By Michael Kaufman

The other day I found a yellowed copy of a piece I wrote in 1971 about a passionate speech given by Bill Bradley at an event honoring collegiate scholar-athletes. Bradley was 27 then and a star player for the New York Knickerbockers. Before becoming a pro basketball player he was Phi Beta Kappa at Princeton and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Sports announcers and writers called him “Dollar Bill” but his Knicks teammates often referred to him as “President of the United States.”

Ironically, by the time Bradley made his unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for president in 1992, the passion in his speeches, like his basketball skills, was long gone.  But what he told the scholar-athletes makes as much sense today as it did in 1971. All you have to do is adjust the geography occasionally to reflect present-day conditions. “We live in a world where survival becomes more precious every day,” said Bradley. “The basic racial antagonism of our American history remains festering without sufficient attention. Eighteen-year-old Americans are sent—unconstitutionally—to die in a civil war of an underdeveloped country on the other side of the world for the espoused purpose of protecting us.

“Political fugitives compose one half the FBI’s most wanted list. Hollow men in skyscrapers make private investment decisions without concern for man or nature. Mass education programs students to fit in categories of mediocrity, where imagination falls before the sword of efficiency.” I told you he was passionate. And he was just getting started.

“We learn our myths early, and we see the world prove it. The myth of America’s moral superiority….of manifest destiny….of the melting pot and the deceptive belief in progress. And hovering behind the myths lie the frightful possibilities of nuclear war where man can turn himself to ashes.” He implored the young scholar-athletes not to turn their backs on the problems but to “deal with the social environment of America which is disintegrating before our eyes.

He scoffed at those who respond that the United States is the “best country in the world” and that anyone who criticizes it is a traitor. “Is a man un-American to suggest and explain the dimensions of our social and economic problems?” He urged the scholar-athletes not to get “disillusioned” but cautioned them against relying on “textbook answers” or to become “unquestioning cogs in a bureaucratic machine.”
He spoke of the relationship of sports to society and his discomfort with the vicarious way in which people identify with athletes. “Thousands of people who don’t know me use my participation on a Sunday afternoon as an excuse for non-action, as a fix to help them escape their everyday problems and our society’s problems.” He urged his listeners not to sit back and allow others to fight for change without them.

“Only you as an individual who makes a seemingly meaningless commitment of himself can change things,” said Bradley. “No one else can do it for you. Only millions of ones can succeed in demanding that 18-year-olds no longer be sent to die in the quagmires of Southeast Asia….that private investment decisions will no longer be made without concern for man or nature, and that men no longer treat their fellow men as objects of senseless hatred.”

If Bradley had made speeches like that during the 1992 Democratic candidates’ debates, he might even have become president. I  know he’d have gotten my vote.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com

By Michael Kaufman 

September, in case you didn’t know, is National Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. Maybe you haven’t heard of it because no one has come up with a clever symbol like the pink ribbon used to highlight breast cancer awareness. Neither breast cancer nor prostate cancer is anything to joke about but somehow this reminds me of an old joke about a mohel, whose job is to perform ritual circumcisions, who rents a storefront to drum up business. He puts a sign bearing his name and profession in the window. Then he decorates the rest of the window with herring.

“So,” asks the first person who enters, “why do you have herring hanging in the window?”

“What should I have in the window?”

Perhaps there is a bit of subconscious irony at play in thinking of the joke: The prostate is attached to bundles of nerves and blood vessels linked to the penis. Ritual circumcision occurs at the beginning of a male baby’s life at the tip of his penis, whereas the prostate gland, located just in front of the rectum, is a matter of concern for the aging adult male.

Be that as it may, prostate cancer is among the most common cancers for men living in the United States and continues to take a devastating toll on thousands of lives each year. After skin cancer, it is the second most common cancer in American men—second only to lung cancer as a cause of cancer deaths. The National Cancer Institute estimates that 238,590 new cases of prostate cancer will be reported in the U.S. in 2013 and that 29,720 men will die of the disease.

