Another sign that New York - is ready for the Patriots this Super Bowl Sunday.

I spotted this giant Giant on E. 35th Street in Midtown Manhattan

Rick Santorum and Ron Paul sometimes just bystanders, the focus during Monday night's GOP debate between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Romney on the attack, accusing Gingrich of influence peddling.

Romney explaining to moderator Brian Williams that he took the high road in South Carolina - but by doing so he took a lot of unanswered punches. No more, he said.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PalTalk/~5/m3CChfRxfqQ/cnn_416x234_embed.swf

Today I blocked three people from my Facebook account.

Actually, to be more precise, I blocked three screen names. They all could be the same person. If not, one is a person, the other two parrots.

At any rate, I blocked them, not because of their political viewpoint. But because they have been bullying other people.

They, or she (as I say I suspect it is one person), refused to relent. Despite public pleas to attack issues not people. Despite personal messages I sent her, or them.

Of course, the minute I did a brand new screen name was created on Facebook. A name that started posting on my wall. Supporting her, or them, and accusing me of muting her/them because of their political point of view.

Let me be clear. I foster - encourage - on my social media sites as well as on my show, News Talk Online on the Paltalk News Network, diverse commentary - multiple points of view. Whether I agree with those viewpoints or not.

What I do NOT encourage is bullying.

There've been a number of stories about Internet bullying of teenagers recently - teenagers who have actually committed suicide. The bullies have been their peers. There's been a lot of discourse discouraging that behavior among teens. What we haven't seen - as much - is discussion about adults behaving like children who bully other adults. The words are just as hurtful as if they were slung at younger people.

I don't like to be put in the position of policing content on my sites. But I've had enough. Sometimes circumstances force us to take a stand. So take a stand I am.

No more will I just let it fly. On my sites, when I see it, I will remove it and if the person persists I will preclude them from participating.

On other sites, when I see it, I will voice my objection.

I encourage you to do so as well.

I was walking through Times Square in the pre-dawn hours today and snapped these photos of how it looks now, as the workers prepare it for the 10s of thousands of people who will pack the Crossroads of the World - and the millions more who will be watching on TV and on the Internet, to ring in the New Year.

The images are a bit embarrassing.

In cities across the United States, people fighting in line over a chance to get the new Air Jordan 0 plus sneakers. Fights. Stabbings. Pepper spraying. Arrests.

Now, contrast that with an interview I conducted at about the same time. A story that got much less attention. One that I'm sure was being played out across the nation as well.

In Hazlet, New Jersey, a decade-old charity called RAINE, answering letters from needy children. Making sure each has a Merry Christmas. At least one gift under the tree.

Many of them also have clothing on their Christmas list. Not 0 plus sneakers though. Basics. Like bras. And socks.

And one, heartbreaking case, RAINE co-founder Patti Dickens told me. A boy, nine or 10 years old, asking for a blanket and a pillow for Christmas.

Which Christmas story - the fights over sneakers or the desperate pleas of needy children, ought we be focusing on?

Photo by a c o r n/Flickr

I hung around Zuccotti Park again on Thursday afternoon trying to get a handle on the direction of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

I met so many people, there for so many different reasons.

Tracy Postert is a 40-something bio-chemist with a PhD from New York City. A former high school teacher and university professor who is well published in peer review journals. Tracy is unemployed. She was busy handing out resumes, hoping that someone might know someone who might be able to give her a job.

Postert is willing to relocate anywhere for that job, by the way. You can reach her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

I also met a man who is an unemployed banker. He says he was let go because the bank he worked for made cutbacks. Occupy Wall Street is a place where he feels he can vent his frustrations and get a sympathetic ear.

Among the others hoping to get sympathetic ears for their causes was Carl Dix, from the Revolutionary Communist Party. His group is marching on the New York State office building in Harlem Friday and he was busy imploring some of the occupyers to join him.

Dix wasn't the only representative of an organized group attracted to the concentration of frustrated Americans in lower Manhattan. Anti-capital punishment organizations, pro-green energy groups and the Black Panthers were there too.

I also met a very articulate, interesting and engaging couple protesting the Federal Reserve, which they blame, at least in part, for the nation's current economic situation. Their low-key argument is that the Fed's policy of just printing new money whenever the government or the banks need it is counter-productive. The Fed, they say, should be eliminated.

It wasn't until we were parting company and exchanging email addresses that I learned that these two Brooklynites just recently left New York City's shelter program for the homeless.

Finally I chatted for some time with Anthony Adams, a recent college graduate from San Fransisco with two Masters degrees, one in city regional planning, the other in transportation engineering. He is - you guessed it - unemployed.

