What's The 311?

Damn, we are so close to being a fully paid-up member of the green ink brigade. Every morning (at least the mornings we head in with cutesome), we take the 4/5 to Union Square. And it's mind-bendingly unpleasant getting out of the train, just because of the crush down to those narrow and screechy platforms. But, as we all know, human decency takes a rest between leaving the house and entering the office. So, we're elbows swinging, charging up the stairs, winsome secretary barging evildoers for this brief interlude.

But we'd like, nay, we'd love, to ease back into normal human society as soon as we exit the turnstiles, breeze through sunny Union Square on the way to our undisclosed work location. But no, we have the monkeyclowns that hand out the fake newspapers (we'll spare you the link) to deal with. They're really peristent, two sets of arms stretched across the narrow entrance, or a couple of them inside the subway bocking the way out.

(By way of digression, if we're going to suffer these pests on the subway, might not the MTA come to some kind of lucrative arrangement that might endear the monkeyclowns to commuters? The London Underground collects a fee for suffering free papers on their property, and there seems to be little reason why the MTA could not do likewise. By way of encouragement, the MTA might start enforcing a bogus security zone around subway stations. We think the policy would be wildly popular.)

The final straw, today, was the appearance of a third publication, maybe, we thought, a new venture from the Post, which had decided to quite literally give its paper away. Or the latest news from the surprisingly well-funded folks at Falun Dafa. But no, it's a fake newspaper from Eva Moskowitz, who is running a suspiciously well-funded campaign for Manhattan Borough President.

We've really got too much on our plate to be taking a thorough look at Ms. M.'s site, or indeed rate her prospects to succeed C. Virginia Fields. We'll just say the site looks like solid classs-president stuff, and if she doesn't sound like the sort of student politician you wanted to throw gloop at back in the day then you should be reading Gothamist right now. Our endorsement? Vote not litterbug-enabling shiny face Eva, that's what.