New York note

Not your (Irish) grandfather's NYPD; this year's Police Academy recruits being welcomed on January 9 by Mayor Bill de Blasio (David Handschuh/New York Daily News).

Via Mahablog, very encouraging columns by Juan Gonzales at the Daily News suggest a lot of ferment going on in the NYPD over the police brutality controversy of Eric Garner, Akai Gurley, and Patrick Lynch's leadership of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, not to Lynch's advantage: for the first time since 2003 he seems likely to have an opponent in the PBA election, which is coming up in June, and it will be one who represents the patrolmen's embarrassment over his shameful treatment of Mayor de Blasio: