By Jeffrey Page

 In 2007, 12,998 people were killed in alcohol-related crashes in the United States. Nearly 400 were New Yorkers – possibly our friends, our children, our parents, our neighbors.

 Thinking about so many dead can be a difficult abstraction. But they come into focus when you realize they were a population equal to Port Jervis, Woodridge, Walker Valley, Forestburgh and the village of Florida combined.

The greatest atrocities drunken drivers perpetrate on us of course are the bloodshed and misery, and the widows and orphans they create. The randomness of their criminal acts – you could be watering your garden when some drunk runs you down – is terrifying.

Sometimes we’re subjected to additional outrages by judges who pass sentence.

And so we come to the case of Mario Reyes, 59, who was walking to catch a bus home after a night’s work at a shipping company in Miami. It was 7 a.m. when Mr. Reyes had the bad luck to encounter Donte’ Stallworth who drove up in his Bentley.

Mr. Reyes is now dead.

It was time for justice, but justice often is elusive when a case involves one person who is bathed in shiny celebrity and the other in pallid anonymity. Donte’ Stallworth is a (suspended for now) $5 million wide receiver for the Cleveland Browns. Mr. Reyes was a crane operator who likely will soon be forgotten by all but his family and friends.

Stallworth’s blood alcohol concentration at the time he killed Mr. Reyes was 0.126. In Florida, the presumption of drunkenness is reached at 0.08. This doesn’t mean you’re sober at 0.08. It’s just the legal limit. In fact, a 180-pound man who drinks two martinis in an hour will have a BAC of about 0.103.

Stallworth faced 15 years in prison for killing Mr. Reyes.

He was sentenced to 30 days by a judge newly arrived from the planet Neptune.

Thirty days for killing a man going home after a night’s work is not a sentence. It’s a minor inconvenience. To Stallworth, 28, it means he won’t be able to take in a movie, go to a ball game, have dinner out, or stop in for a drink for a whole 720 hours. To the rest of us, it’s yet another atrocity.

Additionally, Judge Dennis Murphy gave Stallworth two years of house arrest and eight years of probation. Not so severe when he could have sent Stallworth away until the age of 43.

Murphy also noted that Stallworth had agreed to pay an undisclosed sum to the Reyes family. That’s very nice, but it seems to ignore the fact that the prosecution was not in the name of the Reyes family but in the name of the people of the State of Florida, all of whom need protection from the likes of Donte’ Stallworth. The sentence also forces you to wonder what would have happened to Stallworth if he were not a rich man.

The judge then ordered Stallworth to make a $2,500 contribution to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and it is MADD that comes out of this tragedy with its head highest. MADD essentially told Stallworth and Murphy where to stick the $2,500.

“If we took the settlement, we’d be part of the settlement and we don’t agree with the sentence and therefore the settlement,” said Laura Dean-Mooney, the president of MADD.

The sentencing of people who kill with a bottle and a car shouldn’t be a joke.

Here in the Hudson Valley, a 21-year old man from New York City got two years in prison for killing a pedestrian. A man from Shadaken got one to three years for killing a man while driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.11. And in Sullivan County, a man with two previous DWI arrests on his record drew four to eight years for killing a popular 17-year old student. Two years? Three years? Four to eight? Are they the value of a human life?

Of course not, but 30 days is grotesque.

We need a law: Drink, drive, and kill? Fifteen years.

Next case.

Jeffrey can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com

The story so far:

James Dunning worked for the Record for more than 20 years. When his job was eliminated, he and his wife were forced to move in with her mother, who is allergic to dogs. James had no choice but to leave his mostly blind lhasa apso, Zoe, at the shelter. He didn’t have the heart to do it in the daytime, so he brought Zoe there before dawn and tied her to the entry gate.

By Carrie Jacobson

Zoe listens as the car pulls away. She knows the sound, she’s heard it all her life. But usually, she’s inside when the car leaves. Now, she’s outside, but she’s in her little bed, and she has her leash and collar on, and so she curls up and falls asleep.

The night grows cold around her, and the chill awakens her. She hears noises she doesn’t know. A bird calls. Tree frogs make their noises. Something rustles in the bushes and Zoe is up now, and growling.

She’s been nearly blind for so long that she doesn’t even think about it any more. Day and night look pretty much the same. She can see big shapes, and she can see movement, and she can usually tell light spaces from dark ones. In these years, though, her hearing has sharpened, and her sense of smell has become acute, and now, she knows, there’s something out there.

She growls again, a low, throaty, vicious growl. Her chest swells and her muscles tighten. But what can she do, really, if something happens? She’s a blind 12-pound dog tied to a fence. If something comes at her, if something wants to hurt her, she doesn’t have a chance.

It begins to rain then, a cold, drenching rain that comes with the wind. It splatters on the rain, and on the concrete, and on the little dog tied to the fend. Zoe’s growl turns to a whimper. She listens hard, but whatever was rustling seems to have stopped, and so she curls into a tight ball and falls asleep again.

Hours later, she awakens with a start. The rain has stopped, and the clouds have cleared, and something is watching her.

The smallest of growls escapes her throat. She knows she should be quiet, but she’s scared. The hair on her neck stands up, and she stares into the darkness, and sniffs the air, pulling it into her lungs. She smells pine needles and dirt, and something that she thinks is a big animal. She smells rain. She smells things she’s never smelled before. She homes in on the big animal. Maybe it’s a coyote, or a fox. It has a strong smell.

Something rustles in the bushes, and she growls again, though she knows she should keep quiet. Something is staring at her. She can feel it. She can almost see an outline, something lighter than the woods. Something walking across the clearing. A smell getting stronger and stronger.

Zoe is trembling now, and growling, and pulling at the leash that’s tied to the fence. Pulling and pulling, but it doesn’t want to come loose. She can’t get free from the leash or the collar or the fence, and whatever it is, it’s coming closer, and she can smell it now, a rank stink, like it’s rolled in something dead.

She’s whining now, and growling, too, and shaking with terror. The thing eyes her and makes a huge, awful growling noise, and reaches one enormous paw toward her –

And out of nowhere comes a barking, baying, snarling bolt of red dog. It launches itself at the monster, biting and growling, gnashing out with its teeth, and the coyote – for that’s what it was – backs up and backs up again and then turns and runs into the woods.

The huge red dog stands there then, panting, and then looks at Zoe, and for a moment, Zoe is sure that this is the end. But then the dog wags her big, feathery tail, and Zoe knows she’s been saved.

Carrie can be reached at carrie@zestoforange.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce

Photography by Rich Gigli.

Twould ease a butterfly -- by Emily Dickinson; Twould ease a Butterfly, Elate a Bee --Thou'rt neither -- Neither -- thy capacity. But, Blossom, were I, I would rather be. The moment than a Bee's Eternity. Content of fading, Is enough for me -- Fade I unto Devinity. And Dying --Lifetime -- Ample as the Eye. -- Her least attention raise on me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Carrie Jacobson

James turns off the highway and onto Route 6. The pavement looks soft and blue in the moonlight. Zoe feels the change in speed and lifts her head. She looks toward him even though, he knows, she can’t see him.

He pats her head, strokes her fur, and she nestles in again.

They’ve been together for a long time, James and Zoe. They’ve been together longer than he and Susan have been together, and not for the first time, James thinks that he and Zoe should just take off. He could get back on 84, they could head west and see if there’s a new life out there. A grammarian and a scruffy, blind, old dog, yeah, right.

He remembers seeing Zoe for the first time. It was about 1 in the morning, and he was at work. The first editions were out, and he was leafing through the feature pages, looking for must-repair typos, when he saw the Pets of the Week page. There was Zoe. She was just a pup, but she’d been abused. She already was blind in one eye, and the shelter workers thought she was deaf in one ear. She couldn’t be around other dogs or young children. Her hair stuck up wildly. She’d been beaten and mistreated, ignored and abused, and yet, she was defiant, and this touched James. He woke up early, headed to the shelter in Sullivan County, and claimed Zoe the next morning.

On the ride home, she sat in the passenger seat, trembling and growling. He let her out of the car at his house, walked her up and down the street, let her do her business, and then unlocked the door to his little house. She looked at the step and the hallway inside, she looked at him and then she walked in and wagged her tail for the very first time.

Their relationship did not develop overnight. Zoe, James realized, might be a mutt, but she was mostly a lhasa apso, with all that that implied. She was loyal and protective, a fierce watchdog with an explosive attacking style. It had taken a lot of training before James could even begin to control her. But as they worked together, she began to trust him. The first time she jumped up into his lap, he’d stayed still for hours, until both legs fell asleep.

And now, old girl, now I’m about to abandon you. My friend, my little guardian, my  true-hearted little dog, I’m going to leave you behind. You’d never do this to me, he thinks, and the tears fill his eyes, and Zoe looks up at him again, cocks her head, puts one paw on his leg, and James nearly loses it.

I can’t do this, he thinks. I can’t.

But what choice do I have? Dear God, what choice do I have?

He turns in to the road to the shelter, and he has to pull over, he’s crying so hard. He picks Zoe up, pulls her to him, buries his nose in her rough dry fur and hugs her to him. She licks his face, licks the tears from his cheeks, and this brings a whole new wave of grief, and James just hates himself, hates himself more than he ever has – but he has no choice, he tells himself, for the thousandth time. They have no place to live if they don’t live with Susan’s mother. They will lose everything, everything.

And so he starts the car, drives down the road to the shelter in Shohola, and stops the car by the gate.

The night is warm and clear, and James is thankful for that. He clips Zoe’s leash to her collar, and they get out. He unloads her dog bed and her blanket and her favorite rubber chew toy. He makes sure the note he’s written is still attached to her collar.

“My name is Zoe,” it reads. “I am 12 years old, and blind, and deaf in my left ear.  My owner has lost everything and can’t keep me. I am a good dog. Please find me a good home.”

He puts her dog bed right up beside the gate, and puts her in it. He  covers her with the blanket, and ties her leash to the gate itself. Daylight is not too far off. There’s no other way to do this. James can’t hand her over in person. He can’t do it. This, this horrible thing, this is the best he can do.

He pats her one last time, and as he drives away, tears streaming down his face, he pretends he can’t hear her barking for him to come back.

Carrie can be reached at carrie@zestoforange.com

By Beth Quinn

The folks on the political Far Right have been getting madder and madder since President Obama was elected. Mad as in both “angry” and “crazy.”

I learned this in person a few months ago in the Quick Stop downtown, and it took me by surprise. I was by then no longer writing my newspaper column, in which I often criticized the Far Right’s leader, President Moron. I had been under the misapprehension that one of the benefits of being laid off from my job was that the Lunatic Fringe would quit being mad at me.

Alas, I learned I was wrong on a very cold day last February when I ducked into the Quick Stop to warm up during my morning walk. A customer paying for a cup of coffee at the counter looked over at me while I was blowing on my hands and sneered, “Yeah, right. Blow on your hands. You Pinkos and your global warming.”

I had no idea who this guy was, but I felt like I was suddenly in the middle of a scene from an Indiana Jones movie when that guy brandishing a sword jumps in front of Indy. Given that I had no sword of my own to brandish, I tried having a conversation with the sneering man. A fair exchange of ideas, if you will. So I said, “Well you know, global warming is a trend, not a single day. Also, it’s really more accurately called climate change.”

This reasoning did not win him over. “Right, so what was the Ice Age?” he sneered.   “Another trend? I suppose that was our fault, too?”

The Quick Stop workers were getting nervous. Fights among customers are bad for business.

I said, “Look, I’m not the expert. But on this hand, we’ve got hundreds of reputable scientists concerned about climate change. On this other hand, I’ve got some guy at the Quick Stop sneering at me. My money is over here with the scientists.”

Then – because I never know when to shut up – I  added, “Actually, we Pinkos are inclined to believe in science in general. No dinosaurs and people living here at the same time as far as we’re concerned.”

He started sputtering and turning purple, so I left and went to the liquor store to warm up instead.

This would be funny except it isn’t. This guy was genuinely furious at me because he’d been wound up and primed for attack. That day he was sneering. Maybe next time he’ll throw coffee in someone’s face. Who knows what’s next.

Part of the blame for this kind of fury (over climate change of all things) belongs to newscasters and media stars who have become leaders of the Far Right – people like Rush Limbaugh, along with Bill O’Reilly and the rest of that merry band of hyperbolic fact twisters at Fox News. These folks are deliberating fanning the flames of anger in people who want to believe idiocy like Obama isn’t a U.S. citizen, global warming is a conspiracy, there’s a war on Christmas.

When such people get amped up by their media manipulators, they lash out. They kill people like Dr. George Tiller, a Kansas City abortion provider, who was gunned down in his church three weeks ago. Bill O’Reilly had called him Tiller the Baby Killer and compared him to the Nazis 29 times before someone out in TV Land took a gun in hand and murdered the doctor.

And the Right Wing media is egging on hate-filled bigots like James von Brunn, the white supremacist who killed a black security guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., last week. Von Brunn is one of countless white supremacists in this country who believes blacks and Jews are an affront to his master race. It is Limbaugh and the folks at Fox who whip such bigots up with their talk of “racial turnover” in America.

These would be isolated incidents except they’re not. The Far Right is seething. They’re furious that we have a black president. They have short memories about just who caused this economic mess, and they’re furious because it’s all Obama’s fault. They’re furious at people on welfare and even those on unemployment (like me) for stealing their tax dollars. They’re furious at immigrants, at people who speak a foreign language in OUR country (how dare they!), at the effrontery of a Latina woman to think she could be a good Supreme Court justice.

I am very afraid of such people because, wound up tight enough on hatred and caffeine, they become the terrorists. And they aren’t across the ocean. Sometimes they’re in the church vestibule or the museum lobby – or maybe even right downtown.

Beth can be reached at beth@zestoforange.com.

By Shawn Dell Joyce

This summer many people are rethinking their travel plans. AAA reports that slowing economy and high fuel prices “have pushed some Americans to what we call the traveling tipping point. It’s clear that a small number of us may choose to stay home … and relax with friends and family rather than take a vacation.”

Instead of making pricey travel plans this year that damage the environment as well as your bank account. Take a local vacation, or “Staycation.” This is a chance to rediscover the beauty of our home region by taking the time to visit cultural attractions and natural places that you may be too busy to see in your daily routine.

A staycation does not mean staying home and doing yard work, or the list of jobs you’ve been putting off for the past year. “Instead,” suggests Pauline Frommer of Frommer’s Travel Guides, “become a tourist in your own hometown.” Plan to see tourist attractions, historic sites, take an art class, learn to swim, or a number of small adventures you always wanted to do if you had the time.

A fringe benefit of staycations is that you develop a deeper connection to your community and home town. People feel more connected to a place when they experience the history and natural beauty of it firsthand. Try to see something different each day; a different spectacular view, a different museum, a new restaurant. At the same time, you benefit your local community by pumping vacation money into the local economy.

Some staycationers go so far as to camp in a nearby campground to get away from the daily routine. If you are addicted to technology, and can’t imagine a day without email or internet, then consider leaving the house and staycationing in a local campground or Bed and Breakfast. You’ll still save gas money and travel expenses, but you’ll feel refreshed after being away from the computer for a few days.

As an artist who paints in plein air (outdoors), I visit spectacular places in Orange County each week with the Wallkill River School. It is a constant reminder to me that we live in one of the prettiest places in the world, and are blessed to have so many picturesque farms and downtowns.

Here are a few tips for a successful staycation:

Explore the rail trails in your area by foot or bicycle. Especially the lovely new section in Walden.
Try kayaking on the Wallkill from Benedict Town Park, or the Bashakill Preserve and see how beautiful the river can be.
Go back in time at Hill-Hold Museum, or the Brick House. Both fun for the whole family.
Pine Bush has a wonderful farmer’s market on Saturdays with dozens of eclectic shops and restaurants in walking distance. Spend the day in downtown Pine Bush.
Harness Racing Museum in Goshen offers free admission! You can catch trotters training on the historic track behind the museum most days.
Ice Caves Mountain is still open at the Sam’s Point Preserve. This is a fun day trip that combines history, green architecture, and exercise with some of the loveliest views of three counties. Visit the Cragsmoor Library on your way up and learn about the Hudson River School painters that started an art colony in Cragsmoor.
Do something you ordinarily don’t make time to do, take an art class in Montgomery at the Wallkill River School, see a live performance at the Rose Theater in Walden, or learn to play a musical instrument at the New York School of Music also in Walden.
Spend a day touring the local farms that retail to the public and see what our farmers grow locally and taste local flavors. A few I visit are Hoeffner Farms, Belmond Farm, Walnut Grove Farm, C. Rowe, Soon’s Orchards, Manza, Whitecliff Vineyard, just to name a few.
Shawn Dell Joyce is a sustainable artist, founder of the Wallkill River School in Montgomery, and an author of “Orange County Bounty” local foods cookbook.

