By Bob Gaydos

  Timing, they say, is everything. Whoever “they” are, I tend to agree with them. And I’m also the first to admit that my timing on this column is terrible, from a journalistic viewpoint.

   But I don’t write to a deadline anymore and, well, a story is still a story, especially in these days of no more local newspapers.

    So, two stories that got my attention a while back involved a couple of guys who you could say are living, breathing examples of a certain type often referred to as stereotypical inhabitants of the North Jersey/New York City axis: Tommy DeVito and Rudy Giuliani.

     DeVito, for those who don’t follow sports, is a quarterback in the National Football League. That statement alone is testament to the fact that, when it comes to timing, DeVito’s has turned out to be almost mystical.

        DeVito is the starting quarterback for the New York Giants because the quarterback who started the season as number one suffered a serious injury and was replaced by the backup quarterback, who also was seriously injured. The team was also not playing well.

          Some might say right place, right time and, yes, that’s true, but DeVito, a 23-year-old graduate of  North Jersey’s famed Don Bosco High, had to put himself in that position.

           His football career at Syracuse and Illinois was unremarkable and he was not drafted as a quarterback by any NFL team. Time to look for a career that doesn’t require good downfield vision and a willingness to be slammed to the ground by 260-pound linemen?

          No, DeVito asked the Giants for a tryout and someone liked what he saw and DeVito got a walk-on spot as the team’s third (only in emergencies!) quarterback.

           Badaboom, badabing, and there’s the North Jersey kid who still lives with his parents playing quarterback as the moribund Giants suddenly win three straight games and lift all of North Jersey and much of New York City out of the football doldrums.

         Turns out the kid’s got guts, can take lots of hits and can throw the ball. And he’s got a confident attitude as demonstrated by an Italian hand gesture he made famous after his first three wins. Kind of an in-your-face don’t mess with us message folks from the area would recognize and the rest of the U.S. was introduced to via TV. 

  I mentioned first three wins because, as you may know, the honeymoon ended last weekend at the hands of the Saints, who tossed Devito’s hand gesture back at him.

     No bigee. He’s still the Giants starting quarterback, his teammates support him, he has an agent out of central casting for “Goodfellas,” a cousin named Danny DeVito (not that one) who throws a mean tailgate party and, yes, good timing.

    A story broke recently that his agent raised DeVito’s appearance fee to $20,000 from $10,000, because of his client’s sudden celebrity, and a pizza restaurant canceled the gig, saying they couldn’t afford it. DeVito didn’t miss a beat. He showed up free of charge, probably ordered a chicken parm and undoubtedly said the Giants will take care of the Eagles in their next game. The coach says he’s still the starting quarterback, for now.

     And Rudy? Last I heard, a jury in Atlanta had ordered him to pay two poll workers $148 million for defaming them as part of the Trump team’s efforts to steal the  2020 election.

       Giuliani also, of course, is charged with Trump and others of various crimes in trying to change the election results in Georgia. In fact, he is guilty of lying about the election across the country as Trump’s mouthpiece.

       I wondered if he had the money to pay the two poll workers, but then it turns out he filed for bankruptcy right after the verdict. Maybe he had the presence of mind to recognize that “billionaire” Trump wouldn’t care a whit about Giuliani’s problems when the ex-president has got more than enough of his own.

        How did “America’s Mayor” get here? Bad timing. After 9/11, when he was the dominant political figure in the country, a mayor leading a bloodied and angry New York City out of the rubble of the terrorist attack with courage and pride, he could have run for president and won.

   He did run, in 2008, but not with any sense of purpose and urgency or platform. He skipped the traditional GOP Iowa and New Hampshire primaries and got buried in Florida. Bad timing. He dropped out. He never acted like it was his place and time, which it might well have been. Then he disappeared until he went to work as Trump’s mouthpiece because, well, the allure of power was always there.

    Time, a fondness for power, many bad decisions and, reportedly, a problem with alcohol and Giuliani’s now, at 79, facing bankruptcy and prison. His time has run out.

     Meanwhile, Tommy DeVito hired a new agent to handle his public appearances. Good timing.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

 

By Bob Gaydos

Memo from: New York City Dept. of Education

To: Makers of standardized tests to be used in the New York City public school system:

“There should be no mention of dinosaurs in the tests. No birthdays either. No Christmas, Halloween or Ramadan questions. No mention of divorce, disease or death. Politics and religion should be avoided. Also violence, poverty, junk food and homes with computers or swimming pools. Come to think of it, let’s also leave out television and video games, war and homelessness. Also rock and roll. In fact, we’ve provided a comprehensive list of words and subjects to be avoided in standardized tests because we don’t want the kids who grow up in the largest city in the country to feel uncomfortable or unpleasant while taking the tests.”

