The New Orleans Saints will kick off the NFL regular season on Thursday, September 9, when they host the Minnesota Vikings on NBC (7:30 p.m. CT) at the Louisiana Superdome.

LISTEN HERE as Ellis tells what it was like writing with Sean Payton, what the Saint’s Coach wanted this book to be about, and why Home Team is not like any other NFL coach’s book you’ve ever read.  But this New York Times Best Seller is not only about football. Henican, a native of New Orleans, recounts the often emotional story of a coach and his team making it in a  city that was making its own come-back in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

How ’bout this for Command No. 1 at the LIRR’s new state-of-the-art Command and Control Center?

Don’t. Catch. Fire.

Unplanned conflagrations like the one that knocked out a 1913 switching room at Jamaica station can be truly catastrophic. Nearly a week after Monday’s cable fire, train service still isn’t what it’s supposed to be.

But there is hope, and it doesn’t spring entirely from that frantic patch job by LIRR old-timers, brilliant though they are in their own make-do way. The long-term solution – beyond “Don’t catch fire!” – involves moving beyond the pre-World War I technology and into railroading’s modern age.

Yes, there is such a thing. It’s just that, compared to Europe and Asia, we’ve been painfully slow in getting there.

During an extremely tough week, LIRR officials took time out to unveil their computerized command center of the future. It’s gleaming, and it sounds very cool. No more manual levers. No more pre-computer-age systems. No more it’s-all-in-the-old-timers’-heads.

The new system ought to give the railroad’s supervisors far more real-time information about how the service is running and what can be done to improve it. This should make a ‘rail-life’ difference in avoiding rush-hour backups and anticipating maddening bottlenecks.

The new technology should be online by early November. The system should be more transparent to the techies and easier to fix when something breaks.

But one thing won’t change: Even with a sparkling new Command and Control Center, the nation’s largest commuter line will still have to depend on cables, switches, relays and other infrastructure that are 40, 50, 60 years old or older. With a $900 million budget gap, how soon can all that stuff possibly be replaced?

No, the past isn’t just prologue at the Long Island Rail Road. The past will be around for a good long time.

IF NOT THE ’RR

1. Buses?

2. Agoraphobia?

3. Unemployment?

4. Another 300,000 cars on the road?

5. Just stay home?

ASKED AND UNANSWERED:

Is that a business office or a lifeguard-changing room at MLK Park in Freeport? Come on, who’d install a camera just to watch people type?…Does a transvestite robber really need to wear a disguise? Folks at C&R Stationery in Lynbrook are still wondering…Agony or Ecstasy at the Phish concert? What made Luke Duplessis do a swan dive from the upper tier at the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater?…A nun with a gun? After her bad-habit display in “Machete,” what role is next in the typecasting of Lindsay Lohan? Family therapist? Abstinence counselor?…Why did someone steal a woman’s body from St. Charles Cemetery in East Farmingdale? After 12 years in the ground, it couldn’t be a beauty thing…Matthew Ireland, 16, was arrested in Mattituck for drunk-driving at 4 o’clock in the morning. What? His 14-year-old passenger gets no credit for using a designated driver?…Not that they deserve to be a robbed at gunpoint, of course – but what were all those people doing in a Valley Stream garage at 1:30 in the morning? A moonlit oil change?….After being so tight-fisted with big-thinking Lighthouse developer Charles Wang, now Ed Mangano wanted to use taxpayer-financed bonds to renovate the Nassau Coliseum?…Why shouldn’t Central Time Zone rock the house at Fuzzy’s in Jamaica? Who cares that the guys have straight jobs now or that the band hasn’t performed in 15 years? Haven’t you heard? Rock-’n’-roll never dies!

ELLIS’ LONG ISLANDERS OF THE WEEK

LIRR RIDERS

Weeks like these remind us: Life would be a whole lot tougher around here without the Long Island Rail Road. Monday evening’s meltdown certainly proved that. Then, we were forced to learn the lesson over and over again. When one day turned into five – and service only inched back to life – it was the riders who rose to the unhappy occasion. Not by choice, we coped. Shrewdly. Tolerantly. With far more aplomb than any had a right to expect. It was a mess. We survived. It must never happen again.

E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican

(Saturday 2:30 and 11:30 PM on the Fox News Channel)

On the August 21, 2010 edition of Fox News Watch, the talk began with the media’s coverage of the ’Ground Zero Mosque’.  Ellis, who lives just blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood,  began by telling guest host Eric Shawn that those people who live in lower Manhattan are more receptive to the mosque than people who live farther away, speculating that people living  in Idaho are 99% against it.

A short while later panelist Jim Pinkerton said “Let’s just focus on the pundit sector.  It’s been a chance for them to demonstrate their moral superiority over the average American by taking this “enlightened,” multi-cultural position.”

Ellis:  “ At the risk, Jim, of sounding enlightened, it is not the role of us in the punditocracy to be as quickly as ignorant as the [most] ignorant member of the public. There are some complex principles here that don’t get played out easily in a left-right angry exchange on cable television, and I think frankly we have some responsibility to remember what those principles are.”

Jim:  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defendant has just convicted himself.”

Ellis: “ Of enlightenment! I plead guilty as charged, sir.”

E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican

It’s the perfect good-news/bad-news story for today’s recessionary times.

The jobs are coming back to Long Island – just not the paychecks.

For the fourth straight month, private-sector employment is up on Long Island from twelve months earlier – 8,600 new jobs this time. But nice as that is, it would be a whole lot nicer if people could actually live off the wages. Many of these fresh positions aren’t paying too much more than the minimum wage.

Good luck trying to support a family around here on that!

While state economist Gary Huth is cheered by Long Island’s “growth track,” the Long Island Association’s Pearl Kamer notes that nearly 3,000 of the 8,600 were in the low-paid retail sector. “That’s not where you want the job gains to be,” she said.

She and everyone else are waiting for the hjgh-five- and six-figure jobs to return.

There once was a time when the LI economy hummed with rapidly-growing professional opportunities, go-go real-estate development and a vibrant defense industry. Remember those? Fewer and fewer people do.

There is still employment in those important areas. But not as much of it, and not as well-paid. What’s filling the gaps are lower-end positions like office cleaner, store clerk and nurse’s aide.

So here’s a challenge for the smart and ambitious, the best and the brightest around here.

As the economy stirs again, as it finally really may be doing, will someone please create some jobs we can actually make a living at?

Even if we don’t, we have friends who need the work.

YOUR NEXT POSITION

1. Unpaid intern

2. Do-good volunteer

3. Migrant farm laborer

4. Au pair

5. Panhandler

ELLIS’ BOOK CLUB:  

Ex-Newsday reporter Dan Morrison, who always liked to go places, may have finally taken the journey of his life. The only thing more vivid than “The Black Nile” would be traveling the river yourself. Then again, you may be a little more skittish about contested borders, raging civil wars and tiny plank-board boats than Dan is. The book is eye-opening, heart-pounding and, frankly, all the adventure I’m up for now. Let Dan go.

ASKED AND UNANSWERED:

 Any reason to think the Meadowmere Burger King robber might not be a real football player, despite the game pants and shoulder pads? How ’bout this? 5-foot-8, 150 pounds..  Jobs trickling back to LI, but mostly low-paid jobs? Cheer or jeer?…Now Steve Levy wants the Ethics Committee to look MORE closely at financial-disclosure forms? Oh, right. Not his. Other peoples’ financial disclosure forms…The fourteen  red-light gotcha cameras that were spray-painted in Carle Place, East Meadow and Westbury – did any of them get any shots of the vandals? Is that really too much to ask of a gotcha camera?…Interfaith understanding is one thing, but can North Shore-Long Island Jewish Medical Center operate a clinic at the old St. Vincent’s in Greenwich College — with a strict no-birth-control rule?….Regarding the live-poultry crackdown in College Woods: How soon ’til someone’s headline includes the phrase: Cock-a-doodle-don’t?

