By Bob Gaydos

 A lot of people see no problem with the unrelenting decimation of the traditional news business, with newspapers and news magazines closing or severely reducing their staffs, with people having to rely on rip-and-read radio reports or superficial cable news shows that provide more heat than light or Internet blogs (not this one) that have only a passing acquaintance with the facts.

 I’m not one of those people. I recognize the importance of the bottom line to any business, but I also know the value of the byline in the news business. That is, I still think it’s crucial for readers of the news to be able to trust the source of it, to have confidence they are getting the true depth and breadth of the story they’re reading. Without context in our lives, all we have is a series of unrelated happenings and historians take too long to tie things together for us. When newspapers or news services cut loose their most experienced hands to save money, this context inevitably suffers.

 Which is a too-long, somewhat self-serving way to say, “Did you see what C. Vernon Mason is doing these days?”

 “Who the heck is C. Vernon Mason?” some of you (the younger ones) are asking, and “Why should I care what he’s doing these days?”
 
 Well, see now, context.
 
 Let me do this in order. First off, if, like all news organizations, you depend on the Associated Press for the bulk of your news of the world, you wouldn‘t know about Mason’s recent activity because the reporter who wrote a story in which his name came up apparently didn’t know who he was or why it might be significant to include his name in the story. On Nov. 5, the AP New York bureau moved a story on the transition team named by newly elected Manhattan DA Cy Vance Jr. Vance will succeed the legendary Robert Morgenthau, who is retiring after 35 years in the office. To help him make the transition, Vance has named a 37-person team of advisers, including, the AP tells us, “a noted sex-crimes prosecutor, wrongful-conviction experts, a state ethics official …a former judge … a seminary professor, a diversity consultant, union officials” and so forth.
 
 That unnamed seminary professor? C. Vernon Mason. Why is that newsworthy in a story about people chosen to help a new DA get off to a solid start? Two words: Tawana Brawley.

 Mason was one of a trio of black community leaders (Al Sharpton and Alton Maddox were the others) who turned justice on its head and ignited a racial firestorm that engulfed New York and much of the country in 1987 and ‘88 by promoting a hoax initiated by a 15-year-old black girl from Wappingers Falls. Tawana Brawley was found in a garbage bag on the grounds of an apartment complex. Her clothes were torn and she was covered in feces. On her chest, “nigger” and “KKK” had been written. She told police who found her that she had been abducted by several white men (one of whom wore a badge) who raped her over a period of days, then smeared the feces on her and chopped off her hair.
 
 None of it was true. Police and forensic experts found no evidence to support any of her accusations and witnesses contradicted her story. Yet Mason and his cohorts turned the accusations of a teenaged girl afraid of being punished for not coming home into a crusade to attack the police and justice system as racist and corrupt. By their own admission, they never questioned Brawley about the details of the alleged attack, instead holding press conferences and going on TV talk shows to hurl even more inflammatory accusations. The attackers were police officers, they said. One was an assistant DA, they said.

 None of it was true. A grand jury tossed out Brawley’s charges. Her advisers never let her talk to the jury. Ten years later, a civil jury found Brawley and her three advisers guilty of defaming the assistant DA, Stephen Pagones. The jury ordered payment of damages, some $185,000 from Mason. Ten years later, Pagones says most of that has not been paid.

 More context. Seven years after the Brawley hoax, Mason was disbarred by a New York court which cited “a pattern of professional misconduct” of at least six years.
The five-judge panel mentioned “repeated neglect of client matters, many of which concerned criminal cases where a client’s liberty was at stake; misrepresentations to clients; refusal to refund the unearned portion of fees” and the use of non-lawyers.
According to The New York Times, the court also noted that “virtually all the clients were low- or moderate-income persons” who had retained Mr. Mason “because of his reputation in the community as a representative of the disadvantaged.” (Footnote: Maddox, also a lawyer, was also disbarred.)

 Today, Mason is indeed, as the AP told us, a visiting professor of urban youth ministry at New York Theological Seminary. He is also a deacon in a Baptist church in Harlem. And he heads a non-profit agency that helps troubled youth. He is, according to the head of Vance’s transition team, “a well-respected clergy member who cares deeply about his community and the criminal justice issues faced by youth and adults.” We know this only because the New York Daily News apparently still employs some people with institutional memory. The paper ran a story on Mason and Vance the day after the AP story was posted.

 Mason, as usual, had nothing to say about his being named to a team to help a DA when he had spend so many years ruining the life of another DA. A story several years ago in The Times portrayed him as a man who had learned a lesson, that his old trash-and-burn methods of confrontation may not have been the best way to advance the legitimate grievances of the black community he represented — the community he took advantage of in his law practice. Time, he told, The Times, “alters roles and relationships.” He said then, in 2000, that he wished he might have been a more efficient lawyer and maybe he should have done things differently with the Brawley case.

 But he never apologized. Not to Pagones. Not to police in Dutchess County who were labeled racist and rapists. Not to the community at large, which he led into a racial firestorm. Not even to the clients he cheated.
  
 And try as I did, in countless hours on the Internet, I could not find any instance since then in which the words C. Vernon Mason and apology appear together in the usual manner. And I have a problem with that. I am a big fan of second, even third, chances. Lord knows, life is tough enough to get right the first time. But I am also a believer in making amends and taking responsibility for one’s sins, if you will. As a man of the church, I would have thought Mason would recognize the healing power of coming clean and moving on, rather than just moving on.

 I would apparently be wrong. So I have a problem believing that Mason has totally dropped his con. Maybe I‘m being too cynical and rigid here, but I’m one of those who well remembers what the Brawley case did to the mid-Hudson and how Sharpton, Mason and Maddox built up their street creds in the black community by perpetuating a cruel, dangerous hoax.

 As for Vance (whose father was secretary of state for Jimmy Carter) seeking advice from Mason, well, in 1985 (two years before Brawley) Mason ran for the very same office Vance just won. Mason pulled a shocking 32 percent of the vote against Morgenthau, who, by the way, says the Brawley case is “ancient history.” But some of the same issues Mason ran on against Morgenthua 24 years ago still exist. And Mason, unrepentant though he may be, remains a prominent figure in Harlem. Politics, as always, is about context.

 Bob can reached at bob@zestoforange.com.

 By Bob Gaydos

 NEWS ITEM — President Barack Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
 
 FOLLOW-UP NEWS ITEM —  Virtually every American politician, every political commentator, every TV talking head and late-night comedian scoffs at the award as “undeserved,” “premature,” “ridiculous” or some other negative characterization. 

 Maybe it’s just me, but this has to be the only country on the planet where it is a bad thing for our president — a man lauded, admired and elected for his publicly stated intention to end the angry, short-sighted, self-serving, polarizing approach to domestic politics and international diplomacy — is ridiculed for being honored by an international body for actually putting those political promises into practice.

 It’s not as if he asked for the award. In fact, he was appropriately surprised and humbled by it. What, he should give it back, as some idiotic pundits proposed? Like they would return it if they got it. It’s the Nobel Bleepin’ Peace Prize, for Pete’s sake, not an indictment for War Crimes from the World Court.

 The Nobel judges said the prize recognized Obama’s efforts to restore constructive dialogue and cooperation among nations of the world, to seek peaceful solutions to mutual problems and to encourage all nations to assume some responsibility for lessening tensions worldwide. For acting, in effect, the way the leader of the free world should act.

 Some said the prize was for not being George W. Bush. Hey, works for me. Wasn’t that what the U.S. election was all about? So thank you, Nobel judges, for agreeing with our choice and honoring it. And a fist bump for you, Mr. President.

*  *  *

 OK, this one I know is not just me.  Starting on April 1, 2010, New Yorkers obtaining or renewing their vehicle registration will be required to purchase new license plates, whether they need them or not, for $25. That’s a $10 increase. If they want to keep their old numbers, it will cost an additional $20.

 Say what? You say your current license plates are just fine, are still intact and reflective and you’ve only had them a couple of years? Gov. Paterson doesn’t care. He sees a $129 million windfall in this money grab and apparently doesn’t care how he tries to overcome the state’s budget deficit. There is no doubt the state is a financial mess, but there is absolutely no justification for this new fee, which will obviously impact upstate residents more than city dwellers. The state has been on a 15-year plan for replacing license plates, but even that is relaxed as the plates have held up. Requiring new plates for every vehicle in the state may sound like an easy way to make some cash on the backs of struggling taxpayers, but it will surely be a major inconvenience and will inevitably require more costly paper work as registration and insurance documents have to be changed.
 
 In fact, St. Lawrence County Clerk Patricia Ritchie called it an outrage to ask families and businesses to pay more for new license plates they don’t need or want when they are being battered by the ongoing recession. She has launched an online petition drive (http://www.nonewplates.com.) to fight the fee, which the Legislature passed, clearly without much thought. Ritchie said more than 5,000 people signed the petition in the first week. Thousands more (including this writer) have since joined.
 
 Morgan Hook, a puffed-up gubernatorial spokesman, told AP, “Is (Ritchie) calling for a $129 million tax hike? Is she calling for $129 million more in cuts to school aid? Because that’s really what this petition drive is all about. This is the type of irresponsibility that led to the crisis we face today.” He said she should suggest other ways to make up the money.

 State Senator James L. Seward (R/C/I – Oneonta) and Assemblyman Pete Lopez (R/C/I – Schoharie) did just that recently in leading a rally against the fees. Among their suggestions:

• Consolidating redundant or underutilized agencies, such as merging the Thruway Authority into the Department of Transportation. Their plan would protect rank-and-file employees, but target high cost administrative appointment positions, many of which are patronage “no show” jobs. They say this would save between $266 million and $1 billion;

• All state agencies should immediately enact a 5 percent reduction in non-personnel spending, such as travel, postage and transportation. This would supposedly save taxpayers an estimated $138 million. A 10 percent reduction would save $212 million;

• Suspending any new leases or purchases of vehicles, except for safety purposes, would save taxpayers $10 million;

• Enforcing a state law to collect cigarette taxes on Native American reservations would bring in a new revenue source worth $500 million;

• Tackling Medicaid fraud, waste and abuse, estimated to be 10 percent of total Medicaid spending, could save taxpayers hundreds of millions.

 Will those things work? Don’t know, but they and other ideas are worth pursuing more than charging motorists for new license plates they don’t need. As for those supposedly worn-out license plates, police can always enforce the law on that, maybe at the same time they pull over all those drivers using cell phones.

 Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com.

 By Bob Gaydos

 June 20, 2110, BOSTON HERALD — With their season already on the road to nowhere and with the Fenway Faithful looking for blood after not being able to celebrate a World Series championship in more than a century, the Boston Red Sox yesterday shocked the baseball world by revealing they had signed the thawed head of Ted Williams to a one-year contract worth a rumored $617 million.

 Williams, as Boston baseball legend has it, was the greatest hitter of the 20th century, even greater than the traitorous Babe Ruth. The Red Sox hope Williams’ celebrated batting eye will revive a moribund lineup, even though the head in which it rests will be sitting atop someone else’s body.

 The reason for that, according to Internet archives, is that when the slugger’s body was presented by his son and daughter for cryonic preservation in 2002, the head was mistakenly separated from the body. This so-called “neuro-preservation” was significantly cheaper than full cryo-preservation, for obvious reasons. Simply put, the Splendid Splinter’s head was frozen at super-cool temperatures and stored in a cooler to be defrosted when and if science figured out how to bring it back to lead a full and meaningful life — such as hitting cleanup for the Red Sox.

 For several decades in the 21st century, the Red Sox hoped that onetime star David Ortiz would choose suspended animation in the hope of returning at a future date when the American League had outlawed left-handed pitchers. But the ever-hot Ortiz chose cremation instead.