Thanks to recent advancements in treatment, however, nearly 100 percent of men are still alive five years after diagnosis of prostate cancer; more than 93 percent are alive 10 years after diagnosis, and approximately 79 percent are alive after 15 years. While those numbers are encouraging, the need for greater awareness remains: Prostate cancer rarely causes symptoms until the disease is far advanced and more difficult to treat. Thus, screening is essential for at least some men aged 40 and above.

Many men are resistant to screening because the physical evaluation begins with a digital rectal exam (DRE). As described in a Johns Hopkins Medicine White Paper on prostate disorders, the DRE, “which involves the insertion of a gloved, lubricated finger into the rectum, is mildly uncomfortable but extremely important.” I don’t know about you but I don’t like having “a gloved, lubricated finger” inserted into my rectum one bit. I waited three years before going to my most recent “annual” physical examination by my internist because my memories of past DREs made my skin crawl.

A couple of years ago the Prostate Cancer Foundation launched a brilliant campaign at the beginning of Prostate Cancer Awareness Month that used humor to try overcome men’s reluctance to undergo the DRE. The campaign, featuring a character named “Branko, the Prostate Czech” was a big success. (Watch the video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wal7b6kXgU)

But the DRE is merely the first step in a dizzying process of diagnostic and potential treatment choices. At each step, starting with the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test, there is widespread disagreement among medical specialists and conflicting sets of guidelines. As noted by the Mayo Clinic, “A number of major professional organizations and government agencies have weighed in on the benefits and risks of PSA testing. The American Cancer Society, the American Urological Association, the American College of Preventive Medicine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force all recognize the controversy surrounding screening with the PSA test and the lack of firm evidence that screening can prevent deaths from prostate cancer.” The full Mayo Clinic explanation of the risks associated with prostate cancer screening is available at www.mayoclinic.com/health/psa-test/MY00180/DSECTION=risks

In August an international panel of experts at the Prostate Cancer World Congress in Melbourne, Australia, issued a five-point “consensus statement” in an attempt to bring clarity to the confusion that exists with existing guidelines and to offer “reasonable and rational guidance for the early detection of prostate cancer today.” I read the statement. I’m still confused.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

“Don’t take any wooden nickels,” I told my 21-year-old daughter Gahlia as she left the house after a recent visit. She turned and stared at me as if I’d just started speaking in tongues.

“What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

I started to explain but her eyes glazed over and she said she had to go. For the record, a number of explanations are given as to the origin of the phrase but “don’t take any wooden nickels” is generally used as an admonition not to get cheated or ripped off. But if Gahlia, who tends to be au courant, never heard of it, maybe it is not so generally used anymore.

A few weeks ago my wife Eva-Lynne and I went out to dinner with my brother Gene, his wife Sue, and their grown son David. At one point I mentioned that I’d “finally gotten off the schneid” and written a couple of essays for prior learning credit from Empire State College.

“What does that mean?” asked Eva-Lynne, “Off your butt?”

“Er, not exactly. You never heard anyone say ‘off the schneid?’”

“Never heard of it.”

Turns out neither had Sue or David. Only my elder brother knew what it meant. “Can you explain it?” Eva-Lynne asked Gene.

“Not exactly,” he said. “I just know what it means.”

True, the expression is most often heard when uttered by baseball announcers and I was the only baseball aficionado at the table. But Gene knew it immediately even though he hasn’t paid any attention to baseball for as long as I’ve known him. To be “on the schneid” means to be on a losing (or scoreless or hitless) streak and to be “off the schneid” is to break a scoreless or hitless or winless streak. According to the Dickson Baseball Dictionary, “schneid” is actually short for “schneider,” a term originally used in the card game of gin, meaning to prevent an opponent from scoring any points. “Schneider” entered the jargon of gin from German (probably via Yiddish), where it means “tailor.” If you were “schneidered” in gin, you were “cut” (as if by a tailor) from contention in the game.

