By Bob Gaydos

Derek Jeter

Confession: As coach of my son’s Little League team, I used my responsibility as uniform distributor to make sure that Zack got the number he wanted. Number 2.

Yeah, it’s the number probably 90 percent of the kids wanted, but I never felt guilty about it because: (a) the smaller kids got the lower numbers and Zack had a delayed growth spurt and (b) c’mon, what dad wouldn’t do what he could to help his son got Derek Jeter’s uniform number?

For those who may have been on another planet, Jeter is retiring after 20 years as a New York Yankee. This is his last week as a major league baseball player. The season has been a continuous homage to his career and, more significantly, to the professional, dignified manner in which he has lived it. Number 2 has been Number 1 when it comes to athletes as role models.

Some people (not Yankee fans) have complained that the Jeter Love Train has been a bit much this year, with tributes paid to him in every ballpark the Yankees visited. I can understand that, but when the commissioner of the league says he’s proud that Jeter has been the face of baseball for a decade or more, I think it’s important. There has been no hint of scandal attached to Jeter for his 20 years with the Yankees. No steroids. No arrests. No trash-talking or posturing.

And, by the way, only five players (Pete Rose, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial, Tris Speaker) have compiled more hits (3,460 and counting) than Jeter. He happens to have been a hell of a ballplayer. Clutch hits. Clutch plays in the field. Mr. November. The Captain. Five World Series rings. Mr. Consistency. More games at shortstop than anyone else. Never played another position. He is a guaranteed first-ballot Hall of Famer and any baseball writer who doesn’t vote for him should have his voting privileges rescinded.

Jeter managed all this in the toughest market and media center in baseball — New York City. Funny thing though, while he qualifies as an all-time great and conceding that playing with the Yankees has helped burnish his image, Jeter doesn’t even make the list of top five Yankees of all time in my opinion. That would be Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra. Still, being number six to that group is no small thing and it’s hard to imagine anyone breaking in to that Top Six club.

Mostly, when I look at Jeter’s career, I’m impressed with how quietly he went about his job, how almost routine he made the anything-but-routine appear. I don’t know how humble one can be when millions of fans shower you with praise every day for a year, when TV commercials extol your nice-guyness. Of course, Jeter has made hundreds of millions of dollars from baseball and those product endorsements. But that’s the world we live in and he has managed to carry it off with a sense of grace and dignity. You don’t hear those words used much around athletes these days.

Not to belabor what is really only repetitive, I felt an obligation to publicly thank Derek Jeter for showing youngsters how to go about whatever they do in life with a sense of purpose, responsibility, dedication, modesty, focus and respect for others. For showing them how to be grateful for the gifts they may have. That he also played baseball much better than most others was icing on the cake.

So here’s to Number 2. That number will be retired by the Yankees this year, which means a new generation of young ballplayers will have to find another number to demand. And a new group of dads will try to make it happen.

By Jeffrey Page

Mike Huckabee

Jerk: A person regarded as disagreeable or contemptible.

The requirements for election to the House of Representatives aren’t complicated. You have to be 25 or older, a U.S. citizen for at least seven years, and reside in the state you wish to represent.

I have a proposal to amend the Constitution. It would read as follows: “No person who is a jerk is allowed to serve in the House. Nor as senator. Nor as a governor. And certainly not as president. The United States recognizes that all people are created equal, but just as we wouldn’t allow a popular cocker spaniel to assume public office, nor would we allow a jerk to hold public office.”

The event that prompted my outburst was a pitch that came in the mail from Planned Parenthood asking for money and reminding recipients of some of the more outrageous comments by four men with bizarre ideas about what degree of lunacy the American people will accept from their elected representatives.

We have seen these quotations before, but there they were again, clumped in a tidy one-page display that left me breathless.

You remember this stuff of course.

— Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., declared at a hearing that women’s voices were “not appropriate or qualified” to participate in discussion of birth control matters. This is truly remarkable because if 51 percent of the population is not qualified to discuss birth control, new and dangerous paths are automatically opened. Remember when the majority were not allowed to vote at all in South Africa? What else might Issa see as unfit for the input of more than half the population? He didn’t say. But if women shouldn’t be at the table for talk on abortion and other forms of birth control because only they can get pregnant, you have to wonder if Issa would bar the 49 percent from the table when the subject is prostate cancer or low testosterone levels or male breast cancer or male osteoporosis. Issa didn’t say.