 In fact, so did Williams. At least that’s what his will said. Various stories at the time of his death said his children opted for the cryonic preservation, some say in the hopes they would be able to sell his DNA for those interested in cloning a future .400 hitter. (Williams, by the way, is still regarded as the last man to hit .400 in the major leagues since MLB officials threw out all records of players found to have used Gator-Aid, a once popular sports drink discovered to significantly boost hand-eye coordination.)

 There were numerous unanswered questions yesterday regarding the signing of Williams’ head, not the least of which being how, or who, signed the deal for Williams. Also, as of yesterday, Red Sox officials were remaining mum on whose body it was seen running around their Pawtucket minor league stadium carting Williams’ head. Sources close to the team would only say that the body was younger and faster than Williams appeared to be in old movies. Spectators said the famously lead-footed slugger seemed almost shocked at his new fleet-footedness.

 Some baseball historians swore that the thawed Williams bore a strong resemblance to a onetime New York Mets phenom, Jose Reyes. Reyes, a shortstop with dazzling speed, disappeared in the mid 2020’s after spending 14 years on the disabled list. No one apparently knows what happened to him, but baseball experts agreed that if he were frozen, it would be his legs, not his head, that would be most valuable when defrosted.

 Team officials were also discounting the significance of early reports that the new Williams, now a  speedy switch hitter instead of a pure southpaw, had fallen in love with drag bunting when batting left-handed, rather than swinging for the fences. And they said a slight left hamstring pull did not appear to be serious.

 However, they did not acknowledge concern over two changes in the Williams head, apparently the result of problems that arose in the freezing process. In 2009, Larry Johnson, who ran the Alcor facility that froze Williams, wrote a book, “Frozen,” which purported to detail the botched effort to decapitate and freeze the head of the baseball immortal who became an immortalist. Among other things, Johnson said, in order to keep the head upright and stable in a container while it attained a sufficiently cold temperature, staff at Alcor placed the head upside down on a Bumblebee tuna fish can. When the time came to move the head, the can was frozen to it, Johnson wrote, prompting a volunteer to grab a monkey wrench and take a Williams-like swing at the head. Lacking the famed Williams batting eye, the volunteer missed and smacked Ted upside the head. The can was apparently freed on the second swing.

 Unfortunately, that first swing took out the left eye, which is the front one when Williams would be batting right-handed for the first time, finally aiming at Fenway’s inviting Green Monster, if he could see it. The Red Sox hitting coach is trying to figure out a way to overcome this, while refusing to acknowledge that the team thought it was getting both keen batting eyes when it signed Williams‘s head. Williams’ agent, Scott Boras, denied any deception in attaining the record contract.

 On a more mundane note, the team equipment manager said he was having a difficult time finding a batting helmet that did not slide down Williams’ head because of an odd, circular formation sliced into the top. But he said Ted was handling these minor setbacks with unusual grace and was, in fact, a joy to work with.
 
Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com.

By Bob Gaydos

 I got hooked on sports and journalistic writing in my early teens reading the likes of Jimmy Cannon in the New York Post. (Once upon a time, the rightwing bullhorn was the home of numerous great columnists.) Cannon  had a gift for observation and a sharp wit that made his writing enjoyable far beyond the limited confines of sports. And he invented what I consider to be the greatest gifts for all sports writers — a way to put together a column when you had nothing in your head but a random collection of unrelated thoughts.  
 
 Cannon’s “Nobody asked me, but:” columns are legendary. I remember looking forward to reading them in The Post and being disappointed when he chose to write about one topic. Truth be told, the approach has been shamelessly copied by every sports columnist who has followed Cannon, including myself in my earlier newspaper days. No one dares to use the signature Cannon line, but Mike Lupica of the Daily News and the Record’s Kevin Gleason are just the latest in line to patch together a bunch of one-liners and call it a column.

 So what the heck, why not me?

 Is it just me or isn’t giving Jerry Manuel another year as skipper of the Mets like giving the captain of the Titanic — “It was a great year except for that iceberg.” — another ship to command? And how do Howard Johnson, hitting coach for the run-starved Mets, and Razor Dull, the befuddled third-base coach, deserve new contracts?

 Is it just me, or are Jon Gruden and Ron Jaworski really that annoying to listen to doing Sunday night football on ESPN? And gentlemen, cross your legs, please.

 And it was bush, wasn’t it, for the Tampa Bay Rays to avoid pitching to Mark Texiera during the last regular season series so he couldn’t break the tie with the Rays Carlos Pena for the American League homerun title?

 Just noticed, hockey started. Call me in May.

 Is it just me, or is it a fact that virtually no female driver in Orange County knows how to handle a four-way stop? (Oh sure, it’s OK for Beth Quinn to complain about women drivers, but God forbid a guy do it.). Proceed at your own risk.

 And while I’m in the car, is it just me or do all Yankee fans dread tuning in to a ballgame already under way and having to wait 20 minutes for John Sterling to give the score? Play by play, John, play by play.

 Maybe this is just me, but I’m not sure. When a waitress in a diner checks back with you two minutes after delivering your food by asking, “How’d everything come out?” doesn’t that shake your confidence just a bit in the kitchen staff? Same thing when they come back 20 minutes later and you’re taking a breather, maybe talking to a friend, and they ask, “Still working on that?” It didn’t seem like a job until then.  And is it just me, but when you are a man of a certain age — say over 60 — doesn’t it seem just plain wrong for a waitress of a certain age — say under 30 — to call you “Hon”?

 Maybe I missed it, but did any of the Mets’ opponents complain about not being able to hit homeruns at Citi Field? And if it’s just me making the decision, I leave the fences and wind currents and everything else affecting home runs at the new Yankee Stadium just the way they are, thank you very much.

 Watched the New York Giants play two crummy teams two weeks in a row and win, but fail to dominate them the way they should have because: 1. The Giants still have no clue how to call plays inside the 20-yard line; and 2. Brandon Jacobs has apparently decide to become a ballerina. And is it just me, or has it been a long time since the Giants sacked a quarterback?

 Maybe it’s just me, but did anyone notice Roman Polanski showing any kind of remorse in the past 30 years for raping that 13-year-old girl in California? And exactly how is it that he has “paid for his mistakes,” as some of his defenders have claimed? And shouldn’t Woody Allen abstain from commenting on any case involving young teenage girls? Tacky.