Shawn can be reached at Shawn@zestoforange.com.

By Michael Kaufman

A while back I received a phone call from my friend Dominick. “Have you talked to Paul Friedman?” he asked.
“Not recently. Why?”
“You didn’t know he had had a heart attack?”
“Paul Friedman had a heart attack?”
“Yeah… I’m surprised no one told you. He’s home now. You should give him a call.”

Paul and I have been friends since our college days at New Paltz. I was the best man at his wedding. We rarely get together now but when we do, it is like old times…so much so that Paul’s wife Jean and my wife Eva-Lynne are appalled at our reversion to youthful immaturity and bathroom humor. For example, one of us will inevitably ask, “What is your favorite opera?” The other will answer with a slight mispronunciation that gives a lewd connotation to the title of a Verdi masterpiece. It makes us laugh (and the wives scowl) every time.

And we laugh when Paul does his impression of Mr. Nana, the man who delivered sandwiches from Nana’s Restaurant to the New Paltz dorms at night. Once, when he was finished distributing the sandwiches and there was no one else around, Mr. Nana told us a lurid tale that involved the perverse use of a Coke bottle by some of the local townies. Paul remembers it word for word and recites it with the exact accent and inflection of the original. Just thinking about it makes me laugh.

Now, braced for the worst after learning of his heart attack, I forced myself to call. Would his speech be slurred? Had he become permanently enfeebled? But he answered the phone in full strong voice. 

“How are you doing?” I asked.
“Fine,” he replied.
“How is the family?”
“Good. How is your family?”
“We’re all good,” I said. “We should get together soon.”
“Yes, we should,” he answered. Before hanging up we said we would speak to our wives and make plans.

“How is he?” asked Eva-Lynne.
“Fine,” I said.
“What did he say about the heart attack?”
“He didn’t mention it.”
“And you didn’t ask about it?”
 “If he wanted to talk about it he would have,” I replied.
She disagreed and insisted that “any woman” would have questioned her heart-attack-victim friend about it even if said victim did not introduce the subject. In the days that followed we took an informal poll among our acquaintances. The results should come as no surprise. All the men thought I had handled the situation wisely. The women agreed with Eva-Lynne.

I thought of all this as I read through the responses to my first posting at Zest of Orange, wherein I shared some thoughts about the manner in which I was informed by my employer that I had just lost my job. In addition to appearing here, the article was published in the Bergen Record, the Straus chain of local weekly newspapers, and elsewhere on line. I also sent copies to friends and family members. Clearly the article struck a chord. With few exceptions, however, there were noticeable differences between responses from men and women.
                
“Well, lucky you,” wrote my old friend, Jack Radey, “being at liberty in an economy just desperate to hire men in their early 60s!  Well, there’s always the attic. I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Hey!” wrote high-school friend Alan Ellman. “Sorry to hear about you losing your job. I lost mine 3 weeks ago. We’re both in deep (bleep). Of course, since the economy is so favorable right now, I’m sure we’ll both find something very soon. AAAAGGGHHHH!”

“Capitalism is certainly proving its marvelous mettle these days, isn’t it?” wrote another high-school chum, the left-leaning Jon Rothschild. “But try not to worry,” he added. “It’ll all turn around once WWIII gets under way, just like it did last time.”

Another heart-warming reply came from Joe Popper, my old writing partner with whom I collaborated on some investigative reporting some 30 years ago: “Yo Mike,” he wrote. “Great column! Take good care, Joe”

So much for the men.

“My name is Daisy,” wrote a woman who had seen the article in the Warwick Advertiser. “My family also lives in Warwick. I read your story and I was so proud of what you wrote. You are a person with courage and integrity.”

“Loved your article,” wrote DeAnna, of Milford, PA, “but I am very sorry you lost your job. Seems we are all just a moment away and I do feel your pain. Thanks for taking the time to write. Good luck in your job search.  I truly wish you and your family the best.”