ELLIS’ LONG ISLANDER OF THE WEEK

JOHN TSUNIS

Like many parents, John Tsunis was concerned, of course, when he and wife, Laura, were told their son Charlie was diagnosed on the autism spectrum. But Tsunis had the business relationships and savvy to turn that concern into ambitious action. Charlie’s autism turned out to be quite mild. But now his dad, chairman of Gold Coast bank who started America’s first Holiday Inn Express in Stony Brook, is leading the fund-raising campaign for the proposed Stony Brook Long Island Children’s Hospital, which will be Suffolk County’s first. With a five-year time and an eight-figure budget, the project won’t be quick or cheap. But Tsunis held a packed kick-off fund-raiser last weekend at Joe Farrell’s $59 million Bridgehampton estate. “We’ll have a 120 specialists, all of them experts at the disease and ailments of children,” Tsunis said. “There’s really no reason a sick child should have to be airlifted away for state-of-the-art medical treatment.”

E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican

One day – not too soon, I hope – I will die.

And when that tragic moment arrives, those who love me will be saddened. Then a nice person in rubber gloves will come along and squirt 409 spray on my desk. An hour later, some new guy will be sitting in my chair, typing his words on what used to be my keyboard.

Goodbye, hello!

That is what we do in America when people die. We note the passing. We clean up the mess. We honor the dead by living.

So now comes all the uproar over the mosque being proposed for two blocks from Ground Zero. Do Muslims have the same right as other religions to place their houses of worship where they see fit? Or is this location an intolerable affront to the people who died on 9/11? That, right there, is the core of the debate.

And it’s a passionate one.

But beneath the raw nerves is an assumption that hardly anyone is reflecting on this week. What makes ground sacred anyway? The simple fact that a tragedy occurred nearby? Clearly, we apply the theory inconsistently.

When a teenager is killed in a drunken-driving wreck, no one proposes we close the highway forever. When a person loses their battle with cancer, their apartment isn’t forever sealed.

And when I die — well, you already know what happens then.

Back in the ’90s, there was a long-running dispute in lower Manhattan about a new federal building where an African cemetery had been. The graveyard was partially built on. Several people noted that much of downtown once had been cemetery land, though no one proposed demolishing area buildings.

Death is always tragic, whether it arrives in ones and twos or by the thousands. Those left are always bereaved.

The mosque debate raises many questions. But before they can really be answered, maybe we should answer these:

What makes certain ground sacred? How long does it remain that way?

Forever?

How many blocks constitute the sacred zone?

Who gets to decide?

The mother of that teenaged accident victim might have her own answer. I know I have some thoughts about the new guy who is suddenly sitting in my chair.

E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican

(Saturday 2:30 and 11:30 PM on the Fox News Channel)

On the August 7, 2010 edition of Fox News Watch, the talk, once again, turned to the media’s coverage of the Wikileaks investigation.  What started with Jon Scott telling the panel that “the Pentagon obviously believes there’s been tremenedous damage done to the war effort” ended in an exchange now being discussed  ’round the world.

Discussing the recent leaks by Wikileaks, Ellis made the case that “most of us who work in the media will tell you honestly we live off of leaks. Give me more leaks,” he insisted.

Conservative political commentator, and fellow panelist, S. E. Cupp took issue with this saying, “It seems as though the sole purpose of Wikileaks is to discredit and dismantle our war efforts and at any cost.”

She continued, “And I’m sorry, that’s not journalism. They’re just a collection bin for, for you know, documents.” 

Henican responded, “Kind of like the Drudge Report, right?”

Hundreds of viewers took to Twitter and Blogs to discuss these 7 little words, and as one blogger noted,  it was “a comparison that is sure to upset nearly everyone involved.”

E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican

It’s as key to Hamptons-weekend extravagance as Diva vodka martinis and Lamborghini golf carts: The Friday-afternoon helicopter ride east.

Wasting half the cocktail hour in LIE backups? Getting stuck on Route 27 behind a pokey landscaper’s truck? Only a schlub would suffer indignities like those!

But those choppers all have rotors, and those rotors all make noise. And the buzz-buzz-buzzing in the sky from the high-flying time-is-money weekenders has been making life increasingly miserable for the suffering people on the ground. The heaven of soaring above it all has created a special ear-splitting hell below.

So why can’t the racket be quieted once and for all?