Relax. While that memo — or some version of it — may have been sent to providers of standardized tests, the list of banned words did not became policy in New York City. Yet.

The story, which broke a few weeks back, fortunately, had a short shelf life. After a couple of days of incredulous headlines, the city education officials responsible for putting together a list of suggested words to be banned relented and decided to let the test writers do their job.

That job, by the way, routinely involves avoiding words or subjects because of possibly justifiable geographical or cultural differences or wholly arbitrary decisions to avoid offending some group. And we wonder why American kids test so poorly when compared to those in other countries. Our tests may be standardized, but they omit a good deal of the actual lives our kids lead.

New York City’s list made headlines because it was long and, well, stupid. (It’s at the bottom of this column, so you can make you own judgment.) NYC Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said the intent was merely to give guidance to the test developers. “So we’re not an outlier in being politically correct,” he said. “This is just making sure that test makers are sensitive in the development of their tests.”

Good lord, many of them are already wary of including anything on dinosaurs (which kids love) on the tests because that would suggest that evolution is indeed a fact. Can’t have that in Tennessee. Halloween (and other topics that suggest the occult or witchcraft) is also routinely avoided, even though it is the second biggest holiday in the country after Christmas. Which is also verboten. And, of course, any mention of birthdays is off limits in many places because Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate them.

Maybe not, but they do know that other people do. And it’s not as if Christmas or Halloween are underground holidays, whatever one’s religious beliefs.

Rich? Poor? Married? Divorced? Healthy? Sick? Are these not universal topics? How are slavery and terrorism part of this nation’s history but not fit topics for a standardized test?

Children today are exposed to all of life on a daily basis as never before through TV and the Internet. It could be argued that kids who grow up in New York City are even more exposed to all of life because of the vastness and diversity of the city — things city officials like to brag about. So why hold that against the kids?

No, you don’t have to go out of your way to make kids feel uncomfortable with topics such as sexual abuse, bullying, addiction, suicide or even natural disasters. The people who create the tests should be skilled enough to know what those words or topics are. But they shouldn’t be pressured to go beyond common sense to try to make their tests so innocent of life as to avoid offending any possible group.

Children learn to make judgments and distinctions as they grow up. They meet new people and hear new ideas all the time. Learning to assimilate those ideas into their lives and to adjust to a world in which they exist is a major part of maturing. We could use more of it in America.

People die. They get divorced. Countries fight wars. Celebrities do stupid things. Politicians, too. There are people for whom poverty and hunger are primary concerns every day. Others vacation in Aruba. Children don’t need to be shielded from the “uncomfortable” facts of life. Instead, they need to be taught about them and how to deal with them in proper settings.

Chancellor Walcott should take that now-abandoned list and try to figure out how to incorporate lessons on each topic at the appropriate place in the city schools’ curriculum. Then he can test the kids on it.

* * *

 Here’s the list:

Abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, or psychological)

Alcohol (beer and liquor), tobacco, or drugs

Birthday celebrations (and birthdays)

Bodily functions

Cancer (and other diseases)

Catastrophes/disasters (tsunamis and hurricanes)

Celebrities

Children dealing with serious issues

Cigarettes (and other smoking paraphernalia)

Computers in the home (acceptable in a school or library setting)

Crime

Death and disease

Divorce

Evolution

Expensive gifts, vacations, and prizes

Gambling involving money

Halloween

Homelessness

Homes with swimming pools

Hunting

Junk food

In-depth discussions of sports that require prior knowledge

Loss of employment

Nuclear weapons

Occult topics (i.e. fortune-telling)

Parapsychology

Politics

Pornography

Poverty

Rap Music

Religion

Religious holidays and festivals (including but not limited to Christmas, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan)

Rock-and-Roll music

Running away

Sex

Slavery

Terrorism

Television and video games (excessive use)

Traumatic material (including material that may be particularly upsetting such as animal shelters)

Vermin (rats and roaches)

Violence

War and bloodshed

Weapons (guns, knives, etc.)

Witchcraft, sorcery, etc.

*  *  *

What do you think?

bob@zestoforange.com