Be careful what you wish for because oil prices fall and Russia losing trillions so do we.

As oil prices fall, and  keep on falling, Russia is losing trillions, but America and our allies shouldn't be throwing a party.  This is because  as oil prices fall, so will oil drilling in America, thus costing Americans involved in the oil drilling business their jobs.

The "drill baby drill" mentality of those on the right will only make oil prices drop even more, which is good for the consumer, but not good for anyone who works in the oil drilling sector

yeah obama sucks.

He brings gas prices down. Lowers unemployment. Gets us out of iraq, lowers the national debt. Obama's done an outstanding job, but he has one problem that some white people can't get over. He's black. When bush was president we had unemployment at 10% (and that doesn't include those who dropped out of the workforce. Oil was at $150 under Bush and the national was growing.

Which one is it CNBC, is cheap oil good for the economy or bad for the economy?

 I'm not understanding this. Oil is falling and CNBC says that's a bad sign for stocks? These are the same "experts" who said high oil prices could kill the market rally? Maybe they just don't know what they're talking about. Falling oil prices are great for stocks and the consumer who will have more money to spend. And when oil goes to $45, where it should be, that will be great. I'm supposed to feel bad that oil stocks which were in the stratosphere when oil was $150 a barrel under Bush Jr, are now taking it on the chin? Well boo, hoo, hoo, oil majors republicans like to keep oil over $80. Now's our time. When oil is at $45 or less its a good deal.

Why we selected a charter school for our son

When my wife and I were considering Kindergarten for our son, we researched the schools in our neighborhood using insideschools.org and opinions of those who we know who had their kids in public school.  We didn't have upwards of $40,000 to send our kid (now kids) to  private schools. What we found was that NYC schools are probably the most segregated schools in the nation.   We found schools on the upper east side to have huge white populations and much higher ratings then schools on the upper west side north of 89th Street. This is mainly because schools below 89th Street on the west side and on the upper east side get more funds have less students than schools north of 89th Street on the west side. My wife and I had a choice, to send our son and probably our daughter after that to a school that has less then a B- rating or send them to a charter school.  This may shock you but we selected a Charter School called Harlem Hebrew Language Charter School, which ironically has the most diverse student body of  any school in New York.


My my son started at Harlem Hebrew Language Charter School, I was a bit hesitant.  I didn't know how a child who hadn't really had a full day Pre K, we weren't able to get him into a public Pre K and didn't have the money to send him to a private school would function in a school that starts at 8am and runs to 3:30.  Our son was enrolled at Gymboree on west 73rd Street which had a three day a week school skills class that ran on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays from 9:30-12:30, follow that we had him in sports classes and the library for reading.  On Tuesday and Thursdays we had him in gymnastics, swimming and then the library.  We found Gymboree to be convenient, effective and even cheaper than some of these places in the area that just had hour long classes.

However we have noticed our son is flourishing.  He has made many friends with different  ethnic backgrounds and they all leave class singing hebrew songs.  He refers to the school as "my Harlem Hebrew." The parents are extremely involved.  On Tuesday my wife and I went to a giving tuesday at the Hebrew Harlem and it was great.  My wife even signed me up to be chaperone their trip to the New York Botanical Garden for their Holiday Train Show.  They have two other field trips in the next few weeks.

I think the Mayor either needs to fix public schools by de-segregating them and busing students at school that are lower preforming and over crowded to other schools that are less crowded and have higher ratings.  That will make the lower preforming over crowded school less crowded and thus high preforming and it will make the better preforming less much more diverse in student body.

I believe that Charter Schools have been giving students who were zoned for poorly preforming schools an option to attend a very good school and get a quality education.  Charter Schools will also reduce the  student body at lower preforming schools, which would make them better.

Yay, I'm going with my son's class to the New York Botanical Garden for their Holiday Train Show

As a stay- at- home dad and a member of the NYC Dads Group, nycdadsgroup.com, I was able to meet up with other dads once a week to go to the Central Park Zoo, The Museum of Natural History, parks and other NY attractions with my son.  One of those such trips that I wasn't able to make was the New York Botanical Garden for their Holiday Train Show.

This year my son started Kindergarten Harlem Hebrew Language Charter School and low-and-behold his first field trip was to the New York Botanical Garden for their Holiday Train Show.