Despite years of trying, no one – not the local politicians, not the Federal Aviation Administration, not the helicopter companies or their high-flying customers – has gotten beyond toothless voluntary guidelines.

And on Friday, we learned the roar won’t be dulled this summer either.

How much longer should the ground people wait? Local citizens groups on the North Shore and the East End say some of their folks almost have to wear earplugs to their backyard barbecues. And they sure wish the government would do some real governing.

But the FAA’s plan to enforce actual rules needs more public comment, the federal agency says. It would tell the pilots to do most of their flying where most people aren’t – at least a mile offshore in the Long Island Sound and, when crossing over land, chose “least populated” areas.

This may not be perfect, but it is a decent starting point. And no voluntary guideline seems capable of succeeding here.

LET’S ALSO GROUND

1. Kiddie birthdays with wedding price tags

2. Loud train talkers

3. Double-parked Humvees

4. More than five dinner specials in a restaurant

5. Pastel men’s pants

ASKED AND UNANSWERED:

Will the Anti-Defamation League’s next seminar be titled, “Proud History of the Anti-Defamation League”? After the Ground Zero mosque waffle, it might not be such a bad idea….After the big Cheez Doodler Morris Yohai died at home in Kings Park, did the guys from the funeral home have to clean the sticky orange stuff off his fingers one last time?…If Riverhead officials can use Google Earth to spot illegal swimming pools, what else can picture-of-the-planet search help to identity?…Why would the LIRR and Metro-North have so much higher an employee-overtime rate than the city subway?…What’s the real reason so many LI supermarkets are turning bag-stingy? Environmental sensitivity – or cheapness?… Rangel’s fundraiser is still on? Should I pay by cash, check or direct deposit into his prison-commissary account?…Any leads in the Darth Vader stick-up at the Chase branch in Setauket? Is it possible – that really was the Star Wars villain?…Real-estate price collapse? Not in Christie Brinkley’s dreams, there isn’t, where the supermodel’s $7.15 million (2004) Sag Harbor house is on the market for $15.75 mil (2010)…What’s the bigger health threat? West Nile? Or fear of West Nile?…How’s morale these days among Hempstead police commanders? The brass taking deputy chief Willie Dixon’s race-discrimination suit in perfect stride?

ELLIS’ LONG ISLANDER OF THE WEEK

SOUTHAMPTON TOWN JUSTICE ALLEN SMITH

The law is clear on one point: Everyone is supposed to get an equal shot in court, no matter who the defendant is. Even if the defendant is a former Southampton Town Supervisor on an embarrassing DWI case. Justice Allen Smith understands that principle. She is presiding over the Linda Kabor case. Kabor’s attorney wanted to exclude a videotape, a statement to police and the former supervisor’s refusal to take a breathaliyzer. Trial will begin in October with all that evidence introduced.

E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican

The predictable bashing has begun. Mike Bloomberg, defender of religious freedom, is getting plenty of grief for his principled support of what is incorrectly known as the “Ground Zero mosque.”

Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, the Wall Street Journal editorial board – their throaty outrage hasn’t quieted a decibel since the city’s Landmarks Preservation Committee refused to treat one religion differently from the others.

First things first: The mosque isn’t AT Ground Zero. It’s two blocks away in the former Burlington Coat Factory. But truly, this is not an issue of geography. It’s an issue of principle. And when the history of the early 21^st century is written, Bloomberg’s eloquent words will command an honored place.

The polls are against him, as they are often when political leaders take principled stands. Various interest groups feel rattled, which is not entirely a bad thing. But the mayor’s words echo with such clarity that, like Martin Luther King’s on the Mall in Washington, you have to think America will eventually catch up.

Bloomberg’s rhetorical style doesn’t equal King’s. The mayor was reading, and he sounded like it. But what other politician – an erstwhile Republican, no less — was ever saying something like this?

I’ll use my remaining space for quotation. Anything else would pale.

“The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said ‘no’ to a mosque in lower Manhattan.

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11, and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values and play into our enemies’ hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that.

“Political controversies come and go, but our values and our traditions endure, and there is no neighborhood in this city that is off-limits to God’s love.”