— In the wrangle over whether employers who offer medical coverage should be required to make birth control part of the benefits package, Gov. Sam Brownback of Kansas said, “[Refusal to include birth control in workplace health coverage] is not denying women’s rights. If a woman then wants birth control, go work somewhere else.” This is a puerile response unworthy of half the legislative branch of our government. By suggesting that women quit their jobs – especially in the economy’s current state – and go marching out to an array of nonexistent jobs, Brownback lets everyone know the truth: He doesn’t give a hoot in hell about the real “facts of life.”

— Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and sometime candidate for president, shocked the nation with this moronic, sexist, and almost obscene observation: “ … women are helpless without Uncle [Sam] coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido … without the help of government.” Newsflash, governor: When a woman gets pregnant, there’s usually more than one libido involved.

— Finally there was Todd Akin, the genius from Missouri, who informed the nation about aspects of human reproduction that no one knew existed. To the question of the importance of making abortion available to women who get pregnant during rape, Akin said: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down.” “That whole thing?” What is this man talking about?

Election Day is just 40 days away. Reject jerks seeking public office.

By Michael Kaufman

Well, the good news is that the Orange County Legislature Republican majority has been forced to put off voting on a new proposal to transfer the Valley View Center for Nursing Care and Rehabilitation to a local development corporation (LDC) for at least 30 days. The rumored defection of two or more Democratic legislators, which would have given County Executive Steve Neuhaus the supermajority he needs to move forward with the sale of Valley View, did not take place when the legislators met earlier this week.

“Simply put, the Democrats have held together,” noted Michael Sussman, the Goshen attorney who won a lawsuit filed on behalf of Valley View workers and residents who oppose privatization. “Absent the votes, the Republicans do not want to face defeat again and certainly do not want to pass a Local Law subject to permissive referendum. So the chair of the legislature has asked the head of the Rules Committee to pull this item from the October 2 meeting.” (A Local Law requires only a simple majority but can be challenged by a referendum, which would allow county residents to vote on whether Valley View will remain publicly owned or sold to a private operator to be run for profit.) Sussman said he “could not be more thrilled” by the victory although he is keenly aware it may be short-lived. “I know they will not give up.”

“I’ve never seen an obsession like the obsession to privatize Valley View, now in its eighth year,” says Pamela Chergotis, managing editor of the weekly Chronicle, which has been providing superb coverage (by Chergotis and investigative reporter Nathan Mayberg) on Valley View, as well as the ongoing government center fiasco, and other controversial local political issues. “The fever isn’t breaking,” adds Chergotis. “The tactic seems to be to just wear people down—journalists, activists, Democrats, and supporters alike.”

Chergotis herself was the victim of a mean-spirited attack by Neuhaus following the ruling by Orange County Supreme Court Justice Elaine Slobod invalidating the LDC he illegally appointed. “Steve said I put Valley View on the front page every week for six months (not true either) because my mother died in Valley View in February and ‘it’s personal for them.’ My mother died 12 years ago in New Jersey and as far as I know never stepped foot in Orange County.” In the same statement, reported in the Times Herald-Record, Neuhaus suggested that both the judge and Chergotis are “too emotional and too lacking in professional detachment to do their jobs.” Chergotis says some have suggested to her that “sexism is afoot.” Sexism on the part of a Republican elected official? Impossible!.

Meanwhile, expect Neuhaus to keep the pressure on Democrats to cave on Valley View by threatening massive layoffs of other county workers if Valley View isn’t sold.

