I live on 95th street on the East Side and I drive to Brooklyn and Queens to see my patients and to operate in hospitals down there. I'm waved through with my ID. Since I do a reverse commute, I see the miles of cars coming in to the city from the outer boroughs.

Some docs and medical office workers can't get to work at all. About half of my patients yesterday did not come for their appointments.

What gives me more pause is that all of the tourists who are in NY now will likely never come back. People who depend on this season to make a big chunk of their yearly revenue are being hurt severely by this illegal and, in my opinion, unfounded strike.

And the fact that people like Al Sharpton are labelling the public outrage as "racially motivated" is absurd. What about the Pakistani man whose newspaper stand at 96th street has been out of business for three days? What about his kids? What about the single mother waitress at the diner in Jackson Heights who depends on tips to make rent? And what about your and my patients, who can't make it to their doctors and whose home health aides can't make it to them? I wonder why the Federal Government has not stepped in, a-la Air Traffic Controllers precedent?

Wait. That was when we had a real president.