 Can’t decide if I want Lebron James, Dwyane Wade or Nate Robinson directing the Knicks’ attack next year. How ’bout all three?

 Is it just me or, with the purchase of the New Jersey Nets by a rich Russian, do we face a long season of newspaper headlines calling them the “Nyets” every time they lose a game? And by the way, how about that capitalism, comrade?

 In case you missed it, the boss of Amazon apologized recently for his company’s erasing unlicensed versions of two George Orwell books, “1984,” and “Animal Farm,” from customers’ Kindles. He also offered to provide customers with new copies of the classics for their electronic readers, or $30. In a world where is up is down and good is bad, that might be enough, but is it just me, or doesn’t this still leave Amazon with the considerable power to recall — erase — any of its digital books at any time? And doesn’t that still smack a lot of Big Brother? Or is just me?

 Hey, is it just me, or is this harder than I thought?

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com.

 By Bob Gaydos

 Herewith, the tales of two creeps and slowly creeping justice:
 
 Creep Number One: Swiss lawyers for Roman Polanski have asked that he be freed from jail while he fights extradition to the United States on a 30-year-old conviction for having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

 Really? I know lawyers gotta do what lawyers gotta do, but really guys, do you think the Swiss judge won’t know that the famed film director is behind bars precisely because he skipped out on bail 31 years ago rather than face punishment for his despicable act? He’s a fugitive from justice. Why should the courts trust him now? Because he’s made some good movies and millions of dollars? Polanski defined himself as a flight risk when he didn’t show up in court in Los Angeles to face the music and he’s been true to form by bouncing around Europe ever since to avoid deportation.
 
 The real surprise in this story is that Polanski was even arrested after living it up in Europe, mostly in public, for so long. So, first off, way to go, Switzerland. Not so neutral after all.
 
 Polanski was arrested Saturday when he showed up to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival. That’s so cool. He even had a tux on for the occasion. There was speculation the Swiss only arrested Polanski as a way to foster better diplomatic and economic relations with the United States, especially since the Swiss also recently tightened their laws on bank accounts used to hide ill-gotten gains. But Swiss authorities said the request to detain Polanski had come some time ago from U.S. officials and the film festival made things convenient.
 
 That’s different from, say, similar requests made to France, one of his two official countries of residence in Europe (Poland is the other). French official have refused to extradite Polanski to the United States. And he has been careful, living rather openly but moving about in 10 different countries to avoid extradition. For one thing, he stayed out of Britain, which would have had no qualm about sending him back across the pond.

 Some Swiss are upset because they fear Polanski’s detention — which could last a few months while appeals are heard — means their country will no longer be seen as a safe haven for international fugitives. What a shame. Others fear it will place their famously neutral tiny nation at the mercy of large powers, like the United States. Well, Switzerland finally joined the United Nations a while back, so maybe it’s time to join the rest of the real world.

 France may be another story. Polanski’s entertainment and media industry friends there have rallied to his support, questioning why he should be brought back to answer for his actions three decades later. One supporter, a philosopher, Bernard-Henri Lévy, said on radio that the Swiss should focus on more serious criminal matters. Polanski, he said, “perhaps had committed a youthful error.”

 For the record, Mr. Philosopher, Polanski was 45 years old when he plied the 13-year-old would-be model with alcohol and drugs and then had sex with her. He actually got lucky when the prosecutor accepted a plea bargain to a misdemeanor sex offense rather than rape and sodomy charges, but after spending 42 days in an L.A. jail awaiting sentencing, the maker of gritty films apparently wanted no more of real life. He split because he thought the judge was going to reject the plea bargain and make him serve real time.

 The female in question reached a settlement with Polanski and has said she doesn’t want anymore to do with the case. Fair enough, and not surprising. But another Frenchman, film director and producer Luc Besson offered a different take. “This is a man who I love a lot and know a little bit,” Besson said in a radio interview. “Our daughters are good friends. But there is one justice, and that should be the same for everyone. I will let justice happen. … I don’t have any opinion on this, but I have a daughter, 13 years old. And if she was violated, nothing would be the same, even 30 years later.”

 Fin.
.
 Creep Number Two: Tom Delay, the former majority leader of the House of Representatives, driven from office and under indictment on money laundering charges back home in Texas, is wiggling his hips and smiling grotesquely on “Dancing With the Stars.” Washed up actors and athletes aren’t bad enough, ABC has to recruit potential felons?

 Delay, who was affectionately known as “the Hammer” when he was browbeating fellow Republicans to support every lame-brained idea to come out of the George W. Bush White House, has done the cha-cha and the tango on the popular TV show and managed to scrape through two weeks without being eliminated. He finished tied for last qualifier this week.

 It’s not difficult to figure out why the man from Sugar Land, Tex., (an admitted Obama “birther,“ by the way) would want to be on the show. He wants to soften his image for the upcoming trial, even if in attempting to do so he comes off even creepier than people suspected. There’s something about Republicans from Texas and being oblivious. But why does ABC need him? The man is accused of breaching the public trust by using his office to transform large sums of corporate campaign donations intended for the Republican Party into funds targeted for specific GOP candidates in Texas. That‘s illegal and it’s hardly Fred Astaire material. Surely, there were other B, C, or D list celebrities willing to risk humiliation.

 What Delay has been most successful at since resigning his post in June of 2006 is in delaying his reckoning with justice, although two of his former aides were snared in a major lobbying/influence buying scandal. Delay was indicted in 2005. Neither he nor the prosecutor seems interested in a speedy trial and so it appears viewers of “Dancing with the Stars” will deliver a verdict on Delay before jurors in Texas get an opportunity to do so. May that justice at least be swift.

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com.

 By Bob Gaydos

 My copy of Time magazine (yes, I’m one of those dinosaurs) arrived the other day, but I still haven’t read it. May never read it. In fact, my first impulse on glancing at the cover was to gag. My second was to cancel my subscription, bargain rate or not.
 
