PRESORTED STANDARD PERMIT #3036 WHITE PLAINS NY
Vol. VI I No. XVIII
Westchester’s Most Influential Weekly
NCC Executive Director
Pays Some
But Not Others By HEZI ARIS, Page 9
Thursday, May 2, 2013 $1.00
RICH MONETTI Squire’s American Made Apparel Line Page 3 SHERIF AWAD Tribeca 12 Page 4 BARBARA BARTON SLOANE
The Viking Longships’ Launch Page 9 HEZI ARIS
Former Mayor Amicone…
Too Big to Jail Page 10
EVAN S. LEVINE, M.D. Gaming the Medical System Page 12 JOHN SIMON Pips and an Unkind Cut Page 15
The Siege of Egypt’s St. Mark Cathedral By RAYMOND IBRAHIM, Page 8
Mayor MARY C.MARVIN Suggestions to ConEd Going Forward Page 18 Mayor PETER SWIDERSKI
Village Budget Approved Page 20
ence working with sponsors/donors; 2) Operations Manager- must have a good knowledge of computers/software/ticketing systems, duties include overseeing all box office, concessions, movie staffing, day of show lobby staffing such as Merchandise seller, bar sales. Must be familiar with POS system and willing to organize concessions. Full time plus hours. Call (203) 438-5795 and ask for Julie or Allison
THE WESTcHESTER GUARDiAn THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN THE WESTcHESTER GUARDiAn
Page 2
UPON GOOD CAUSE, THE COURT MAY ORDERRetail AN INVESTIGATION TO DETERMINE Prime - Westchester CountyWHETHER THE NON-RESPONSENT PARENT(s) SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AS A RESPONDENT; IF Best Location in Yorktown Heights THE COURT DETERMINES THE CHILD SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM HIS/HER HOME, THE 1100 Sq. Ft. Store $3100; 1266WHETHER Sq. Ft. store and 450 Sq. Ft. COURT MAY ORDER AN INVESTIGATION TO DETERMINE THE $2800 NON-RESPONDENT THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2012 CUSTODIANS FOR THE Page 3 Store $1200. PARENT(s) SHOULD BE23, SUITABLE CHILD; IF THE CHILD IS PLACED AND THURSDAY, May 2, 2013 THURSDAY, MARCH 29,FIFTEEN 2012 Page 3 THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2012 Suitable for any type of business. Contact Wilca: 914.632.1230 REMAINS IN FOSTER CARE FOR OF THE MOST RECENT TWENTY-TWO MONTHS, THE AGENCY MAY BE REQUIRED TO FILE A PETITION FOR TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS OF THE PARENT(s) AND COMMITMENT OF GUARDIANSHIP AND CUSTODY OF THE CHILD FOR THE PURPOSES OF ADOPTION, EVEN IF THE PARENT(s) WERE NOT NAMED AS RESPONDENTS IN A non profit Performing Arts Center is seeking two job positions- 1) DirecTHE CHILD NEGLECT OR ABUSE PROCEEDING. tor of Development- FT-must have a background in development or expeA NON-CUSTODIAL PARENT HASfundraising, THE RIGHT TO REQUESTofTEMPORARY OR PERMANENT CUSrience knowledge what development entails and experiTODY OF THE CHILD ANDence TO SEEK ENFORCEMENT OF VISITATION RIGHTS WITH THE CHILD. working with sponsors/donors; 2) Operations Managermust have a Community Section..................................................................................................3 knowledge of computers/software/ticketing systems, duties include BY ORDER OF THE FAMILYgood COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK Business...................................................................................................................3 overseeing all box office, concessions, movie staffing, day of show lobby Westchester On the Level isTOusually heard from Monday to Friday, from a.m. to 12 THE ABOVE-NAMED RESPONDENT(S) WHO 10 RESIDE(S) OR IS FOUND AT [specify staffing such as Merchandise seller, bar sales. Must be familiar with POS Calendar..................................................................................................................3 address(es)]: Noon on the Internet: http://www.BlogTalkRadio.com/WestchesterOntheLevel. system and willing to organize concessions. Full time plus hours. Call (203) ....................................................................................................................4 Lastaknown addresses: TIFFANY RAY: 24ask Garfield Street, #3, Yonkers, Because of the importance Charity. of Federal court case purporting corruption briberyNY 10701 438-5795 and for Julie orand Allison Cultural Perspectives............................................................................................4 allegations, programming with be suspended for the days of March 26 to 29, 2012. Last known addresses: KENNETH THOMAS: 24 Garfield Street, #3, Yonkers, NY 10701 Westchester On the Level is heard from Monday to Friday, from 10 a.m. to 12YonNoon
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Of Significance Of Significance
Community Section ...............................................................................4 Section ...............................................................................4 Community Business ................................................................................................4 Business ................................................................................................4 Calendar ...............................................................................................4 Calendar ...............................................................................................4 Charity ..................................................................................................5 Creative Disruption ............................................................................5 Charity ..................................................................................................5 Contest ..................................................................................................6 Cultural Perspective ...........................................................................7 Contest ..................................................................................................6 Creative Disruption ............................................................................6 Energy Issues .......................................................................................8 Creative Disruption ............................................................................6 Education .............................................................................................7 In Memoriam ....................................................................................10 Education .............................................................................................7 Fashion ..................................................................................................8 Medicine .............................................................................................10 Fashion ..................................................................................................8 Fitness....................................................................................................9 Najah’s Corner ...................................................................................11 Fitness....................................................................................................9 Health ..................................................................................................10 Movie Review ....................................................................................12 Health ..................................................................................................10 History ................................................................................................10 Music ...................................................................................................12 History ................................................................................................10 Ed Koch Movie Review ...................................................................12 Community ........................................................................................13 Ed Koch Movie Review ...................................................................12 Spoof ....................................................................................................13 Writers Collection.............................................................................14 Spoof ....................................................................................................13 Sports Scene .......................................................................................13 Books Sports Scene .......................................................................................13 Najah’s...................................................................................................16 Corner ...................................................................................13 People ..................................................................................................18 Najah’s Corner ...................................................................................13 Writers Collection.............................................................................14 Eye On...................................................................................................16 Theatre ..................................................................................18 Writers Collection.............................................................................14 Books Leaving on a Jet Plane ......................................................................19 Books ...................................................................................................16 Transportation...................................................................................17 Government Section Transportation ...................................................................................17 Government Section ............................................................................20 ............................................................................17 Campaign Trail ..................................................................................20 Government Section ............................................................................17 Albany Correspondent ....................................................................17 Economic Development....................................................................17 Albany Correspondent Mayor Marvin’s Column..................................................................20 .................................................................18 Education ...........................................................................................21 Mayor Marvin’s Column .................................................................18 Government .......................................................................................19 The Hezitorial ....................................................................................21 Government .......................................................................................19 OpEd Section .........................................................................................23 LegalSection ....................................................................................................23 OpEd .........................................................................................23 Ed Koch Commentary.....................................................................23 People ..................................................................................................24 Ed Koch Letters toCommentary.....................................................................23 the Editor ..........................................................................24 Strategyto...............................................................................................24 Letters Editor............................................................................25 ..........................................................................24 Weir Onlythe Human OpEd Section .........................................................................................25 Weir Only Human ............................................................................25 Legal Notices ..........................................................................................26 ..........................................................................................27 Legal Notices ..........................................................................................26
YOUR PARENTAL RIGHTS AND COMMITMENT GUARDIANSHIP AND CUSTODY OF THE PrimeOF Location, Yorktown Heights CHILD FOR THE PURPOSES OF ADOPTION, AND MAY FILE BEFORE THE END OF THE 15-MONTH 1,000 Sq. Ft.: $1800. Contact Wilca: 914.632.1230 PERIOD.
HELP WANTED
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Westchester On the Level with Narog and Aris Westchester On the Level with Narog and Aris Aris and
kersthe Philharmonic Orchestra Conductor James Sadewhite is ourofscheduled guest Friday, Development......................................................................................6 Westchester On the Level isEconomic heard Monday to Friday, a.m. to 12 on Internet: http://www.BlogTalkRadio.com/WestchesterOntheLevel. Joinbeen filed with this Court An Orderfrom to Show Cause under Article 10from the10 Family Court ActNoon having March 30. seeking to to modify the placement for Please the above-named child. Freedom of1-877-674-2436. Speech. ...............................................................................................6 on the Internet: by http://www.BlogTalkRadio.com/WestchesterOntheLevel. Join the conversation calling toll-free stay on topic. It is howeverby anticipatedtoll-free that thetojury will conclude its Please deliberation ontopic. either Monthe conversation 1-877-674-2436. stay on YOU ARE HEREBY SUMMONED to appear before this Court at Yonkers Family Court Education................................................................................................................7 Richard Narog March andcalling Hezi Aris your co-hosts. Incase, thewe weekYork, beginning 20th and ending on day or Tuesday, 26 or 27.are Should be theYonkers, resume ourFebruary regular located at 53 So.that Broadway, Newwill on the 28th day of March, 2012 at 2;15 pm in the Health......................................................................................................................8 Richard Narog andhave Hezi are entourage your InYonkers the week beginning andshould ending on February 24th,schedule we an Aris exciting ofanswer guests. afternoon ofthat saidco-hosts. day on to the petition and website. to show February cause why 20th said child not be programming and announce fact the Tribune International. . .........................................................................................................8 adjudicated to be a neglected child and why you should not be dealt with in accordance with the February 24th, we have an exciting entourage of guests. Richard Narog and Hezi Aris are co-hostsFebruary of the show. Krystal Wade, a celebrated participant in http:// Every Monday is special. On Monday, provisions of Article 10 of the20th, Family Court Act. Investigation...........................................................................................................9 Every Monday is special. On Monday, 20th, Krystal a celebrated participant in http:// www.TheWritersCollection.com is PLEASE ourFebruary guest. Krystal Wade isWade, a mother of three who works fifty miles TAKE FURTHER NOTICE, that you have the right to be represented by a lawTavel.........................................................................................................................9 www.TheWritersCollection.com guest. Krystal Wade is afornovel mother three who works fifty miles from home and writes in her time.” “Wilde’ s Fire,” her to debut hasofyou been accepted for publication yer,“spare and if is theour Court finds you are unable pay a lawyer, have the right to have a lawyer The Hezitorial. ......................................................................................................10 from home and writes ininher “spare time.” “Wilde’ Fire,” her debut has sbeen accepted assigned by the Court. and should be available 2012. Not far behind iss her second novel,novel “Wilde’ Army.” How for doespublication she do it? and available NotNo far behind her second novel, s Army.” it? Pulling Punches............................................................................................11 Tuneshould in andbefind out. in 2012. PLEASE TAKEisFURTHER NOTICE, that“Wilde’ if you fail to appearHow at thedoes time she and do place noted above,...............................................................................................................12 the Court will hear and determine the petition as provided by law. Tune in and find out. Medicine. Co-hosts Richard Narog and Hezi Aris will relish the dissection of all things politics on Tuesday, February Dated: January 30, ORDER OF THE COURT Music. .....................................................................................................................12 Co-hosts Richard and Hezi ArisChuck will2012 relish the dissection of his all things politicsfrom on Tuesday, February 21st. Yonkers CityNarog Council President Lesnick willBY share perspective the august inner 2 column CLERK1 column THE COURT 21st. Yonkers President Chuck Lesnick will shareOF22nd. his perspective from theEsq., august People. ....................................................................................................................13 sanctum of theCity CityCouncil Council Chambers on Wednesday, February Stephen Cerrato, will inner share sanctum of the CityonCouncil Chambers Wednesday, February24th 22nd. Esq.,bewill share Sports.....................................................................................................................14 his political insight Thursday, Februaryon 23rd. Friday, February hasStephen yet to beCerrato, filled. It may a propihis political Thursday, February 23rd. Friday, February 24th has yet to be filled. It mayofbeThat a propiEye on Theatre. .....................................................................................................15 tious day toinsight sum uponwhat transpired throughout the week. A sort of BlogTalk Radio version Was tious day to sum up what transpired throughout the week. A sort of BlogTalk Radio version of That Was The Week That Was (TWTWTW). Technology...........................................................................................................16 The Week That Was (TWTWTW). For those who cannot joinHistory. us live,..................................................................................................................17 consider listening to the show by way of an MP3 download, or on For thoseWithin who cannot join us consider listening the the show by wayinof MP3 that download, orlink on Government Section...............................................................................................18 demand. 15 minutes of live, a show’ s ending, you cantofind segment ouranarchive you may demand. Within 15 minutes of a show’ s ending, you can find the segment in our archive that you may link to using the hyperlink provided in the opening paragraph. WHYTeditor@gmail.com Mayor Marvin......................................................................................................18 to using the hyperlink provided in the opening paragraph. Campaign Trail....................................................................................................19 The entire archive is available and maintained for your perusal. The way to find a particular interview Legaleasiest Notices, Advertise Today The entire archive is available and maintained for your easiest to findofa the particular interview Legal Notices, Advertise Today Legislation. is to search Google, or any other search............................................................................................................20 engine, for theperusal. subjectThe matter or way the name interviewee. For isexample, to search Google, or any other search engine, for the subject matter or the name of the interviewee. search Google,Help Yahoo, AOL Search for Westchester On the Level, Blog Talk Radio, or use For the Wanted.............................................................................................................22 example, Yahoo,Ads. AOL Search for Westchester On the Level, Blog Talk Radio, or use the hyperlinksearch above.Google,Legal ...................................................................................................................22 Before speaking to the police... call hyperlink above.
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The Westchester Guardian is a weekly newspaper devoted to the unbiased reporting of events FREE CONSULTATION: The Westchester Guardian is a weekly newspaper devoted to the living unbiased reporting of events and developments that are newsworthy and significant to readers in, and/or employed in, Criminal, Medicaid,toMedicare and developments that are newsworthy and significant readers living in, and/or employed in, Westchester County. The Guardian willFraud, striveWhite-Collar to report fairly, and objectively, reliable informaCrime & Westchester County.tion Thewithout Guardian willHealth strive to report fairly, andduty objectively, reliable informa914.948.0044 favor or compromise. Our first will beT.to the PEOPLE’S Care Prosecutions. tion without favor or compromise. Our first duty will be to the PEOPLE’S F. 914.686.4873 RIGHT TO KNOW, by the exposure of truth, without fear or hesitation, RIGHT KNOW, by themay exposure ofthe truth, without fearoforFREEDOM hesitation, no matterTO where the pursuit lead, in finest tradition no matter where the pursuit may lead, in the finest tradition of FREEDOM 175 M AIN S T., S UITE 711-7 • W HITE P LAINS, NY 10601 OF THE PRESS. OF THE PRESS. The Guardian will cover news and events relevant to residents and The Guardian will cover news and eventsAs relevant to residents and businesses all over Westchester County. a weekly, rather than businesses all over Westchester County. As a weekly, rather than focusing on the immediacy of delivery more associated with daily focusingwe onwill the instead immediacy more associated daily journals, seek of to delivery provide the broader, morewith comprejournals, we will instead seek to provide the broader, more comprehensive, chronological step-by-step accounting of events, enlightened hensive, chronological step-by-step accounting of events, enlightened with analysis, where appropriate. with analysis, where appropriate. Professional Dominican From &amongst journalism’s classic key-words: who, what, when, Hairstylists Nail Technicians From amongst journalism’ s classic key-words: who, what, when, Hair Cuts • Stylingwhy, • Washand & Set •how, Permingthe why and how will drive our pursuit. We where, Pedicure • Acrylic Nails • Fill Ins • Silkwhy, Wraps •and Nail Art Designs where, how, the why andand how drive our will use our •more time, ourwill resources, to pursuit. get past We the Highights • Coloring • Extensions • Manicure Eyebrowabundant Waxing will use our more abundant time, and our resources, to get past the initial ‘spin’ and ‘damage control’ often characteristic of immediate initial and damage often characteristic immediate Yudi’s Salon 610 Main St, New Rochelle, NY ‘spin’ 10801 914.633.7600 news releases, to ‘reach thecontrol’ very heart of the matter: the of truth. We will news releases, to reach the very heart of the matter: the truth. will take our readers to a point of understanding and insight whichWe cannot take our readers to a point of understanding and insight which cannot be obtained elsewhere. be obtained elsewhere. To succeed, we must recognize from the outset that bigger is not necesTo succeed, must recognize from theacknowledge outset that bigger is not necessarily better.we And, furthermore, we will that we cannot be sarily better. And, furthermore, we will acknowledge that we cannot all things to all readers. We must carefully balance the presentationbe of all things to all readers. We must carefully balance the presentation of relevant, hard-hitting, Westchester news and commentary, with features relevant, hard-hitting, Westchester news and commentary, with features and columns useful in daily living and employment in, and around, the and columns useful in daily living and employment in, and around, the county. We must stay trim and flexible if we are to succeed. county. We must stay trim and flexible if we are to succeed.
