Recent News

From NY Post, Page Six:

EX-COP'S ZERO RESPECT TOY

November 12, 2007 -- AN ex-NYPD cop has grown so annoyed at the slow progress of rebuilding Ground Zero, he's sunk $50,000 of his own cash into a cheeky board game that "sheds light on the incompetence" of everyone involved in the project, including Bernie Kerik and former FDNY Commissioner Thomas Von Essen. Peter Gleason, a former cop and city firefighter who is now a lawyer, is having 10,000 games made to start, and plans to sell them along Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton's campaign trails. The game features trivia cards with photos of Giuliani wearing a Boston fire hat and running with a bag of money. "That's him running with the money he made from [9/11]," said Gleason. Von Essen is made fun of, as is Kerik, who is portrayed in the game "caught with his pants down." "I'm outraged with regards to how Ground Zero is still a hole," said Gleason when asked why he created the game. "No one is immune, from the local community boards to the White House."

From The Chief-Leader:

WTC Board Game Zings Rudy
by Ary Paul, Nov 2007

Pete Gleason, an ex-cop who's now an attorney, can add board game developer to his list of professions, as he unveiled the prototype for his Ground Zero board game Nov. 20, a work of satire he believes can shape the course of the presidential campaign.

Based on "Monopoly," the cover art features former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, dressed like Monopoly's mascot, Rich Uncle Pennybags, running obliviously over cops, firefighters and other rescue and recovery workers while wearing a Boston Red Sox cap and carrying the money the front-runner for the Republican nomination for President has acquired from speaking fees since 9/11.

Biting Radio Reference

At his ear is a tin can, attached to a broken string, that is supposed to link to another can held by his former Fire Commissioner, Thomas Von Essen, an allusion to the two of them having equipped firefighters with the same radios on 9/11 that had failed them after the first World Trade Center attack of 1993. Firefighters and their unions claim the radios' failures resulted in more than 100 firefighters dying because they never heard the call to evacuate the North Tower. The game's current slogan is, "It's only a game to the politicians. There is no end ... so quit while you're ahead."

The game's cover also features New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin wearing a button with the words "Kapt. Katrina" as he remarks, "Still a hole!" a reference to his defense of his administration's post-hurricane clean-up efforts last year when he said, "You guys in New York can't get a hole in the ground fixed and it's five years later."

Players in the game, Mr. Gleason noted, attempt to hold public officials accountable.

"Players can choose a path to Mt. Sinai," Mr. Gleason said, in reference to the hospital treating and monitoring 9/11 rescue workers. "Or you can go on the path straight to the White House. The characters in the drama are endless."

Read the rest at The Chief-Leader