Some words and expressions widely used today have a different connotation than they did only a few decades ago. The aforementioned Gahlia recently told her mother (albeit in jest), “You suck.” When I was her age the word “suck” had a specific meaning and was most often seen scrawled on the walls of stalls in public rest rooms, along with crude drawings of male private parts. Saying it to one’s mother, even in jest, was unthinkable. (I’m still not crazy about it but Gahlia has a way of saying things that make you laugh in spite of yourself.)

Once, when Eva-Lynne told me about a great deal she saw advertised, I said, “I’m from Missouri.”

She said, “You’re from Missouri? I thought you were from New York.”

But maybe that’s a horse of a different color.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

Bennett Weiss wore an “I Am Trayvon” button when he joined fellow Newburgh residents and others at a rally in that city July 17 following the acquittal of George Zimmerman. Others in the crowd wore similar buttons, including young African American men around the same age as the unarmed 17-year-old shot and killed by Zimmerman in February 2012. For Weiss the button was a gesture of solidarity, one he says “had a little extra meaning” after an incident that occurred earlier that day.

He had driven his minivan to a remote parking lot of the heavily wooded Cronomer Hill Park, where he was about to walk his dog. “I had one shoe on,” he recalls, and he was bending down to put on the other one.  At that moment a “very angry” Town of Newburgh police officer ordered him to get out of the car. “Put your hands on the side of the car. NOW!” yelled the cop. “What are you doing here?”

Weiss says he responded as calmly as he could despite the “infuriating” circumstances: “Why are you acting like this? I did nothing wrong.”

“What are you doing here?” repeated the cop in a tone Weiss remembers as “even harsher.” Although his brain screamed, “NONE OF YOUR @$$%^! BUSINESS,” Weiss explained that he was about to take his dog for a morning walk.

“He asked for my name and address and if I am the registered owner of the vehicle.” Then, Weiss says, the cop thundered, “What are you hiding in the car?”

“Nothing, officer, and I don’t appreciate being treated like this. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Get over there, lean against my car and don’t move.”

“He searched my car,” says Weiss. “He found nothing in it…. except my hard-to-miss 100- lb Newfoundland.”

“Why were you reaching under your seat as I pulled up?”

Weiss pointed to his one bare foot. “Uh, to get my shoes on. Did you happen to find a blue, size 13 sneaker?”

According to Weiss the officer gradually calmed down and explained that he was acting on orders from “the Chief” to crack down on suspicious characters in the park. He said several incidents of “public homosexual lewdness” were reported to have taken place on the grounds.

“After a while the officer explained that he had felt endangered by my bending over out of his sight. He said that for all he knew I had just robbed a bank and would as soon shoot him as go to jail.  Aside from the fact that no reported bank heists had occurred that morning, even the dumbest bank robber wouldn’t make a minivan plastered with easily identifiable homemade bumper stickers his getaway car.” But Weiss says they parted amicably and he was able to clear his head “on a long hike with my best friend scampering about exploring the wonders of his far simpler world.” And then, Weiss says, it hit him:

“What if instead of my being a 64-year-old, grey bearded white guy with a big black dog, I had been an 18-year-old effeminate Black guy with a French poodle? Or a 27-year-old tattooed Latino with a pit bull? Or simply a person of color of any age? How much more threatened would this veteran officer of the law have felt?

“And what if instead of being a uniformed cop, he had been a ‘neighborhood watch’ wannabe? I surely would not have stood idly by and let him abuse me like that. I would not have been able to hold my tongue. Running at my age is not an option. I would have had no choice but to ‘stand my ground.’ And had I been shot dead, the ground stood would have been his.

“So, am I Trayvon? Do I have a right to wear that button? Yes. We all do. And the ground we must stand upon has not yet been reached, so we must keep marching till we reach the higher ground.”

Judging from some of the comments I’ve heard lately and recent letters to the editor I’ve read, we’ll be marching for a long while.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

I am nine years old on a crowded bus en route to Fritz Costigan’s day camp in Long beach on a hot day in July and one of the kids shouts “National!” In a New York second another one hollers “American!” Thus begins a game of who can yell the loudest: kids who will be rooting for the National League in the impending Major League Baseball All-Star Game (a temporary alliance of Brooklyn Dodgers fans and supporters of the New York Giants) versus those who will be cheering for the American League (Yankees fans and perhaps an oddball or two who favor an out-of-town team, i.e. the Boston Red Sox or Cleveland Indians).

“National!”

“American!”

The shouts gett louder as more people join in, evolving into a rhythmic call-and-response:“National!”

“American!”

In the days leading up to the All-Star Game the shouts on the bus provided a welcome break from the endless singing of “Hundred Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” I’ve always suspected that this experience has served me well later in life, especially at anti-war demonstrations. I am always among the first and loudest to shout “Peace!” when someone hollers “What do we want?” and “Now!” when someone bellows “When do we want it?”

I loved the All-Star Game Tuesday night despite the fact that my team lost and in spite of all the annoying ways the game has changed since I was a kid. I hate the hoopla and hype and sideshow events such as the Home Run Derby they put on the night before. The game doesn’t need it. No Home Run Derby or other falderal can provide a memory as splendid as Mariano Rivera’s final All-Star appearance when called upon to pitch the eighth inning: the cheers for the great Yankees closer roared long and loud from a crowd composed largely of Mets fans as players from both teams stood and applauded in appreciation.

Watching the game Tuesday night triggered other treasured baseball memories: my father taking me to Ebbets Field to see Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers; Jim Bunning’s perfect game against the Mets at the Polo Grounds; getting autographs at the Polo Grounds from Stan Musial, Gil Hodges and Casey Stengel, and Opening Day at Shea Stadium in 1964 (when a stranger handed me and a few high-school friends passes that got us into the Diamond Club for a fancy post-game reception).

In 1975 I took my five-year-old son Kenny to Shea to see his favorite team, the Yankees. (Lord, where did I go wrong?) The Yankees played their home games there in 1974 and 1975 while the old Yankee Stadium was being refurbished. We had seats close to the field between first base and right field and as Kenny’s favorite player, Lou Piniella, trotted past us between innings, Kenny called out to him by name—at least what he thought was his name: “Loop! Loop!” Piniella looked up and smiled and to this day that is one of Kenny’s baseball memories too.

A few years later I took Kenny to Yankee Stadium to see an American League playoff game between the Yankees and Kansas City Royals. That was the year George Brett came close to hitting .400. The Yankee fans sitting near us didn’t take kindly to my cheering for the Royals. One guy poured beer on my head. Another, who had obviously had one too many, pointed at me and loudly told Ken, “Get rid of him. He’s no good!” We still laugh about it.

I took my daughter Sadie (who I sometimes inexplicably call Kenny) to her first game when she was seven. The Mets played the Pittsburgh Pirates that day and I don’t remember who won–but I will never forget the look of wonderment on her face when we entered the ballpark and she saw the field of green for the first time. (I felt the same way at her age at Ebbets Field.)

In the years that followed we went to many a game together, including game seven of the 2006 National League playoffs. The Mets lost to the St. Louis Cardinals that night but we saw one of the greatest plays of all time: the amazing catch by Endy Chavez, leaping above the left field wall to rob Scott Rolen of a home run in the top of the sixth inning. Two years later we said goodbye to Shea at the last game.That seems a fitting place to end on this hot day in July. I think everyone who loves baseball has a unique set of personal memories. What are some of yours?

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

 By Michael Kaufman

I’ve known for a long time that The New York Times often falls short of its boastful claim to provide readers with “all the news that’s fit to print.” The Times has dropped the ball on any number of important issues over the years, including such weighty issues as the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But it has also dropped the ball on less weighty, but nonetheless irksome, matters, exemplified by its biased coverage of New York’s two major league baseball teams. And frankly, I’m sick of it.

Wednesday afternoon the Mets completed a three-game sweep of the San Francisco Giants, defending World Series champions and a contender for first place in the National League West. It was the 16th win in the last 25 games for the Mets and was especially noteworthy for the outstanding pitching of rookie right-handed hurler Zack Wheeler. Marlon Byrd, who hit a grand-slam home run in Tuesday’s game, hit a two-run homer Wednesday. The 35-year-old veteran outfielder has been a key contributor to the recent success of the team, with his glove and fine throwing arm as well the bat.

