Hand's down

By the time you read this, Hoboken's famous neon finger will be pointing elsewhere: workers were scheduled to remove it today so that the wall behind it could be repaired. The building, which houses one of the oldest continuously operating restaurants in the nation, was evacuated Thursday when a contractor hired to take care of some minor repairs pointed out that the wall was bulging and about to fall down. The Clam Broth House has been serving seafood in Hoboken since 1899; the sign will be put in storage, then rehung when the wall is fixed. (This photo, like so many others on The Dagley Dagley Daily, is by Michael Dagley.)

Rookie cop

Meet one of the newest members of the Hoboken Police Department. I don't know which of the new four-footed officers this is, but there are three, and they're currently undergoing training before they begin to patrol our streets. Meanwhile, on the water, we have the U. S. Coast Guard, now part of the vast Department of Homeland Security, which will be conducting National Combating Terrorism exercises beginning May 12 with a "simulation of how the nation would respond in the event of a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) attack." The U.S. and Canadian governments as well as cities, counties and states, along with the American Red Cross will participate. The Red Cross has already been through much more than a drill this past week, what with all the tornadoes this week, and is pleading for donations.

Word from Mr. Peace

We take you now to Baghdad, where blogger Salam Pax has checked in for the first time since March 24. He didn't stop making blog entries during that time; he just wasn't able to post them. Click here to visit Salam's blog and read his posts from March 25 through May 1. The global blogosphere is rejoicing that the blogger who goes by the name of Peace made it through the war, celebrating by making "Where is Raed?" the most-linked-to blog of the day. (Special thanks to DDD European Bureau Chief Jesse Lynch for alerting us to Salam's new posts.) 

All-rights aren't all right

The new campaign by the National Writers Union (Local 1981 of the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, of which I am an active member) against all-rights contracts at the media conglomerate AOL Time Warner is barely getting under way, but it's already getting press abroad and online. The British site dotJournalism featured a news item about it May 2, and then on May 5, USC Annenberg's onlinejournalism.com featured it on the journalism school's blog. So far, no part of AOL Time Warner's vast media empire has reported the story. Meanwhile, the media conglomerates just keep on growing in size and shrinking in numbers.

Mercury, transiting

Tomorrow, May 7, the planet Mercury (the little one closest to the sun) will pass across the face of the sun (from our perspective) for the first time since 1999. Beginning at 1:13 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, or 5:13 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), observers with properly shielded telescopes in Europe, Asia and Africa will try to catch a glimpse of the tiny planet as it crosses. Observers without such telescopes can still watch online via SOHO, The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency. Speaking of joint efforts, we in the U.S. owe a heartfelt SPACEBO BOLSHOI (thank you very much) to the Russian Space Agency for giving our astronauts a lift home from the International Space Station on the aptly named Soyuz (union) spacecraft.

Gone with the wind

I hadn't planned for The Dagley Dagley Daily to go into reruns, but today when history repeated itself I decided to republish the piece I wrote April 3 about the worst weather day ever in North America: April 3-4, 1974, when 178 tornadoes touched down. Then I looked in the archives only to find that post was apparently lost a few weeks ago when we had our difficulties with Blogger, and was already among the missing posts when I made multiple backups of all blog files during the crisis, thus securely locking the door to the cyber-barn after the horse was gone. But losing a blog post is hardly a loss at all when the subject is tornadoes.

Both sides

Most of the waterfront views you've seen here are of Manhattan, but the Hudson, like any other subject, has another side. Here's the Hoboken waterfront just after sunset, looking west from the 14th Street Pier. Looking east, a more familiar view, with the Empire State Building covering more than one point of view as well with the colors of not only the United States, but France -- and the Czech Republic as well.

And as if both sides of the waterfront weren't enough for one day's post, here's a special bonus: We're giving you the moon.