By Michael Kaufman

What’s wrong with this sentence, which appeared the other day in a daily newspaper in our region? “The independent board formed last month to sell Orange County’s nursing home is expected to solicit offers from prospective buyers next week and have bids by mid-June.” If you haven’t figured it out yet the answer appears in the next sentence: “Meeting for the first time Monday since being appointed by County Executive Steve Neuhaus and legislative leaders, the six volunteers initially named to the Orange Valley View Development Corporation picked a seventh member and the officers for their board, as the attorney advising them laid out a rapid timetable for their work.”

A more accurate way to put it would be, “The bunch of toadies appointed to solicit bids to sell the 360-bed Valley View Center for Nursing Care and Rehabilitation to a private, for-profit corporation is working fast because this thing stinks to high heaven and everyone in Orange County knows it.”

A bit later in the article we learn that the attorney doing the advising (also appointed by Neuhaus) is affiliated with the Harris Beach law firm, the same people hired by the county to set up the local development corporation (LDC). The stench gets even worse as readers are informed that the board’s inaugural meeting was open to the public, “except for a private session” during which the members chose officers and spoke with attorney Shawn Griffin of Harris Beach. Oh, and by the way, any future discussions about purchase offers “are expected to take place behind closed doors.”

Only one sentence mentioned perhaps the most important point: “Unless a lawsuit brought by privatization opponents invalidates the move, the LDC board can decide which bidder buys and takes over the operation of Valley View without further action by the Legislature.” That lawsuit, filed by Michael Sussman on behalf of Valley View residents, employees, not to mention most people in Orange County, has yet to be decided. But the last time the county legislators tangled with Sussman they didn’t do so hot. Our local Republicans, taking a cue from their counterparts at higher levels of government, had gerrymandered a couple of districts so as to ensure that people of color would not constitute the majority of voters. They ended up with egg on their lily-white faces after Sussman got through with them.

I hope that wolf-in-sheep’s clothing Neuhaus, who had pledged not to sell Valley View during his election campaign, and the cowardly weasels among the Republican majority in the county legislature (with the notable exception of Mike Anagnostakis) meet a similar fate.  Anagnostakis deserves special recognition for his courageous and principled stand on this issue.  As for the rest, what else can you call them but cowardly after they set up an LDC to do the deed and pretend it is independent when it is anything but? And just to put the stinko icing on the cake, here is the last paragraph of the news article in its entirety: “Griffin told the Times Herald-Record that the board will likely make public the names of all bidders — but not the prices they are offering — once the solicitation period ends. The identity and price of the winning bidder would be released once the county and buyer have signed a sale contract, he said.”

In other words, they will meet in secret, make their decision in secret, and only tell the public about it after the contract has been signed. I guess that’s one way to be independent: independent of public oversight or scrutiny. 

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

Daughter Sadie and the author huddle for warmth during Cardinals–Mets game Wednesday night.

By Michael Kaufman

I knew I’d raised her right when she said, “Did you forget who you’re dealing with here?” Ever since I took her to her first game at Shea when she was seven, my daughter Sadie and I have endured long rain delays, interminable traffic jams, and overcrowded subway cars to be at the ballpark to see the Mets play. She will turn 25 in a few months. Not once have we left the ballpark before the last out of a game.

But Wednesday night, after watching Sadie shiver through the first  two innings as a relentless, bitter-cold wind swirled through the new ballpark I still call Shea even though it now carries the name of a rapacious financial institution, I had asked her if she wanted to leave. “We can look for a warm place to watch the game on TV,” I added when she didn’t answer. That was when she reminded me who I was dealing with.

To be honest I was shivering uncontrollably too and I was better outfitted to withstand the cold. I wore a hooded fall coat while she went hatless and donned a thin summer jacket. Not that I hadn’t been warned: I’d ordered the tickets at a discount before the season started after getting a promotional email from Travel Zoo. “I got great seats in the Caesar’s Promenade section,” I boasted to my wife Eva-Lynne. “And they only cost…”

“April 23?” she interrupted. “A night game? It’ll be freezing.”

And I thought, “What does she know about baseball? Late April evenings are perfect. “ But she was right, as usual, just as she’d been the day before the game when she urged me to take the GPS with me before a drive to Brooklyn. “I’m from New York,” I reminded her before proceeding to make so many wrong turns I lost count by the time I arrived—over an hour late—to my destination in Coney Island.

So Sadie and I were among the 22,000 announced attendees Wednesday night (another 22,000 had paid for tickets but had the good sense to stay home).  By the time it was over there were probably no more than a few thousand besides us two and the Cowbell Man.  How chilly was it?