Being that Hebrew Harlem  is a charter school and doesn't charge tuition, my wife and I thought it we on #Giving Tuesday should give back on #Giving Tuesday so we attended the school's Giving Tuesday  event and made a donation.  Not only that  we volunteered to accompany his school on the trip to New York Botanical Garden for their Holiday Train Show.  I think I'm looking forward to going to the New York Botanical Garden for their Holiday Train Show more than my son is.  Why don't we all get involved in our children's lives by helping lend a hand on class trips?

How to beat Putin and Russia

In Greek mythology, Achilles was the Greek hero of the Trojan War and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.

Achilles’ greatest accomplishment happened during the Trojan War which was the slaying of the Trojan hero Hector outside the gates of Troy. Achilles was killed near the end of the Trojan War by Paris, who with an arrow in the heel, hence the name achilles heel became a way to describe someone's weakness.

Like Achilles, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the Russia leader, has a weakness or an achilles heel which is low oil prices. If we can persuade OPEC and Canada to not lower, but increase oil output or keep oil production in check that would punish the Russia leader and force him to comply with the interest of America and our allies.  Having Russia out of the oil production business for a while would certainly punish Russia and strengthen Canada, OPEC and America

Its time for republicans to show some respect towards the president

Elizabeth Lauten, spokeswoman for Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, bashed Malia and Sasha Obama, 16 and 13, for looking bored while attending a public event with their father on Wednesday.

Lauten told the girls to "try showing a little class. At least respect the part you play."

Maybe the republicans should show Obama some of that respect and show "a little class" towards the president.  No democratic president has received such little respect from republicans and Bill Clinton was impeached.  Its time for Elizabeth Lauten, spokeswoman for Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher, Stephen Fincher and the rest of the republicans to show some respect towards the president 

sometimes when you lose, you actually win.

First off let me say I don't want the Giants playing in any Sunday or Monday night football games.  The games start late and I get home after 1am.  What's the point?  Do you think the fans really wanted to see the Giants play the Cowboys as they featured game?  I doubt it.  I'm not going to get into the fact that Tony Romo is the most overrated QB in the NFL, which he is, and hasn't won a playoff game in his career, which he hasn't and that Eli Manning has won every playoff game he's played in and every Super Bowl I might add.

I often hear the saying a loss is a loss.  I don't believe the Giants loss was really a loss. The result of the cowboys game was not bad at all. The NY Football Giants weren't making the playoffs and the Cowboys might not either, but the Giants discovered that next year they can have an outstanding receiver in Odell Beckham Jr and if Victor Cruz is healthy, that would be one of the best  receiving combinations in the NFL.  Get healthy Cruz.  

Now if the Giants want to get the most out of Beckham Jr and Cruz, they need to draft offensive linemen in this year's draft.  They might also want to change their offense back from the west coast offense, to the offense they had when they won two Super Bowls, and that might mean getting rid of the offensive coordinator.

State of the Union address in the new year?

A growing number of Republicans want to deny him an invitation to speak from the congressional floor.
Where is the outrage from the media?  No president has been treated like this.  Oh yeah the media is reporting on Kim K's ass.

Why the Keystone Pipeline is a bad idea

The keystone pipeline is a good idea when oil is trading at $150 a barrel, but at these levels it doesn't really make sense. Plus something I haven't heard from anyone, the keystone pipeline will actually cost jobs in the rail industry which currently transports the oil. So the temporary jobs created by the keystone will cost permanent jobs in the rail industry, all to transport oil that isn't even ours.

So then the keystone pipeline is a bad idea. The pipeline is a good idea when oil is trading at $150 a barrel, but at these levels it doesn't really make sense. Plus something I haven't heard from anyone, the keystone pipeline will actually cost jobs in the rail industry which currently transports the oil. So the temporary jobs created by the keystone will cost permanent jobs in the rail industry, all to transport oil that isn't even ours.

Smoke and mirrors

So people think it’s a bad thing that police will no longer arrest people for possession of small amounts of marijuana. This may relieve overcrowding in U.S. prisons, but until we can collect taxes on marijuana sales, we aren’t going to get out of debt as a country. The people who think it’s bad to legalize marijuana are probably the same people who think the Keystone XL pipeline would lower oil prices — which haven’t been this low since 2009.

Is the mainstream media answering to Fox News, the Koch brothers and the NY Post now?

