Arun Venugopal

New York, NY —

The Census Bureau is reaching out to gay and lesbian couples across the country, encouraging them to mail in their forms and indicate whether they think of themselves as married or not.

George Takei, who played Captain Sulu on "Star Trek," now stars in a YouTube ...

How many Sikhs live in New York City, or for that matter, in the entire country? No one really knows, not even Sikh community activists.

'It's really hard to say,' says Jaspreet Singh, a local staff attorney with United Sikhs, a group that formed in New York in the late 90s but now has offices around the world. 'Nationwide people estimate there are between 400,000 and 900,000 Sikhs. We contacted the Pew Survey and asked them some questions. Their estimate, based on some of their telephone analysis, was about 700,000. Half a million is a very common estimate – but that may be 200,000 off.'

Its a cold day. You're underground, on the subway platform. The train pulls up. Your heart leaps at the sight of an empty seat. The doors open, and you step inside. But you immediately sense something's wrong. Where is everyone?

And then it hits you - engulfs you - a sour, uncomfortably powerful odor. The source: a homeless man at the end of the car, his sleeping face buried within the hood of his jacket.

As of Friday, when the city released its latest homeless count, that scenario has officially become more common. According to the Department of Homeless Services, there are now 3,111 homeless living on the streets and subways. That's a 34 percent spike from last year and the first time it's increased in five years.

But if you ride the subways, those figures may not be surprising -- something you've instinctively felt for a while. While the subway homeless represent only a fraction of the overall numbers, they are much harder to ignore, because commuters share closed spaces with them and often have to make choices about whether or not they'll sit next to someone who appears alcoholic or mentally ill or who simply hasn't bathed in many days.

So here's my question: How do you, as a commuter, deal with those situations?

I'm fine with ethnic humor. For instance, I find Apu on The Simpsons a true pleasure, silly accent notwithstanding.

But on the matter of this weekend's Saturday Night Live skit, "Talk Show with Ravish," I have to agree with my friend (and official Apuhater), Ultrabrown's Manish Vij. He calls it a "shoddy racial throwback":

It’s all here, from the fake Indian names to the craptastic bud-bud-ding-ding accents to the random turbaned guy with a head wrap like a collapsed soufflé faking a bharatnatyam move. How does a show filmed in New York City manage to execute so badly?

Something kind of sad, isn't there, about the New York Stock Exchange becoming a promotional stage for March Madness, of all things. Yeah, I know: capitalism.

These last couple weeks, my home has been deluged with Jose Peralta campaign literature. We get at least one glossy, multicolor mailer a day, if not two, each of them bearing the big, grinning face of this-or-that politico: Senator Schumer, Senator Gillibrand, Borough President Helen Marshall, Councilman Danny Dromm, you name it. They speak to Peralta's record, and urge voters to get to the polls Tuesday, March 16.

This bad.

The trial of the officers who shot and killed Sean Bell ended nearly two years ago -- Not Guilty, in case your memory is hazy. But even for those of us who are expert forgetters, there are some details that remain vivid.

Like Fabio Coicou.

Here's news we can use more of: According to Mayor B, while people stopped buying as much stuff, attendance at cultural institutions actually rose five to eight percent last year. He cited a study by NYC Arts that I can't find anywhere, but is validated by this survey by The Art Newspaper. And at least with the Museum of Modern Art, the study rang true. Attendance for the fiscal year ending in June, 2009, was at a record high of 2.8 million.

Last week a friend sent me this long piece in New York magazine, "Brooklyn Killed Manhattan, and is Dead Itself."

"A nice take on a tired topic," is how he put it.

The city is trying to make the local film industry a bit more racially diverse.

New York, NY —

The city is trying to make the local film industry a bit more racially diverse. A new program will use city funding to train people of color for jobs on set, including positions for gaffers, riggers, and dolly grips.

An existing program to train minority production ...

It may seem a bit behind the times to say that independent bloggers are just as legit as their peers in the mainstream media, but in the real world of covering crime, or disasters, or the mayor of New York, that's not the case. Independent bloggers can't get press credentials, nor the special access those credentials bring, such as crossing police lines or a seat at certain mayoral events. That gives reporters with traditional media outlets a disproportionate amount of influence when it comes to covering local politics and city affairs. And it means that City Hall can manage a limited set of reporters as it tries to shape the news.

No longer.

New York, NY —

Two New York lawmakers are moving to prevent the governor's office from abusing access to the state police. State Sen. Eric Adams says he and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries are proposing an investigation because of revelations that the Paterson administration may have inappropriately turned to state ...

New York, NY —

The city is set to shrink its sprawling IT infrastructure. Commissioner Carole Post of the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications says that by consolidating the data systems used by 40-plus agencies, the city can reduce costs and improve services.

Speaking at a data center in ...

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

What's a food vendor to do when he or she has use the bathroom? Most of them slip into a cafe or restaurant lavatory and try to return to work quickly. But one ...

I swung by the auditions for the Brooklyn Ballet's first Summer Intensive, on Sunday. This is a program for young, hardcore ballet aspirants. BB's hope is that they can take its arabesques and changment de plieds to the farthest reaches of the borough, not just in traditional spaces but in storefronts, community centers, and parks -- i.e., not just where the gentry congregate. The best part was watching the kids in the picture above do their moves. Also, talking to the teenagers who sweat it out daily in hopes of getting to the American Ballet Theatre. You can listen to a few of them here. For a waffly guy like myself, it's hard to believe that youth and determination can be so clearly united. These kids know what they want.

New York, NY —

As of last month, when New Jersey signed it into law, there are 14 states that allow the use of medical marijuana. Some people think New York could be No. 15, and are watching as a bill winds its way through the state Senate and ...

What constitutes an act of terrorism? Is it enough to fly an airplane into an important building, in an effort to make a bold political statement against the U.S. government?

Interesting little item on OpenSecrets.org today, noting that it's now legal to carry guns into national parks. Sidenote:

Gun control advocates, meanwhile, spent a relative pittance in 2009 on federal lobbying efforts -- $180,000. Most of that came from a single organization: Mayors Against Illegal Guns. The decline in gun control advocates' lobbying power is striking: In 2001, the special interest area spent more than $2.1 million on federal lobbying efforts.