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
Page 3
CommunitySection BUSINESS
Squire’s American Made Apparel Line is Part of a Bigger Picture By RICH MONETTI The Stock Market is doing quite well. The world economic meltdown has not been forgotten, but it certainly isn’t in our faces as much, and we even managed to avoid the fiscal cliff. If things are not necessarily as good as we’d like, the dire discussion has at least subsided to an agitated grumble. Of course, if you’re unemployed, the situation is just as real as the day the floor opened and swallowed the nation’s economy with it. So cutting taxes, raising them, Democrats or Republicans, all the calculations can be mostly put aside in favor one simple solution - bringing manufacturing back to our shores. That said, Lloyd Kushner of Squire’s in Katonah feels he’s doing his small part to restore America’s standing in that regard. “Squire’s has taken in several lines that are made exclusively in the United States,” he says. But this isn’t entirely an exercise in idealism for the greater good. “They come in at really competitive prices, which tells me that if I can find some of these companies, there’s got to be more of them out there,” he says. Despite the obvious challenge in his search, lines such as PrAna, Nally
and Millie and Tina stand up quite well in comparison to what the Nordstrom’s of the world are offerings. On the other hand, the paradigm is shifting slightly as the state of the economy remains depressed. “If they buy overseas, a lot more credit is required and the quantity of ordered goods is required to be higher so buying in America allows companies to have more control of their inventories,” Kushner advises. The end result, according to the Somers resident, is a more efficient and intelligent business operation. But the deeper pockets of the larger stores creates a bulk business plan that has left many American workers seeking warmth in the form of jobs that are no longer available. “This country has to get on the right jobs’ path if the economy is going to flourish,” noted Kushner. At the same time, it’s not really about putting companies in a box and telling them how to pursue profits. To him, it comes down to good common sense government. “Whether it’s Democrats or Republicans, it doesn’t make a difference. They should encourage American manufacturers to make their products here, and give the American manufacturer the incentives to be fully competitive,” Kushner continued. In turn, a more happy medium has to emerge, but having the stipulations in writing is a must, especially in the
Lloyd Kushner of Squires in Katonah with his prized Dog Chloe. wake of the faulty deals that were made with the banks. “This way they don’t get the perks and simply revert back to their old ways,” he said. As for what it would take to accrue the political will in Washington to affect a sea change in manufacturing origins… Kushner’s only certainty is that a mitigating solution answer is unlikely to
CALENDAR
News & Notes from Northern Westchester By MARK JEFFERS The latest from my wife’s rumor mill is that to help pay for the new Tappan Zee Bridge there could be tolls on both sides of the bridge! Next up we will stop half way across the span and toss in a few coins… welcome to this week’s “toll free” edition of “News & Notes.” Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines… as the Maryknoll car show returns for its second year on Sunday, June 9th on the grounds of the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers (55 Ryder Road) in Ossining.
More than 300 vehicles are anticipated to roll onto the field for this year’s show and more than several thousand visitors will visit the 100-acre Maryknoll campus to see the cars, enjoy new family activities and learn a bit more about the work of the Maryknoll Society serving all people around the world, including here in the U.S. Congratulations and three cheers to two local schools for their long term efforts to “go green” Yorktown’s Crompond Elementary School and Rye Country Day were named U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon Schools. Continued on page 4
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be sailing in from his Katonah Avenue store front. “I have no idea,” a remedy eluding him. His customers may or may not recognize the bigger political picture
politics impresses on the apparel industry, and something called customer service, but it’s pretty safe to infer that our clientele adhere to what shopping locally means to them. “The charm of Westchester County - or any rural community - are the little shops,” he says. The alternative means small town America gets boarded up. “It fortunately hasn’t happened here,” he says. And while Kushner has no idea what will come next in the tenuous economic state we find ourselves, he’ll continue to be driven by what he loves about being in business. “The most exciting thing is seeking out new products and manufacturers and envisioning them in your store. Then when the vision comes true in terms of sales and continued collaboration with those manufacturers, it all adds up to serving my customers,” concluded Kushner. Rich Monetti has been a freelance writer since 2003 and lives in Westchester.
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THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
CALENDAR
News & Notes from Northern Westchester Continued from page 3 Are you happy spring is finally here? Don’t know what to get your Mom for Mothers Day? Come and make beautiful paper flowers, and a card to go with it for that special lady in your life just in time for the holiday at The Field Library in Peekskill on Monday, May 6th. This event is free of charge and open to kids of middle and high school age. Okay, you may want to hold your nose for this next item… Northeast Doulas has started a drive to provide diapers to families in need. The organization is marking its 10th anniversary of serving families in the Lower Hudson Valley by hosting the “No Child Wet Behind” program that will benefit the Westchester Coalition for the Hungry and Homeless.The diapers collected will go to the coalition, which, in turn, will deliver them to the more than 150 agencies it serves. The drive will run through June 1st and culminate with a celebration and a 5K/10K race and fundraiser at Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park
in Yorktown. Hudson Valley Hospital Center is the title sponsor of the diaper drive. Our friend Greg dropped off this fun event, the USABA New York Mudd Run at Thunder Ridge Ski Center in Patterson will take place on June 9th, there will be a mud obstacle course, entertainment, food and brews with all proceeds benefiting the U.S. Association of Blind Athletes. Speaking of mud… my daughter Claire and many of our northern Westchester neighbors completed the grueling 10K Leatherman’s Loop last week; it was a great turnout for this fun annual event. Sunday, May 5th is Family Quilt Day at the Katonah Museum of Art at 134 Jay Street in Katonah. Beginning at noon, families can immerse themselves in the colors and designs of fabric as they enjoy a day of creative quilting. There will be engaging activities for young and old alike available all day. If you get hungry (as I always am…) you can grab a
yummy snack at the Ladle of Love food truck in the Sculpture Garden. A new agreement between the Northern Westchester Hospital and the Children’s and Women’s Physicians of Westchester will enhance the hospital’s pediatric surgery services. The Pound Ridge Theatre Company will be present on May 5th “Second Sunday Play readings” at Conant Hall featuring original plays by local writers. As Kenny Rogers once sang, “You got to know when to hold em…”so start counting your cards as Thursday May 7th is Gentlemen’s Poker Night at the Bedford Historical Hall. You don’t have to be a card shark to get into this friendly game which benefits the Bedford Historical Society’s Education Fund. Come at 7 for the refresher course and enjoy food and drinks while you learn the finer points of Texas Hold’em poker, call 914234-9751 for details. There are so many wonderful moms here in northern Westchester, we just wanted to wish all of them a very Happy Mother’s Day, enjoy the day… see you next week.
Muddy and happy, Bedford Hills’ Claire Jeffers and Bedford’s Mollie Morgan at the finish line of the Leatherman’s Loop 10K race at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Cross River. Here’s your chance, if you have an event you would like us to mention in News & Notes, we would love to, just drop us an email at marsar@optonline. net, two weeks notice would help as I re-
ally can’t write that fast… see you next week.
Mark Jeffers resides in Bedford Hills, New York, with his wife Sarah, and three daughters, Kate, Amanda, and Claire.
CHARITY
Yonkers Raceway Drivers Helping The Food Bank for Westchester By FRANK DRUCKER YONKERS, NY -- If you had “3,922” in the office pool, you win. That’s because “3,922” represented the number of one-pound bags of rice-long grain and enriched, to be precise-that were scooped, weighed, twist-tied and labeled Tuesday afternoon when volunteers from Yonkers Raceway, its driving colony, Empire City and the Standardbred Owners of New York assisted the Food Bank for Westchester. It was the second visit by the Raceway Gang to the mammoth warehouse in Elmsford, located about 20 minutes north of Yonkers. Dozens of participants, including leading drivers Jason Bartlett, Brent Holland, Mark MacDonald, Larry Stalbaum and Jordan Stratton, were adorned in get-to-work chic, complete with aprons, hair nets
and gloves. The contingent, forming an impromptu assembly line with a merry band of cohorts, did its small part to help the hungry, and those at risk of being hungry, throughout the county. The teamwork among the drivers was a far cry from their nightly battles on the racetrack, though to a man, they understood the bigger picture. “Just knowing you’re helping is rewarding,” Holland said. “It’s something we can do to make a difference for people who really need it,” Bartlett said. “It was my first time here, and you could see all the good work they do,” MacDonald said. “Helping out the people here is great,” Stalbaum said. “If everybody did a little extra, it would make a big difference.” “You take a few hours out of your day to make some-
Yonkers Raceway drivers (L to R): Brent Holland, Mark MacDonald, Jordan Stratton, Jason Bartlett and Larry Stalbaum helped pack 3,922 one-pound bags of rice at the Food Bank for Westchester on Tuesday, April 16, 2013. Photo by and courtesy of Sean Hamrock.
utes more than seven million pounds of food annually to over 220 frontline hunger-relief organizations. Those organizations include food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, day care and residential programs. In early 2012, the Food Bank moved to a larger warehouse (200 Clearbrook Road in Elmsford), getting more food out the estimated 200,000 people in Westchester who are hungry or at risk of hunger. The Food Bank’s mission is to lead, engage and educate county residents in creating a hunger-free environment. For more information, contact the Food Bank (914-923-1100), or visit them on-line (www.foodbankforwestchester.org).
one’s life a little easier,” Stratton said. The Raceway and its horsemen have also pledged to make a donation to the Food Bank. The Food Bank for
Westchester, one of eight food banks in New York State, is the backbone of the county’s emergency food network. It acquires, warehouses and distrib-
Frank Drucker is publicity director of Empire City @ Yonkers Raceway.
old village-boy from Iraqi-Kurdistan. When his sister escapes with her lover to Istanbul from an arranged marriage, Siyar decides to track down and kill her for honor. However, he is introduced to love himself when he meets Evin, a pickpocket who longs to travel to Germany to reunite with her estranged father. Siyar and Evin decide to take to the road for Europe, each for
his respective, personal intent. But the twosome begin to slowly fall in love, a feeling completely new to Siyar, who now understands the feelings that motivated his sister to leave their homeland. The Iraqi-born Hisham Zamam, who moved at the age of nine to Norway where he studied filmmaking, spent more than five years to realize this narrative debut. Shot between Kurdistan,
Turkey, Berlin, Germany, and Norway, the powerful drama sheds light on how old traditions, social and religious, still play a role in controlling the fate and the motives of young people raised in the Middle East. Zamam reveals adroit talent in directing the two main protagonists who are non-professional actors. Also from the Middle East, and Continued on page 5
CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
Tribeca 12 By SHERIF AWAD The Tribeca Film Festival (April 17-28) returned last week for its 12th year, packed with screenings of inter-
national films, classics and talks. This 2013 edition was notable for its foreign flavor as half of the selection featured non-U.S. productions, and for its new talent, as many films were directed by newcomers. My top favorite film was Before Snow Falls, a road movie that becomes an odyssey from East to West for the main protagonist Siyar, a sixteen-year-
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
Page 5
CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
Tribeca 12 Continued from page 4
this time from Saudi Arabia, Wadjda by Haifaa Al Mansour has its title character, played by Waad Mohammed, trying to live her childhood, but she is shackled by forsaken traditions. On her way home from school, the ten-yearold girl sees a beautiful green bicycle for sale but her mother won’t buy it for her, fearing repercussions from a society that sees bicycles as dangerous to a
girl’s virtue. So Wadjda decides to try and raise the money herself. Like many debuts, Al Mansour who was educated in the American University in Cairo, tries to discuss many topics: Man seeking a second wife or more according to Islamic laws, young girls coming of age, women’s suppression and many other topics related to Arabia. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Indian-born filmmaker Mira Nair was screened within a few days after the Boston Marathon bombings. The film opens at the aftermath of 9/11 at a coffeeshop in Lahore where a
Pakistani man named Changez (Riz Ahmed) tells Bobby (Liev Schreiber), an American journalist, about his experiences in the United States. Roll back ten years, and we find a younger man, fresh from Princeton, seeking his fortune as a stockbroker on Wall Street. The American Dream seems well within his grasp, complete with a smart and gorgeous, artist girlfriend, Erica (Kate Hudson). But when the Twin Towers are attacked, a cultural divide slowly begins to crack open between Changez and Erica. Changez’s dream soon begins to slip into a nightmare:
Mira Nair directs The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
Before Snow Falls.
he is transformed from a well-educated, upwardly mobile businessman to a scapegoat and perceived enemy. The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a story about conflicting ideologies where perception and suspicion have the power to determine life or death. In Tribeca Talks, Mira Nair explained how she worked with novelist Mohsin Hamid to transform his novel into the film we saw, giving it a third act and visual insight and flavor. Finally, Tribeca is the only generalthemed festival around the world that projects horror films. And this year, the
edition featured more than one film belonging to this ever-popular genre. Mr. Jones belongs to the particular horror film genre like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity with two main characters, Scott and Penny, who have just moved to a remote cabin, escaping the pressures of the world so as to breathe new life into their art. Their only neighbor for miles around is a strange hermit who only comes out at night, under the shroud of darkness. He never acknowledges them, never speaks--never does anything except
Continued on page 6
Mr. Jones.
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Page 6
Perspectives
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Tribeca 12
Chained CPI Action; 4,000 Signatures Delivered
Continued from page 5 drag his strange, disturbing sculptures deep into the woods, night after night, without rest. As Scott and Penny get deeper into his world, they start to suspect that this man is actually an infamous, reclusive artist known only as “Mr. Jones,” and they’ve stumbled across a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to document his bizarre existence. With dynamic montage and surreal chronological scenes, the viewer, like Scott and Penny, begin to doubt over what is real and what is hallucination.
The event was organized by Brooke McGowen, Peekskill artist, who appeared as an American Eagle in chains to symbolize the danger of chaining parts of the population to poverty.
Born in Cairo, Egypt, Sherif Awad is a film / video critic and curator. He is the film editor of Egypt Today Magazine (www.EgyptToday.com), and the artistic director for both the Alexandria Film Festival, in Egypt, and the Arab Rotterdam Festival, in The Netherlands. He also contributes to Variety, in the United States, and is the film critic of Variety Arabia (http://varietyarabia.com/), in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Al-Masry Al-Youm Website (http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/node/198132) and The Westchester Guardian (www.WestchesterGuardian.com).
Concerned citizens gathered at Sen. Schumer’s office in Peekskill on April 25 to deliver 4,000 signatures collected by local MoveOn member John Cogswell, addressing proposed cuts to Social Security. Carrying signs saying “No Chained CPI”, they opposed lowering the costof-living adjustment for current and future retirees. This legislation would also be bad news for people with disabilities and our veterans, especially in recognition that many are barely getting by.
Cody Peluso, Hudson Valley Regional Director, cordially invited the group into his office and accepted the thick package of signatures. Police were at first wary, but then became amenable when they realized that this was only a group of local citizens exercising their freedom of speech.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
Westchester Legislators Chairman Jenkins Proposes Site Swap at Austin Avenue for Ferncliff White Plains, NY -- Westchester County Board of Legislators Chairman Ken Jenkins (D-Yonkers) today, April 26, 2013, proposed for the County to swap properties at Austin Avenue in Yonkers with the Morris Group, the developer, in order to provide a future home for the developmentally disabled residents of Ferncliff Manor. The proposal by Jenkins comes after a decision earlier this month by the New York State Office of Children & Family Services to not allow Ferncliff Manor to build its future residence at the former WestHELP site in Greenburgh, which is owned by the County, and where there are 108 units of housing, empty for the past 18 months, that formerly served homeless and lowincome residents. “The Board of Legislators has been active all along in helping Ferncliff Manor find a suitable piece of property on which to build, and my proposal further underscores the commitment we made to help this worthy organization,” said Jenkins. “If everything works out, there is no reason why Ferncliff cannot
have shovels in the ground this year.” The property that Jenkins is proposing for the swap, owned by Morris Group, is off Sprain Road in Yonkers and comprised of eleven acres of undeveloped land in a residential area, where the topography of the property includes a natural berm rising up from Austin Avenue. The developer already
has the necessary connections to water and sewer service for the property, and has worked with Ferncliff in the past, Jenkins noted. As per Jenkins’ proposal, the developer would receive a similar-sized property owned by Westchester County, also on Austin Avenue, a portion which was previously offered to Ferncliff. This swap is estimated to bring $10 million dollars of revenue to Westchester County and Yonkers. In addition, the developer would guarantee to build and maintain a park. Another advantage of this site swap, said Jenkins, would be lowering of the height of the proposed retail development for the property, which will please the owners of nearby residences. “This will be big win all around— for Yonkers and Westchester, and especially for the children being served by Ferncliff,” remarked Jenkins. “It also offers the residents of the area around the property a good deal of comfort knowing that their homes would not be adversely affected by future development of the land.”