So the major networks aren't going to air Obama's immigration speech.  I guess the gutless mainstream media are answering to Fox News, the koch brothers and the NY Post now.  The funny part of the immigration reform bill was that it was supported by Bush Jr. The major networks have never not aired a presidential speech. I wonder if Obama's skin color has something to do with the lack of respect he gets even from  the mainstream media. I guess  Its never guess the gutless media will report about Kim K posing nude again, which along with reporting on Ebola which killed only two people in this country is the only thing they do.

Calling out football writers

I'm going to call out all the so called football experts here.  The fake reporters begging for Phil Simms to be benched for ScottBrunner under Bill Parcells.  Later Ray Handley benched Simms for  Jeff Hostetler  and then later for the dynamic duo of either Kent Graham or David Brown, both of whom were totally inept.     

I should point out that Phil Simms was drafted in the first round of the 1979, the same draft that Joe Montana was taken in, by the 49ers in the third round.  Prior to the NFL draft in 1979, the San Francisco 49ers led by new coach Bill Walsh were every impressed with Simms that they wanted to select him as their top pick, but the Giants picked before the 49ers and picked Simms.  Had the 49ers picked Simms and Simms played in the warm San Francisco climate (that is compared with the weather in New York), we could be talking about Simms like we talk about the top quarterbacks ever.  Montana was selected in the 3rd round of the 1979 draft, a total steal there.

The media was totally on board with benching Simms for the likes of Kent Graham or David Brown, in fact I recall getting into heated arguments with football reporters who are still writing football.  They were telling me that Kent Graham had better mechanics than Phil Simms.  Maybe Graham was a better mechanic.  Heck he might be fixing cars right now.  

Now the same media find it preposterous that the Giants would ever bench Eli Manning and his first team inept offense for the second string quarterback.  Why was it a good idea to benchSimms so many times, which might have cost the team a Super Bowl or two, but not to do the same for Eli Manning who might need to take a step back and sit with the coordinator and learn the offense.  I'm not saying they should bench Eli, although I'm don't think he could play any worse, but why did the football media, most of whom are working today demand that Phil Simms be benched so many times in his career and why did coaches like BillParcells, Ray Handley and Dan Reeves two of which were outstanding coaches?

Before you PASS on Phil Jackson consider this:

Did anyone actually think the Knicks were going to do well this year?  If you did maybe you don't know basketball.  But let's talk about the NBA commissioner making comments about the triangle offense, an offense that won't be effective until the knicks have a team that Phil Jackson likes.  Do you think Jackson likes Amar'e Stoudemire and Andrea Bargnani?  I don't think he does. He inherited those players.  What's he to do?  They're both under contract until the end of the year and it would be ridiculously dumb to trade them now, like the Knicks traded Pat Ewing for Glen Rice, the Lakers backup center Travis Knight and Phoenix Suns center Luc Longley. That put so much money on the Knicks books and prevented them from signing top free agents.

Lets talk for a second about another more recent decision which I was very critical of made by former Knicks GM.  The Knicks were always on the hunt for NBA all stars and they had a few good candidates in the 1990's the played with Pat Ewing, Allan Houston, Latrell Sprewell and Larry Johnson were quality players that almost won the championship, the 1994 team was pretty impressive and could have won also (they lost to the Spurs in 1999).  But I'm going to do something here that will certainly piss lots of people off including my dad, Neil Drossman, my dentist  Daniel Rudolph, and my cousins, Joey Rosenberg, David Bulhack and Noah Ross.  Isiah Thomas although a first rate asshole and a terrible coach, did something that no other GM in recent times was able to do with the knicks.  Get a team together with two NBA all stars David Lee and Zach Randolph and even more quality players like Jamal Crawford.  The knicks would consider themselves the luckiest of NBA teams if they could get players of David Lee and Zach Randolph's quality in this year's free agent market.  Had Larry Brown even attempted to coach that team instead of trying to sabotaging the team in hopes of getting Isiah Thomas fired as GM, the Knicks could have been a quality NBA team with at least two NBA all stars.  But instead they let Lee, Crawford and Randolph go and got nothing in return.

Now I hear criticism of Phil jackson all the time.  Ignorant people say, yeah Phil jackson won all those championships, because he had Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Dennis Rodman and then Shaq and Kobe and then Kobe and Pau Gasol.  I do think the lakers would have done much better if instead of being a pig head and an ego maniac, Jim Buss  hired Phil Jackson to coach the Lakers instead of hiring bad coach after bad coach to take the helm of the team.    Jeanie Buss, Jim's sister is now engaged to Phil Jackson.  