Just as I went to air today on News Talk Online on the Paltalk News Network, CNN proclaimed "Breaking News."

The big news? Yet another woman has come forward to say she had a sexual relationship with Herman Cain.

This one says she had a long-term affair with the GOP presidential hopeful. So, whether this falls into the same category of the previous allegations - that Cain inappropriately and against the will of women over which he held control or sway - remains to be seen. It prompted a discussion about the reporting of ethical and moral concerns. And whether the media are highlighting the wrong issues.

Riley from the UK called to argue that the two issues are completely different.

But Cassandra, also from the UK, argued that going to war presents a moral dilemma. She believes the news media would be better serving the public concentrating on that rather than on Cain's alleged sexual escapades.

Danny Schechter the News Dissector is a frequent guest on my News Talk Online show on the Paltalk News Network. Friday I got to return the favor, appearing on his Dissector Radio show on the Progressive Radio Network along with the lovely Catherine Watters. The topic, the state of the news media today. Danny and I reflecting on how media organizations lack the resources today to investigate and put into perspective stories.

Too much he said, she said stuff going on that's passing for news coverage for our liking.

I enjoyed it and I'm hoping I've not worn out my welcome and I get another invitation. It was fun being on that side of the microphone for a change. Usually I'm the one asking the questions.

Here's the show - I come on about :40 minutes into the broadcast.

Speaking of questions, I asked a few Saturday covering the arraignment of the guy who allegedly fatally shot his girlfriend's 18-year-old son, then shot two more people - one fatally - on a Queens bus - because he thought the passengers on their cell phones were talking about him. He told the cops, according to his statement read into the record, that he believed people had been following him since September. The breaking point - when he got up that day he looked out his window and saw some people he didn't recognize.

And then, I had occasion to report about Leonore Zimmeriman. She's 84. And claims that, when she declined the full body scan at JFK because of her defibrillator and requested a pat down, the TSA folks strip searched her. The TSA denies they strip search or that this woman - who is obviously not a threat, was specifically strip searched. But she says that, somewhere in the process, her leg was banged up - and she has the marks to prove it.

Photo by Julie Baumgarten

Yesterday I participated in the domestic violence radio row at Liz Claiborne's Manhattan Fashion District headquarters.

Co-sponsored by Talker's Magazine, parent company of the Talk Radio News Service, the It's Time to Talk event brings radio show hosts from across the country together to talk with the nation's top experts on domestic violence.

Liz Claiborne just released a survey of college age women.

It found that nearly half of dating college women report having experienced violent or abusive threats of physical violence. More than one in five were the victims of actual physical or sexual abuse or threats of physical violence. And more than one-third of college students said they would not know how to get help on campus if they found themselves in an abusive relationship.

I had the opportunity to interview two women who are immersed in the issue of domestic violence. They come to it from two different directions.

Ann Burke is president and co-founder of the Love is Not Abuse Coalition and founder of the Lindsay Ann Burke Memorial Fund - named after her daughter - who - at the age of 21 - was murdered six years ago by an ex-boyfriend.

It was an emotional and difficult interview, I think for both Ann and myself. But it imparted to our audience so much information about the signs of abuse or impending abuse and how family and friends can best intervene and support the victim. Ann has learned through painful experience that some of the best actions and reactions to abuse may seem counter-intuitive. And that it's very important that a woman in an abusive relationship get help from one of the organizations that have been established to assist dv victims. Counselors there, she says, are more adept at helping than private therapists because they are experts in the field.

For more information or to contact Ann, go to www.labmf.org.

The second interview was fascinating. Iconic documentary photographer Donna Ferrato became intimately aware of the problems of domestic violence by taking pictures. Of abused women. Of abusive men. Of cops intervening and making arrests.

The photos are gritty, raw and bring to light the dirty secret that's hidden behind walls and doors. They put faces, sometimes beaten and battered faces, to the statistics. Her heralded book, Living with the Enemy, brings these stories to light. You can order Living with the Enemy by calling 212-367-7004.

Donna went beyond just documenting. She started Domestic Abuse Awareness, whose mission it is to end violence against women and children through awareness, education and action.

And she made an offer to the audience. To any woman in an abusive relationship. She'll put cameras up in the house and catch the abuser in the act.

Yesterday was also the anniversary of John Lennon's murder in 1980, so my daughter, her boyfriend and I gathered with others, representing multiple generations, at the Imagine mosaic at Central Park's Strawberry Fields, joining in song as musicians acoustically jammed one Lennon song after another.

A candle burned in Yoko Ono's window overlooking the park.