Austin Avenue Property in Yonkers off Sprain Road. Photo by and courtesy of Westchester County Board of Legislators / Ken Jenkins.
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
Page 7
EDUCATION
Liberals Are Killing Our Schools By BOB MARRONE A young African American male, on his way home from a Westchester middle school, was confronted, beaten, robbed and, as a final gesture of humiliation, urinated upon by a fellow African American from the same school.The attack was unprovoked.The superintendent of the relevant school district relayed this story to me a couple of years ago, on condition of anonymity. The important part of this story is not the incident, but what the superintendent was forced to do. After a few short weeks, he was obligated to put the offending student back in the same school and class. Over my years on the radio it has been fair to describe me as a bit left of center. My friends on the right requiring ideology purity, including that Sarah Palin actually possesses intellectual heft and that the earth is only 6000 years old, tended to define me as a flaming liberal. So be it. That said, rather than just take up verbal armor against my detractors on all fronts; I
-
chose to defend what I see to be the truth, no matter what flag flies above the idea. How inner city public schools are managed here in Westchester, and within inches from New York City, is scandalous and frightening. The schools are dangerous, ineffective and punish those students who are well behaved and interested in learning. More than anything, these conditions are the result of political correctness, activist demagogues, the dominance of unions and the political expediency driven by those factors. Speaking of New York City, where the school system has become a festering, near helpless example of poor outcomes and teenage violence, those now running for mayor are tripping over themselves to endorse what Bob McManus of the New York Post described as “what would amount to an end of disciplinary suspensions in city schools.” The cast of supporters includes City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, former Comptroller William Thompson and present Comptroller John
Liu. A few years ago, I interviewed Thompson. He was smart, thoughtful and sophisticated. I cannot believe that he believes that which he is endorsing is good for our kids or for the city. He, it would seem, and everyone else who is supporting this move, is doing so to get the votes of those who have been led to believe that suspending students for violent infractions is racist. The contention of those supporting the change is that since those being suspended include minorities in numbers out of proportion to their numbers in the classroom, as McManus puts it, the system is thereby racist. One of things that needs to happen on a broader scale than just with respect to our schools is the recognition of how culture matters. Unfortunately, political correctness, particularly as practiced by the left, has distorted the kind of clear view and unvarnished data that they otherwise advocate in their correct insistence that science and unbiased study drives issues. They assert this principle when it comes to global warming. They insist that religious belief be tempered by what is observable and can be mea-
sured. But let a “double blind” study of a cultural phenomena show that a certain racial or ethnic group does something more than another, for whatever reason leaving right or wrong out of it, and their principles go right out the window. I am of Italian extraction but I can assure you, there are no Irish “madeguys” in the La Cosa Nostra. That, of course, is self-evident. But it gets a little dicier when we add, let’s say, that Italians like to argue out loud and with their hands. Or it can get worse; that a lot have tacky furniture in their homes. Some of this may be true, some of it may not. But it is true that culture results in some of this at least some of the time. The fact that inner city culture is violent and thought to be wrong headed by most people of common sense, no matter what their race, seems to me to be a fact. It was a fact where I grew up in Brooklyn where the white gangs were called the Testors, after the glue they sniffed, or the South Brooklyn Boys from my immediate block. That culture was violent, disrespectful in school and often wound up in reform school or what we used to call a 600 school. Yes, it was about poverty and culture. It was not racist because they
were mostly white. And so it is, I believe, about these same things in the black community and among other minorities. The inner city culture, which feeds on itself, has fostered a behavior that presents violence to solve problems, and that finds education “un-cool.” It is neither black nor white, it is simply so. With all due recognition of the racism that exists in society, the poverty it engendered, and the horrible drug-laws that send so many inner city kids to jail and decimated lives; to allow our schools to rage with anarchy is to condemn still more of our young to an uncertain future. What we need to do is ask those parents, especially African American parents who have to send their kids to school, how they feel. They don’t want their children going into what amounts to an unsupervised, violent street corner with desks, any more than anyone else. They should tell those speaking ostensibly on their behalf to shut up, and let them do the talking. As for those four Democrats: Shame on all of you. Bob Marrone is a radio talk show host, author, and freelance writer for The Westchester Guardian.
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Page 8
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
HEALTH
Health Department Statement Regarding Hilton Westchester help determine the source of the illness and to identify any new cases. For more information about Norovirus go to www.westchestergov.com/health How can I avoid getting ill? To help prevent the spread of the infection, wash hands thoroughly after each toilet visit, between contact with others and before and after preparing your own food. If you have symptoms, what should you do?
It is important for those who have symptoms to stay home from work and to limit their contact with others to avoid spreading the virus to family members and close contacts. Anyone who experiences nausea, vomiting or diarrhea should not go to work and should not handle food for others while ill. You also may want to contact your physician Unfortunately, there is no treatment other than to make sure to drink plenty of fluids. The illness must
The Siege of Egypt’s St. Mark Cathedral
Ramzi tried to get them to cool down, they told him that they “were ready to be martyred for our most important church” and “We’re not just children to abandon our cathedral to be set aflame or have someone attack it.” Ramzi said that he could not really blame these Christian defenders, adding that many of them were already in heavy mourning for the six Copts murdered the day earlier, and, with a second attack on their cathedral for the funeral of these same deceased, had reached a point beyond frustration. But Ramzi’s most important and (at the time) controversial assertion was the role played by Egypt’s Interior Ministry. Among other things, police and security figures would tell the beleaguered Copts everything is okay, that matters were secured, “only to find another five gas bombs thrown their way, not to mention live ammunition fired at them.” Similarly, He said that security kept circling the cathedral, shooting gas bombs at every door: “Why, why would they do this”? Ramzi implored on the phone. When he and others contacted police, urging them to bring an armored vehicle in front of the cathedral to guard it, it came. But far from protecting the cathedral, he personally saw “the [Muslim] youth” standing atop it, throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at the cathedral. When the host continued to express dismay, and even doubt, that state security would really behave this way, the eyewitness articulated an important question: the one thing that everyone agreed to is that, for hours, there were at least 30-40 Muslim youth hurling projectiles and Molotov cocktails at the cathedral, “so can you tell me why security didn’t stop them or apprehend them? Was Egypt’s entire state security un-
RYE BROOK, NY and WHITE PLAINS, NY -- The Westchester County Department of Health has received reports that some people have become sick after attending events last weekend at the Hilton Westchester of Rye Brook, NY. They are coordinating our response with both the Hilton and the organizers of these events. Hotel management and staff are being very cooperative and have notified organizers of upcoming events about these recent illnesses. We are working closely with hotel management and staff to ensure every precaution is taken to prevent illness.
They suspect it is caused by Norovirus (photo - right), a stomach bug whose symptoms are vomiting and diarrhea. They are reaching out to interview all those who may be affected to help determine the source of the illness and to identify any new cases.They don’t know how many are affected yet. The health department has had inspectors on site daily this week and will continue to do so over the weekend. Inspectors are reviewing sanitary procedures throughout the hotel, as is our routine practice in these situations. Public health nurses are also reaching out to those who may be affected to
just run its course. Most people usually recover in a couple of days. What is Norovirus? A common cause of vomiting and diarrhea in this kind of setting is Norovirus. Norovirus is a group of viruses that can cause acute gastrointestinal discomfort and illness.
INTERNATIONAL
An Insider’s Account
By RAYMOND IBRAHIM What really happened on Sunday, April 7, 2013, during the St. Mark Cathedral attack in Cairo, where two Christians were killed and dozens wounded by Egyptian forces? As usual, different reports gave different versions, but now that the smoke has settled, the truth as first asserted during the attack by Coptic activists has been confirmed. Back during the conflict, when state security was actually besieging the St. Mark cathedral—the most sacred building for millions of Coptic Christians and the only apostolic see serving the entire continent of Africa—Amir Ramzi, a Coptic man who managed to escape the compound where hundreds of other Copts were trapped all night was interviewed by phone on the popular Egyptian show, Cairo Today. According Ramzi, president of the criminal court, “Today we witnessed a day unprecedented in the history of modern Egypt, a day when holy sites are attacked both by the interior ministry and the mob.” The program’s host, Amr Adib, asked him to back up, evidently finding it difficult to implicate the interior ministry in an attack on an Egyptian landmark. So Ramzi began from the beginning, explaining how after the funeral service for another six Christians killed the day earlier—including one intentionally set aflame—in a conflict that started by Muslims sexually harassing a Christian girl, many of the
St. Mark Cathedral, holiest site for Egypt’s indigenous Christians — and home of the Coptic pope — now turned into a war zone, under Muslim Brotherhood leadership. Copts coming out of the cathedral were angry and protesting. Waiting for them in the streets were Islamic extremists, who began hurling rocks on the Copts, who responded in like manner. Eventually police appeared; Ramzi himself called a police chief, who assured him that the Copts should just go back into their cathedral, until the police secure the situation: So that’s what we did, thinking police would come to protect and separate the clashers. We were surprised to find that the police began to intervene and become another party to the conflict, attacking the Copts who were fighting back against the [Muslim] youth who were attacking them, and shooting gas bombs into the cathedral compound,
which caused extreme poisoning, to the point that the ambulance cars were not enough to take the sick. Ramzi added that three to four gas bombs struck the papal headquarter itself—the seat of the Coptic pope— while another 40 to 50 entered into the general compound, causing dozens of Copts, including many women and children, to grow sick and/or faint. Whether from the gas bombs themselves or from another source, Copts also found the ceiling of their cathedral catching fire, though their youth managed to put it out. He further confirmed that live ammunition was fired on the Copts who refused to relent and fought back fiercely, primarily with rocks. When
able to stop a mere 30-40 youth from vandalizing the nation’s cathedral?” When the host said, “but they arrested some ten people,” Ramzi scoffed: “What are you thinking? You’ll find that the majority of them are Christian.” Time has proven all of Ramzi’s eyewitness assertions true. Soon after his interview, which was conducted even as the cathedral was still under siege, several pictures were published, including by Youm7, a prominent Egyptian paper, showing Muslims shooting rifles and throwing rocks and other projectiles at the cathedral, while security forces stand by. One picture shows a masked man in civilian clothes sitting in an Egyptian armored vehicle. Even the Western mainstream media recently came around to affirming that Egyptian security forces were involved in the attack on the cathedral. And, true to Ramzi’s prediction, the only people to be arrested in connection with this latest atrocity against Christianity were Christians themselves—for daring to protect their holiest site against an Islamic attack. Raymond Ibrahim is author of the forthcoming book, Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians. He is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and associate fellow at the Middle East Forum.
First published for the Gatestone Institute on April 22, 2013 http://www.meforum.org/3491/egyptst-mark-cathedral
Buy your copy of “Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians By Raymond Ibrahim - first availability for purchase from April 29, 2013 onward.
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
Page 9
INVESTIGATION
Nepperhan Community Center Executive Director Bostic Pays Some But Not Others By HEZI ARIS YONKERS, NY -Dr. Rev. Jim Bostic, executive director of the Nepperhan Community Center has yet to catch up in paying his staff.The April 19, 2013 check was not fully disbursed. It seems only the teachers who teach at the Riverside School were paid, while others were not. Bostic last spoke to those he employs to advise them they should be thankful they have a job and that he could fire them all. He paid the Riverside teachers because they have little to do with him and he likewise has little control over them. Those who did not receive their check on April 19, 2013 seemingly believe they have no recourse. The reality is that the employees of the Nepperhan Community Center endure great disrespect under Bostic’s oversight of them. None of the computer equipment Bostic received donations for have materialized at the Nepperhan Community Center. None. 15 iPads have yet to be seen. Where are they? While the flooring for the ground level space was fixed, the basement has been left in the most squalid condition. The entire premises are rat infested, the basement is infested with
molds; the venue is not fit for child or adult alike. The City of Yonkers funds the NCC to the tune of over $1 million every year yet the remodeling and upkeep of the facility is not completed as the money was directed for specific upgrades. When will Yonkers City Hall send inspectors to recognize the issues attested to herein and when will the financial health of the operation undergo forensic audit? When will the no-show riff-raff be thrown off the payroll? Why does Yonkers City Hall permit those who want more for themselves and their children to be browbeaten by the likes of Bostic? These issues and concerns are legal issues and concerns. There are some ethical concerns. Even so, why must the “’hood” suffer the sleazy conduct of a disrespectful tyrant? Mr Bostic advised a gathering of his emplyees that he and his wife donated $50,000 to the Nepperhan Community Center. Did that money, the computers, the materials to fix the basement, and so much more evaporate? Did the $50,000 donation ever take place? Where is the proof? How was it earned? When will a paymaster who conducts the financial aspect of the operation abide by the software they have in-house? Why is there no complaint
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11 -13 HUGUENOT ST., NEW ROCHELLE • 914.278.9088 over the conduct of the NCC by Bostic given notice by the Yonkers Board of Education? When will Yonkers City Councilman Christopher Johnson own up to the reality of what has been happening in his backyard? What other politicians have closed their eyes to the fraud perpetrated on a community reduced to silence for a paycheck they may never get? When will these atrocities and disrespect end? This scam on a community who desire to make more with what they have for themselves and their children must not be forsaken to keep a “friend and family” member employed when he treats those employed by NCC so poorly? Stop this insanity!
LEAVING ON A JET PLANE
Let’s Talk Beginnings The Viking Longships’ Launch By BARBARA BARTON SLOANE Biking, tramming or hoofing it, Amsterdam is a city easy to get around. It has beauty, charm, and hundreds of canals connected by 500 pretty bridges - and flowers everywhere! These 17th century canals enjoy the honor of having been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2010 and their grassy banks are perfect paths for a romantic stroll. Recently I had the great good luck to visit Amsterdam and attend an historic launching of 10 new Viking Longships as this most award-winning line expands into a new era of European river cruising. This was an auspicious occasion because, for the first time ever,
a river cruise company was launching ten ships all at once – and I was there to witness it! As that wise gentleman, Mark Twain, once said, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines and sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” That is precisely 13th Century Viking Longship. what happens on a Viking Longship. Although my stay aboard some of its special treasures and causing the Viking Aegir was brief, I nonetheless me perhaps to dream? Yes, indeed I did. was able to debark a few times and exContinued on page 10 plore parts of Amsterdam, experiencing
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Winner of the 2012 Arts Organization of the Year for Westchester County
May 4-5, 2013
Yorktown Stage
1974 Commerce St. Yorktown Heights, NY
May 11-12, 2013
White Plains High School 55 North Street White Plains, NY
For tickets, order online at www.taconicopera.org or call (855) 88-OPERA
This production is made possible, in part by the New York State Council on the Arts and Arts Westchester with funds from Westchester County, government, corporations, and individuals.
Page 10
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
LEAVING ON A JET PLANE gnant and tender; at all times rendered gorgeously by this world-class duo. Although our ship had no plans to stray afar of the ceremonial goingson, we did take a brief cruise down the Ijsselmeer River to Hoorn, an ancient harbor town founded in 716. This is a pretty community with monumental building facades and inviting sidewalk cafes. Sadly, no sidewalk sitting this day… waaaay too cold. However, the experience of leisurely making our water-way down the river was picturesque.
Let’s Talk Beginnings
Continued from page 9
Amsterdam – My Short but Sweet Visit
In Amsterdam’s medieval center, there stands the Gothic basilica Nieuwe Kerk, the coronation church for Dutch royalty. Its intricately carved oak alter was stunning and the stainedglass windows handsome despite no sun shinning through that day. I sat in a pew hoping that perhaps I’d hear some notes from the massive, gilded organ. After some 20 minutes or so, my optimism was rewarded with the thunderous peal of Bach’s organ fugue in G
Viking Longship. minor. Could there be a more perfect end to my church visit? Another outing took me to Museum Het Schip (the ship), one of the highlights of the Amsterdam School of Architecture, so called because its shape somewhat resembles a ship. Built in 1919-1921, three monumental social housing blocks designed by architect Michel de Klerk are viewed as a masterpiece and symbolize the solidarity
Ship Christening and Launching One of Amsterdam’s 17th century canals
and emancipation of the working class at the beginning of the last century. No longer were the poor condemned to live in basements and slums but now had safe, affordable housing. The Amsterdam School paid a great deal of attention to the applied arts, designing in such a versatile and expressive way that the style is often seen as the Dutch version of Art Deco. Inside, there’s a charming little post office and a floor plan that is completely decorated with
Viking Launch
furniture and objects that were available to the working class in the twenties. Remarkable is the fact that this design by famous artists and architects was to be found in these modest working class houses. At Concertgebouw, (Royal Concert Hall), opened in 1882, I attended a concert of Brahms, Chausson and Ravel with violinist Tosca Opdam and pianist Victor Stanislavsky, their music at times bold and regal, other times poi-
The ceremony of christening and launching a ship is based on traditions thousands of years old – to protect the ship and all who sail her. A Babylonian narrative dating from the 3rd millennium BC describes the completion of a ship: “Openings to the water I stopped; I searched for cracks and the wanting parts I fixed; Three sari of bitumen I poured over the outside; To the gods I caused oxen to be sacrificed.” Nooooo, let’s have none of that. The ceremony for the ten new Viking Longships was dignified, decorous and dazzling.
The Godmother
For more than 4,000 years it has been a maritime tradition for each ship entering service to have a ceremonial godmother who is entrusted with the guidance of the ship to her destinations. In Amsterdam, there were ten godmothers, one for each of the ships to be launched. Distinguished, remarkable women are historically honored to become godmothers and this year was no
exception. The group was chosen from representatives of a number of Viking’s valued partners and significant port and privileged-access destinations. They gallantly smashed champagne bottles against the ships’ hulls, after which there was a post-christening reception held in the Amsterdam cruise terminal. We guests then enjoyed a divine dinner and a maiden voyage around the Amsterdam harbor. As evening drew near, I thought on the words of a poem by Hendrik Marsman called “Memory of Holland:” The sky hangs low and slowly the sun by mists of all colors is stifled and greyed, and in all the regions the voice of the water with its endless disasters is feared and obeyed. With the Viking Longships’ meaningful and heartfelt ceremonies and the godmothers’ blessings, there will be no endless disasters! The mists were banished, the greyed skies cast out and at close of day, in the far distance – a rainbow.
If You Go:
www.vikingrivercruises.com
All photos by Michael Sloane and courtesy of Sloane Travel Photography.
Travel Editor Barbara Barton Sloane is constantly globe hopping to share her unique experiences with our readers; from the exotic to the sublime. As Beauty / Fashion Editor she keeps us informed on the capricious and engaging fashion and beauty scene.
THE HEZITORIAL
Yonkersites Coerced Into Bailing Out Former Mayor Phil Amicone Who is Made to Seem Too Big to Jail By HEZI ARIS YONKERS, NY -Yonkers taxpayers have been coerced into paying $493,000 to exonerate former Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone. Mr Amicone lost a criminal case in Judge Cathy Seibel’s Federal Courtoom when the former Mayor Amicone chose to use his office to demand Yonkers Police Department personnel and Department of Public Works personnel to steal The Westchester Guardian Publisher Sam Zherka’s blue-colored, steel news racks and newspaper copies found within those news racks from the streets of Yonkers. Mr. Amicone’s conduct not
only abridged the First Amendment Rights protected by the U.S. Constitution of every Fourth Estate / media outlet, it also pierced his protective mayoral mantel because he exceeded his mayoral power / rights. Mayor Phil Amicone was sued by Sam Zherka, The Westchester Guardian Publisher, on behalf of his employees who endured the wrath of the City of Yonkers who turned against them individually and collectively. The $8.5 million initial judgment was whittled down in negotiation to the tune of $393,000 (approximate) value. The sitting Yonkers City Council voted to exonerate the then Mayor Amicone, buckling under his threat that if they
did not, he would challenge the Hon. Seibel’s ruling that he is personally liable to pay the debt by engaging Yonkers
Corporation Counsel toward that end. The Yonkers City Council buckled under Yonkers own Benedict Arnold’s admonition. They decided to exonerate the mayor his personal debt; he was absolved of having to pay the initial $393,000 personal debt by the City Council’s 5-2 vote in the criminal suit. Three Republicans, agenda driven to save Amicone’s derriere were Councilmembers John Larkin, John Murtagh (a lawyer), and Dennis Shepherd. Joining the Republicans protecting a Republican mayor were Councilmembers Wilson Terrero and Majority Leader Patricia McDow, who were both Democrats and beholden to Amicone their political clout and future. Voting
against capitulating to the threats of then Mayor Amicone were Councilwoman Joan Gronowski and Yonkers City Council President Chuck Lesnick. There were four “legal eagles” in attendance at that specific vote. Yonkers City Council President Chuck Lesnick, and Minority Leader John Murtagh, as well as Yonkers City Council Counsel for the Democrats and the Republicans. None publicly advised the rest of the council membership that defending then Mayor Amicone was all that was required to satisfy the burden of protecting the presumed innocent elected official accused. Once Judge
Continued on page 11
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
Page 11
THE HEZITORIAL
Yonkersites Coerced Into Bailing Out Former Mayor Phil Amicone Who is Made to Seem Too Big to Jail Continued from page 10 Seibel determined Mr Amicone was personally liable for his conduct and directives to personnel in his administration, the burden to pay the reduced penalty of $393,000 fell on the shoulders of Mr. Amicone. He was now judged to be guilty. A civil suit demanding $750,000 was filed by Sam Zherka against Phil Amicone thereafter, which also demanded a personal apology. Legal protocol demanded the Yonkers City Hall defend the former Mayor Amicone in the second case.
the additional $100,000 demanded in the civil suit. They need not have approved it, but dod! Again, the three Republicans voted to protect and thereby pay the additional personal debt that fell on Mr Amicone’s back. Those to protect the mayor a second time were Councilmembers John Larkin (Minority Leader), Michael Breen, Dennis Shepherd, and Yonkers City Council President Chuck Lesnick (Democrat). Voting against authorizing the additional $100,000 cost to Sam Zherka by the Yonkers taxpayer were Councilmembers Michael Sabbatino, Wilson
Terrero (Majority Leaders), and Christopher Johnson. The Tuesday, April 23, 2013 vote authorization passed 4 for and 3 against authorizing the payment. Both votes were corruptly cast by the lack of knowledge afforded the entire membership of the Yonkers City Council and will remain an embarrassment to shame the City of Yonkers for years hence. Their collective ignorance is not an excuse for squandering the taxpayer’s coffers. While media attempts to embarrass the former Mayor Phil Amicone having to admit his illegal conduct, would anyone shrink from admit-
Kermit Gosnell Trial: Much Ado About Nothing
hard-won rights of American women.” Furthermore, why are we surprised that this rush-to-judgment-when-itsuits-his-political-agenda president suddenly “can’t comment” on Gosnell “because it’s an active trial”? Remember? This is the same race-baiting “community organizer” who said that Cambridge police “acted stupidly” when arresting a combative black Harvard professor who, as it turned out, was himself acting stupidly. Don’t forget; this is the same president who had no problem laying guilt on a “presumed innocent” George Zimmerman, saying, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” Funny, I actually do have a son and, when he was born, he looked a lot like those little boys Gosnell and Planned Parenthood kill every day. Come to think of it, most of them looked almost identical to Trayvon, skin color and all. Curious. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., called Obama out on his refusal to address Gosnell: “Mr. President, your silence on this issue is deafening,” he said. I agree. The left’s silence – to include the mainstream media – speaks volumes. It’s a tacit endorsement of Gosnell’s gruesome practices. And why shouldn’t it be? To “pro-choicers” it’s not that old Kermit did anything wrong; it’s just
What was not explained in the first case or the second case, but noted by the Yonkers Tribune years ago, was that defending the mayor prior to learning he was guilty was the complete and only responsibility that was required by the City of Yonkers. Similarly, in the civil suit, defending the former Mayor Amicone to its legal conclusion is all that is required. Paying the additional $100,000 (the burden reduced from the initial $750,000 suit), was not required. Those who wish to reflect can deduce the integrity of this writing by noting that the Yonkers City Council was required to authorize payment of
ting their wrongdoing to avoid paying $493,000? I suspect it depends on one’s financial standing in the financial pecking order. It would be doubtful Bill Gates would submit to an apology for the sum of $493,000. Then again, Phil Amicone is no Bill Gates. Until Yonkersites vote people for who will come to hold elected office for the benefit of Yonkersites, governance will continue to fail the electorate. It would be appropriate and propitious for the City of Yonkers to direct its focus on voting such candidates into elected office. At issue now, how long will that process take to correct?
PULLING NO PUNCHES
Matt Barber asks, ‘What did you think abortionists do, heal people?’ By MATT BARBER I mean, why are we surprised that an abortionist and his staff would, behind the walls of an always-lethal abortion clinic, commit one of the most horrific serial killings in American history? What did you think abortionists do, heal people? Why are we taken aback that there was no oversight, no regulation, or that Planned Parenthood, though privy to the clinic’s filthy, medieval conditions, refused to report it to the Department of Health? After all, Planned Parenthood, Barack Obama and the DNC have vehemently opposed all laws – such as those in Virginia, Mississippi and elsewhere – designed to prevent exactly the same kind of squalid conditions found in Gosnell’s clinic (and others), laws that simply direct abortion mills to meet the same minimal safety standards required of all other medical facilities. You didn’t really buy that whole “women’s health” nonsense, did you? Sucker. Seriously, there are so few sociopathic doctors left willing to hack alive those inconvenient little buggers; so you anti-choice nuts need to just chill. Who cares about “blood smeared walls,” or babies left to drown in toilets, or snipped spinal cords, or dismembered body parts kept in jars, or screaming, crying newborns silenced by decapitation? What did you think women were “choosing” with abortion, some kind of medical treatment? We’re not removing a tumor here. You’ve got to kill a few babies to make a “reproductive freedom”omelette.
Besides, there’s billions to be made in the death racket. Let’s keep it real. The only difference between what happened in Gosnell’s Philadelphia clinic and what happens every day in Planned Parenthoods across the country can be measured by a matter of inches – by the child’s proximity to her mother in the room. Whether the baby is in the womb or 12 inches removed, a dead baby is a dead baby, right? So why all the drama? Relax. You know, Roe v. Wade and all. Besides, what’s an abortionist to do (wink, wink) if that resilient little pest does survive, if she’s born alive? I appreciate President Obama’s candor on the matter. Like he said, laws preventing abortionists like Gosnell from finishing her off are “really designed simply to burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion.” Snippety-snip, eh, Barack? You know, choice and all. Or, as Gosnell attorney Jack McMahon noted during the trial, it’s “ludicrous … to say a baby is born alive because it moves one time.” You anti-
choice zealots don’t get to define the terms here. One man’s “alive” is another woman’s “unwanted pregnancy.” Potato, potahto. And why are we stunned that the mainstream media have spiked a story with all the bloody and salacious newsworthy trappings that – had abortion not been involved – would have filled the news cycle 24/7? You think some now-barren, 40-something copy editor who’s had five abortions wants to draw attention to its grisly reality? You think she wants to be reminded of her own string of dismembered little choices? No, better to sip appletinis with the boys down at the National Press Club and pretend it never happened. Now that’s reproductive freedom! That’s freedom of the press! In reality, to the media, this stuff is old news. Gosnell is on trial for doing something nearly indistinguishable from partial-birth abortion – a “never necessary” procedure (according to the AMA) Obama vocally endorsed. He said that banning it was part of a concerted effort “to steadily roll back the
that he got caught doing it. He was careless. He pulled back the curtain of “reproductive freedom” to reveal abortion’s house of horrors. Kermit Gosnell is liberalism personified, and liberalism relies on deceit. The “progressive” culture is a culture of death. Moral relativism is as moral relativism does. Speaking of moral relativism, on Friday the first sitting president in United States history gave the keynote address at a Planned Parenthood fundraiser. Nice timing. Even as the Gosnell mass-murder trial wraps up, Obama was lending the full weight of his presidency to a mass-murder celebration. His message? All you Planned Parenthood-hating, anti-Gosnell rightwingers better listen up: “No matter how great the challenge, no matter how fierce the opposition, there’s one thing that the past few years have shown,” he promised. “That Planned Parenthood is not going anywhere. It’s not going anywhere today. It’s not going anywhere tomorrow.” Yeah, we’ll see about that, slick.
Matt Barber (@jmattbarber on Twitter) is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action. (This information is provided for identification purposes only.)
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Page 12
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
WHAT YOUR DOCTOR WON’T (OR CAN’T) TELL YOU
Gaming the Medical System EVAN S. LEVINE, M.D. I was sitting down one night reviewing credentials of a physician I knew to be a duplicitous character. He had just been arrested for allegedly selling prescription pain medications - opiates, to any drug seeker who could pay him. He was well known to doctors and hospital administrators to be a meretricious character and yet, if you read the patient reviews posted on a number of doctor rating Web sites, you might believe he is an “ excellent doctor” and a “dedicated physician”. I continued to review physicians I know to be gaming the system, and hurting patients, and many of them received spectacular ratings from their patients. I wondered how this could
be for about five seconds until I realized these doctors were working these on-line rating services as much as they were taking advantage of their patients and gaming the healthcare system. There are many doctor rating sites on-line that appear to create revenue through ads placed on those Web sites, or by a fee, so that those doctors can be sponsored or be the recommended and designated physician. I decided to go to these sites and began with “Healthgrades.com”. They claim to be the leading independent health care ratings company. I went to my name, typed in my review of myself (gave myself good rating) and noted it posted shortly after. I then went to another site called “Vitals.com”. I posted a review of myself to see if this was at all vetted. I wrote, “ Born in upper Mongolia, he lived with the chimps for one-hundred
years. Then after a bite from a snake he was transformed into a man from Brooklyn. Use caution on all these sites.” A few moments later my review was posted. UComparehealthcare.com is another site where anyone, that likely includes friends, or even the doctor, can post whatever they wish, even if they never visited the doctor. And again, this site collects revenue from physicians who wish to be “featured” doctor. ZocDoc.com provides reviews of physicians who sign a contract with them. Doctors that pay for this service are featured on their site and patients can even book appointments directly through ZocDoc.com. If a physician does not subscribe, he is not featured; it costs $250 a month to be a featured physician. I spoke to representatives at ZocDoc.com site who told me that the doctor “was not required to be board certified in his field to be recommended.” In my opinion, the
first question any patient should ask is weather a physician is board certified and if the answer is “No!”, consider another option. One good thing about ZocDoc. com is that although, in my opinion, featured doctors are suggested because they pay a hefty fee, and not because of their credentials or quality of care, it appears to be the only site where patient reviews are actually vetted and certified by their staff. In one review, even though the doctor was a client and paying his hefty fee, I did notice very honest and quite derogatory reviews that included the following: “absolutely horrible. My X-rays were taken as soon as I got there, but then they sent me back to the waiting room for 3 hours!! This process was done for everyone. There were a ton of people in the waiting room and every time someone asked the receptionist how much longer, they were told in about another 15-20 minutes. That turned out to be a complete lie. Do not waste your time here!!”
Doctor rating sites appear to be a useful tool for people who are naïve and searching for a qualified physician. But there is no vetting of patient recommendations and sometimes the worst, and most dangerous physicians appear to be the best. For most of these sites, all any physician needs to do, and it seems many have, is to either ask friends to post great reviews for them or even post their own review. As for the review of vitals.com, I was not born in Mongolia and I did not live with chimps for one-hundred years, but I am from Brooklyn. Dr. Evan S. Levine is a cardiologist in New York and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center – Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and affiliated with St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Yonkers. He is also the author of the book “What Your Doctor Won’t (or Can’t) Tell You”. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and children.
MUSIC
THE SOUNDS OFBLUE By Bob Putignano The headline here is that this 1969 debut release from Cat Mother was that Jimi Hendrix co-produced this nearly forgotten album. Once again Real Gone Music unearths a pretty rare recording that actually had a Top 40 hit that made its way to number twentyone on the Billboard charts. That charting tune is titled; “Good Old Rock ‘N’ Roll,” also includes a medley of “Sweet Little 16,” “Long Tall Sally, Chantilly Lace,” “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” “Blue Suede Shoes,” and “Party Doll.” It’s one of the brightest spots on this recording that doesn’t sound generational because it’s (as the title rightfully suggests) Good Old Rock ‘N’ Roll! The musicians include Roy Michaels on bass and vocals, Michaels previously played with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay (both later with the Buffalo Springfield.) Bob Smith’s keyboards, drums and sings, Michael Equine also drums, guitar, and vocals, lead guitarist Larry Packer also sings and plays violin and mandolin. Rounding out the band is longtime Greenwich Village native Charlie Chin who played rhythm guitar, banjo and (he
too) adds vocals. By the way: Chin joined the group at the same time they banded together. So everyone sings, sometimes that’s a good thing other times it’s not. Because of their budding affiliation with Jimi, Cat Mother got a huge break when they were invited to open for the Experience. These (occasional) opportunities were golden and helped them gain notoriety, and a record deal with Polydor records. As you might suspect a majority of this recording is generational and somewhat hippie-dippy with vocalized la-la’s and acidic guitar leads that are from time to time interesting. But make no doubt about it this band had strong playing chops which is most evident on the closing instrumental “Track In ‘A’,” that clocks in at over nine minutes. I found this instrumental very heady, creative and it’s well executed. Kind of like something you might have expected artists like a young Brian Auger or even an early configuration of the Carlos Santana band, and Booker T. & the MG’s (think “Melting Pot,” and/or “Hang “Em High”) could have recorded. It’s a strong tune that (if
Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys “The Street Giveth… And the Street Taketh Away” www.RealGoneMusic.com Co-produced by Hendrix, one hit wonders Cat Mother reissued again. Rating: 7 memory serves me well) also received a good dose of late night progressive FM radio airplay. Notes: This album was previously reissued twice before on CD and sold for large sums of dollars after it went out of print. It’s also not just for Hendrix fans as it doesn’t sound like anything Hendrix would have recorded. But I suspect Jimi fanatics will want a copy to round out their collections, as I don’t recall any other Hendrix produced albums where he wasn’t the leader. Nonetheless the fact that Jimi co-produced Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys is a rarity and shows the knowledge of the Real Gone Music label honchos. In an interview with Real Gone label leader Gordon Anderson, Gordon told me that “The Street Giveth… and the Street Taketh Away” was one of their most requested albums to reissue. So those of you who so choose (and recall) can now have it all over again. Flashback and enjoy. Bob Putignano www.SoundsofBlue.com
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
Page 13
PEOPLE
Fire Fighters Emergency Skills Lauded By PEGGY GODFREY It is fairly well known in New Rochelle that when there is a medical emergency call for help, the Fire Department trucks arrive first. So it was no surprise that at the Fire Department Award and Promotion Ceremony on April 17 that there were many awards for lives saved by the Fire Fighters.. The ceremony at New Rochelle City Hall began with an assortment of promotions. Henry Senno was promoted to Deputy Fire Chief; Andrew Di Maggio to Fire Captain; and Brett Hendrie, Joseph Oliva and Bruce Savage to Fire Lieutenant. Six new Firefighters were placed on probation: John R. Bollettieri, Ronald J. Fraioli, James P. Manning, Babatunde O. Ogunleye, Ryan P. Pascuzzi and John J. Williams. Nine life saving awards were given to Fire Fighters. Fire Fighters Robert Jackson and Stephen Schmitt along with Lieutenant Russell Ciotti responded to an emergency call last November for a patient in complete respiratory arrest. These men were preparing for CPR using compressions while paramedics set up an oxygen mask and the patient was placed on a stretcher. Breathing was restored before the person was placed in the ambulance. Fire Fighter Jackson drove the patient to Sound Shore Medical Center, while Lieutenant Ciotti and Fire Fighter Schmitt followed in Engine 24. Upon arrival at the hospital the paramedics notified the crew the patient was alive and the family asserted that their relative would survive. The second award was given for a call where Fire Fighters Jared McLean and Daniel Thompson and Lieutenant Russell Ciotti found a male half off a bed who had turned purple and was not breathing. All three moved the patient to the floor and Thompson started compressions while Ciotti set up the oxygen mask and McLean set up the defibrillator. After a few minutes the patient’s heart was beating but his breathing was still difficult. The ambulance crew worked on rescue breathing and the Fire Department provided a driver for the ambulance. Without the Fire Department intervention, the patient would not have made it. Reviving an unconscious patient who was not breathing was the reason the third award was given to Fire Fighters Anthony Johnson, Joseph Rende, Brett Hendrie and Lieutenant Anthony Marsico. Through their actions involving compressions, CPR and IV drugs the patient with no pulse was rapidly transported to Sound Shore Medical Center while Firemen continued administering CPR. These actions were instrumental to the recovery of the patient. A ninety-seven year old male in cardiac arrest was found as a result of an emergency call answered by Fire Fighters Daniel Betker, Gregory Escobedo, Gary Bruzzese Jr. and Lieutenant Joseph Swanson. While the patient was unresponsive in transit, the Fire Fighters initiated CPR and the ambulance crew started an IV and administered drugs. In the emergency room of Sound Shore Medical Center a
O p e n t o t h e P u b lic Pe e kskill Are a
pulse and blood pressure was detected. The prompt action of both the Fire Department and ambulance crew were credited. The next award for saving a life was given for reviving a woman with no pulse. Fire Fighters Gregory Rigos, Nicholas Triscari, Joseph Renda and Lieutenant Robert Ciotti.were credited, Similarly revived by Firefighters Anthony Johnson, Shawn Bostick, Fabio Mateus and Lieutenant Anthony Marsico was a 70 year old woman with no vital signs. While the woman was being transported to the hospital the medics discovered the woman had a pulse and was breathing. The staff at Costco was performing CPR to a man that was in cardiac arrest. Fire Fighters Nicholas Williams, Peter Celestino and Lieutenant Brian O’Keefe arrived on the scene and assisted. The man’s pulse returned and he was breathing on his own.The Fire Fighters and Costco staff were credited with saving this life. The crew of Fire Fighters Daryl Moxey, Daniel Betker and Robert DiPasqua along with Lieutenant Joseph Swanson received a Life Saving Award for helping a woman with no pulse to regain her pulse and breathing. Another woman in cardiac arrest was revived by Firefighters Daryl Moxey, Daniel Betker and Kenneth Hanson and Lieutenant Paul Johnston. They also received the Life Saving Award. An unusual occurrence resulted in Fire Fighters Jared McLean, Daniel Thompson and Huge Piniella along with Lieutenant Russell Ciotti being given a Unit Citation. A fire engine was dispatched because a passenger in a car had been hit with something flying though the air and coming through the windshield. The passenger had many lacerations including a gash in the face and shoulder, severed tongue and a hole in her chest. Members of the fire team determined unequal lung function was due to tension pneumothorax and used selected medical protocols to stabilize this woman. She was transported to Jacobi. It was determined a metal brake shoe from a truck had flown through the car’s windshield. Fire Chief Lou Demeglio is proud of the people in his department, This ceremony solidifies the esteem with which our Fire Department is held in the community. Peggy Godfrey is a freelance writer and former educator.
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Page 14
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
FROM THE BLEACHERS
“The Greatest Game Ever Played” By JOHN F. MCMULLEN I was sitting in the bleachers for the regulation game and then was on the sideline on December 28, 1958 at Yankee Stadium for what has been called “The Greatest (Football) Game Ever Played” -- and I have 4 feet of the goalpost in my bedroom to prove it! A little history first: In the 1930’s and 40’s and into the ‘50s, Professional Football was not a dominant sport – college football reigned supreme in the United State. In New York City, Columbia (which had won the Rose Bowl in 1934), NYU (a powerhouse, particularly in the days of All American Ken Strong) and Fordham (where Vince Lombardi was one of the “Seven Blocks of Granite”) all had major followings and Notre Dame and Army regularly played games at Yankee Stadium – Notre Dame had so many followers in New York City that the followers were referred to as the “Subway Alumni” – so it was no surprise that the New York Professional Teams – The New York Football Giants, The New York Yankees, and The Brooklyn Dodgers took a back seat to the college game – and, by the early 1950’s, we were down to one team, the Football Giants. Before there was Eli Manning, or Phil Simms, or Y.A. Tittle, there was Number 42 (at the same time that Jackie Robinson was wearing it for the Dodgers) for the Football Giants, Charlie Conerly (“Chucking Charlie”), who manned the quarterback position for the Giants from 1948 through 1961 (in his last year, he had been replaced
by Y.A. Tittle). Conerly, whose college career was interrupted by World War II (as a Marine, he fought in the Battle of Guam) was often booed in his early years with the Giants, the scapegoat of a lackluster team but as the Giants added many quality players around him (such as Frank Gifford, Sam Huff, Alex Webster, Don Chandler, Mel Triplett, Kyle Rote, Don Chandler, Roosevelt Brown, Ben Agajanian, Roosevelt Greer, Andy Robustelli, Jack Stroud, Jimmy Patton, Bob Schnelker, Dick Modzelewski, Dick Nolan, and many others) the team became stronger and stronger and won the 1956 National Football League Championship, defeating the Chicago Bears 47-7 on December 30th in the title game. Prior to the 1958 Season, the Giants traded Dick Nolan to the Chicago Cardinals (later the St. Louis Cardinals and, now, the Phoenix Cardinals) for defensive back Lindon Crow and placekicker George Allen “Pat” Summerall (the 1956 placekicker, Ben Agajanian, was no longer with the team and the Giants were not satisfied with punter Don Chandler’s placekicking – although Chandler was later a very successful placekicker with the Green Bay Packers). Summerall had been a high school Florida State Tennis Champ and had been a star at baseball, football, and basketball (and been considered for a basketball scholarship to the University of Kentucky). He went to the University of Arkansas where he played offensive and defensive end and placekicked. In the next to last game of the season with the Cleveland Browns, the Giants needed a win to stay alive in the hunt for first place in the Eastern Division (at that time, there was only one playoff game – Eastern Division vs Western). With two minutes to go in the game and the score tied 10-10, the Giants sent Summerall, who had missed a 31 yard field goal earlier, out to attempt a 49 yard one (Giants Offensive Coach Vince Lombardi was against the move but was overruled by Head Coach Jim Lee Howell). Kicking in the snow, Summerall put the kick right through the uprights, the longest of his career, to win the game (As he came off the field, he was greeted by Lombardi, who said “You son of a bitch, you can’t kick it that far!”). The Giants went on to beat the Browns 10-0 the following week in a tie-breaker to put them into the championship game against the Balti-
more Colts (who because of a late entry into the league were in the Western Division). Summerall retired after the 1961 season and enjoyed a long career as a broadcaster of football, (teaming primarily with Tom Brookshier and John Madden), tennis, and golf. He passed away on April 16th of this year (his death is what prompted these recollections). After the dramatic defeat of the Browns, Ed McNulty, Pat Maher, and I (all denizens of the Inwood section of NYC – the northern most neighborhood on Manhattan Island) decided that, should the Giants win the playoff game with the Browns, we would go to the Championship Game with the Colts (Pause to consider this – we decided that, if the Giants won, we would buy tickets and go to the Championship. Think about trying to do that now – and there is general agreement that it was this game that turned the NFL into the mega-national attraction that it is). On the day after the Giants victory, Ed went to the Stadium and bought us bleacher seats and on the following Sunday after picking up a few six-packs of beer to bring with us, we were at Yankee Stadium for the game – at that time, the legal drinking age in New York was 18 (I was a student at Iona College; Pat was at Fordham University; and Ed was a senior at De La Salle High School – so Pat and I were legal and Ed was not – but that regulation never bothered any of us while imbibing in Inwood Park at 16) and there were no restrictions about bringing beer or liquor into the Stadium. The Baltimore Colts were loaded with talent – The great John Unitas, Lenny Moore, Alan “The Horse” Ameche, and LG Dupree in the backfield; Hall-of-Famer Raymond Berry at one end and Jim Mutscheller at the other; All-Pro Jim Parker leading the offensive line and a defensive team anchored by Art Donovan, Gino Marchetti, and Ray Krause. The Colts were coached by Weeb Ewbank, who ironically would later coach the Joe Namath-led New York Jets to the Super Bowl III victory over the same Baltimore Colts, another monumental game for the league. The regular game was very exciting but not really well played -- there were fumbles, interceptions, drives that “came up empty” as well as some exciting plays (there is a comprehensive synopsis of the game on Wikipedia -- http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_NFL_ Championship_Game). With a little over two minutes to go, the Giants, ahead 17-14, punted, sending the ball to the Colts’ 14-yard line. Unitas then en-
gineered one of the great drives in NFL history, completing a pass to Lenny Moore (in a third-and-ten situation) and three to Raymond Berry to bring the ball to the Giant 20-yard line where, with seven seconds left, Steve Myhra kicked a field goal to tie the score. Pandemonium broke out as the final gun went off! Some of the players later admitted that they had no idea what would happen -- there had never been a tie game in a championship before and, in regular season games, ties just ended in ties. It turned out that just before the game, NFL Commissioner Bert Bell had set up a procedure for this eventuality -- there would be a “Sudden Death Overtime” -- there would be a coin-flip to determine which team would have the initial possession (through a normal kickoff) and the teams would continue to play until one team scored in any fashion. In the confusion Ed McNulty and I jumped over the bleachers’ wall onto the field (Pat Maher had the good sense to remain in the seats) and ran over to the sideline where we were allowed to stay (Imagine that today!) when the game resumed. The Giants won the coin-flip and returned the kick-off to the twentyyard line but their offense stalled and Don Chandler punted to the Colts’ 20-yard line. Unitas then began another drive (during the drive, I was within shouting distance of Colts flanker LG Dupree and was shouting at him that, if the ball was thrown to him, he would drop it -- whether he heard me, I have no idea. A police officer asked me to move back a little from the sideline but, incredibly from today’s vantage point, let me stay where I was). Unitas took them down to the 1 yard line where, on third down, Ameche plunged over the goal, winning the game for the Colts 23-17 (For years, there were rumors that the Colts passed up a sure field goal because Carroll Rosenbloom, the Colts’ owner had a big bet on the game which he would not have won as a field goal “would not have beaten the spread” -- but this was never proven and has been long forgotten.). Once again, pandemonium! Ed McNulty and I headed for the goalpost at the bleacher end of the field where fans were beginning to try to take it down -- the goalposts were wooden at that time and could be broken. We succeeded and then got into a tussle with some Baltimore fans over a piece of the goalpost -- the tussle ended when I turned my pulling into a push, spearing my opponent and knocking him off the post. As they started for us, a police officer sent them off the field and they left, cursing us and threatening to “get us” when our police protection disappeared.
As we were outnumbered, we looked for an escape route and were lucky to find the Wayne, NJ High School Band which had performed at intermission and cajoled them into letting us cover the piece of goalpost with their blankets and march out of the Stadium with them (I had hoped that they would let us on their bus and drop us at the George Washington Bridge but they wouldn’t go that far). When we took the blankets off the goalposts, we found to our consternation and the band’s annoyance that the white paint from the goalpost had gotten all over the blankets. We took our leave of them and carefully made our way to the subway and then held our breaths until we reached God’s Country -- Inwood. Once off the subway we encountered a bunch of friends and, as we spilt the goalpost between Ed and I, some wanted slivers. One of my close friends (and a two-time best man), Dan Sheehan, took out a knife to slice pieces and, instead, sliced a finger -- he went around the corner to Dichter’s Drug Store (open on Sunday’s at that time) where the druggist cleaned and bandaged it for him (they wouldn’t do that now) -- fifty-five years later, I still have the goalpost and Dan still has the scar. In the intervening years, much has, of course, transpired. Many of those who played in the game have passed away. Pat Maher, after getting a Master’s from Fordham, died very young (in his 20s) of natural causes while on active duty in the United States Army. Ed McNulty is a retired widower who I speak to regularly (and I speak even more often to Dan Sheehan). The goalpost remains in my house -- there is nothing to prove that this piece of wood is actually from “The Greatest Game Ever Played” -- but I, Ed McNulty, Dan Sheehan, and other friends know that it is (when Mark Bowden came out with his excellent 2008 book, “The Best Game Ever: Giants vs. Colts, 1958, and the Birth of the Modern NFL,” he and I exchanged e-mails, so he knows it too). Finally, the National Football League rapidly went down the road to becoming the billion-dollar franchise that it is today. I still remember reading a Monday morning column in the early 1960’s by New York Times Pulitzer Prize winner Arthur Daley that began “Yesterday at Yankee Stadium, 60,000 parishioners cheered as ...” -- The “Subway Alumni” had become “Giant Parishioners!” “There are eight million stories in the Naked City, This has been one of them.” (from the great television series, “Naked City”) Comments, experiences and questions can be directed to johnmac13@ gmail.com
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
EYE ON
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
Page 15
THEATRE
Pips and an Unkind Cut By JOHN SIMON That a theater piece plays better than it reads is frequently the case. With musicals, it is apodictic, what with mere reading divorced from music, singing and dancing, unable to compete. But rare is the abyss that separates “Pippin” on stage from “Pippin” on the page: a highly enjoyable show becomes a tedious, even annoying read. The idea itself is rather recherché. The history of the emperor Charlemagne, his court, and his progeny as the subject of a musical, even as a kind of play within a play, is quaint enough
Matthew James Thomas as Pippin and the cast of “Pippin”. in itself. But the writer of the book, Roger O. Hirson is surpassed in pretentiousness only by his son, the author of the verse play, “La Bête.” What saves “Pippin” is not Stephen Schwartz’s melodies, all pleasant but none great, and certainly not the Schwartz lyrics, which, despite some amusing word play, are naïve, often ludicrous, and sometimes even nonsensical. But now add the choreography— herewith by Chet Walker but based on that for the 1972 original production by the great Bob Fosse (who also contrib-
Patina Miller as the Leading Player, Philip Rosenberg, Viktoria Grimmy and Orion Griffiths in “Pippin”.