• So much garbage was blown onto the field that the grounds crew had to rush to pick it up before the game started and after every inning.
• Hot chocolate outsold beer.
• Only two other guys were in the men’s room during the seventh inning stretch.
• Moments after I finished my hot chocolate and put the empty cup in the holder in front of my seat (did I mention we had great seats in Caesar’s Promenade?) the cup was swept away by a gust of wind.
• The wind blew the hat off the head of Cardinals’ pitcher Michael Wacha. (Second baseman Mark Ellis made a nice play to keep it from getting through to the outfield.)
• John Jay came up to bat in the ninth inning  sporting a red bandanna around his neck (a style that may work well for an anarchist at a street demonstration, but which looked peculiar on a big league batsman).

But you know what? We had the time of our lives, tapping our feet and hopping up and down in a vain attempt to keep warm; searching for a hat or warm sweatshirt to buy for Sadie (which she refused when she saw the sticker prices); happily watching the scoreboard as the Yankees were losing to the Red Sox, and most of all, watching the Mets defeat the team that won the whole enchilada last year.  We got to see Wacha strike out 10 batters in the four innings he pitched. But he also walked in two runs with the bases loaded in the fourth and he did not come out to pitch the fifth.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Niese pitched what the late announcer Bob Murphy would have called “a whale of game” for almost seven innings. Niese, who has always seemed on the verge of becoming an outstanding pitcher, may have finally found his niche.  We saw Lucas Duda hit a home run and we saw two batters who have been struggling (to put it mildly)—young catcher Travis d’Arnaud and veteran outfielder Curtis Granderson—deliver solid hits.  We saw sparkling plays in the field in spite of the weather, including the final play of the game when Granderson raced to the right field corner to snare a wicked Molotov cocktail off the bat of Matt Holliday.

“I wouldn’t have changed a thing,” said Sadie before we rushed to the exit, headed for the parking lot and the warmth of the car.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

I’m not sure what to make of John Kerry’s recent comment about the situation in Crimea:  “You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th-century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext,” the Secretary of State said with a straight face during an interview on the CBS program “Face the Nation.” Later he proclaimed that the United States and “our allies” are prepared to meet “19th century behavior with 21st century tools” if necessary to return Crimea to its rightful place as part of the Ukraine. Kerry doesn’t realize that his empty rhetoric only serves to demonstrate that he himself—considered a 20th century hero by many—has become a 21st century tool.

Kerry didn’t spell out what he meant by “21st century tools” but it is not unreasonable to assume he is talking about the use of drones, a favorite of the Obama Administration because it doesn’t require “American boots on the ground” and that saves American lives, which are of course more precious than other people’s lives. That is the only possible explanation for their continued use in Afghanistan, where for every “enemy combatant” or terrorist killed by drone there are multiple deaths and crippling injuries inflicted on helpless civilians. As has often been pointed out, this tends to upset the locals and may even inspire some to become terrorist sympathizers, or even terrorists, themselves. But not to worry: We have enough drones to take care of them too.

Kerry’s “21st century tool rattling” was not war-like enough for traditional saber rattlers such as John McCain, who called Kerry’s comments “pathetic,” which they are—but not for the reasons cited by McCain. Our country’s leaders have used many a “trumped up pretext” to invade other countries well into the 21st century. It happened a whole lot in the 20th century, which may be why Kerry skipped over it as he made the rounds of TV interviews the other day. That reminds me: In just a few months it will be the 50th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the trumped up pretext used by Lyndon Johnson to escalate the genocidal war in Vietnam, as Kerry surely must recall. And of course there are a few 21st century elephants in the room as well, most notably the non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Kerry has said there is “no comparison” between the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Russia’s actions in Crimea. He’s right: Iraq has never been part of the United States and the lives of Americans living in Iraq at the time were not threatened. Crimea, however, has a long history of being part of Russia and the majority of the population there identifies as Russian. It did not become part of the Ukraine until 1958. And while many non-Russian Ukrainians supported and collaborated with Nazi Germany, the Russians were our allies during World War II and tens of millions died.

Perhaps this is a good time to point out how ill informed we are in this country as compared to say, Germany, because of the shallowness of news coverage by corporate media, reliance on official government versions of events, and the relative paucity of good investigative reporting. This leads to a kind of good guy versus bad guy way of looking at things: We are always the good guys. When there are conflicts elsewhere in the world we support the good guys. And if anyone mentions My Lai or Abu Ghraib or renditions or torture, well those things are only the work of a few bad apples. So here are a few things I learned the other day in a report from Berlin by correspondent Victor Grossman:

Grossman said the two major political parties in Germany have been working for regime change in the Ukraine for years. They hoped to help oust president Viktor Yanukovych and replace him with either imprisoned petroleum oligarch Yulia Timoshenko or former heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitchko. Klitchko had the backing of Adenauer Stiftung, a think tank associated with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU). (When Klitchko ran for mayor of Kiev a while back he hired Rudy Giuliani as an advisor….and still lost on points.)

