If Only We Could All Get Along Like Road Raging Cabbies

Ok, so here's a rare warm and fuzzy story - not that we don't like posting them but they are increasingly hard to find these days! This NY Times article covers how NYC cab drivers are using a Queens gym to work off some of the accumulated stress they build up after 12 hour shifts. If you aren't familiar with the NYC area, many cab drivers are of South Asian religious and ethnic backgrounds - often ones that don't have the best of relations back home. At the gym, they manage to push all that aside just to get their cardio on:

Guillermo Messier, the club's night manager, said BQE Fitness has benefited from the 2,000 or so members who drive yellow taxis, livery cabs or limousines. "We couldn't stay open all night if it weren't for these guys," said Mr. Messier, a Colombian who has mastered a handful of brief exchanges in Punjabi, Bengali, Hindi and Urdu, the lingua francas of most overnight members.

Ethnic and religious differences largely melt away in the weight room, where drivers horse around or spot one another while lifting. Zulfeqar Ahmad, a 47-year-old Pakistani who was a college power lifter and a police officer, said he and his South Asian brethren enforced a ban on discussing politics. "Here, we are all brothers," he said, his arm draped across the shoulder of a beefy Punjabi driver from the other side of the Pakistani-Indian border. "If someone tries to talk politics, I tell them to stop. I am very strict."