyn Politics blogger) Colin Campbell reports Grimm has raised a substantial amount of cash in the last quarter to bring his cash-on-hand total to a touch over $1 million.

WNYC reports that a new contender has emerged for the Congressional seat of Michael Grimm (R-Staten Island): Mark Murphy (D-Staten Island), the son of a former nine-term Congressman.

Murphy, 41, most recently worked as an aide to Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio representing Staten Island, south Brooklyn and northeast Queens. Murphy resigned from the position over a week ago and plans to launch his campaign Wednesday evening at his headquarters in Staten Island.

His father, John Murphy (D-Staten Island), served as Staten Island’s Representative from 1963 to 1981. He lost his re-election bid to a tenth term to Guy Molinari (R-Staten Island) after being indicted for bribery charges.

On the Staten Island side of the district, there’s already some ruffled feathers. As reported by the Staten Island Advance, Richmond County Democratic Chairman John Gulino (D-Staten Island) has embraced the Murphy candidacy. This boost has apparently raised tensions with several elected leaders, including Diane Savino (D-Staten Island), whose North Shore State Senate district reaches into Sunset Park, Bensonhurst, and Coney Island. Of particular note, Staten Island Councilmember Debi Rose (D-Staten Island) has expressed interest in running for the seat. (Murphy declared last summer that he would not challenge Rose for her spot on the Council, possibly as a favor to then-boss Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio.)

To date, the media discussion seems to be absent of any opinion whose name ends with (D-Bay Ridge) or (R-Bay Ridge).