Klitchko’s star faded after public release of a wiretapped conversation between U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the U.S. Ambassador in Kiev, during which Nuland colorfully explained that Arseny Yatsenyuk was to be president, not boxer Klitchko or far-right anti-Semite Oleh Yaroslavovych Tyahnybok. “I don’t think ‘Klitsch’ should go into the government,” said Nuland. “I think ‘Yats’ is the guy who’s got the economic experience, the governing experience. He needs ‘Klitsch’ and Tyahnybok on the outside… talking to them four times a week.” And for good measure she added a few words not likely to endear her to our European friends: “Bleep the E.U.!”

According to Grossman, “A promising attempt by German, French and Polish foreign ministers to reach a compromise with Vladimir Putin, which seemed to be saving the day, and the Ukraine, was quickly met by a new burst of violent blood-letting on Maidan Square, mostly by masked men with fiery projectiles and sharp-shooting guns, which stymied the compromise and forced the corrupt (but democratically elected president) to flee for his life. And so, believe it or not, things worked out just exactly the way Nuland had determined, with “Yats” on top and the others outside.”

A former foreign policy advisor to Dick Cheney, Nuland is married to leading neo-con Robert Kagan whose Project for the New American Century think tank pushed military regime change in Iraq as part of a strategy for global control. Meanwhile Klitchko was not the only one to be embarrassed by release of a wiretap phone call. Timoshenko, who is usually portrayed as a frail martyr after spending time in a Ukrainian prison hospital, was recorded saying, “I’m sorry that I am unable to be there in charge of these processes; they wouldn’t have had a bleeping chance of getting Crimea off me….I would have found a way to finish off those bastards…I hope I can use all my connections and get the whole world to rise up so that not even scorched earth will be left of Russia.” As to Ukraine’s eight million ethnic Russians, Timoshenko said they should be “nuked.” This woman makes Sarah Palin look like Eleanor Roosevelt.

Grossman quotes several former German leaders, including Gerhard Schröder and Helmut Schmidt. The latter said with regard to Putin’s Crimea policy, “I find it completely understandable,” adding that he doubts it violated international law. He called punitive sanctions “stupid nonsense.” Schröder likened the referendum of Crimean Russians and their breakaway from the Ukraine to Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia, which he had supported as Chancellor.

“The problem is not really in Moscow or here with us,” said Günter Verheugen, a former Social Democrat (SPD) party leader and European Commissioner. “The problem is in Kiev, where we now have the first government in the 21st century in which fascists are seated.”

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

I have some advice for those Pine Bush residents who are organizing the rallies designed to highlight their community’s commitment to diversity:  Get a few people in front of the camera who don’t have white skin, maybe a gay couple or two (preferably with their kids in tow), and (for icing on the cake) some Orthodox Jews. It would be ideal if they were Hasidic but that is probably too much to ask, considering all the fuss over that darned housing development they’re trying to erect in Bloomingburg.  Why, they’re even seeking approval to build a “discriminatory school” to go along with the housing: a private religious school for girls that will drain funds from the public schools because the Pine Bush school district (which includes Bloomingburg) will have to provide services for their children, including those with special needs.

I see your point there. I’ve seen it ever since the Reagan years when the education laws were changed so as to allow certain funds intended for public school use to be diverted to private and parochial schools. (The Warwick school district, for example, provides nursing service to St. Stephen’s.) Far be it for me to suggest there may be a smidgen of anti-Semitism involved in the current outcry from the denizens of Pine Bush and Bloomingburg.  But why am I talking about this when you keep telling me the Pine Bush thing has nothing to do with the Bloomingburg development? (Hint: Maybe it’s because you’ve been saying it so much it has forced me to think about it a lot more than I would have otherwise.)

In any event, just to recap: Your efforts to highlight your devotion to the cause of diversity are in response to negative publicity generated by an article that appeared in The New York Times on Nov. 6. The article reported on a lawsuit filed against the Pine Bush Central School District by three Jewish families who allege that their children (and others) were victims of cruel harassment in school and that the district knew about it and did little or nothing to stop it. The children gave testimony describing incidents that included the drawing of a  swastika on a seventh-grade girl’s face as she was held down by two boys; middle school students being called “Christ killer,” “stupid Jew,” “disgusting Jew,” and being subjected to jokes about the Holocaust; and students having coins thrown at them. The article led to widespread criticism of Pine Bush by some heavy hitters (Gov. Cuomo, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Anti-Defamation League, to name a few).

But at least you have the support of Stuart Feuer, a Jewish dentist who practices in Pine Bush, where he has lived with his family for 25 years. He wrote a letter published Nov. 9 in the Times saying that no one in his family ever experienced any anti-Semitism. “I am very saddened,” he concluded, “that this negative attention is being brought to our beautiful, peaceful hamlet, which is filled with good-hearted, hard-working people.” He reportedly got upset later because someone unknown to him from New Jersey wrote a letter describing him as a “self-hating Jew.”

I have met Feuer and I doubt he is a self-hating Jew. He may, however, be a self-serving dentist. As one of the few Jewish residents of Pine Bush his practice is dependent on the goodwill and patronage of his non-Jewish neighbors. John Barker, a mechanic who lives in Pine Bush, must go to another dentist. Barker is quoted in the Times article as saying of Jewish families, “We don’t want them in our town.”

Anna Merlan, a blogger for the Village Voice, checked out comments from Pine Bush residents on social media after the Times article was published and found that “reactions were divided between people who said they, too, had experienced or witnessed prejudice, and those who were shocked, shocked to hear that such a thing might be taking place in their town.” The most revealing responses, she noted in her Nov. 11 post, came from Pine Bush teenagers and young adults. Some took to Twitter and Facebook to say they were “embarrassed” or “ashamed.” But others made no attempt to conceal their bigotry:

“This is pine bush, and if you don’t like pine bush you can geeeeeeet out,” Tweeted Charlie

“I think this is all coming up because the Jews want to take over Bloomingburg and the people aren’t letting that happen,” chirped I Am McGlory.

“(Bleep) all ya why cause more drama then there already is in this town. The jews just needa go back to kj where they belong,” cursed the uncharitable Christian.

“Don’t believe things people say just to get money from the school district,” opined Joey.

And after a hearty “lol” in homage to Joey, Amanda proclaimed, “…that article is retarded. No one threw coins at the (bleepin) jews.”

Maybe you “good hearted, hard-working people” in Pine Bush don’t know what these young people have been saying.  Surely Feuer never saw those comments. Like Feuer, author Michelle Zink lives in Pine Bush and is raising her children there. Unlike Feuer, she does not depend on the goodwill of her neighbors for her livelihood. Three days after Feuer’s letter was published in the Times, Zink posted a blog on her website titled Anti-Semitism Is Alive and Well in My Home Town. I suggest you read it before your next diversity rally.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

Nanook of the North would feel right at home in Orange County these days but not this Nudnik from Warwick. I would say the bone-chilling cold we’re having is for the birds…. but they’ve all been smart enough to fly south by now, leaving us birdbrained humans behind. What with all the talk about climate change lately I’ve been thinking seriously about making a change in climate of my own. A colleague with similar thoughts found an eight-question quiz in Kiplinger magazine that helps you determine “which place is the right fit.” I gave it a try and frankly I’m still reeling from the outcome.

According to Kiplinger the top place for me is Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Since I don’t know much about the place I did a Google search. The first item on the list was “Teen Shot to Death Walking Down Rocky Mount Street.” That would have been enough for me but Eva-Lynne said, “That could happen anywhere,” so I did some more reading. I learned that Thelonious Monk, one of my all-time favorite jazz musicians hailed from Rocky Mount. There were some other things to like as well, but overall, I don’t think I’d give up Warwick for that place.

Next on the list: Auburn-Opelika, Alabama. I never heard of it but I didn’t bother to look it up. I know I’m not Alabamy bound. (I’d rather hang around with the heebie jeebies in Warwick.) On the other hand, my nephew Steven’s wife Allison’s Aunt Louise seemed happy enough living in Birmingham. I met her at Steven’s wedding years ago. It was the only time I ever heard an old Jewish woman speak with a deep southern drawl. I got such a kick out of it I kept the conversation going just to listen to her talk.

Next up: Greenville, North Carolina. At least I’ve heard of it. From Googling I learned that it is “the 10^th largest city in North Carolina“; and the “health, entertainment, and educational hub of North Carolina’s Tidewater and Coastal Plain.” I’ve heard of Tidewater: The Mets used to have a Triple-A team there, the Tidewater Tides. Greenville seems to be near the beach, which is a plus. But I was turned off when I went to the official home page, which carries the heading, “Greenville, NC: Dedicated to providing all citizens with quality services in an open, ethical manner, insuring a community of distinction for the future.” I almost fell asleep reading that. I prefer something more direct and to the point such as, “Florida, NY: Home of Jimmy Sturr, the Polka King.”

The next one was a nonstarter: Tuscaloosa, Alabama. (See Auburn-Opelika.)  And last but not altogether least on the Kiplinger list of places supposedly the right fit for me: Goldsboro, North Carolina! Yes, Goldsboro, described by Wikipedia as “best known as home to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base.” I never heard of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base (but I used to work with a fine fellow named Seymour Joseph). The county seat of Wayne County, Goldsboro is located about 43 miles southwest of the aforementioned Greenville (meaning farther from the beach. Feh!); and 55 miles southeast of Raleigh, the state capital. Big deal.