E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican

(Saturday 2:30 and 11:30 PM on the Fox News Channel)

On the July 31, 2010 edition of Fox News Watch, the panel discussed the media’s coverage of  the Wikileaks investigation.   Ellis noted that in the Internet Age once the information is out, it’s not only the media that is responsible for what happens with any leaked stories. Later, when the panel discussed  President Barack Obama’s appearance on television’s  The View, Ellis told the panel that ”Everybody needs to chill out here”.

E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican

Steve Levy is lucky he has such high self-esteem.

Otherwise, he’d be feeling pretty bummed this weekend. Nothing is turning out like the Suffolk County executive planned.

State Republican leaders were certain to pick him as their inside candidate for governor. Only they didn’t.

Then, he was sure he’d get their prized party ballot line in an easy vote at the state convention. Uh, not quite. The Long Island Democrat-turned-Republican was squeezed between old-line favorite Rick Lazio and Buffalo rich guy Carl Paladino.

It was down to Levy’s final play. He could gather 15,000 signatures and run in November as an independent. Why not?

Well, on Friday, the tough-to-discourage county exec announced he was giving up that ghost and endorsing his closest-to-home nemesis, Lazio.

So what’s waiting now on the horizon for the non-candidate of 2010?

Having abandoned the Democrats and not quite charmed the Republicans, it’s hard to see exactly what larger stage he can work his magic on anytime soon.

He put his lingering state ambitions in fundamental local terms.

“We on Long Island were hurt badly when the clout previously held with a majority block of Republican senators was eviscerated due to the change in leadership within the Senate,” he said. “Our need for taxpayer relief was severely hampered. That is why I will be working to maintain the need for checks and balances on the state level by promoting many of the candidates who will give Suffolk County a greater voice in state government.”

Translation: I’ll figure it out later. Please don’t forget me by then.

STEVE’S PLAN B

1. Open a pie house in Huntington

2. Revive Riverhead

3. Launch a fishing-boat charter at Shinnecock

4. Build a super-lighthouse in Montauk

5. Find a nice spot for an Indian casino – somewhere, anywhere

ASKED AND UNANSWERED:

You know that 12-year-old who cell-phoned police about her DWI-mom? Safety-conscious pre-teen or pint-sized tattletale?…Charles Wang and Scott Rechler: Can this marriage be saved? If not, who gets the Lighthouse?…Could couples therapy do anything for Republican Pete King and his LI Democratic congressional colleagues?…In this summer of Gulf oil, doesn’t Noyack Bay’s Red Tide seem extra ominous?…Won’t Amy Fisher need a snappy slogan for her new porn-production company? Can you top “A past is a terrible thing to waste”?…Just when you finally learned the new name – NYCB Theatre at Westbury – did you remember that “theatre” is spelled “r-e”?…Now that mandatory water-use restrictions are coming off, what’s your next excuse for not getting outside and watering the lawn?…Now that so many media outlets are declaring Montauk chic, can Montauk please go back to just being Montauk again?…Was it the off-peak tickets – or the three-pound Pomeranian — that delayed westbound commuters for 20 minutes on the 6:21 a.m. out of Speonk? Conductors are blaming the uncaged dog…If Nassau County health officials have already found infected mosquitoes at 30 – count ’em, 30 – sites, why is the West Nile spraying only beginning now?… Quogue mother-of-three Nancy Genovese may have had a very good reason to carry an AR-15 military-assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammo in her car across from the Air National Guard base in Westhampton, and it was – what, exactly?….Still have doubts who old-guard Republicans want as their candidate for governor? Does this seal it? Rick Lazio’s new campaign manager is former executive director of the state Republican Committee. And Carl Paladino’s talking about some obscure third-party line.

ELLIS’ LONG ISLANDERS OF THE WEEK

TRANSIT RIDERS

The LIRR’s facing major cutbacks. Long Island Bus is truly on the critical list. The budgets for both public-transit agencies are being whacked just as the economy may actually be reviving and their services are needed most. But day in and day out, a couple of hundred thousand Long Islanders keep riding the buses and trains: Keeping cars off the highways. Saving energy. Doing their crucial part to pay for a system that this whole island of ours is truly dependent on. And hardly anyone ever says thanks. So thanks.

E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican