John Delach

From the March 5^th edition of The New York Times:

For more than a decade, the New Jersey attorney general’s office conducted a hard-fought legal battle to hold Exxon Mobil Corporation responsible for decades of environmental contamination in northern New Jersey.

But when news came that the state had reached a deal to settle its $8.9 billion claim for about $250 million, the driving force behind the settlement was not the attorney general’ office – it was Gov. Chris Christie’s chief counsel Christopher S. Porrino…

With The Times setting the agenda and leading the charge, Jersey Democratic politicians, environmentalists and activists were empowered. Assemblyman John F. McKeon (D), “The reported settlement is appalling and disturbing…”

Bradley M. Campbell, former Jersey environmental commissioner wrote in an NYT Op-Ed piece that same day: “The decision…to settle an environmental lawsuit…for roughly three cents on the dollar is an embarrassment to law enforcement and good government.”

For the record, this lawsuit involves the sprawling Bayway Refinery originally built by Standard Oil of New Jersey, (Esso) that Esso and Exxon operated for many years. Located in Bayonne and Linden adjacent to the New Jersey Turnpike, this foul smelling location has been the bbrunt of jokes for years.

The late Jean Shepherd once called out to his radio audience one Saturday night, “Listen, right now as I speak, there is a boy and a girl out on a first date traveling down the turnpike just south of Exit 13: she thinks it’s him and he thinks it’s her.”

The state contended that Exxon contaminated 1,500 acres of wetlands, marshes and meadows around the refinery. Judge Michael S. Hogan was believed ready to rule on the amount of damages that Exxon owed when the settlement was reached.

In a rebuttal to these critics, Gov. Christie’s administration stated the actual amount of the settlement is $225 million while noting this amount was, “the single largest environmental settlement with a corporate defendant in New Jersey’s history.” They further debunked Campbell as a “known partisan” who, when a commissioner, stated that this action could reasonably be settled in the hundred millions of dollars.

Eventually, justice will prevail, but what the paper of record and these critics are ignoring is if Judge Hogan rejects this settlement and awards a substantially higher amount to the state, that would only be the beginning of years of further litigation.

Exxon does not take judicial rulings lightly. They are the biggest, baddest battlers on earth and unlike any other entity except Uncle, they have all the time, all the money and all the lawyers they need to fight a judgment for as long as it takes.

Witness the litigation surrounding the grounding of the tanker, Exxon Valdez in March of 1989 that released 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound. Judge H. Russell Holland presided over the suit brought by 32,000 fisherman, Alaska natives, landowners and commercial businesses. In 1994, the jury returned awards for a bit over $500 million in compensatory damages and $5 billion in punitive damages.

Exxon appealed. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the amount of the punitive damages was excessive. But Judge Holland, a Reagan appointee, didn’t think it was that excessive so reinstated the award to the tune of $4 billion.

(That’s when I discovered that the Judge Holland looked like a bearded mountain man, that the H. stood for Hezekiah. This prompted me to coin the slogan, “Never trust your fate to a judge named Hezekiah.”)

The case returned to the Ninth Circuit who admonished Holland to re-consider the award using the Supreme Court’s guidelines. This offended Holland who punted the case back to the Ninth with a battle cry that the Supremes’ views didn’t cut it with his original analysis.

This took the process from 2002 until 2004. In December 2006, the Ninth issued its own ruling setting punitive damages at $2.5 billion. On to Washington, DC and on June 25, 2008, 19 years after the grounding and 14 years after the original judgment, the Supremes voted 5-3 (Justice Samuel Alito recused himself) setting the award at $507.5 million an amount equal to the original compensatory damages. (With interest: $1.515 billion.)

I cannot speak on the merits of the Bayway case. But based on history, may I suggest that before continuing this assault to tar and feather Christie and Porrino, it may be well to consider what would be achieved should New Jersey’s litigation goes forward and at what cost.

All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray,

I’ve been for a walk on a winter’s day.

I’d be safe and warm if I was in L.A.;

California dreamin’ on such a winter’s day.

                                       California Dreamin’

February is a good month to hate. Personally I’ve hated February since I was old enough to see the writing on the wall and the only reason that it took me so long to utterly detest the second month of the year is my birthday comes in February. Growing up celebrating a birthday on February 22 was grand. I had the luxury of being off from school every year. Several times my mother took me to Manhattan for lunch at the Automat and a first-run movie at the Paramount, the Palace, Radio City or the Roxy.  Fortunately I graduated from primary school before the Feds ruined my birthday together with George and Abe by stripping both of their holidays replacing them with that satanic substitute, President’s Day. President’s Day indeed, what baloney! Who celebrates the birth of lesser presidents like Pierce or Buchanan, Harrisons (both of them) Hayes, Arthur or Coolidge? Balderdash, we might as well celebrate Tom Dewey’s or Adali Stevenson’s birthdays as national holidays.

Ah, but I digress, the issue before us is the horror of February. Our discontent is not limited to snow zones although they have been clobbered. Lake effect snow has delivered its share of misery from the Dakotas through Chicago and Cleveland to Buffalo, east across New York State, through Albany, into Massachusetts hitting Springfield and Worchester hard and often. Nor’easters have been especially cruel to the New England coast dropping tons of snow on Boston where the head of the MBTA, Beverly Scott, was reduced to speaking in tongues during a news conference on the day before she resigned. That’s what eight feet of snow can do to a human being!

Not content, to paralyze the Mid-West and the Northeast, the Jet Stream dipped further and further south bringing chaos and mayhem to the Sun Belt. Ice storms hit Texas, freezing temperatures in Georgia and Florida, the Carolinas and Virginia. Snow, ice, wind and cold began soon as Super Bowl XLIX ended continuing on and on and on throughout the month. (You decide if this was God’s payback for under inflated footballs?)

February is, has been and always will be a horrible month. Each year, February produces another Valley Forge, a Stalingrad or a Chosin Reservoir. Sieges to be endured huddled up, house bound, held hostage hoping power doesn’t fail or pipes burst. What do we get in return, Punxsutawney Pete, Ash Wednesday and Lent!

Good riddance February, good riddance and goodbye.

Then I’m laying out my winter clothes

And wishing I was gone

Going home.

Where the New York City winters

Aren’t bleeding me

Leading me’

Going home.

                 The Boxer

When the system works against us we usually have little or no choice but to succumb to the inevitable and accept that life is less than we want it to be. But, I ask you, dear reader, “What if you were granted special circumstances that provided you with the opportunity to right a nagging wrong? Would you take it even if it meant ratting out some other person?”

Damn right you would.

For a little over ten years from 1989 to 2000, I regularly exercised almost every morning before going to work. My company offered free membership to Cardio Fitness Center, an upscale gym located in Rockefeller Center. The clientele included executives from Exxon, Rockefeller Center itself, Time-Life and The New York Times. Cardio Fitness made it simple and easy. They opened at 6:30 and supplied unisex tee shirts and shorts for every member making it the antithesis of a muscle gym.

We each had a locker and it didn’t take long after I joined that fall to realize just who some of my locker mates were. One December morning, I listened over my shoulder to the following conversation: “David, that was a lovely lighting ceremony last night.”

“Why thank you Punch, I do believe we were able to procure a nice tree this year.”

As I tied my sneaker, I stole a glance in the direction of the conversants, my eyes confirming that they were indeed Arthur (Punch) Sulzberger, publisher of the NY Times and David Rockefeller. Armed with this information, I chose to share my six degrees of separation story with others finishing with, “David Rockefeller and I are on a first-name basis: I call him, ‘Your Wealthiness’ and he calls me, ‘Hey you.”

A self-imposed, daily early morning trip to Cardio wasn’t easy since I lived in Port Washington, a slave to the LIRR and transportation within Manhattan to get from Penn Station at Thirty-Third and Eighth to the McGraw-Hill Building at Forty-Eighth and Sixth. This meant taking the 5:36 train out of Port Washington and finding fellow-travelers with whom to share a cab.

To make the 5:36 bedtime was never past 9 pm. I awoke at 4:47*, shaved, took a courtesy shower, dressed in clothes laid out the night before and left the house at 5:20 for the short ride to the station. At that time in the morning the only two dangers I faced were garbage trucks and newspaper delivery people both who owned the street and didn’t look for other traffic.

My car radio was set to 660 AM, WFAN, a sports talk show station then hosted by Steve Summers. Steve went off the air at 5:30 so I heard his last caller of the night who more times than not was a diminutive chap who Steve deemed, short Al. Steve would begin their conversation with, “Time is short and so is Al.”

Arriving at the station, my first priority was to secure the morning NY Times, the second, a cup of Joe before picking out one of the plentiful parking spaces.

On the train, same car, same seat every day; in the beginning I was one of the few “suits”  universally despised by construction workers and other non-suits. I didn’t blame them as most suits were financial types who spread themselves across several seats while shutting out the world behind the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.

The Paper of Record was what I craved, but many days it was dicey whether the Times would make it before I arrived. Sometimes the papers made it but the news vendor didn’t show before departure. That problem was easily solved, a pocket knife or a car key would cut the strap and a cardboard cup would hold the money owed. If the Times wasn’t there, Newsday would have to suffice as a poor substitute. Unfortunately, as time went by the Times failed to arrive with greater regularity. When I complained to the newsstand guy, he shook his head and said that the delivery man didn’t care.