My high-school sweetheart, Janet Metzlaar, sent a 650-word email sharing what she learned from her own experiences. “When…in spite of our good will and good effort there is no longer a place for us, we find ourselves at a moment of opportunity,” she declared….Not going into an office, not being surrounded by people who don’t get our contribution….this is a gift of time. It is a rare opportunity to explore what you really want to do and tap into the creative talents that have lain dormant while you pursued the tasks of the workday.” And, according to Janet, “If you can keep the panic attacks to a minimum and retain a sense of optimism, it may be the best thing that happened to you this century.”

Janet has faced more than her share of hardships this century and last without losing her sense of optimism. I find it admirable and wish I were less skeptical. Still, losing my job somehow doesn’t strike me as such a great opportunity.

The day the article ran in the Bergen Record I got a phone call from Paul Friedman. “I’m calling to tell you that I was just in the bathroom reading the paper,” he said cheerfully. “I saw your article…I almost fell off the toilet!”

We still haven’t talked about the heart attack.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Jeffrey Page

 Eddie Ryan – Sergeant, U.S.M.C. – wasn’t wounded in Iraq by enemy gunfire or a roadside bomb but by that oxymoronic monster – friendly fire. He suffered terrible head wounds. It was during his second tour of duty in the Middle East. And now, the Marines want to kick him out.

 Six years after he was wounded, Sgt. Ryan is still relearning how to do things most of us take for granted, such as walking.

 But after giving so much to the nation, Sgt. Ryan, 25, of Ellenville, recently received a letter from the Department of the Navy informing him that he was being mustered out. In the words of some dithering half-wit in the Navy Department, he was told he’s out because he had been found “incompetent” and “unemployable.” This to a man who has been in and out of hospitals for six years, about one quarter of his life.

 Sgt. Ryan says he still has something to offer. “I’m working hard every day. I’m working on my legs,” he told The Times Herald-Record last month. “My Marines need me. I want to serve.”

 Maybe Sgt. Ryan isn’t ready to carry a rifle right now. But “incompetent” for suffering wounds accidentally inflicted by his comrades? Absolutely not. This man’s courage, pluck, and determination could inspire other wounded soldiers. He’s just a wounded Marine who needs more time to recover.

 No rational person can describe Sgt. Eddie Ryan as incompetent, and for some Navy desk jockey to address him that way in the chill of an official letter is obscene. But since the Navy Department is tossing an incendiary word like “incompetent” in the direction of Ellenville, it behooves Americans to consider the competence – or serious lack thereof – of some of the people in our wartime government over the last decade.

 Competence? There were the hucksters in the Bush administration who sold America a bill of goods about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. You remember, the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons they knew Hussein possessed even if none was ever found.

 How about all the Bushies who were never able to answer this uncomplicated question: If Hussein had such weapons, why didn’t he use them against foreign troops landing on his soil?

 What about then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld assuring President Bush that the war wouldn’t cost a dime because Iraq’s oil reserves would pay for it?

 Recall Rumsfeld’s response to a soldier in Kuwait who asked why the troops had to dig through landfills for scrap metal to fashion into armor for their vehicles. Rumsfeld’s hapless response: “As you know, ah, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

 And how about Dick Cheney assuring the nation that the end of the war was near at hand? Of America’s adversaries he said: “I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” That was May 30, 2005.

 Competence? There’s the Einstein at the Government Printing Office who recently placed a report on non-military nuclear facilities in the United States on the internet. This catalogue contained handy little maps to show precisely where weapons-grade nuclear material is kept. This sounds like delicious information for a terrorist, but one former head of the CIA said: “These screw-ups happen.” There’ve been others?

 There’s the case of  Vice President Joe Biden – first in the line of presidential succession – revealing that Dick Cheney’s “secure location” after the attacks of 9/11 was in the basement of the Naval Observatory. Cheney’s hideout was always good for a laugh, but the observatory is the official residence of the VP – making it Biden’s new home and his own “secure location” in case of danger.

 As you know, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – second in the line of presidential succession – may now be working on her 37th revision of her charge that the CIA lied to her about the use of torture. Or is it the 47th? One of these days she’s bound to come up with her final version.

 These are some of the people who’ve demonstrated their levels of competence. Not much, right? Yet with the exception of Rumsfeld, they served out their time in the Bush administration and are getting off to a rousing start in President Obama’s administration. And all the while, Sgt. Eddie Ryan, U.S.M.C., gets booted out of the Corps and remains in Ellenville working hard to get back to his men.

 Jeffrey can be reached at jeffrey@zestoforange.com.