Endnote—Certain events inevitably bring out my inner Yippie. Imagine if Abbie Hoffman were still with us and had received an invitation to a “Free Private Event” at the Renaissance Faire’s Peacock Pavilion hosted by Genting “to thank our Warwick and Greenwood Lake supporters” of their plans for a Sterling Forest Resort casino. The event will include live entertainment, dinner and an info session (“By privately funding a Thruway exit, hiring locally, and improving local parkland (!), we are committed to improving the region’s quality of life and financial stability.”) The shindig takes place Saturday, Sept. 20, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. The catch is that you have to RSVP and present the invitation card at the “Will Call” booth. But Abbie would have found a way to get in even without the invitation.

Michael can be reached at michael@zestoforange.com.

By Gretchen Gibbs

The United Nations estimates that there are more than 45 million displaced persons worldwide, some still living within the borders of their own country. The Western world continues to be shocked and to feel some responsibility to provide for the needs of at least some of these refugees, like the Yazidi on the mountain in Iraq. After we’ve provided tents and drinking water in a relatively safe location, however, we tend to think we’re finished.

One need we tend to ignore is the mental health problems of the displaced. We have no figures on the percentages of refugees with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following rape, viewing murder and maiming of one’s near and dear, and the hardships of flight.

PTSD is only one of the possible outcomes – there are many forms of depression, anxiety and substance abuse. Lest my concern be dismissed as that of a soft-hearted psychologist, let me note that the World Bank estimates that mental health costs are of enormous importance to the world’s economy. They look at how many days of productive work are lost to the world each year through illness of all kinds, and estimate that mental illness accounts for over 8 percent of those days, more than is caused by either cancer or heart disease.

Thinking about these issues made me remember my own extremely minor experience of being displaced. I did not have to flee and neither I nor anyone in the family was ever in any kind of danger. However, in World War II, my father joined the Navy, knowing he would be drafted soon if he did not. (He was posted to Hawaii in officer’s training, a very easy war.) I, a little over 2, had been his darling draft exemption. Daddy was the affectionate parent, and I was always in his arms.

Mother and I, at that time the only child, went to live at her parents’ house, in another state. I certainly wasn’t neglected. Grandma was the most nurturing woman I’ve ever known, and I will always cherish her memory. Grandpa read me Uncle Wiggly stories from the newspaper every night, making up his own ending about how Uncle Wiggly, a rabbit, was eaten by the fox. I was enthralled.

There were some down sides. All kinds of food – sugar, butter, meat, canned fruits and vegetables – were rationed. I developed my lifetime habits of eating cereal without sugar, bread without butter and salad, when we had it, without dressing. We used margarine that came white as lard in a plastic sack with a capsule of yellow food coloring, which we had to work through the fat so that it didn’t look so disgusting.

One night I was eating my snack of graham crackers and milk, and I couldn’t finish it. Rather than simply leaving it, I was so ashamed of wasting food that I hid the bowl under the table in an orange crate we used as a stool.

With the war coming after the Depression and its impact, there was a deprivation theme to our lives. Mother’s favorite joke was this one from Sam Levenson: “We had unexpected company one day, and Ma drew each of us kids aside and told us, ‘Don’t eat any of the pork chops, as there aren’t enough to go around.’ We did as we were told, because we knew there was a delicious blueberry pie for dessert. At the end of the meal, as Ma was clearing the plates, she said, ‘Those children who didn’t eat their dinner don’t get dessert.’ ”

My aunt did a little still life water color of my toys. They were: a stuffed horse that Grandma made for me, some wooden beads on a string, and those colored wooden doughnut shapes that you fit over a stick to make a tower. She had to add some things from my cousin to have enough for the painting. Ten years later, my new brother and sister needed a chest to hold all their toys. During the war they didn’t make many toys.

I don’t think the minor deprivations affected me emotionally. It was the loss of my father that hurt. When he returned I was almost 5, a young girl who had been to kindergarten, who could read and write. I was a stranger to him, and he, in his uniform, 40 pounds heavier, was a stranger to me. We eventually reconnected, but it was never the same. It set me up for a life where I was sensitized to abandonment, and I perhaps made some bad decisions about men.

I think about all those children with the big eyes in the wan faces, living in tents, having fled gunfire, having not enough to eat, shivering at night, and having lost forever people they’ve loved.

