Chunks of ice are falling off cars and trucks everywhere, thanks to the recent storm that blew through these parts, This morning, I was driving north on Route 9A to talk to an AP English class at Hendrik Hudson High School.  I passed the famous sign post at Briarcliff Manor that says, “God Answers Prayers,” and then just before I reached the turnoff for Forgotten Way, saw chards of dangerous, glass-like ice flying off the roof of an SUV.

I dodged and weaved and avoided the stuff, which fell to the pavement and crumbled like giant Communion wafers. (Oh, I love that religious imagery!) But this is no laughing matter.

Last year, after a similar ice storm in the metropolitan region, the windshields of three cars were shattered by ice that fell off other moving vehicles.

This prompted Assemblyman Mike Spano,  D-Yonkers, to propose a state law that would require roof and cargo bed surfaces of certain vehicles to be cleared of snow and ice. (That’s Mike in the above photo  holding a chunk of ice.) Under his law, fines would range from $150 to $850 for regular motorists and $450 to $1,250 for commercial drivers.

A similar law was passed some years ago in New Hampshire where a 20-year-old woman was killed by ice that fell from a tractor-trailer.

Spano has been pushing this law for New York since 2001—with no luck.  His press aide, Denise Egiziaco told me he is re-introducing it for this year.

I listened to Gov. David Paterson’s state of the state address yesterday and for a moment thought he was channeling Westchester County Executive Andy Spano, one of the chief philosopher kings of the so-called “Nanny State.”

From the get-go, Paterson lost me on his initiatives to control obesity. Once again, he brought up the soda tax.

In any event, the “perilous” condition of New York, as Paterson termed it, will be the topic on today’s “High Noon” radio program on WXOX, 1460 AM and wvox. com. The show starts at 12 noon.

Joining in the discussion will be Assemblyman Adam Bradley, D-White Plains. You can join in the discussion, too, by calling 914-636-0110.

Times Square ain’t what it used to be. It used to be a disgusting, crime-ridden place of sin. It was loaded with panhandlers, pick-pockets, muggers, peep shows, hookers and drug addicts. Those were the fun, bad-old days!

No more. Thanks to the wholesale Disneyfication process that took place in the 1990s which pretty much sani-wiped the neighborhood clean of its more colorful inhabitants, Times Square is now a dense haven of tourists from the Midwest who no longer fear that they will be raped and murdered.

God bless ‘em, though. They still want a little bit of the old Times Square, so that they can go back home and proudly tell their friends that they survived New York City’s simulated dangers and the experience of what I call, “Sleaze Light.”

This guy—the so-called “Naked Cowboy,” epitomizes Sleaze Light.

(Associated Press photo). The tourists love him because he’s a safe, street performer who, I guess, meets some kind of fantasy requirement about New York. But he’s not really naked. He wears tighty-whitey underpants. For that reason alone, he should be called “The Tighty-Whitey Underpants Cowboy.” (What’s with the Dale Evans boots?) Indeed, let’s not even refer to him as a cowboy, but as a cow poke.

In the old Times Square of circa 1972 somebody calling himself the Naked Cowboy would’ve actually been buck naked and stark-raving insane. What’s more he would’ve been armed with a machete.

On the occasions when I have to navigate my way through the herds of bubble-vested touristas, who flock to Times Square, I invariably see the guitar-strumming BVD-wearing gentleman posing for cell phone photos and making nice with giggling women, whose most daring act it seems is to pat him on the ass.

Last weekend on a cold night, my wife and I went to see a play on West 45th Street, and as usual Times Square was jammed with out-of-towners, who are easily spotted because they never look where they’re going and tend to bump into one another. I fully expected to see the Tight-Whitey Underpants Cow Poke doing his thing.

But he was nowhere to be found. Perhaps it was too frigid that night. Or maybe HE was on vacation. Hmm. If that was so where would he go? I choose to believe he would visit Colonial Williamsburg or the Lawrence Welk Museum in Nebraska.

In any case, he wasn’t around. And yet his presence was still felt. I laughed because a couple of Asian tourists were pointing and oggling at a photograph that was being hawked by one of the many street vendors. They had recognized a world, renowned, Times Square icon. It was a picture of the Great Man himself! You can’t escape the guy.

But we had to wonder how, with the sinking economy, the Tighty-Whitey Underpants Cow Poke will survive 2009. Two things keep the city going—Wall Street and tourism. We already know what happened to the former.

So, if the number of visitors dwindle, will the coke poke go out of business, pack up his Fruit of the Looms, climb into one of those ubiquitous bicycle-rickshaws and ride off into the sunset?

We hope not. But worse things could happen.

In my January column, I handed out my annual Golden Typo Award to a host of worthies who publicly shamed themselves.

Among the so-called winners in 2008, were a trio of Westchester county legislators—Ken Jenkins, Vito Pinto and Jose Alvarado—who dressed up in drag and then sang and danced before 400 senior citizens at the Polish Community Center in Yonkers. In the column I wrote as follows: “The beastly spectacle was captured by Cablevision’s News 12, and we bet the three Democrats would pay any price to have the tape destroyed before it ends up as a campaign fodder or on YouTube.”

It turns out that it was posted on YouTube! Their performance is nearly, but not quite, beyond the realm of hideous.

Here’s the Golden Typo Award—