I’m not knocking any of those towns. Maybe they’re all swell places to live. They’re certainly a lot warmer than Warwick. But are they the right fit for me? I don’t think so. I’m not leaving Warwick any time soon. And as far as I’m concerned the Kiplinger quiz is guano. But see what it comes up with for you.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

A couple of days ago Bob Gaydos forwarded fellow Zesters an email message from Kerry Clair at Arrow Web Design under the heading, “Outgoing Mail Server change for website.”

“This is an FYI for any clients using their websites for email (in other words you have and use an email YourEmail@YourDomain.com

“Due to a server upgrade and server certificate change, the outgoing mail server should now be changed to be: host2.arrowwebsites.com

“Depending on your mail server you may then also need to permanently “TRUST” the new certificate. Please contact us, or open a ticket if you have any issues or trouble and we will walk you through this change.”

Well I have no idea what this means, and the tech-savvy Bob forwarded the email without comment, perhaps assuming that no explanation was necessary. But I know that whenever someone tells me they’ll walk me through something if I have “any issues or trouble,” I’m going to need to be walked. So I’ll just trust Bob and our other tech savvy Zesters to address the situation.

But as long as we’re on the subject of email, I will take this opportunity to some of the email messages that have recently come my way:

Dear Ms. Gaddafi,

First, please accept my belated condolences on the loss of your husband. And thank you so much for offering to share 40 percent of the $12.5 million you succeeded in removing from his underground safe before fleeing to Algeria. Rest assured that I will never reveal your intention to share this money with me in a manner that would in any way put you “at risk of being burned alive with your entire family.”

But I’m afraid I cannot accept your offer. I would never be able to live with myself if I took advantage of your predicament to make a quick $5 million or so. A simple 10% would more than suffice.

Warm regards,
Michael

Dear Christian Mingles,

Thank you for your offer to help arrange dates for me with single Christian women. I’m not sure who gave you my address (probably one of my crazy old high-school friends) but I am neither single nor Christian, although if I were single I certainly would not rule out the possibility of dating a woman of the Christian persuasion.

Sincerely,
Michael

Dear Chen Yu (or should I call you “Rick” or “Jeff?”),

Frankly I am sick and tired of receiving messages from you touting your “digital image retouching and refinishing, photo retouching, video editing, and a host of other services from your “state of the art” facility in China. I have been deleting your messages from my Zest of Orange mailbox for months now. They have become so annoying that earlier today I did some online searching and found the following information at a site that keeps a registry of email spammers:

“No website or other Internet assets of his own, Changshu-based Chen Yu relies on throwaway webmail accounts, open proxies and open relay sending sources since at least Spring 2010. He hijacked several thousand servers all over the world to have his spam delivered, inflicting massive costs to thousands of companies across the world.”

Gotcha, Chen. If you think you’re going to inflict massive costs to Zest of Orange, you’ve got another think coming!

Very truly yours,
Michael

Michael may or may not be reached at michael@zestoforange.com

By Michael Kaufman

It isn’t even Thanksgiving yet and already Sarah Palin is kvetching about the so-called war on Christmas. And she’s not just kvetching. She’s written a whole megillah about it! Her latest book published by HarperCollins and released just in time for the start of the holiday season, is titled Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas. As described by Katy Steinmetz of Time magazine, “Many chapters center on made-up tales that illustrate Palin’s concerns, what she calls ‘stories based on reality.’ She bolsters these with related real-world examples.”

Steinmetz summarizes an “imaginative ghost-of-Christmas-future scenario,” in which Grandma Sarah visits grandson Tripp at college in 2028. There she learns that “the school has kicked out all the Christian groups, administrators liken the end of Christmas celebrations to the end of slavery and someone mistakes her for Tina Fey. Also, Mitt Romney finally gets elected on his sixth presidential run.” (Palin may not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier but she does occasionally come up with a good line or two.)

Like fellow buffoon Bill O’Reilly, Palin hates the notion of making the holiday season a bit more inclusive. “A central trope in the book,” says Steinmetz, “is Palin’s disgust and frustration at people saying ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas.’” She lauds stores such as Hobby Lobby that use Christian religious imagery in advertisements (and by the way also does not stock any Chanukah items even in areas with a substantial Jewish population) and lambastes businesses like Target and Wal-Mart that have opted for a more universal approach.

In many ways, notes Steinmetz, “Christmas is just the occasion for Palin’s book.” Palin complains that Christians are being “reviled and marginalized in American society.” She thinks Christian faith should be more central to culture, politics, schools and public squares. Some chapters, says Steinmetz, “lean heavy on the evangelism,” as Palin recounts Biblical stories and pushes for more “Christ in Christmas.” (Now there’s an idea for a bumper sticker.)

“God,” writes Palin, “is the only cure for what ails us.” This brings to mind one of my favorite cartoons, by Jennifer Berman, titled “God Having an Identity Crisis.” Against a backdrop of the heavens the booming voice of God declares, “Yes, but who created ME?” Besides, Sarah Palin doesn’t know what she’s talking about: I know for a fact and have raised my children to believe that a dip in the ocean will cure whatever ails you.

Palin bemoans the recent increase in the number of people in the United States who openly identify as nonbelievers. She depicts atheists as aggressive and power-hungry, and claims that the logical result of atheism is severe moral decay. And so she proclaims, “We must resist their efforts to push God out of the culture, to characterize us as silly and superstitious.” I don’t quite know how to respond to that. But as an agnostic Jew I try to be respectful of the beliefs (and non-beliefs) of others. I don’t try to push mine on other people and I resent those like Palin, O’Reilly, and others of their ilk who do. And to that list we can now add George W. Bush, former president and war criminal (in the eyes of many) who at this writing is still scheduled to speak at a fundraiser for an evangelical Christian group devoted to getting Jews to “see the light” and convert to their beliefs. To all of them I say “Happy Holidays and Gai mit dein kop in drerd.”

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com

By Michael Kaufman

As tens of thousands of runners take to the streets of New York Sunday in the New York City Marathon, about 40 percent of them will be women. That will come as no surprise to anyone who has been following the sport of distance running over the past few decades. Women’s participation in marathon running has been taken for granted for so long now that a shameful piece of sports history in our country is all but forgotten. And–in the bizarre way we have been conditioned to look at history–Richard Nixon is better known for his contribution to equal rights for women in athletics than are Pat Tarnawsky (better known today as author Patricia Nell Warren), Kathy Switzer and Nina Kusick. But Nixon merely signed the Title IX law passed by Congress in 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in schools that receive federal funding—including in their athletics programs. Tarnawsky, Switzer, Kusick and countless other courageous women athletes across the country are the true sheroes who made it happen and impelled Congress to act.

They began fighting for their rights at a time when the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU), governing body for amateur sports in the United States, barred women from taking part in distance races. Dr. Nell Jackson, head of the AAU women’s track and field committee, defended the practice in a 1971 article published in Runner’s World magazine. Jackson said, in effect, that distance racing was physically dangerous to women, hurts the AAU program for women’s competition, and involves “only a few older women out for a lark.” Bear in mind that marathon running was still not a mass participation activity at the time. Just 127 runners took part in the first New York City Marathon in 1970, and only 55 actually finished. In 1971 there were only about 30 women distance runners nationwide. By then they were permitted to run in most marathons but their times were not recorded.

Among the 30 was Switzer, who ran the Boston Marathon in 1967 without permission and was accosted by a race official who tried to block her path and shouted  “get the hell out of my race.” Another was Kusick,  among the finishers of the first NYC Marathon in 1970. And it was Tarnawsky who wrote a scathing reply to Jackson in Runner’s World. Fear of injury to women, she said, is “the last gasp of Victorian over-caution.” She explained that women distance runners report they feel physically better after training for races and running in them. “Finally,” she observed, “we women long distance runners notice that nobody worries publicly about the effects of long distance efforts on the men. Nor is anybody using it as a pretext to curb the men’s activities. Yet imagine the temporary effect that a marathon in 90-degree heat must have on a guy’s ability to be a father.”

As for the snarky comment that women distance runners are “merely out for a lark,” Tarnawsky replied, “No, Dr. Jackson, we’re not out for a lark. We’re not even merely dead serious. We are out—each in her own way—to get back something that an over-repressive, over-protective society took away from us.

“Me, for instance. Oh how I resent the fact that a Dr. Jackson in my high school refused to allow girls’ track but kept us doing inane calisthenics….I loved long runs but I had to do them on playgrounds, where I could beat most any boy at a sprint or longer. Had an enlightened coach been around, he might have made a fair cross-country runner out of me.

“College was even worse,” she continued. “There were Dr. Jacksons who taught us fencing, modern dance, and even how to walk balancing a book on our heads. But no distance running, with all the superb mental and physical benefits than women can get from it.
“Our society does its best to keep women fretting on the minimal levels….Now that I am 34 and have finally stumbled back into what I wanted to do all along, I intend to make up for lost time. I am sure that each of the other women marathoners could tell you a similar story about her motive. It is a motive that makes us very stubborn. And you will find it a very hard motive to fight.”

This Sunday, thousands of women will run in the NYC Marathon thanks to those stubborn fighters for women’s rights.  They made history and they deserve to be honored.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

If you have been watching any National Football League games this month you have no doubt noticed the players wearing pink shoes or sporting pink ribbon symbols on their jerseys. You’ve seen fans standing and cheering in honor of women introduced on the field as survivors of breast cancer. As the TV announcers put it, the NFL is a “proud supporter” of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I hope one day there will also be an NFL Awareness Month and people will cheer for the widows and caretakers of men who suffered paralysis, brain damage, blown out knees, or other crippling injuries—or who simply died too young as a result of playing professional football (the average life span of an NFL player is well below the national average).

Johnny Unitas, one of the all-time great quarterbacks, died of a heart attack in 2002 at age 69. When I saw him last at a public appearance he could barely walk. Sandra Unitas remembers how her husband late in life could barely sign autographs with his once-powerful right hand. She told a reporter for the Baltimore Sun that she used to find rubber bands strapped to pens he had jerry-rigged so he could scrawl his name. His renowned “Golden Arm” was no longer of much use due to a tendon injury suffered during a 1968 preseason game. Sandra testified at a House subcommittee hearing in 2007 that investigated the league’s a disability system after complaints from numerous retired players that it was too difficult even for those with debilitating football injuries to qualify for benefits. Even her legendary husband’s disability claim was denied. “He would have been there,” she said of the hearing. “This is something deep to his heart. He was very disappointed in the league’s action—or lack of action.”

Tight end John Mackey, one of Unitas’ favorite pass receivers was also 69 when he died in 2011. In 10 seasons with the Colts and Chargers, Mackey caught 331 passes for 5,236 yards. In 1992 he joined Unitas as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the second tight end to be inducted. A few years ago he appeared on “60 Minutes” with his wife Sylvia. She did most of the talking because her husband had become so demented she had to prompt him to remember that he’d played for the Colts. Last year, researchers at Boston University reported that Mackey had suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a chronic degenerative brain disease. Despite rules changes enacted in recent years to improve safety, trauma remains an integral part of all NFL games. Viewers love those bone-crunching hits and tackles so the rules committee deems all but the most egregious to be “legal.”

Sylvia Mackey filed a wrongful death suit against the NFL just last week. It contains language similar to the almost 300 others filed against the league since 2011. “During his career in the NFL, Decedent experienced repeated traumatic head impacts. However, Decedent was never warned of the dangers of repetitive head impacts.” In August the NFL and attorneys representing over 4,600 former players announced a proposed $765 million settlement to long-running litigation over long-term brain damage caused by concussions. The announcement did not stop the stream of lawsuits.

I would like NFL Awareness Month to keep alive the memory of Daryl Stingley, who died in 2007 at age 55. He had been a receiver for the New England Patriots until he was brutally blindsided by Jack Tatum of the Oakland Raiders in an exhibition game in August 1978 and spent the rest of his life paralyzed in a wheelchair. Tatum, who proudly bore the nickname “The Assassin,” never apologized. After all, the helmet-to-helmet hit was “legal” back then. “No flag was thrown, no fine was assessed. It was the kind of hit that fans craved, and networks showed on the highlights,” recalled sportswriter Mike Lopresti. “Only Stingley wasn’t moving.”

Tatum did say he felt bad about what happened but maintained he had not done anything illegal for which to apologize. After all, the league, the media, and fans had acclaimed him for being a hard tackler. He died in 2010 at age 61 after spending his last years with parts of both legs taken by diabetes. When Stingley heard the news in 2003 that Tatum lost part of his leg, he told The Boston Globe: “Maybe the natural reaction is to think he got what was coming to him….but God teaches us to love.”

This post was brought to you by Zest of Orange, proud supporter of NFL Awareness Month.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

This week I planned to write about a recent letter to the editor published  in  Orange County’s lone daily newspaper. A woman who said she is a public health worker wrote to complain about being pressured to have a flu shot. She said she doesn’t want one because it contains beta-Propiolactone and, according to a certain anti-vaccine organization, “beta-Propiolactone is a very irritating liquid that is also used in anti-rabies vaccines.”

“Now,” she continued, “the state wants to make it mandatory for all state health employees to get the flu shot, or wear a mask at all times. This is absurd, since the flu shot does not guarantee that all inoculated employees will not get the flu, be a flu carrier, or transmit some other disease. I consider this a dictatorship.” But no one ever said the flu vaccine will protect everyone against becoming infected or transmitting the disease. It has, however, been shown in scientifically validated studies to protect a large percentage of the population. In people at highest risk (e.g, babies, infants, and the elderly) flu shots have saved countless lives. A public health worker who refuses to get the flu shot and considers it a dictatorship when encouraged to do so (even when offered the option of wearing a mask) is a public health menace.

Her final paragraph gives further testimony to her ignorance: “As for myself, I consume yogurt almost every day, or use a supplement known as acidophilus and lysine or both. I also take a multi-vitamin not more than 100 percent of the RDA to prevent overdosing. This is not a guarantee that I will not get the flu, but neither is a flu shot.” Consuming yogurt, vitamins and supplements may arguably be good for her overall health but they have nothing to do with a person’s susceptibility to the influenza virus, which is spread by airborne droplets.

So I was going to explain that in more detail and also lambaste the newspaper for publishing the letter in the first place because the misinformation it contains is intended to discourage readers from getting inoculated against influenza. The newspaper is not obliged to publish every letter it receives. I know this firsthand because when I wrote a letter in opposition to proposed cuts to Social Security a while back they didn’t publish it.