uted to the book), and the requisite acrobatics, devised here by Gypsy Snider and artistes from Canada’s 7 Doigts de la Main circus, and you have something to cheer about. Whenever the trivial dialogue yields to the wonderful artistes and inspired dancers, things become breathtaking. Luckily, this happens often enough, though one would wish it even oftener, especially in the finale, which, though much heralded in the dialogue, amounts to very little. But this barely matters as we are transported into athletic and acrobatic heaven. Heaven is the mot juste. Where, save at the greatest circuses, is there comparably aerobatic flying, vertigi-
Anthony Wayne, Patina Miller and Andrew Fitch in “Pippin”. nously simian climbing, multifarious juggling, transcendent tumbling, serpentine contorting, and all-round inspired clowning as here? An ostensible commedia dell’arte theater group putting on a tongue-in-cheek stage show about medieval mischief becomes a truly three-ring circus, with the eye surfeited in wonders the brain can just barely but happily cope with. The further wonder is how well these sawdust and Olympic performers can sing, dance and act on top of their athletic and acrobatic prodigies. Here the director, Diana Paulus, not always felicitous with other shows, proves helpful, at the very least in allowing the circus to near-continuously infiltrate, even invade, the stage. The theater part is the story of Pippin, elder son and heir of Charlemagne, in desperate pursuit of ultimate fulfillment, but fumbling it equally in war, sex and politics. A comic failure at everything else, he finally settles into conventional family life with clever spouse Catherine and precocious stepson Theo. Other principals are the drolly autocratic emperor father, the profligately spendthrift stepmother Fastrada, favoring Lewis, her ambitious and combative son from another marriage, and the ultimate sassy granny, Berthe, who enlists audience participation in
Patina Miller, center, is the Leading Player and the cast “Pippin”. contribute doughtily to make us forgive the book and lyrics, and luxuriate in exhilarating spectacle. Pippin photos by and courtesy of Joan Marcus. Music Box Theatre, 239 W 45th Street (George Abbott Way), between Broadway and 8th Avenue, New York, NY 10036. Tickets: 800-901-4092.
hausting participation. Next, insufficient characterization. Not even the protagonist, Charlie. Is accorded enough depth beneath a surface breeziness when not in uninvolving superficial torment. Still less is accorded the wife (not helped by Marin Ireland’s customary routine performance), not to mention the faithful but put-upon agent, the sanctimonious but ruthless producer, his silkily insinuating sidekick, the humble associate who took the prison rap for Charlie’s running over a child, or the bimbo in the car with Charlie, whose knowledge may have to be murderously silenced. And certainly not, in superficial roles, the faithful associate’s randy wife who cheats with Charlie, or the far too sketchy Louella Parsons style columnist, on whose tiny part the good Brenda Wehle is wasted. Under Daniel Sullivan’s haphazard direction, several nonetheless shine: Chip Zien (agent), Richard Kind (producer) and Reg Rogers (sidekick), but all to no avail. Only the gifted scenic designer John Lee Beatty, with his airy Californiastyle set, triumphs as usual.
The cast of “Pippin”. her show-stopping number “No Time at All.” Probably most important, though, is the Leading Player, a sort of smartass singing and dancing MC or funnily nosy compère, who dominates much of the action, at times abetting, at others contesting Pippin. This part, for a black actor, was sensationally performed in 1972 by the fabulous and fabled Ben Vereen, and is now taken by Patina Miller, a talented actress, but a bit too obviously enamored of herself. It is of course proper for a performer to be enjoying her work, but it should not so markedly smell of self-adulation. Praise must also go to Scott Pask’s set, mostly an enormous, all-embracing circus tent and the starry canopy beyond; Dominique Lemieux’s infectious costumes; Kenneth Posner’s festive lighting; and the merry orchestrations of Larry Hochman and arrangements of Nadia Digiallonardo. And then the cast. Matthew James Thomas is a personable and impressively agile Pippin, Terrence Mann a highly amusing Charles (to too magne), Charlotte d’Amboise a splendidly danced Fastrada, Rachel Bay Jones a well-sung Catherine. But special plaudits to Andrea Martin as Berthe, the grandest of grannies, who can turn mildly or scarcely funny lines into uproarious comedy. All
The Big Knife *Clifford Odets was one of our most uneven playwrights, who could play right and wrong with utmost ease. Only recently, a revival of his “Golden Boy” was a well-deserved success; now, though similarly themed, “The Big Knife,” about a tormented silverscreen star, is an unmitigated disaster. The 1949 drama is fairly autobiographical as its hero, Charlie Castle, is torn between lucrative but unfulfilling Hollywood movie stardom (Odets was a well-paid screenwriter) and soul-satisfying stage work in New York, getting richer in the former at the cost of shortchanging his staunch wife Marion and Billie his (unseen) small son. The troubles with the play are several. First, the language. Odets was always one for fancy metaphors and other grandiose tropes, but here they run away with him. Everyone exudes this flowery parlance, verbal gymnastics that compel the audience to ex-
American Airlines Theatre, 227 West 42nd Street, New York, NY, 10036. Tickets (212) 719-1300.
Thoroughly Modern Millie.
In nearby, accessible Milburn, New Jersey, the Paper Mill Playhouse offers an easy-on-the-eye-and-ear revival of the charming musical “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” The Martin Pakledinaz costumes of the Broadway production, like the new scenery by Michael Schweikardt, function winContinued on page 16
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EYE ON
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
THEATRE
Pips and an Unkind Cut Continued from page 15
ningly, Denis Jones’s original as well as partly inherited choreography uniformly delights, and Mark S. Hoebee’s direction keeps everything under
TECHNOLOGY
lightly-worn control. The performances—a little less than perfect but all amply appealing— coalesce harmoniously, and there is not a dull moment in either the dialogue or the musical scenes. The comfortable auditorium, host to so many enjoy-
able productions, has never been more agreeably filled than by this gladsome 75th-anniversary offering. Paper Mill Playhouse, 22 Brookside Drive, Millburn, NJ 07041. Tickets: (973) 379-3717. Box Office: (973) 376-4343
John Simon has written for over 50 years on theatre, film, literature, music and fine arts for the Hudson Review, New Leader, New Criterion, National Review, New York Magazine, Opera News, Weekly Standard, Broadway.com and Bloomberg News. Mr. Simon holds a
PhD from Harvard University in Comparative Literature and has taught at MIT, Harvard University, Bard College and Marymount Manhattan College.
color-changing octopuses; zebra fish; ostriches, dogs; mice; and cockroaches. Two TED talks, “Robots that fly ... and cooperate” by Vijay Kumar (http://www.ted.com/talks/ vijay_kumar_robots_that_fly_and_ cooperate.html) and “A mini robot -- powered by your phone” by Keller Rinaudo (http://www.ted.com/ talks/keller_rinaudo_a_mini_robot_powered_by_your_phone.html) show the wide range of tasks that can be performed by robots. The flying, cooperating robots are highly sophisticated devices which can be used as worker builders on construction projects or to survey disaster areas while the mini--robot, “Romo”, costs $150, is iPhone-powered and can “motor along with you on a walk, slide you a cup of coffee across the table, and react to you with programmable expressions.” Popular Science magazine in its May 2013 issue chose “Roy the Robot” as the year’s most innovative product in the Electronics section. Roy is a kit developed by Brian Roe to teach robotics to students. It has about 1,000 parts controlled by animatronics software. Roe had developed kits based on moveable hands and arms targeted at a $300 price and estimates that a full human kit might cost $3,000. The second question, “What will their ascendancy mean for us?” is much more difficult to answer. Most understand that it means a great displacement of workers. Samson writes “Today, even the most high-tech jobs are being downsized and restructured rapidly. They’re not likely to resize, and some will disappear entirely. Electronic intelligence is now performing much of the mental work formerly done by secretaries and middle managers, accountants and governmental administrators, product designers and corporate planners, soldiers and salespeople, farmers and restaurateurs, stockbrokers and bank tellers, doctors and diplomats, drivers of delivery vans and drivers of industry.” It seems, then, that almost no job is safe from this displacement. Brooks, however, sees a bright side in the manufacturing area where, since the end of World War II, US manufacturers have chased “low-cost”
labor, first, to Japan and, then, as Japan’s economy grew, in succession, to South Korea, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Brooks sees low-cost factory robotics bringing the manufacturing “home.” He writes “For U.S. companies, making products closer to home, where they were designed, allows you to keep your supply chain short and responsive. You can produce and ship closer to where your engineers are located, so you can innovate designs or develop new ones faster. You can tighten the loop between innovation and manufacturing. Your design-to-production cycle quickens, and you have fewer intellectual and property concerns. These are just some of the reasons for a company to keep its manufacturing operation close to where the rest of its operations are located. The question is: What will it take for us to break out of the cycle of making cheap stuff by hand, where companies make expensive, value-added merchandise with machines and automation, but low-value products like toys with unskilled, inexpensive labor? This is a challenge my company is trying to solve with robotics.” Obviously, Brooks has a vested interest in the correctness of his words -- but they certainly make sense and, if he is correct, the displacement of manufacturing jobs may be greater throughout the rest of the world than in the US. Kevin Drum, in a thoughtful piece in the May / June issue of Mother Jones (www.motherjones. com), “Terminated,” writes that “around 2040,” the ongoing development of more and more sophisticated machines will provide us “a robot paradise,” a life of leisure. However, there is a big “But” in Drum’s analysis -- BUT it could be difficult and disruptive to get there as our society tries to adjust to massive unemployment and the human depression that goes with loss of work. Drum’s feeling (with which both I and ex-Secretary of Labor Robert Reich agree) is that there is not sufficient recognition of what is coming and planning for it. He writes “The economics community just hasn’t spent much time over the past couple of decades focusing on the effect that machine intelligence is likely to have on the labor market.” He further writes “Solutions to
this will remain elusive as long as we resist facing the real change in the way our economy works. When we finally do, we’ll probably have only a few options open to us. The simplest, because it’s relatively familiar, is to tax capital at high rates and use the money to support displaced workers, In other word’s as The Economist’s Ryan Avent puts it, ‘redistribution, and a lot of it.’” Drum recognizes that such an action would be fought strongly by those to be taxed while most workers would be unhappy with their enforced idleness and he looks at other alternatives. He concludes by writing “A robotic paradise of leisure and contemplation eventually awaits us, but we have a long and dimly lit tunnel to navigate before we get there.” Samson, in both “Highly Human Jobs” (article referred to above) and his 2004 book, “Mind Over Machine,” tries to provide us (or, at least, some of us -- those with the skills and insight to follow his direction) with the approaches necessary to survive as we pass through Drum’s tunnel. His approach focuses on the development of skills, which he feels, cannot be assimilated by a computer. As part of this approach, Samson provides both “Strategies for Job Seekers” and “Strategies for Job Creators.” The bottom line, as I see it, is: These changes, the “off-peopling” of more tasks, are inevitable. We do not as yet have a good timetable for this process; it will be based solely on unpredictable technological development (which often tends to happen much faster than predicted). We, as yet, have no plan for navigating this tunnel and our political leaders show neither the aptitude nor desire for long-term planning. It is, therefore, up to us to insure that we have the knowledge and the skills to weather the storm.
To learn more, visit the JohnSimon-Uncensored.com website.
CREATIVE DISRUPTION
Robots, Robots, Robots! By JOHN F. MCMULLEN It seems that, if robots aren’t already all around us, they are coming very rapidly and the questions they bring with them are very important: What can they do for us? What will their ascendancy mean for us? The answer to the first question is really easy -- whatever we can envision, codify, and implement can be done by a robot -- if we define “robot” to include both mechanical devices and software algorithms which can perform actions presently done by humans. Isaac Asimov, best known in this field for his universally accepted “Three Laws of Robotics” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Laws_of_Robotics),defined a robot as: “robot = machine + computer” (Introduction to “Robot Visions”, 1991) but newer views include “bots” (software robots) in the overall definition. Richard W. Samson, in his extremely important piece in the MayJune 2013 issue of The Futurist, “Highly Human Jobs” (https://www. wfs.org/futurist/2013-issues-futurist/may-june-2013-vol-47-no-3/ highly-human-jobs), calls the “automation of more and more tasks ‘off-peopling.’” To get an appreciation of the ascendancy of robots, one only has to pick up most scientific or technical magazines (such as Robot Magazine (www. botmag.com)), search “TED” (“Technology, Entertainment and Design” -- www.ted.org), or, more and more, find articles in mainstream magazines (such as The Atlantic, Mother Jones, Harper’s, etc.); in short, the robots are all around us. A few examples: In the same issue of The Futurist, there is an article by Rodney Brooks, former director of MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab; author of “Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us” (Pantheon, 2002); co-founder of “iRobot” (makers of the “Roomba” robot vacuum
cleaner); and founder of “Rethink Robotics” (www.rethinkrobotics. com),“Robots at Work: Toward A Smarter Factory” (http://www.wfs. org/futurist/2013-issues-futurist/ may-june-2013-vol-47-no-3/robots-work-toward-smarter-factory), in which he describes the use of his firm’s product “Baxter,” an easilytrainable, non-threatening robot designed for factory use. Brooks writes “Baxter also works right out of the box. Typically, it takes 18 months to integrate an industrial robot into a factory operation. With Baxter, it’s about an hour. Baxter requires no specialized programming. A factory floor worker with only a high-school diploma, someone who has never seen a robot before, can learn to train Baxter to do simple tasks in five minutes … Baxter is outfitted with a variety of sensors, including depth sensors as well as cameras in its wrists, so it sees with its hands. It’s constantly building and adjusting a mathematical model of the world in front of it, allowing it to recognize different objects. We made the robot simple and easy to use because we don’t think that it’s the customer’s job to do costly engineering work on a product that he or she has purchased. We wanted to build a machine that was as intuitive to use as the iPhone.” Baxter can be trained to do assembly line tasks or to do tasks that no one cares to do, such as taking out the garbage. A short blurb in the March / April issue of Robot Magazine pointed me to the “Paro Therapeutic Robot (http://www.parorobots. com/), a robot designed to be a companion pet for people in hospitals and nursing home. It is designed to look like a baby seal and imitates animal behavior, responding to touch, light, sound, and temperature. The March / April issue of Science Illustrated magazine has, as its cover story, “The Robot Kingdom,” a feature on the many animal or insect species now emulated by robots – Camerabearing dragonflies; seagulls; jellyfish;
Creative Disruption is a continuing series examining the impact of constantly accelerating technology on the world around us. These changers normally happen under our personal radar until we find that the world as we knew it is no more.
