Two short bits for today:

With Hudson River ferry boat captains racing to perform SAR operations for the second time this year, it strikes me that we should make first out of all manner of urban service professions. For example, street vendors might become EMTs, bicycle couriers spontaneously stop to direct traffic, taxi drives could double as meter maids, and newspaper stand owners could perform citizens arrest. In the spirit of the Federal governments alliterative “Cash for Clunkers” program, we could call this “Badges for Bozos,” or “Civil Service for Chumps,” or in some cases “Emigrants for Emergency” (maybe those names err on the side of stereotyping, but “Cash for Clunkers” or even its more proper name Car Allowance Rebate System [C.A.R.S.] is hardly elegant).