The Amman - NY Air Link

I can't help it. Call it a bias and I don't care, but I just love to draw on links between both cities. In this year's news (before its almost over): Royal Jordanian celebrates 30 years of nonstop flights between Amman and NY, establishing that intimate link with the dear Middle East.

Ok, so I was one of RJ's victims of the recent flights that got messed up... I had my flight change three times, I barely made it to JFK, but, such a mess was worth it at the end; like meeting someone you think highly of.
A whole page ad in today's paper presented an apology and detailed explanation for the mess, quite an interesting way to communicate to the passengers...which brings up a random thought; I wonder if RJ will be hit by the wave of neoliberalism and consecutively undergoes privatisation. Come on, why should it be, it's royal after all!

The Ivy Dilemma

So they got the City Council's approval.

Dear Columbia:
This is New York City, just why can't that urban context get punched in to the numbers of space per student ratio of yours?

Brooklyn: Home of Unconventional Friendships

Between Jews and Muslims, or so the mainstream notion views the friendship as so (unconventional), before ARRANGED comes to attack it gently, accepting that they both have lives to lead and not wars to live. And the streets and homes of Brooklyn are so. From Williamsburg to Bay Ridge, the city presents spots where world peace can actually happen.

ARRANGED is a story of marriages in a city where the conventional of so is secular. Where the religious narrative actually is a story of success. You just have to love low budgets (especially those shot in 17 days!)

The Weather Channel & The Idea of "Light Rain"

3:00 A.M.
Outside the snow a few inches think, maybe 5?
The Channel reported rain.

12:00 P.M.
Rain showers and Windy

And the white on my window sill is?
Product of a natural slush-generative window designed to function as so through the idea of creating a local microclimate.

Slowing Down on Cortlandt St.

Using the local to go to Manhattan from Brooklyn (& vice versa) is definitely not habitual. In the very few times I did so, I noticed something worth mentioning. As the R line passes through the Cortlandt street station, it slows down. If your not familiar, this station is the one that used to serve the WTC towers and adjacent areas. When the train passes by, you get to see the interior of destruction (or construction, but realistically rather than pessimistically, I see it as the former). It's a sad moment. I find it remarkable that the train slows down, it's a strong statement for NYC to make: as quick as the trains have to go, they slow down in respect and reflection of what had happened at that site. I prefer to think of it as that, though maybe the reason is to not affect the construction on ground zero (a less likely possibility since the trains speed up as soon as they are away from the edge of the station).

Apparently, the MTA was planning to reopen the station this year, but delays happened.