Comments, experiences and questions can be directed to johnmac13@gmail.com
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
Page 17
CHRONICLES OF CROTON’S BOHEMIA
Jane Burr, 1: Poor Little Rich Girl By ROBERT SCOTT A few participants in the golden age of Croton’s Bohemia have fallen through the cracks of history. Perhaps the most notable among the missing is Jane Burr. Unfortunately, the local historical society’s 1976 history of Croton makes no mention of her. Let us rectify Jane Burr’s exclusion here and now. She was born Rosalind Mae Guggenheim in Texas in 1882. Of Swiss-Jewish origin, Guggenheim family members amassed one of the 19th century’s largest fortunes by investing in mining and smelting.
looking to settle in Croton. Operated for many years by the McCord family, the inn’s foundation stones are still visible opposite the Holy Name of Mary Church on the section of the Post Road now called Grand Street. Jane Burr named it the Drowsy Saint Inn and turned it into a sort of early-day bed-and-breakfast, advertising for guests in The New York Times. When 31-year-old Floyd Dell fell in love with 17-year-old B. Marie Gage, an attractive blonde, it was love at first sight. On their third date, he proposed marriage. Stymied in trying to get married in New York or Jersey City, they recalled that Jane Burr, described by Dell as “a writer with a very forceful personality,” had invited them to visit her in Croton.
meeting that evening. Floyd and B. Marie got their marriage license in Peekskill, and returned to Croton to be married by Judge Frank Decker to marry them at his home. Judge Decker operated a candy store and ice cream parlor on Croton’s Riverside Avenue. Floyd begged B. Marie not to make any feminist objections to anything she was asked to promise, but to say yes to whatever questions were asked. They told the judge they wanted a simple ceremony. Judge Decker found one in his book in which they took each other as husband and wife. After the ceremony, the judge asked B. Marie if she wanted a marriage certificate. She shook her head. “Lots of people don’t, nowadays,” he
Jane Burr had her office on the fourth floor of the American Tract Society building at 150 Nassau Street in New York City
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Croton’s Old Post Inn became Jane Burr’s Drowsy Saint Inn. The Inn and stables are gone now, but the brick building at the left is still standing. To spare the family any embarrassment, Rosalind Guggenheim used the pseudonym of Jane Burr when she became a Socialist. Although she wrote a large body of work under that pen name, she left almost no biographical writings. As a result, we must search elsewhere for traces of her passage through this life. .Her association with Croton began in 1917, when she purchased Croton’s Post Inn, a stagecoach stop on the old Albany Post Road. An hour from New York on the New York Central Railroad’s Hudson Division, the inn was the first stopping place for artists and writers
Dell later described the Drowsy Saint Inn as “a place with pleasant rooms furnished in colonial style, where writers roomed in the summer, and with a restaurant decorated in the Greenwich Village fashion with gay colors. It was not open in the winter, but Jane Burr lived there, and asked occasional guests out to visit her.” “We want to get married,” they told her on their arrival, “and we need your help.” She was disappointed, being opposed to marriage in principle, but agreed to help them. She telephoned the town clerk in Peekskill. His office was closed, but she learned that he would be at the town board
remarked, almost wistfully. Then it was back to the Drowsy Saint and their wedding supper. For dessert, Jane Burr wangled a cake intended to be part of a neighbor’s Sunday dinner from the local bakery. Rosalind Guggenheim was born in Cleburne, Texas, a suburb of Fort Worth, and married Jack Punch, a St. Louis manufacturer, described by her as “a nice man but not nice enough for me.” She entered Washington University in St. Louis but left after two years. Two stints of newspaper work followed at The St. Louis Republic and The St. Louis Star, where she
Continued on page 18
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THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
CHRONICLES OF CROTON’S BOHEMIA
Jane Burr, 1: Poor Little Rich Girl Continued from page 17
edited a woman’s page. Jane Burr came to national attention in 1909 when her first book, a work of fiction titled Letters of a Dakota Divorcée, was published. When South Dakota entered the Union in 1889 its divorce laws were extremely liberal: a mere 90 days’ residence was required for a legal divorce. Sioux Falls, the state’s largest city, became the prime destination for divorceseeking spouses during the 1890s. Extension of the residency requirement to six months did little to curb the influx. Until Reno, Nevada, captured the title in 1931, Sioux Falls was the country’s quickie divorce capital. Consisting of witty letters to a female friend back East from a 39-year-old female New Yorker, Jane Burr’s novel was well received. Critics acknowledged the ring of truth in the book’s details of life in the Sioux Falls divorce capital. We may conclude that
Jane Burr knew whereof she wrote. She spent the next two years in Europe followed by “a little flat in West 125th Street,” a neighborhood called Manhattanville, where she made an effort to make a living by writing fiction. She met Horatio Gates Winslow, the first copy editor of The Masses, at the Rand School of Social Science in 99th Street. She described the school as “a wonderful place where one could sit at a table with George Allan England [an early science fiction novelist] and Anton Otto Fischer [an artist]-and talk about economic determinism with the waiter.” Despite her feelings about marriage, she married Winslow in 1911. Her memory of the marriage was hazy. She described it as having taken place “somewhere in Jersey City.” Asked by her interviewer why, with such liberal views, she went through the marriage ceremony at all, she replied, somewhat
remorsefully, “Because I didn’t want to feel like a martyr.” Beginning in 1913, The New York Times regularly printed Jane Burr’s poems. It also published letters from her on a variety of subjects, ranging from the Montessori Method to the advantages of tight skirts compared with the traditional long and flaring skirts that dragged on sidewalks and staircases. A feature article in the Times Sunday magazine section of Aug. 3, 1913, titled “Rich Man’s Daughter Hires an Office to Write Poetry,” introduced her to readers. Jane Burr revealed details of her lifestyle to her Times interviewer: She lived in a tenement in East 77th Street, near the East River, and rose at five to prepare breakfast for herself and her mother, who was visiting her. Then she caught a downtown Third Avenue elevated train to City Hall and walked to the American Tract Society building at 150 Nassau Street. Her small office was on the fourth floor with the name “Jane Burr” on the door. By the time the hands of the
clock on the nearby Tribune tower on Park Row pointed to 7:30, she was hard at work typing poems. To those who called her a dilettante versifier, she would laugh and say, “Jane Burr writes verses for a living.” When questioned about this by the Times reporter, she replied, “The answer is very simple. My husband and I believe devoutly that our happiness in one another can be complete only when she is earning her own living, and that is why I am trying to earn mine. “And,” she added, “I am doing very well, thank you. I have an acceptance every day and I am fairly rushed to death with orders for work that must be done by a certain time. Of course, I might, if I chose, lead a perfectly idle and useless existence. I do not want my father to make me an allowance and I am far, far happier earning my own living. Every girl, whether she is married or not, ought to be earning her own living, and even if she has children, she ought to spend at least four hours of every day out of her home in some outside work or
profession. “I believe that, and so does my husband, who is a very wonderful man.” Her husband was in Cos Cob, Connecticut, she said, “summering with the Schroeder ‘Free Speech’ colony.” [Theodore Schroeder, founder of the Free Speech League, was known as “The Sage of Cos Cob.”] Jane Burr also told the Times reporter that she had been in the Catskills “all last year,” including the winter, and that she had made and filled some 180 jars with jams and jellies. Her stay in the mountains had been at Allaben, the home of Herbert Yost, “the little actor who so amused New York in Over Night,” a 1911 Broadway hit comedy about the mixup of honeymooning spouses aboard the Albany night boat. The acting bug would bite Jane Burr the following year, as we shall discover next week. Robert Scott is a semi-retired book publisher and local historian. He lives in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.
GOVERNMENTSection MAYOR Marvin’s COLUMN
GOVERNMENT
Suggestions to ConEd Going Forward By Mayor MARY C. MARVIN This past week Village Department Heads and I met with Con Edison representatives for the third time in an effort to improve service/response time in Bronxville in the aftermath of experiences during Hurricane Sandy. We have partnered with Con Edison to share ideas in a collegial way that has proven productive. To understand power outages, familiarity with our unique grid system is essential. As background, the Village is powered from three feeders; one in Tuckahoe, one in Mount Vernon near Village Hall and one in Yonkers just over the West Side border. During Hurricane Sandy, in order to “power” the Village much of the electrical work took place outside the Village boundaries. This unique configuration of service caused frustration and confusion for our government and residents
alike as we seemed to see crew teams everywhere but Bronxville. Electricity is then sent from the feeders into Village loops comprising whole neighborhoods. During Hurricane Sandy, when a feeder went down almost half the Village immediately lost power, and if a pole fell, an entire loop would go down. Proactively, Con Edison has changed power configurations so as to avoid the above scenarios. The new system adds switches and fuses to loops allowing power outages to be segmented into much smaller sections. Now if a tree should fall in one yard, only the adjacent homes would lose power, not the entire neighborhood. In a Village such as ours, where falling trees are commonplace even in routine storms, the benefit will be enormous. No matter how localized the outage, Con Edison advised us that homeowners still must call in to the 1-800-75-CONED number and report it because the switches/fuses must be reset manually by dispatching a truck. Based on resident feedback and
the experience of Village Hall staffers during Hurricane Sandy, the following are some of the suggestions we made to Con Edison going forward: Inaccurate information is worse than no information at all. The robo calls during Hurricane Sandy with estimated power resumption times proved largely inaccurate and led people to return home or re-fill refrigerators only to have power remain out for days. The computer data maps of outage areas must sync with real time conditions. Many residents called in outages only to then access a computer which erroneously showed their home having power on the Con Edison map. Con Edison cars, trucks and staffers’ vests should be clearly marked as to their function. Residents were frustrated when they saw Con Edison crews not restoring power, when in fact their assignment was to either guard or deenergize live wires only. Clearly delineating the job at hand would stem the confusion. A simple truck marking or vest lettering would go a long way for
clarity of duties, and keep questions at a minimum. The Con Edison liaisons for every community should have continuity and permanent assignments when emergencies occur. Liaisons with a knowledge of Village streets and vital services such as hospitals and schools are critical to truck dispatching and assessing the location of needs when assigning priorities. In storms prior to Hurricane Sandy, Con Edison staffers were completely confused when dispatching trucks to the Village and ended up sending them to the Yonkers/ Bronxville P.O. Per regulations, out-of-town crews cannot work on live wires due to their unfamiliarity with the local systems. Con Edison needs to alert municipalities immediately when crews need to temporarily cut power to make repairs for others on the same grid. As example, during Hurricane Sandy, Parkway Road residents finally received power only to have it go out hours later. We were not notified that it was a temporary “de power” in order to help other residents near Sarah Lawrence, so we could not give our residents any accu-
rate information as to power resumption. I am extremely confident that Con Edison is making genuine and productive efforts to improve the accuracy and quality of their emergency services and they have been very receptive to our operational suggestions. Regardless of what Con Edison services are ultimately updated, residents will still have to call their outages in on a daily basis for best service. Con Edison makes no assumptions that because your next door neighbor called in, you also do not have power Con Edison has informed us that the cost of relocating wires underground is $7 to $10 million per lane mile, plus a street-to-home hook-up fee which is dependent on the topography of each property. Given that the Village has approximately seven lane miles, the cost is beyond what anyone is willing to undertake. Mary C. Marvin is the mayor of the Village of Bronxville, New York. Direct email to mayor@vobny.com.
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THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
CAMPAIGN TRAIL
HELP WANTED Page 19
A non profit Performing Arts Center is seeking two job positions- 1) Director of Development- FT-must have a background in development or experience fundraising, knowledge of what development entails and experience working with sponsors/donors; 2) Operations Manager- must have a good knowledge of computers/software/ticketing systems, duties include overseeing all box office, concessions, movie staffing, day of show lobby staffing such as Merchandise seller, bar sales. Must be familiar with POS system and willing to organize concessions. Full time plus hours. Call (203) 438-5795 and ask for Julie or Allison
Democrats Pick Noam Bramson to Challenge for Office of Westchester County Executive By NANCY KING On Wednesday, April 24th, more than 2,000 Democratic delegates met at the Westchester County Center to pick a candidate to run against incumbent County Executive Rob Astorino. Going into the convention, delegates had three possible candidates to choose from; current County Board of Legislators Chair Kenneth Jenkins, County Legislator Bill Ryan, and current New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson. The opening of the convention running over an hour late due to the elimination of some questionable proxies. Westchester Democratic Chair Reginald Lafayette finally opened the convention by saying “We want to make sure that County Executive Rob Astorino goes into early retirement.� In a county that has a 2-1 Democratic over Republican registration, Astorino’s win nearly four years ago on the “Stop the Tax Madness� platform is hoped to be a weird political anomaly that isn’t going to be
repeated this election season. What made this convention different from others in the past, was that the three candidates agreed to not primary one another and to support whomever the winner would be in order to strengthen the possibility of removing Astorino. The first vote of the evening was taken around 9:00 P.M. To get the nomination on the initial ballot, a candidate would have to get more than 50% of the vote. When that first vote was tallied, Bill Ryan proved to be the lowest vote getter with 14,489 votes, or roughly 8%. He was thereby recognized to be out of the race. But those numbers demanded a second run-off; pitting Bramson against Jenkins. It also gave the Ryan supporters time to re-group as to where there support would go. Watching the politicking on the floor in-between these two votes was fascinating. District leaders and local party chairs were literally in delegates’ faces, stopping just short of telling them how to vote, but that too was taking place. Sure, anyone who had a dog in this race would
want their candidate nominated, but it sure seemed like there was a lot of strong-arming going on. By the time the second vote was to be cast, it was 11:00 P.M. After a lengthy counting process the numbers were in; Bramson had received 97,950 and Jenkins, 80,249. Noam Bramson would be running against Rob Astorino; and while most of the delegates appeared pleased at the result, all you had to do was to look over at the Yonkers contingent. As the largest group there, they seemed shocked and stunned by the evening’s turn of events. They really couldn’t believe that Ken Jenkins not only lost this nomination, but lost big. Even as Jenkins addressed the crowd telling them “The one thing that unites us all is that the top priority is beating Rob Astorino in November. He’s the wrong man in the wrong job for the wrong county�, offered what looked to be little solace for the Yonkers’s delegation; they were already putting their coats on and leaving before Bramson began to speak. Continued on page 20
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Page 20
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
CAMPAIGN TRAIL
Democrats Pick Noam Bramson to Challenge for Office of Westchester County Executive Continued from page 19 As he took the podium to accept the nomination, Noam Bramson thanked the other two candidates by saying, “We arrived here on different teams, but now strongly united,
and determined, we go forward as one team”. They’d better be united because this is going to be one heck of an expensive race. At this juncture, Astorino has around $2 million banked for this race while Bramson
has $500,000. However, with wealthy mentor Nita Lowey supporting him, Bramson should catch up pretty quickly. As for the Astorino administration, I’m sure this isn’t the nomi-
nee they were hoping for. Youthful, smart, and his liberal clone in a county full of liberals, the campaign spin has already started on the 9th floor of the County Office Building. More than likely, the administration
will be taking a look at Bramson’s tax increases in New Rochelle and that city’s lack of industrial development.
Nancy King is a freelance investigative reporter; a resident of White Plains, New York.
LEGISLATION
Rep. Engel Introduces Bill Protecting Cell Phone Users Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY16) has re-introduced legislation, the Cell Phone Theft Protection Act (H.R. 1730), to discourage cell phone theft by requiring wireless commercial services to cut off service to a stolen phone. “It makes no sense to reward the thief by continuing service on a stolen cell phone. It’s simple common sense that the victim of a crime isn’t responsible for service they are no longer receiving. If service is cut off on a stolen phone, it just becomes a useless brick and the motivation to threaten, or commit violence, to steal a phone goes away. By cutting off service, wireless companies will do wonders for public safety, and I am confident they will support this legislation,” said Rep. Engel, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
MESSAGE
The proposed legislation has widespread support among our national police chiefs. Nearly 70 police chiefs sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission urging similar action to the Cell Phone Theft Prevention Act, including New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. These communities supporting action include – the City of Buffalo, Washington D.C., and New York’s Nassau and Suffolk Counties. The New York Times recently reported that thefts of mobile Apple products, known as “Apple Picking,” accounted for 14 percent of all crimes in New York City last year. Preventing these offenses would significantly reduce the incidents of potentially violent crimes citywide. One year ago, Hwang Yang, a 26-year-old Riverdale resident was killed on Johnson Avenue for his iPhone.
“Police say tens of thousands of smartphones are stolen each year. If we can substantially reduce, or prevent these crimes, with this bill, then this legislation is worthwhile. I urge my colleagues to sign on to the Cell Phone Theft Prevention Act. I encourage all Congress Members to co-sponsor and pass the bill before the full House, so we can reduce cell
phone crime,” said Rep. Engel. “We appreciate the congressman’s continued support and effort to make our residents and visitors safer, by addressing this growing problem,” said Metropolitan Police Department Chief of Police Cathy L. Lanier. “Until this issue is addressed once and for all, violent crimes associated with stolen cell phones will continue to be a problem. We made progress last year and this bill is an additional step forward.” The Cell Phone Theft Protection Act would do the following: · Create a national “negative file” or “blacklist” to be maintained by the wireless industry to record the individual ID number of a stolen device. Companies would then cross-reference the files with the other carriers to ensure that no device reported stolen could
Greenburgh town taxes are about 2%. Each of these four tax entities are overseen separately by different boards. Our responsibility as the Board of Trustees of the Village is to oversee the operations and services that are provided by the Village, and the resulting tax rate based on the cost of delivering those services. Your village taxes pay for Police, Fire and Ambulance, Department of Public Works (garbage, recycle, snow removal, storm clean-up, etc. and the maintenance of over 28 miles of roads)(though some, like Farragut and Broadway, are maintained by other entities), Park Maintenance, Recreation Programs (Seniors and Youth, Pool), Building Department (permits and zoning codes), the Village Court, Village Hall Administration and the Library. We continue to improve our financial position. Our reserve fund, now at $748,240, is likely to grow to
around $900,000 by the close of this fiscal year, ahead of our projections. This is well on the way to our target of $1,300,000 based on a standard recommended amount. This remains a major accomplishment given the continuing troubled fiscal environment. Like the last few budgets, this one was again created in an environment of depressed revenues, with a number of our larger expenses escalating out of our control. The total budget, at $13,609,361, increased $243,117 over the previous year. Just three items consumed all of the tax increase we just passed: Insurance (increase of $139,900): Health and other insurance costs rose over 8% this year. Pension Costs (increase of $60,867): Certain pension costs increased by a little more than 9%, considerably less than last year’s 22.1 %, but still more than the cap provides.
get service from another provider. · Make it illegal to change, alter, or remove the unique identifier, referred to as the International Mobile Station Equipment Identity (IMEI). · Require wireless carriers to develop technology allowing the customer to remotely delete their data should the device be stolen. · Require all devices manufactured in the U.S., or imported to the U.S., to have unique ID numbers. Most phones already do, but it is important to ensure that any duplicate ID numbers do not exist. · Provide the time for companies to enact the provisions of the bill so the system will be strong and functioning in a manner which does not disrupt the service to the consumer, or create any unforeseen technical issues.