Another veteran, Omar Quintanilla, has been making spectacular plays at shortstop since taking over for the injured Ruben Tejada, and has also delivered a number of clutch hits with men on base (though none Wednesday). So what was the headline Thursday in the Times article about Wednesday’s game? “In Managing Harvey’s Innings, the Mets Make an All-Star Allowance.” Huh? The first 16 paragraphs of the article dealt with a topic that had already been widely discussed for days, namely that the Mets planned to rest their All-Star pitcher Matt Harvey during the final games before the All-Star Game, presumably in the hope that he would be named starting pitcher for the National League in the game Tuesday night at Citi Field. This is certainly an interesting topic and I have my own thoughts about it too—but it is not what I want to be reading about for the first 16 paragraphs of an article about Wednesday’s game by beat writer Andrew Keh. Even the Times Herald-Record, which hasn’t assigned beat writers to the Yankees and Mets for years (and which also has a long history of favoring the Yankees) got it right in their headline above a workmanlike article produced by the Associated Press: “Clean sweep for Zack, Mets, Wheeler mows down Giants.”

The Times’ bias against the Mets has been blatant all year.  Both the Yankees and Mets opened the season at home April 1. The Mets won their game against the San Diego Padres by a score of 11-2.  The Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 8-2. The next day, the Times article about the Mets game was about a third the size of the article about the Yankees game. And, as noted in an email from Tad Richards (poet, director of Opus 40, and Mets fan) “It’s mostly about what a terrible team the Mets are and they can’t expect to have too many days like this. Instead of writing about what Cowgill and Byrd did in the game, they wrote about what they did last year. And, well, I could go on and on, but ‘Bleep the New York Times’ covers it.” (Only he didn’t say “Bleep.”)

Tad’s email, sent to a small cadre of Mets fans scattered across the country, drew unanimous agreement. After the Mets swept a four-game series from the Yankees in May, it was Tad’s daughter Caitlin who wrote, “Why can’t we get any respect?  We just swept the Yankees for the first time in history, we played four great games, yet the Times articles are making excuses for the Yankees rather than applauding the achievements of the Mets. They were amazing. Let them have their moment.” Peter Jones agreed, noting, “The Times treats the Mets as if they were from Boston.” To which Tad added, “More like as if they were from Poughkeepsie.”

But I think Jon Richards, Tad’s brother (film critic, cartoonist for Huffington Post, and co-author of Nick and Jake) who may have said it best: “The Times sees the Yankees as the pinstriped Lords of Wall Street, and the Mets as the poor outerborough slobs who lose their house even if they’re paid up on their mortgage.”

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

When we think of prisons the images that usually come to mind are of barred cells, armed guards, and barbed wire. But Anne Braden, who devoted her life to the causes of civil rights and social justice, offered another perspective. Braden, who died in 2006 at age 82, observed that society builds prisons around people. She said she was born privileged in a class society and white in a racist society. And it was hard to break out of those prisons.

“The hardest thing was class,” she said. “I don’t know that I ever could have broken out of what I call the race prison if I hadn’t dealt with class.” The comment appeared in an article I read recently but it was the sentence that followed that really hit home as a reflection of life in the United States today. “It’s that assumption that is so embedded in you that you don’t realize it’s there—that your crowd is supposed to be running things.”

That was surely Mitt Romney’s assumption and that of those who paid $50,000 for dinner to hear his infamous “47 percent” speech deriding government “entitlements.” What other explanation can there be for the vehement opposition of millionaires to a modest increase in the minimum wage? It explains how people like Charles Krauthammer and Fox News (sic) commentators can ask what all the fuss was about when speaking of the sequester. They simply don’t know anyone affected by it.