But just as I began going through some educational materials I have on file about influenza prevention I noticed from the corner of my eye a stinkbug on my office window. Maybe that shouldn’t have stopped me from carrying on with my work but there is something in my nature that does not allow it. The moment I see a bug in my house I act on it immediately. Back in the day, when I lived in an apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I became so adept at killing cockroaches that I fancied myself a matador of sorts. I was the great “El Judío.” I used several techniques, foremost of which was a barefoot stomp. When I executed a clean kill with a single stomp I heard shouts of “Olé!” in my head. When I botched the kill I heard jeers and whistles. In time I developed a kind of respect for roaches that gamely eluded me and forced me to work harder for the kill. But unlike a real matador, who has the option of sparing the life of a “good” bull, I never spared a good cockroach.

I am similarly skilled at killing flies and delight in snatching them barehand in midair. (Fly swatters are for amateurs.) I feel proud when eyewitnesses, including my children, express admiration, although I had a hard time with the flies in Atlanta when I visited my son Kenny and his family there. “These flies aren’t like New York flies,” he said after I’d swiped at a few and came up empty handed. “They’re a lot quicker and smarter.”

A couple of year ago I found the fruit flies in our kitchen even more challenging than those speedy, intelligent Atlanta flies. The tiny little buggers seemed to have a sixth sense, anticipating my every move and flitting away just when I thought I had them. It took me awhile to figure out their behavior patterns—time that no doubt should have been spent working—but I was driven and refused to let some little speck of a fruit fly get the better of me. In the end I showed them who was boss, although I seem to remember causing some property damage when I smacked a cabinet too hard. Or maybe it was the wall. I’ll have to ask Eva-Lynne. She’ll remember. The fruit flies drove me crazy but my obsession with them drove her nuts too.

We had stinkbugs last year but they proved to be no challenge other than being repulsive to look at, especially when perched on furniture or a plate full of food. But they had no survival skills to speak of. Once in a while you would see one take to the air but for the most part they just stayed where they were and let you catch them. No skill or artistry was involved. You had plenty of time to grab a piece of paper towel or toilet paper and return to the site and—to borrow a phrase from Henry Miller—squish squish. They were gray and I never noticed an odor upon their demise.

This year we have a stinkbug of a different color. They are darker in hue and somewhat aromatic. They fly more often than they did last year and when they do it makes a loud buzzing sound. The first time I heard it I thought there was some work going on outside, maybe someone using a buzz saw. Then I saw that all the noise was from one damnable stinkbug flying around the ceiling fan.

Let me tell you something: These guys are a lot more elusive than their gray cousins were last year. Oh, they’ll stay still for you if they’re within reach, but they also like to set up shop in high places, such as our two skylight windows, where many have been congregating lately. Getting at them proved no easy feat.

I tried using a stepladder but got dizzy before I got to the top step and by then I knew I wouldn’t have been able to reach them anyway. Then I remembered a technique I’ve often used for moths with considerable success. I grabbed one of Eva-Lynne’s Country Living magazines and heaved it up at them. But I didn’t get it high enough and when it crashed to the floor the binding loosened and a couple of pages fell out. I stuffed the pages back in and put the battered magazine in the middle of the pile. I tried again with a different issue of Country Living. This time I heaved it just high enough to disturb several stinkbugs, inducing them all to fly at the same time. The ensuing loud buzzing was terrifying and another magazine had taken a beating for naught.

Then I tried using an extendable feather duster I found in a closet. When fully extended it was long enough to reach the skylights. Hoo Ha! I aimed the business end of the duster at one of the remaining stinkbugs, but it simply shrugged it off and moved slowly toward a corner for cover. The feathers (actually synthetic fibers) were too soft to inflict damage. I tried again, pushing harder, to no avail. Then I tried whacking the flying ones, swinging the duster like a baseball bat. But they simply buzzed away on contact and I’d swear they were taunting me by flying near my head and weaving in and out of striking range.

And then, almost serendipitously, I discovered the technique. I lifted the duster and held it directly in the flight path of a stinkbug. The bug flew into it full speed….and was trapped. I opened the front door, shook out the duster and voila! Mr. Stinkbug landed on his back and I finished him off with a foot stomp. I tried it with the other fliers with the same result. And then I tried pushing the duster into the skylight next to an immobile stinkbug, jiggling it gently around and over the bug. It worked. And one by one they allowed me to take them outside to meet their maker. As Lawrence Welk used to say of Geritol “Take it from me folks, it really works.” Try it yourself. And if you prefer, you can release the bug into the wild as I do nowadays when I trap daddy long legs spiders in our house. Not stinkbugs though.

But in any case don’t forget to get your flu shot this year.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.