 There, staring at me — sticking his tongue out at me! — was one of the most hateful men in America (I do not use such terms lightly) and a man, who, along with CNN’s Lou Dobbs, represents the capitulation of television news to loud-mouthed, bigoted ideologues. There, I’ve said it and I don’t regret it. I just don’t feel any better for getting it off my chest.
 
 What galled me about Time’s cover is that, tongue or no, it lent mainstream credibility to someone who doesn’t deserve it. It’s one thing for Fox News to let Beck spew his hatred and loony conspiracy theories every day. It’s par for the course for that sad excuse of a news division. But Time magazine, no matter how much it has lost in circulation, is still Time magazine. Since Beck clearly posed for the cover photo, Time, on some level, is playing footsy with him. The editors may say they are just covering the news. I say they are going for more sales by tapping the lunatic fringe, which, by the way, has not shown much of an appreciation for objective reporting of the news. One would think Time’s editors would have known that.
 
 Now,  I have no idea what Time said about Beck, if it interviewed him, what others said or what the cover story was about other than that it was about the angry name-calling and demagoguery that passes for political debate these days. As I said, I can’t bring myself to open the magazine. Neither can my son, Zack.
 
 Zack’s reason is different than mine. A proudly (if somewhat provocatively) proclaimed non-reader, Zack, 15, has always been our reader of Reader’s Digest jokes on car trips. He began thumbing through Time last year to kill the time while reading in the back seat. (Yes, I planted it there.) To his surprise, he discovered a feature he really liked: Pop Chart. For some reason, Time has dropped it, which baffles Zack. If you never saw it, it was a fairly clever, tongue-in-cheek look at the week‘s less-serious news items, ranking them from shocking to shockingly predictable. (Example from Feb. 23 in the “predictable” category: “Sarah {Palin says she named her daughter Bristol after ESPN’s Connecticut HQ. Good thing the network canceled that move to Sheboygan.”). Like that.
 
 The thing is, Zack would also wander off into other areas of the magazine, including actual news stories, and read them. And he began picking up Newsweek (I told you I‘m a dinosaur) in the back seat as well and I dare say he is one of the few 10th graders in Pine Bush High School who not only knows who Fareed Zakaria is, but what his area of expertise is.
 
 Serendipity. You start out browsing for a few  laughs and wind up with some insights into Iran’s nuclear capabilities. (In fairness to Zack, he’s been devouring Sports Illustrated for years, but somehow doesn’t consider that to be reading even though it contains some first-rate writing.)
 
 I have come to have a profound respect and appreciation for serendipity. I consider it the means by which That Which Controls All Things presents us with rejuvenating situations we would never anticipate. It’s way more than coincidence.
 
 For example, last Saturday, I dragged Zack and his brother, Max, 17, out of the house to take a ride because it was one of those too-beautiful-to-waste days. We drove to Newburgh because I hadn’t been there in a while. Zack read Reader’s Digest jokes from the back seat where Time magazine lay untouched. We stopped near the end of Broadway at the Karpeles Museum, one of the county‘s under-appreciated gems. I must note that the boys were surprisingly accommodating in humoring me this far, but their eyes were beginning to glaze over when they checked out the current exhibit on ancient ships. Coins, manuscript pages and other artifacts tell the history of sea travel from as far back as 1560 B.C. Kind of interesting, but truth be told, I wasn’t so pumped about it either.
 
 Enter serendipity, AKA Don Presutti. The retired former city mayor is now the person who explains the exhibits at the museum to school groups and other visitors. After we checked out the Egyptian Book of the Dead, he pointed us to a side room that contained original manuscripts from Twain, Hemingway, Tolkien, a letter from Jack London to his publisher and a script page from the original “King Kong.” This is routine stuff at the Karpeles. Presutti, relishing his chance to offer a lesson even to a small school group, returned with Jefferson Davis’ French/English dictionary from his days at West Point, a brief history of Presutti’s involvement with Pete Seeger and the formation of the Sloop Clearwater and a copy, with annotations, of Tyrone Power’s script for  “West Point.” The trip was looking less boring.
 
 After a quick physics lesson on how the huge vault of he former bank works – still very well —  we talked a little about Presutti’s city. He lauded the coming SUNY Orange Campus and Mt. St. Mary’s and the growth along the river, but said that with progress must also come a commitment to the city’s less fortunate. And he lamented the fact that the current City Council seems to be more interested in arguing than governing. Which brought me back to Time and Beck and the whole angry tenor of today’s politics. This lifetime conservative Republican said he understood my feelings. But he said, whatever your politics, you should never be afraid to agree with someone if you think he’s right. And if you disagree, you shouldn’t be afraid to say so either, but in a calm manner and with respect.
 
 Wow! An honest to goodness, living, breathing compassionate conservative right here in Newburgh. Remember this, boys. They are a vanishing breed.
 
 (I still haven’t read Time, but if anyone wants to tell me if I should, thanks to Don Presutti, I’m still open to suggestion.)
 Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com. 
 .

By Bob Gaydos

 If you still care about politics, if you still think that “the people” can make a difference in how this country is run and if you think that the proper way, the common-sense, decent, truly all-American way would be for politicians of all persuasions to work together as much as possible for the common good this has got to have been one of the worst summers of your life.
 
 The summer of the know-nothings and the yahoos. The summer of the shameless and the gutless.
 
 It began with the crowning of Pedro Espada Jr. as leader of the state Senate in Albany — by both parties at different times. A man under investigation for diversion of state funds, a man who defected not once, but twice, from the political party of the moment, wound up in charge of the supposed upper legislative body in Albany and had the gall to call it a reform movement. And no one in Albany had the guts to call it what it was — shameless political extortion — and no one was willing to work out a solution between Republicans and Democrats because no one wanted to lose control. Control of what I don’t know, because, clearly, Espada, with the most selfish of motives, was in control the whole time. If you, dear reader, can somehow hold out any hope for this group of senators to govern responsibly in the future, more power to you. I cannot. And if they do manage to surprise me it will be at least 20 years too late.
 