And now that the Voting Rights Act has been gutted by the Supreme Court of the United States, it is how they can proclaim that racism is a thing of the past. We have a Black president don’t we? In reality the provisions of the Voting Rights Act should have been extended to include states it had not covered before (i.e., all states in which voter suppression plans were authorized by state and local legislatures). Again, words spoken by Anne Braden in 1980 ring true: “The real danger comes from people in high places, from the halls of Congress to the boardrooms of our big corporations, who tell white people that if their paychecks are eaten up by taxes it’s not because of our bloated military budget but because of government programs that benefit black people. If young whites are unemployed, it’s because blacks are getting all the jobs. Our problem is the people in power who are creating a scapegoat mentality. That is what is creating the danger of a fascist movement in America.” Today the scapegoat mentality has expanded to fuel right-wing extremist organizations and armed militias targeting undocumented immigrants.

Last year the Southern Poverty Law Center tracked 1,360 right-wing militias and anti-government groups, an eight-fold increase over 2008, when it recorded 149 such groups. The explosive growth that began in 2008 was sparked by the election of President Obama and anger about the poor economy, according to a report issued earlier this year by the center. And that growth is likely to continue as the groups recruit more members with a pro-gun message, the center’s senior fellow Mark Potok told USA Today.

“This country was built on white supremacy,” Anne Braden said in 2004, explaining that she prefers using the term “white supremacy” to “racism” because “it’s more what we really mean—you don’t have to get into endless arguments about whether Blacks can be racist.” And if you understand that the original wealth of this country came from slavery and the slave trade itself was based on the assumption of white supremacy, you can see how white supremacy was “built into the institutions, including the courts, from the beginning.”

“Anne pointed out that as long as race could be used to get a majority of white Americans to oppose efforts for a more just society, there will be no hope of ending poverty, homelessness, environmental destruction, inequality, or of making the kind of transformative change imperative if democracy is to be real in our nation,” wrote Janet Tucker in a review of Anne Braden: Southern Patriot, a documentary film about Braden’s life. Southern Patriot was the name of the newspaper Anne edited during the many years she and her husband Carl worked for the Southern Conference Educational Fund.

The Bradens are probably best known for a 1954 incident in which they purchased a house in an all-white neighborhood of Louisville and, in a pre-arranged transaction resold it to a black family. A cross was burned on the lawn, the house was bombed, and the buyer, Andrew Wade, decided to move his young family out of the house because of fear for their safety. Instead of going after the whites who planted the bomb, the Bradens were tried—and Carl jailed—on charges of sedition, attempting to overthrow the government of Kentucky. The conviction was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Anne encouraged white Americans to become active in the civil rights movement but not simply as “something we’re called on to help people of color with. We need to become involved with it as if our lives depended on it because, in truth, they do.” Many, however, still need to break out of their prisons.

Michael can be reached at mchael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

One day last week I was at my desk writing a medical news article on a tight deadline when the phone rang and I heard the non-human, monotonous voice that says who is calling announce, “Call from Gallup Poll.” I tried to ignore it but when I heard it repeated I couldn’t resist. Was it really the Gallup Poll calling to ask for my opinions? How could I pass up the chance to tell them how I feel about drones, Afghanistan, cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid? Guantanamo? I’d say “Close it!” Immigration reform? “Yes and without punitive restrictions.” Minimum wage? ”Raise it.” Health care? “Single payer.” Obama? “Disappointing.”

So I picked up the phone and a woman who said her name was Samantha said she was calling from the Gallup Poll and may she please speak to the nearest person in the household over 18. “Wait,” I said. “Do you mean the person over 18 nearest in age to 18, or anyone in the house over 18?” Once we’d established it was the latter I said I would be glad to speak with her but I don’t have a lot of time because of my deadline. She said it would only take about 15 minutes. I said okay. And for the next half hour or so it went something like this:

SAMANTHA: What is your religion?

ME: That’s a tough one. I kind of doubt the existence of God so I’m inclined to say I’m agnostic. Is that an option?

SAMANTHA: Yes. So do you want to say agnostic?