FROM THE MAYOR
Village Budget Approved By Mayor PETER SWIDERSKI The Board of Trustees completed the budget review process on Tuesday night and approved a budget, with a concurrent tax rate for the next fiscal year (June 2013 through May 2014) that represents a 2.34% increase over last year. This translates into an additional $94.72 in taxes annually for the typical homeowner (assuming an average house assessment of $16,900). This is the second budget passed in compliance with the New York State tax levy cap. The tax levy is the overall increase in revenues (property taxes, sales taxes, state aid and otherwise), necessary to meet increased costs.
While the State’s tax levy cap is ostensibly set at 2%, the state makes exceptions when pension increases are substantially above 2% (they were) and if a village raised its levy substantially less than 2% in the last budget cycle (we did). Theoretically, under State law, we were permitted to raise the levy as high as 3.8% - our tax levy increase, rather, was 2.29%. We will point with some pride in producing the lowest tax increase of any Rivertown village that did not raid their fund balance to bring down their rate. As a point of reference, your village tax (on average now a little over $4,100) is approximately 21 % of the total property tax bill that you pay as a resident of Hastings-on-Hudson. School taxes comprise 66%, County taxes 11 % and
Fire Hydrant Rental (increase of $45,000): The water company owns them and we, believe it or not, “rent” them and now will pay nearly a quarter of a million dollars a year for this privilege after an eye-watering increase of 24%. The actual department budgets were generally stable: the police went up a bit; the rest went down a bit. We’ve set aside a contingency fund this year of $220,000, the same as last year. We also set aside some money for Comprehensive Plan implementation, LED bulb replacement and other small initiatives. These remain tough times: the downward pressure of the tax cap meets the upward pressure of mandated costs increasing faster than 2%. The result is continuing pressure on our department staff to cut costs and try to maintain services despite decreased funding. Our biggest challenge will remain staying Continued on page 21
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
MESSAGE
FROM THE MAYOR
Village Budget Approved Continued from page 20
within budget constraints in a world of mandates imposed from elsewhere. As we have pared staff back as far as we can without sacrificing services, we need to get ever more creative to manage this balancing act. That will involve sharing services with other communities as well as other ways to stretch our dollar while providing the level of service residents expect.
We are grateful to Village Manager Fran Frobel and Deputy Treasurer Rafael Zaratzian for their hard work during the budgeting cycle. Trustee Armacost, as the Board lead on this issue, continues to do heavy lifting. Finally, thanks go to all the department heads and staff who are engaged in this process and manage to exercise care in spending public funds with the trust endowed them while continuing to provide increasing services to the Village. Peter Swiderski is the mayor of the Village of Hastingson-Hudson. Direct email to: mayor@hastingsgov.org.
CURRENT COMMENTARY
A Professional Politician Calls It Quits By LARRY M. ELKIN It is no secret that Congress and the people who serve in it are unpopular these days, but here is a sign of how bad things have gotten: If I refer to a retiring senator as a “professional politician,” you will most likely assume that I mean this as an insult. I don’t. I met Max Baucus in the fall of 1974. I had just arrived at the University of Montana a few weeks earlier, and I signed up for my first journalism course, a survey of mass media and public affairs. The instructor, Ann Geracimos, was likewise a recent arrival in the state, and she was very impressed with Baucus, the young Missoula lawyer. Baucus came from one of Montana’s most prominent ranching families. He obtained undergraduate and law degrees from Stanford in the 1960s and worked for the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington for three years before returning to Montana, where he served as executive director for the statewide constitutional convention that drafted a charter – a model of progressive legislation for its time – in 1972. He then won a seat in the state House of Representatives. By the fall of ’74, Baucus wanted to go back to Washington. He was running for the U.S. House seat from the western half of Montana, one of two representative positions at the time. (The state’s shrinking share of the national population has since left it with a single House member.) He and his fellow Democrats promised to clean up Washington in the wake of the Watergate scandals, which dominated the front pages that fall after President Gerald Ford pardoned his recently departed predecessor for any and all crimes Nixon may have committed while in the White House. Geracimos thought her students would surely admire Baucus as much as she did. Most of my classmates who voted in Montana that year probably did support “Max,” as everyone in Montana called him. I did not, but only because I was just 16 that fall and too young to vote. We students liked Baucus well enough, but not quite as much as Geracimos, who married him soon after. (They have since divorced.) Baucus went to the House that year as part of a national Democratic landslide. For all practical purposes, he never came back. In 1978 the state’s long-serving Democratic senator, Lee Metcalf, died. Baucus wanted the seat, but he did not have a warm relationship with the governor at the time, fellow Democrat Tom Judge. Judge instead appointed Paul Hatfield, a former chief
Senator Max Baucus (D-MT). Photo by and courtesy of The Center for American Progress Action Fund justice of the state Supreme Court. Undeterred, Baucus defeated Hatfield in a primary and went on to win the general election in November, which I helped cover as a fledgling reporter for The Associated Press. In the comparatively gracious spirit of Montana politics, Hatfield resigned his seat a few weeks early, allowing Judge to appoint Baucus and thus gain a few weeks’ precious seniority in the Senate hierarchy. Baucus put the head start to good use. He steadily climbed the ranks to become chairman of the powerful Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax legislation. Though Montana tilted more toward the Republicans over the years, Baucus never really faced a close election except in 1996, when he narrowly defeated Dennis Rehberg, who later won the state’s U.S. House seat. With an army of well-placed former aides and a campaign war chest already topping $5 million – vast by Montana standards – Baucus was a virtual shooin for re-election next year, for what would have been his seventh term, before he shocked Washington this week by announcing plans to retire. Baucus is just the latest in a growing line of senior Democrats planning to depart the Senate at the end of
Continued on page 22
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
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THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
CURRENT COMMENTARY
A Professional Politician Calls It Quits Continued from page 21
the current Congress, including Iowa’s Tom Harkin, Michigan’s Carl Levin, West Virginia’s Jay Rockefeller and New Jersey’s Frank Lautenberg. Most are card-carrying members of the party’s dominant liberal faction. Baucus is different. He stands out as the Democratic counterpart to Maine’s Republican Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate who frequently crosses party lines to work across the aisle and to support positions that are unpopular in their own caucuses. Baucus describes his approach simply as representing his state’s conservative views. He supported the Bush tax cuts, voted in favor of repealing the estate tax (and played a crucial role in
providing low rates and generous exemptions when that tax was restored in 2011), has criticized his own party’s insistence on repeatedly raising top income tax brackets, and is a major force, together with House Ways and Means Chairman David Camp, behind the latest effort to reform our tax code. He has often opposed his party on business and environmental matters. Montanans tend to favor more development of public land, which the state has in abundance, than do residents of coastal metropolises, who generally see such lands as nature reserves or vacation playgrounds. He also recently voted opposite most Democrats by opposing new gun control measures. Powerful committee chairmen
attract big political money and a lot of lobbyist attention. Baucus has been widely criticized for accepting big-business contributions to his campaigns and for the army of his staff alumni who have gone on to work as lobbyists. But Baucus is, after all, a professional politician. Senators often use excess campaign contributions to help one another out, collecting favors and literally proving the adage that money is power. Baucus has spent a professional lifetime accumulating power. Mostly, he has placed that power at the disposal of a small state that otherwise has almost no presence on the national scene. One could argue, therefore, that Montana has been well served by having a professional politician in the Senate all these years, one who balanced national concerns with his home
state’s values. Baucus has scarcely lived in Montana since he graduated high school in 1959. Does it matter? Baucus says he will spend the rest of his time in Washington pushing for tax reform. He won’t be distracted by a re-election campaign, but my guess is that as a lame duck, his ability to influence and deliver a comprehensive package will be reduced to almost nothing. That $5 million war chest that he no longer needs might be the only leverage he retains, but it will be just a drop amid the flood of lobbyist-coordinated contributions that tend to swirl around any big tax bill, let alone the biggest in a generation. Now married for the third time, Baucus is building a dream house outside Bozeman, Mont. I wish him and his family well. Having spent a profes-
sional lifetime representing his state – always professionally – in Congress, he deserves a chance to enjoy living in Montana’s wide open spaces. Larry M. Elkin, CPA, CFP®, has pro-
vided personal financial and tax counseling to a sophisticated client base since 1986. After six years with Arthur Andersen, where he was a senior manager for personal financial planning and family wealth planning, he founded his own firm in Hastings on Hudson, N.Y., in 1992. That firm grew steadily and became the Palisades Hudson organization, which moved to Scarsdale, N.Y., in 2002. The firm expanded to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in 2005 and to Atlanta in 2008.
TECHNOLOGY
Governor Cuomo Announces Wireless Service has Arrived at 30 Additional Underground Subway Stations Wireless Service Available April 25, 2013, from AT&T and T-Mobile USA; Verizon and Sprint in Talks to Join the Network that Allows Cell Phone Calls, Data, and Emergency Messages NEW YORK, NY -- Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced today that 30 additional subway stations now have wireless voice and data communication capability allowing New York City subway riders to make and receive cell phone calls, send and receive texts and e-mail and access Wi-Fi underground. Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) officials were joined by executives from Transit Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile USA and Boingo Wireless to demonstrate the new capability at the City’s busiest station,Times Square. “This goes beyond providing cell service underground. It brings our customers a new level of security –with the
The 36 stations that are now online have an average annual ridership of approximately 7 million customers per station. While the network allows full cell phone and Wi-Fi connectivity, enabling voice and data functions such as phone calls, text messages, emails, music and video streaming and more, all underground, it also enables important services that improve safety and security. E911 will allow dispatchers to know when a call is being placed underground and the approximate location of the caller. Employees and first responders will also have enhanced communications capability in an emer-
ability to dial 911 in an emergency,” said Governor Cuomo. “Customers now know that when they see something, they can now say something using their device to call 911. And now with all the major carriers on board, the vast majority of MTA customers will have the ability to do so.” Representatives from Verizon and Sprint were also on hand to announce that both carriers are finalizing agreements to participate in the network, meaning that all four major carriers are expected to provide cell phone and data connectivity to their customers in underground stations in the first two phases of the project.
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SEAVEST INVESTMENT GROUP, LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 4/8/13. Office location: Westchester Co. LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 2/20/13 SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to The LLC 707 Westchester Ave White Plains, NY 10604. DE address of LLC:1209 Orange ST Wilmington, DE 19801. Arts. Of Org. filed with DE Secy. of State, PO Box 898 Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: any lawful activity.
Notice of Formation of ZANICK Five, LLC a domestic Limited Liability Company (LLC). Articles of Organization filed with Secretary of State of NY on 3/22/2013. NY office location: WESTCHESTER County. Secy. of State is designated as agent upon whom process against the LLC may be served. Secy. of State shall mail a copy of any process against the LLC served upon him/her to DACK Consulting Solutions, 2 William St., Suite 202 White Plains, NY 10601. Purpose: To engage in any lawful act or activity.
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gency. “The MTA has been on a clearly defined mission to bring our mass transit system into the 21st century with upgrades to the station environment through several ambitious newtechnology communications projects like this one, aimed at improving the travel experiences of our customers while offering another level of security,” said MTA Interim Executive Director Thomas F. Prendergast. “The New York City subway system is one of the most heavily trafficked systems in the world and now riders have wireless service,” said William A. Continued on page 23
CLASSIFIED ADS Notice of Formation of 361 Warburton Ave LLC. Arts. of Org. filed with Secy. of State of NY (SSNY) on 3/13/13.Office location: Westchester County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the LLC, c/o Arnold Perez, 520 Van Cortlandt Park Ave, Yonkers, NY 10705. Purpose: Any lawful activity. STRIGIFORME LLC Articles of Org. filed NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 3/13/13. Office in Westchester Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to C/O United States Corporation Agents, Inc. 7014 13th Ave Ste. 202 Brooklyn, NY 11228. Purpose: Any lawful activity. Registered Agent: United States Corporation Agents, Inc. 7014 13th Ave Ste. 202 Brooklyn, NY 11228.
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THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
Page 23
TECHNOLOGY
Governor Cuomo Announces Wireless Service has Arrived at 30 Additional Underground Subway Stations Continued from page 22
Bayne Jr., CEO of Transit Wireless. “This network benefits not only riders, but city workers and first responders, and it will be the backbone for future technology and safety improvements to the city’s subway stations.” Transit Wireless and the carriers are paying 100 percent of the cost of the project, estimated at up to $200 million, including the cost of NYC Transit forces that provide flagging, protection and other support services. The MTA and Transit Wireless evenly split the revenues from occupancy fees paid by the wireless carriers and other sub-licensees of the network. Transit Wireless is paying MTA a minimum annual compensation that will grow to $3.3 million once the full build out of the network is complete. Transit Wireless has also established a sublicense arrangement with Boingo Wireless to manage and operate Wi-Fi services – including sponsorship and advertising support – for the subway station network. Wi-Fi access is currently free to consumers thanks to a sponsorship by HTC One, and can be accessed by choosing the SSID:
FreeWifibyHTCONE. The list of stations now connected is as follows (* first six were part of the initial build): *1 23 Street – 8 Ave. CE *2 14 Street – 8 Ave. ACE *3 14 Street – 7 Ave. 123 *4 14 Street – 6 Ave. FM *5 14 Street – 8 Ave. L *6 14 Street – 6 Ave. L 7 96 Street BC 8 86 Street BC 9 28 Street 1 10 18 Street 1 11 81 Street-Museum of Natural History BC 12 72 Street BC 13 79 Street 1 14 23 Street 1 15 96 Street 123 16 66 Street-Lincoln Center 1 17 72 Street 123 18 57 Street F 19 47-50 Streets-Rockefeller Center BDFM 20 57 Street-7 Ave. NQR 21 28 Street NR 22 50 Street 1 23 50 Street CE 24 23 Street NR
25 49 Street NR 26 5 Ave.-53 Street EM 27 59 Street-Columbus Circle 1 28 59 St-Columbus Circle ABCD 29 7 Ave. BDE 30 Times Square-42 Street 123 31 Times Square-42 Street NQR 32 Times Square-42 Street 7 33 Times Square-42 Street ACE 34 Times Square-42 Street S 35 5 Ave.-59 Street NR 36 86 Street 1 Transit Wireless expects to provide service to the remaining 241 underground stations within four years and has already begun design work on the next 40 stations in midtown and Queens including key stations Flushing-Main Street, Grand Central-42nd Street, and 34th Street-Herald Square. Those 40 stations are expected online in the first quarter of 2014. Today’s completion of the first phase of cell phone and data connectivity is a vital part of the MTA’s focus on delivering long-promised benefits to its 8.5 million customers. Embracing technology to modernize service for customers means providing real-time information and making it easier for
customers to access that information. Since 2010, customers have welcomed various versions of countdown clocks/ real-time arrival information at more than 200 stations. Bus Time, which provides real-time bus tracking information, is already operational and a full citywide rollout will be finished by spring 2014. Additionally, the next generation of customer talk-back devices is being deployed to more than 100 stations during the current capital program. Help Point Intercoms (HPIs), the two-button customer communications device, will put riders instantly in touch with either the Rail Control Center to report an emergency, or the station booth for customer assistance.Together with cell phone connectivity, customers now have more ways to contact first responders in case of an emergency. Underground Subway Wireless Service – How it works Wireless carriers who have contracted with Transit Wireless to provide voice and data service to their customers in underground New York City subway stations co-locate their Base Stations with Transit Wireless’ Opti-
cal distribution equipment at a Transit Wireless Base Station Hotel, which is a resilient, fault-tolerant commercial facility with redundant air-conditioning and power. Base Stations are provided by wireless carriers for all FCC-licensed cellular bands. These Base Stations connect to Transit Wireless’ Radio Interface and Optical Distribution System in the Base Station Hotel. Radio signals are combined, converted to optical signals and distributed on Transit Wireless’ fiber optic cable through ducts under city streets to subway stations where the optical cables connect to multi-band Remote Fiber Nodes. Remote Fiber Nodes are located on every platform, mezzanine and at various points within public access passageways. Coaxial cable is connected to each Remote Fiber Node and extends signals to strategically located antennas throughout each subway station. Utilizing this approach, low-level radio signals are evenly distributed providing seamless coverage from above ground to underground stations. A Network Management System monitors the service; detects problems and provides alerts so technicians can be dispatched if needed.
Page 24
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
THURSDAY, May 2, 2013
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