 But the really bad, really dumb, really outrageously idiotic stuff this summer has come on the national level from what used to be known as the Party of Lincoln. I have never registered in any political party, but I have friends who claim to be Republicans and I dare them now to publicly justify the hateful, spiteful, fiction-based attacks on our president that have followed any initiative he has proposed. They can’t, because there is no justification save the political one — the only way the GOP feels it can survive and regain strength is to attack Barack Obama on every front, to reject every overture from him to work together, even on worthy causes, but mostly to spread lies and fear among a distressingly large segment of the population that has proven to be as gullible as P.T. Barnum observed.
 
 The Birthers and the Death Squad people and the “he’s a Socialist,” “he’s a Nazi” people — and the politicians who allow them to get away with it — have not only sullied the name of the Grand Old Party, they have sold its soul. And, if you stop and think about it (which they don’t), they have rendered a harsh indictment on the education system of this country.
 
 What kind of  nation, after all, turns out so many people who are willing to take hateful fictitious charges — leveled at their newly elected president, no less — at face value? And, backed with nothing but fear and anger, to spread it? What kind of nation allows discussions about serious issues such as health care to be hijacked by lying attack dogs supported by the industry that stands to lose the most profits — the insurance industry? What kind of nation cringes when the yahoos unleash a storm of protest because their president — a man who inspired generations with his story of success against great odds — wants to deliver a non-political pep talk to American students returning to school?
 
 A once-proud nation that has lost its way, I fear.
 
 But wait. Oh, wait. Do my ears deceive me? Just when I have about given up all hope that Republicans will ever be able to comport themselves with some modicum of sanity again, comes a Republican behaving with, of all things, dignity.
 
 Bless you, Laura Bush. Bless you, bless you,  bless you.
 
 In the midst of all the Fox-led flame-throwing about the president’s speech to schoolchildren, the former first lady, in an interview with CNN in Paris, said, “I think there is a place for the President of the United States to talk to schoolchildren and encourage schoolchildren and I think there are a lot of people who should do the same and that is encourage their own children to stay in school and to study hard and to try to achieve the dream they have.”
 
 Shocking. By the way, that’s pretty much what Obama said.
 
 Mrs. Bush, a former teacher, also said that, with the redrawing of election districts into safe congressional seats where candidates with narrow ideological views can be elected and reelected repeatedly has come an increasing political polarization, with fewer people willing to work for compromise solutions. She said her husband, George W. Bush, found this when he moved from the Texas governor’s mansion to the White House. It was one of  his “real disappointments,” she said, and she said Obama was probably also surprised by the intensity of it.
 
 “I think it’s … really important for everyone to respect the President of the United States,” Mrs. Bush said, adding that she felt criticism of him as a socialist was unfair.
 
 “Do you think he is doing a good job?” she was asked.
  
 “I think he is,” she replied without a hint of worry of political repercussion from GOP attack dogs. “I think he has got a lot on his plate and he has tackled a lot to start with and that has probably made it more difficult.”
 
 Good grief, a reasonable statement by a well-known Republican about a Democrat. Some will note that Mrs. Bush, of course, is not seeking election to any office; nor is her husband. But neither is Dick Cheney. Asked about the former vice president’s non-stop attacks on Obama, Mrs. Bush said Cheney had “every right to speak out” and she appreciated that he was defending her husband’s administration. But she also noted that “George, as a former president, chose not to speak out. … He thinks the president deserves the respect and the no second-guessing on the part of the former president.”
 
 So Republicans are not wholly without dignity after all. It’s been a long time since the Bushes were their party’s saving grace, but they certainly provided the Republicans’ best moment all summer. Now, if they were only listening. 

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com.

By Bob Gaydos
 
 You never know when life’s going to reach out and touch you in unexpected ways. About  a week ago I was sitting in a waiting room (they all blend together) flipping through a July copy of ESPN the Magazine when I came across an update of a quirky old story that had mildly piqued my interest when it happened, but had been quickly filed in my future trivia look-it-up file. It concerned a minor league pitcher named John Odom who had the dubious distinction of being traded in May of 2008 for 10 baseball bats.
 
 The trade, of course, immediately became the punch line on TV and radio sports shows, but I remember thinking at the time how insulting that must be for an athlete. How does your psyche make sense of it? Of course, the trade was a fleeting hit on the Internet, where no humiliation is so bad it can’t be made worse by frequent repetition and mockery. Such is the world in which we live, in which John Odom lived. But it turns out that Odom’s psyche was more fragile than others. Six months after the trade and apparently despite his own efforts to laugh it off, Odom, 26, died in relative anonymity of an accidental overdose of heroin, methamphetamine, alcohol and benzylpiperazine, a stimulant. That story didn’t get nearly as much play as the trade.
 
 Which may be why reading about it last week in that waiting room saddened me more than I might have expected. Not only was John Odom’s life trivialized by a callous business decision, but when it ended it was devalued to the point of being barely noted. In fact, Odom died last November, but the story did not come out until March of this year. Even then, the people directly involved had a tough time dealing with it. And they certainly didn’t want to entertain the idea that maybe they had contributed to his untimely death.
 
 But clearly Odom didn’t do anything to deserve the unthinking, unfeeling treatment he received, first from team owners, then from “fans.” Unlike the losers who populate reality shows on what passes for much of prime time TV these days, he did not volunteer to be mocked, to be made a fool of, to have people laugh and shake their heads when his name was mentioned. And unlike the people who show up on recorded TV shows where they have been unwittingly put into embarrassing or even humiliating situations, he did not sign any waiver to allow himself to be made the object of ridicule and entertainment for millions of others. Nor did he make an embarrassing video of himself and sell it to some TV show.
 
 He just wanted to play baseball. To throw his 93 mph fastball and, just maybe, live up to the promise he held as a teenage athlete. That promise was derailed by some poor judgment and behavior on his part — alcohol and drug use and a fight that resulted in rehab and an assault conviction at age 17. That conviction got him kicked off his high school team in Georgia in 1999 and returned to haunt him in 2008, leading to the infamous trade. A musician with a free spirit and a quick smile, Odom kicked around a couple of years before winding up pitching for Tallahassee Community College in Florida. He eventually was drafted by the San Francisco Giants, but a series of injuries and some questionable behavior hampered his progress. He was released in 2008. That’s when the Calgary Vipers, an independent league team, signed him.
 
 And that’s when the assault charge again changed his life. Because Canadian immigration officials had been unaware of his youthful conviction, they would not allow Odom to cross into Canada to play baseball. Calgary team president Peter Young figured he had to trade Odom. Laredo’s general manager offered a player, but Young didn’t want to pay to fly him to his team. Laredo said it would offer $1,000 for Odom. Young said no, that taking cash would cast doubt on the team‘s financial condition. Instead, he said he would take 10 maple bats, double-dipped black, 34 inches long, total price $665. Somehow, he figured that wouldn’t look as bad as a straight cash-for-player deal.
 
 Odom immediately became known as Bat Man and, to his credit, tried to shrug it off and go along with the kidding. (They even played the Batman theme when he came into a game.) But when he had a bad game, the “kidding” became unmerciful. Even umpires called him Batman. Laredo officials saw it affecting Odom and put an end to all Batman talk or promotion. But Odom had had enough.
 
 He left the team after three weeks., saying was going home to get his life straightened out. He apparently never did. After the trade he insisted that he was about more than baseball. “I don’t want people to think this is what defines me as a person,” he said. He figured people would come to see him out of curiosity, but see that he could pitch and his career would progress. He didn’t figure on American society’s short attention span and lack of empathy and compassion.
 
 And the men who traded him for those bats? Laredo’s GM says he won’t ever do something like that again. But Calgary’s Young doesn’t like to think he had anything to do with Odom’s death. Young said the bats, stamped with Odom’s name, were never to be used. They were supposedly to be auctioned for charity, but he got a better offer from Ripley Entertainment, which paid $10,000 to the team’s children’s charity. Ripley’s plans to use the bats in a “Believe It or Not” exhibit.
 
 That makes me saddest of all. John Odom made some mistakes in life, but he also was trying to change his way. A lot of people — friends, teammates — liked him and thought, at 26, he was finally on the right path. Then he got traded for 10 stinking bats. Hey, that’s life in the minors, right?

 Not funny. Not even close.

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com.

By Bob Gaydos

 A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to indulge a bit of fatherly pride. (There will be some personal bragging here, but I do have a more universal point if you bear with me.) My oldest son, Max, was among 52 students at Pine Bush High School who participated in a Literacy and Education Academy for four weeks this summer. The focus of the course was diversity. That is, how to teach diversity. The students were taught and, in turn, taught other students the value of tolerance and the benefits of living in a diverse society. This is not your usual high school curriculum.

 I report proudly that Max and the others took to it with enthusiasm and culminated their lesson with a diversity fair which they planned, organized and presented on their own. A true growth experience for all concerned, capped by a ceremony at SUNY New Paltz, which co-sponsored the class and awarded three general education credits for graduates.

 Which brings me to my point. The two teachers assigned to the academy are among the best at Pine Bush and the kind to which most students can relate. They enjoy their work and it shows. I like and respect them both. But at New Paltz, in summing up the class, one of them noted that, in response to a local newspaper story on the diversity fair, a few negative comments had been posted on the online version. Basically, three people too gutless to include their real names on their comments trashed it as a waste of money and an effort to promote homosexuality. The teacher admonished the students not to let these remarks spoil their experience and offered that everyone is entitled to an opinion. And she said, “There is no such thing as a stupid opinion.”

 Sorry, but that is pure nonsense. If 40-plus years in journalism taught me anything, it is that our world is awash in stupid opinions. Today, they are more evident than ever. You can read them anytime on the Internet. And you can hear them daily on talk radio and television. On and on, mindless jabbering about important issues by people with no regard for the facts or, worse, willful disregard for them. And stupid opinions can lead to stupid behavior.

 As Exhibit A, I offer Sarah I-will-exploit-any-member-of- my-family-at-any-time-for-my-personal-gain-and-will-say-anything-I-think-will-make-like-minded-people-too-lazy-to-check-the-facts-agree-with-me-but-I-really-can’t-take-another-year-and-a-half-as-governor-of-Alaska-so-I’m-quitting-the-job-to-which-I-was-elected-so-I-can-make-more-money-offering-my-opinions-on-a-heckuva-lot-of-stuff-I-know-nothing-about Palin.

 You want a stupid opinion? Palin’s allegation that President Obama wants to include a government-run “death panel” as part of the reform of health care not only ignores the facts of the proposed benefit – which said merely that people should have the option to confer with a doctor to make sound end-of-life decisions and that the consultation would be covered by insurance – but conveniently ignores the fact that Palin herself made such a recommendation herself a couple of years ago. And, it goes against everything she has known to be true about her country, of which she is so proud.

 Does she really believe that any American president would ever propose creating something as heinous as “death panels” to decide who lives and dies? Would she ever have the guts to accuse Obama to his face of such a plan? Not likely. Easier to lob Facebook bombs from Alaska.

 This suggests that Palin’s opinion may not have been so much stupid as evil. To make such a charge when you know it not be true is beyond cynical politics. But the people who heard it and repeated it without checking the facts on it were, in fact, spreading a stupid opinion, just like those people who parrot anything Rush Limbaugh says or the folks commenting on the diversity training. The common denominator, obviously, is fear, which is the basis of most stupid opinion. It is easier to believe an outrageous lie sometimes than to struggle to get all the information and resolve an honest difference of opinion. Then, of course, there’s the politics of attacking someone because you don’t like him. Because, maybe, he’s different from you and somehow threatens you, but you just don’t know how.