Rooster No. 5

By Carrie Jacobson

I was emailing a friend who is also an artist and a collector of my paintings, and she wrote about how scary it is to make a painting for someone. For anyone, really. They might not like it, it might not look like the person/dog/scene that the buyer was picturing, the buyer might think you’re a talentless hack…. and on and on.

I confessed that I’m scared pretty much all the time. As I drive up to a show, and especially to a new show, I am often literally shaking. I’m afraid that the people at the show, buyers and artists, are going to look at my paintings and see right off the bat that I am self-taught, that I don’t know the rules, that I’m a messy painter, that I can’t draw, and on and on and on.

But I told her that I just get a hold of myself, pull myself together, and go on and do it. Be scared, sure – but do it. We are all scared – or at least, I suspect we all are.

After I wrote this to her, I went to the home page of the Piedmont Plein Air Paintout, that I’m participating in this week. I started looking at the paintings by the participating artists  – and totally freaked out again. Sigh.

I left the site, got a handle on my fear and paranoia, and went back to the site later in the day. When I looked again, I could see clearly that my paintings do stand up next to everyone else’s – and after all, I was chosen to participate! That should be enough to quiet the fears, right?

I’m sharing all of this not so you all will tell me that I’m a good painter, etc. I’m sharing it because so many people tell me all the time how frightened they are – of painting, of trying to paint, of applying to shows, of thinking of quitting their jobs to follow their dreams. People tell me how brave I am – and I just wanted to share that, really, I am not brave. I am scared and hesitant, but I go ahead and do it anyways. And anyone can do this. It doesn’t take not being afraid. It takes not letting your fear paralyze you.

By Jeffrey Page

President Obama … no strategy on ISIS?

I dreamed an American nightmare.

I dreamed President Obama conducted a news conference and when asked about additional air strikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria he said, “We don’t have a strategy yet” for dealing with the ISIS threat.

Then I realized I hadn’t been asleep at all, and that the president’s verbal shoulder-shrug was the real thing – sign language that translated to: We’ll have a strategy when we have a strategy. Here we are, 13 years after 9/11 and we kinda, sorta know what to do.

This is unacceptable. Not having a strategy against an implacable enemy doesn’t sound quite in the spirit of keeping 300 million people safe.

White House spokesmen can spin it all day long – and spin it they did after President Obama’s news conference – but in the end the fact remains that the President of the United States of America had just finished letting the world know, and letting ISIS know, that he hadn’t yet come up with a strategy for dealing with ISIS.

This is pathetic, not to mention dangerous, because you and I both know the reverse is true – that ISIS has a strategy for dealing with the United States. So oughtn’t President Obama have a plan that goes beyond “Don’t know; see me in a week?”

Asking people to wait for such a plan is asking too much because ISIS is no ordinary foe. It has been conducting a homicidal war against just about everyone in the Middle East. It has murdered two American journalists and several prisoners of war in a manner so unspeakable that ISIS has erased its name from the roster of the members of civilization.

ISIS has weapons and experienced soldiers and the will to use both. It has been described as “the real deal” when it comes to who represents the greatest danger to the Middle East, to Europe, and to the United States. It poses a direct threat to the U.S. because, as some intelligence officials believe, some of ISIS’s more ardent adherents are here in America right now because they live here. ISIS’s description as “an imminent threat” to the United States was not from someone with a loose mouth and no facts, but by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. And Hegel didn’t say this one hour ago, which might have given Obama an out for not yet having a strategy. Hagel said it in July. And the ISIS threat has been known far longer than that.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State John Kerry had a piece in The Times over the weekend in which he acknowledged that America can’t deal with ISIS alone. It needs partners. “With a united response led by the United States and the broadest possible coalition of nations, the cancer of ISIS will not be allowed to spread to other countries,” Kerry said.

Sounds great, but I wouldn’t want to be the diplomat sent by Washington to, say, Berlin to ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel for troops and cash on behalf of an American president who has no strategy.

Someone at the White House must remind President Obama of the danger the nation faces. He also needs to be told that he leaves himself open to ridicule when he asks allies for help but has no plan.

On Wednesday, President Obama said the United States would not be intimidated by ISIS. Very tough, very bold. But it’s not a strategy.