ME: I don’t know. I’m agnostic but I’m Jewish even though I’m skeptical about God. I respect the ancestors. I’m observant in my own way.

SAMANTHA: Okay, so do you want to say Jewish?

ME: Yes.

SAMANTHA: Where you live do you feel safe when you walk alone at night?

ME: Well, we live in the country and when I walk the dog at night I worry about coyotes, rabid racoons and even black bears. One time there was a big one standing on its hind legs and pawing at our garbage can right when I went out with the dog. And also I’m from the city originally so a lot of the noises at night seem a little scary. But I think that question is really about feeling safe with regard to other people….so I’ll say yes.

SAMANTHA: Do you think conditions in the town or area you live are changing for the better or for the worse?

ME: Worse….because there’s too much development and a lot more traffic now than when we first moved up here.

SAMANTHA: Are you planning to move to a different location within the next few years?

ME: No. We love it here.

SAMANTHA: In the past 7 days, how many times have you exercised for at least 45 minutes?

ME: Geez, I don’t know.

SAMANTHA: Do you want to just take a guess?

ME: Okay, four times. I walk the dog a lot but I was out of town last week so I…..wait a minute! I did a lot of walking there around the convention center and the streets in Chicago. Put five times.

SAMANTHA: How many times in the past 7 days did you eat at least four servings of fresh fruits and vegetables?

ME: Man, I don’t know! Just say three.

And so it went, with questions about my personal health and whether I have health insurance coverage, and whether I worry about finances (I wanted to answer that one with a question of my own: “Is the Pope Catholic?”) She never asked my opinion about Guantanamo or the drones or any of the other things I wanted to talk about.

But it is the one question I asked her at the start that made me stay on the phone: “Do you earn more money if someone takes the survey when you call?” She said she doesn’t think she is supposed to answer that question. So even though I never got to give my opinions and I almost blew my deadline I was glad to help Samantha earn a few extra bucks at her job.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

Last week’s post about idiots (lovable and not-so-lovable) elicited a response from North Carolina via the Virtual Mailbag. It was from my old high-school friend Jonathan Kotch, whose valedictory speech at our graduation ceremony remains a happy memory. Jon departed from the script of a speech pre-approved by school officials and instead lit into them for stifling independent thinking and creativity among students and faculty.

His speech ruffled their feathers so much that Fordyce C. Stone, the superintendent of schools—and is that not just a perfect name for a superintendent of schools and maybe even president of  the American League?—called his parents later that day to see if they had any insights into why their son had been so ungrateful. After all, Stone said, he had gotten into Columbia, hadn’t he? (I’m sure the valedictory speech will be among the topics that come up later this month when a few friends from high school, some with partners or spouses, will be visiting us in Warwick.) I was at Kotch’s house when his mother took the call and I heard her tell the not-so-lovable idiot Stone that on the contrary, she was proud of Jon and that it was his own diligent work that had gotten him into Columbia.

If you go to the website of the University of North Carolina School of Public Health and look at Jon’s curriculum vitae you won’t see Oceanside High School listed there, or Columbia, for that matter. There’s just no room for them among the degrees, awards, publications, and academic appointments of Jonathan B. Kotch, M.D, M.P.H., F.A.A.P, Carol Remmer Angle Distinguished Professor of Children’s Environmental Health, Department of Maternal and Child Health, UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Actually,” wrote Jon, “they (the 7,000 pro-gun people who rallied in Albany against the new gun-control law in New York State) are all idiots. But you don’t know how good you have it in New York. In North Carolina the idiots are in charge!” He went on to explain that pro-gun state legislators “are trying (and are likely to succeed) in repealing the law that allows universities to ban concealed weapons (for that matter, any weapons) on campus. Just this week the police chief of our largest state university, N.C. State, testified at a legislative hearing that carrying firearms on campus would decrease, not increase, security. This is the same legislature that believes that it is possible to plan for the management of inlets, estuaries and ocean shorelines without addressing sea level rise (since global warming is a communist plot). Damn the facts, full speed in reverse!”