But lets get back to the criticism of Phil jackson all the time.  People say anyone can win with NBA teams with two or more NBA all stars.  And those teams that have had two or more NBA hall of Famers include, the Lakers under Pat Riley, Magic, Kareem,  James Worthy etc, The Celtics under KC Jones, had Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, The Celtics under Doc Rivers Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnet.  Gregg Popovich's Spurs had  Tim Duncan and David Robinson.  With the exception of Maybe the Dallas Mavs championship team even other NBA team that I recall winning the championship has had at least two hall of famers, maybe even the best players in basketball at their time.

So before I hear "yeah Phil Jackson win the championship as a coach (not not even talking about as a player here which he won two championships)" consider that basically even other NBA championship winning team has had a least two NBA all stars who were the top players at their time.

Don't want to spend tens of thousands of dollars in pre K, here's your options

When my son was a baby we had the choice of sending him to Day Care costing upwards of $20,000 a year and we even found some good options including schools like the the Mandell school , which I really liked and was downstairs from my apartment at the time. The space was taken over by the Upper Valley School which I also like.  I like how you can drop your kids off early and pick them up late if your work schedule demands that.

But at the time when my wife's maternity leave was over we had to make a decision.  Should one of us stay home with my son Zachary or should we hire a nanny.  I liked the idea of sending him to a school setting because I thought they were trained to take care of babies and pre k kids more than a nanny who might not be trained to take care of kids.  So we decided that I would leave my job rather than spend most of my salary on putting my son in an all day program at 3 months old.

So there I was a stay at home dad to a 3-month old son.  I was a little nervous because Zacky was my first child and I didn't have any nieces or nieces or nephews , but I did have first cousins who had kids and were great parents.  I was around them a lot and learned what I could from them.  Also at that point, I found out about and joined the NYC Dads Group, http://www.nycdadsgroup.com.  I was there that I learned what classes were around my that I could take my son to.  One of the first programs I found out about is a diverse community of more than 850 members that gives fathers an opportunity to socialize and support each other as we navigate parenthood together.

They hold meet-ups for at museums, parks, zoos, parent-and-me classes and many other venues around the city. They also also organize evening events for dads to socialize, learn from each other and meet experts in fatherhood and parenting. Most events are free or low-cost.  I become emerged in the group, going to their weekly meet ups, helping them get PR.  I helped them get featured in New York and national media, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, Bloomberg/Business Week, the Today show, The CBS Sunday Morning Show with Charles Osgood and Fox News etc.  

I  was introduced to programs some of which I enrolled my son in, including Gymboree, located at 73rd Street between Broadway and West End.  My son started there at 3 months and remained there until he started Kindergarten. He started taking three classes a week.  Eventually Gymboree realized that they had a great opportunity to attract parents who didn't want to fork over $25-$50,000 for pre K and started a program called School Skills, which was a drop off program.  At first I was concerned about dropping him off and how he'd react. But he was totally fine.  He loved it.  We enrolled him starting when he was 2.  That would give me the chance to go to the gym, or shopping at Trader Joe's which was hard to do with a son who liked to grab things from his stroller.  After Gymboree we enrolled him in Swim Jim, which taught swimming to babies and toddlers.  He still asks me to take him to Swim Jim which has programs for kids in kindergarten.  He was also in great programs at the 92nd Street Y, soccer and gymnastics.  

I realized that most pre k schools had programs which I would duplicate so I signed by son up for classes around the Upper West  Side that I thought matched the curriculum at those schools.  When my daughter was born at the first chance we did the same.  She was in Gymboree on Monday Wednesdays and Fridays and then Tuesdays and thursdays she took, dance at the 92nd street Y and Art Farm, a great program where children are introduced to art as well as animal care.

My son is happy at a charter school in Harlem called Harlem Hebrew Language Charter School, which contrary to my thinking has a large non jewish population.  They teach about Israel and hebrew but also  general subjects he would learn at a public school.  We applied to other schools in the neighborhood, and liked one of them PS 333, but decided on Harlem Hebrew because we wanted him to learn Hebrew.  I'm going to have a blog post on how to apply to kindergarten soon

Now we are going to have to start thinking about pre K for my daughter, we will try and apply to the public pre k programs in our neighborhood which we didn't get into for my son Zachary, but the Mayor  Bill de Blasio promised Pre K for all, I have my doubts about how all the kids will get into pre K, but time will tell.