 The point is that opinions that sound outrageous on their face are probably outrageous beneath their outer shell of anger and bias. Yes, everyone has an opinion. But, while all men and women may be considered to have been created equal, not all opinions are equal. Opinions can be rooted in rumor, fear, twisted facts and, yes, hidden agendas. The “death panel” reports were created by Obama foes who oppose any health care reform, oppose abortion and describe him as an advocate of euthanasia. The New York Times recently identified some of those: The Washington Times, a conservative newspaper which has compared Obama to the Nazis, the conservative American Spectator magazine and former New York lieutenant governor Betsy McCaughey, whom I think I am safe in calling a wack job. The Internet bloggers and anonymous e-mailers picked up the undoucmente4d charges charge and ran with them, egged on by insurance companies (who actually do make life-and-death decisions) who stand to see their profits reduced by health care reform.

 These opinions are not equal to those formed after research and thoughtful discussion on the topic. When there is no evidence, no basis in reality, they are downright stupid and ought to be ignored to death, not given equal footing.

 I went looking for some support for my opinion here (even though I felt I was on solid ground) and came across Elsa Scheider’s web site: Elsa’s word story image idea music emporium. In the idea portion of the emporium, the former teacher writes at length about the notion that all ideas are equal (there’s no such thing as a stupid opinion). She says this is absurd. As proof, she writes that she asked a class of students who believed the all-ideas-are-equal argument if they would accept her opinion that all ideas were not equal.

 Conundrum.

 If they said yes, she asked how could they believe any of their opinions are right or wrong if opposite opinions are equally right or wrong?

 More to the point, she noted that “if all opinions are equal, it follows that the opinion that all opinions are not equal is just as good as the opinion that all opinions are equal. Yes equals no.”

 Most students refused to accept her opinion, instantly making their opinion
irrelevant. And stupid.

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com.

By Bob Gaydos

 One of the more unusual aspects of last year’s presidential campaign is that the candidates of both major parties were born outside the mainland of the United States in places that were, at different times, within jurisdiction of the United States if not actually one of the states. President Barack Obama was born in 1961 of a Kenyan father and American mother in Hawaii, two years after the territory became the 50th state in the union. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 of American parents. Despite challenges from the fringes to their “natural born” citizenry, both men were declared legally eligible to run for president. 
 
 Most Americans were not aware of this oddity and, in truth, most probably did not care. The laws making both men “natural born” citizens of the United States seemed to be clear and both men had demonstrated sufficient ability and patriotism over their careers to justify their candidacies. In truth, there was a lot more to justify their candidacies than there is to justify the antiquated legal thinking that requires someone be a “natural-born citizen to be eligible to hold the office of president.
 
 If you have somehow escaped the idiocy, the question of presidential citizenship arises today because yet another wacky group of rightwingers has chosen to make it more difficult for responsible Republicans to admit their allegiance in public. This group is known as “Birthers.” (Close to Birchers. Remember them?) Birthers believe that Obama is not a natural-born American citizen. Why? Well, they just do. They do not take the word of the State of Hawaii, which has on more than one occasion produced a copy of the original birth certificate of the president. They do not accept newspaper reports of his birth at the time. They do not accept various investigations that showed Obama was born in the good old USA. They do not accept the vote of the Congress declaring Obama to be legit. They don’t like the man. They don’t like this name. They don’t like his smarts. Some probably don’t like the color of his skin. So they advance their conspiracy theory in the face of all things rational and with the help of some media figures who know full well what they are doing.
 
 The Birthers have been given unwarranted air time by Rush Limbaugh, who will say anything to stir up his faithful listeners for higher ratings, and by CNN’s Lou Dobbs, who is rapidly becoming the face of the “Why don’t you go back where you came from?” crowd. He should be fired. Both men persist in stating that “doubts” remain about Obama’s citizenship and “questions” remain to be answered. Only in the minds of the delusional and the politically devious. Even Liz Cheney has gone on TV to lend credence to the “doubters,” suggesting that maybe this apple did not fall as far from the tree as once thought.
 
 Adding to the lunacy, the primary Birther appears to be Orly Taitz, a Russian-born dentist, who in true American fashion got a law degree online and has used it to challenge Obama’s birthright in court for years, to no avail. It appears that Taitz and another birther, Stefan Cook, conspired to raise the question through the military. Cook, a major in the Army Reserve, volunteered in February to serve in Afghanistan, but when his orders came through he refused on conscientious objector grounds, saying he could not follow orders from an illegitimate commander-in-chief. Since this would require a court hearing and since engineers were needed quickly in Afghanistan and since Cook had volunteered to serve and was within his rights to change his mind and since the Army knew full well what Cook was up to, his orders were promptly rescinded. No public court showdown for Taitz, whom Cook had retained to defend him if the Army had taken the bait. Taitz, of course, say the Army’s decision is proof that it cannot prove Obama is legitimate.
 
 This is all annoying and beyond humorous and also unnecessary. And it’s all because of  Article II, Section I, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution, which states: “No person except a natural born Citizen … shall be eligible for the Office of President.” Those ellipses represent the exception clause in the article, which the authors had to include because at the time no one old enough to serve would have been a natural born citizen of the United States. It allowed those who were citizens of colonies at the time of the writing to also serve, which cleared the way for Washington and six more Founding Fathers. New York’s own Martin Van Buren was the first natural-born American to serve as president. He was the eighth in line. He also gave us the term “O.K.” (Old Kinderhook), which is perhaps just as significant.
 
 Some members of Congress (not many) are pushing a law requiring presidential candidates to prove they are natural born citizens. But why? Surely we have had enough experience with foreign-born, naturalized citizens serving in important government positions by now to know that one’s place of birth is not nearly as important as his or her abilities and proven loyalty to the United States. We are more than ever a nation of immigrants and immigrants’ children. And if Barack Obama had been born in Hawaii just before it became a state, would he be any less capable of being president? Or, for those Republicans out there, shouldn’t Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger be able to run for president? Or maybe being governor of California is way easier than being governor of Alaska. At least Arnold hasn’t quit.
 
 It’s simple. Change the law. If you have lived in this country for at least 20 years, are old enough and are a citizen, you can run for president. Hey, it’s the American Dream.   
 Bob can be reached at Bob@zestoforange.com