But, he continued, not everyone in North Carolina appreciates what the Republican-controlled state government is doing. “The NAACP has been coordinating demonstrations at the legislature on a weekly basis to protest cuts in unemployment benefits, health care coverage, public school funding, mental health services, and early childhood education while acting to limit racial justice in the criminal justice system, workers’ rights and voters’ rights. If I get arrested at the next demonstration on Monday I hope to bring my mug shots to the get-together at your house. Idiots indeed.”

Jon was indeed arrested and you can read all about it here: http://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2013/06/04/health-care-workers-join-protests-at-legislature/
To the rest of the world he is Jonathan B. Kotch, M.D, M.P.H., F.A.A.P., and one of the country’s leading experts in maternal and child health. To me he’s still and will always be the valedictorian.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

Before the days of E-ZPass it was not uncommon to see toll booths marked “Exact Change Lane” or “Exact Change Only.” One such booth, at exit 11 of the NJ Turnpike, where the Turnpike intersects with the Garden State Parkway, featured an additional hand-made sign: “NO DIRECTIONS.” The idea was to create a lane at the busy toll plaza where traffic could move quickly for drivers who had the exact amount ready and knew how to get where they were going. The lane was much appreciated by people on their way to work or to the shore, and it usually worked well. But not always.

One morning on my way to work my car was third from the booth when traffic came to a halt. I could see the toll collector, a short, gray-haired man who had been at the job for years, gesturing angrily at the driver of the car at the booth, and pointing to the “Exact Change” sign. But now there was no other place for the driver to go, and the toll collector eventually gave up the argument and made the necessary change.

Then the driver of the next car asked for directions. Again the exasperated toll collector pointed, this time to his hand-made “NO DIRECTIONS” sign. And again he had no choice but to provide directions in order to get traffic moving again.

When it was my turn and I handed him the exact change, he looked around, then at me, and said sadly, “There’s a bunch of idiots out there.” I have been using the line ever since, particularly with regard to family members whenever they get on my nerves. My children have all come to regard “bunch of idiots,” or simply the singular, “idiot,” as terms of endearment. Fortunately, they were able to explain this to their cousins the first time I affectionately referred to them as a bunch of idiots. “That means he really likes you a lot,” I heard  Gahlia tell Olivia. Or maybe it was Sydney. I know it was one of those idiots.

But aside from family members, those words are reserved for people I truly think worthy of the name. I’ve noticed quite a few in recent weeks. Remember the rally in Albany to protest the new gun-control law in New York State? I’m not saying all of the reported 7,000 people who were there are idiots. (I can say that all the people I saw in the newspaper photo are white….but that is a topic for a column itself.) One guy had a sign, “I don’t need an AK-47, but I want one.” Another nitwit thought it would be amusing to use his sign to poke fun at some immigrants: “My guns aren’t illegal, they’re just undocumented.”

I don’t really think that Warwick Town Supervisor Michael Sweeton is an idiot. But he is acting like one by going to all the pro-gun rallies and pandering for votes in his bid to become the Republican candidate for Orange County executive. Sweeton has now been quoted in several newspaper articles, saying of the law, “It is unconstitutional.” Since when did he become Oliver Wendell Holmes?

Then there’s the guy who wrote a letter to the editor after the Boston Marathon bombings, echoing the oft-expressed sentiment of his fellow idiots that people in Boston and surrounding areas would have felt a lot safer if they all had guns during the time the suspects were at large. Notice that you never heard of many (if any) people from Boston make such a statement. That includes the police officers and other law enforcement workers, whose jobs would have been made immeasurably more difficult if a bunch of idiots (or even just plain frightened citizens) were running around with guns. Remember when John King told CNN viewers that a reliable source told him the bomber was a “dark-skinned male?” Or when the NY Post put a picture of a backpack-toting high-school kid on the front page? Do these people not remember what happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina?

I haven’t even gotten to Ted Cruz or some of the other wackola Republicans in Congress but I think the point has been made well enough: There’s a bunch of idiots out there. Feel free to comment and add your own.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.