It just so happened that the locker next to mine belonged to John Reilly, then the Times’ Metropolitan editor. One day, frustrated, I complained to Mr. Reilly about the tardiness of his newspaper reaching Port Washington. As if by magic, shortly thereafter, the paper never missed the train again. And this honeymoon continued, all was well and life was good. One day I mentioned to the newsstand proprietor how pleased I was with the delivery of the Times. His eyes lit up as he said, “Wow, I know. But that delivery guy is really ticked off. His boss came down on him like a ton of bricks. He said some big shot had dropped a dime on him and he was almost fired.”

The rat said nothing and just walked away with a smile on his face. As I think about it now, I may have been whistling Strike up the Band too.

*Why 4:47? My clock alarm was tuned to a news station, WCBS, that reported traffic and weather on the eights.

A white elephant: a possession entailing great expense out of proportion to its usefulness or value to the owner.

Officially, New Jersey is known as the Garden State but realistically, Jimmy Hoffa’s resting place can rightfully claim the title as the White Elephant State. Most of these monuments to misplaced ambition and stupidity are bunched together in the swamps of East Rutherford fondly referred to as The Meadowlands.

Witness the Izod Center; aka, Brendan Byrne Arena; aka, Continental Arena. Opened in 1981, this 20,000 plus facility es kaput. Deserted by the Devils, Nets and profits, Izod Center in North Jersey is to close. So reported The New York Times noting that the arena is expected to lose $8.5 million in 2015. The hockey team left in 2007 for the Prudential Center in Newark and the Nets departed to the Barkley Center in Downtown Brooklyn for their 2011-2012 season.

Rather than demolish this facility, it will be mothballed until 2017 when the American Dream Meadowlands complex is currently expected to open, but I wouldn’t bet the ranch on that happening.

The American Dream Meadowlands complex is the newest name for a facility that here-to-fore owns the title of the most elaborate White Elephant in the state.

Originally named Xanadu Meadowlands, construction on this monstrosity began in 2004 with an expected building time of two years and a price tag in the billions. Various issues, problems and law suits slowed completion although; by 2009 it was 80% complete. Of course, by then the economy had gone to hell and so had its tenants, funding and debt load.

Its exterior has been deemed one of the ugliest facades of any structure ever envisioned. I cannot possibly do justice to just how revolting the exterior is. “A combination of aluminum composite and siding, of various colors including turquoise, red, yellow and green…” are mixed in with blue and white checks almost at random. The indoor ski slope at one end only enhances its cartoon effect prompting Governor Chris Christie to declare the complex, “…the ugliest building in New Jersey and possibly America…”

With the death of Lehman Brothers in 2009, funding and committed retailers vamoosed. By August of 2010, control had been surrendered to five lenders. As if the financial crash wasn’t enough, Mother Nature struck during the winter of 2011. “On February 1, after a record-breaking month of snow for the area, a 50 to 60-foot long section of the eastern wall buckled and a horizontal crease was apparent on the complex’s ski slope. Two days later, on February 3, after workers were attempting to melt snow from the ski slope’s roof, ice build-up caused the eastern wall to fail and suffer a partial collapse.”

Still, a new management group, Triple Five took control in the spring of 2011. Triple Five, who own Mall of America and West Edmonton Mall, re-christened the complex, American Dream Meadowlands (ADM) and expanded the complex to include a water park and a theme park. Lawsuits with the Giants and Jets delayed things further but once settled, the project resumed with a new completion date in late 2016.

I predict that this will come to pass as planned including the indoor ski slope, the amusement park and a water park plus an indoor ice rink, a 26 screen movie theater, and a 3,000 seat concert hall. The piece de resistance will be, the New Jersey Eye, an outdoor observation wheel providing panoramic views of New York City from 26 climate controlled gondolas. Yes, I predict this will come to pass so long as God stops paying attention to every other activity on the planet and dedicates His infinite will to the ADM for the next two years.

Good grief, I’m running out of space without getting to costly Met Life Stadium, home to the football Giants and Jets. Note; Met Life, constructed without a dome to the tune of $1.8 Billion cost more money to build than the NFL’s ultimate cathedral, AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys. More popularly called, Jerry’s Palace dedicated to the power and greed of the Cowboys’ owner, this magnificent edifice has a retractable roof and every possible bell and whistle imaginable making non-domed Met Life look like a band box! In truth, Met Life is fatally flawed and, except for some modern electronic updates, it doesn’t hold a candle to its predecessor, Giants Stadium that was destroyed when less than 40 years old.

The Red Bulls have a new soccer stadium in Harrison and Newark’s Prudential Center, home to the NHL Devils. Both arenas were constructed on the theory that, “If you build it they will come.”

But will they come to Harrison or Newark; fuhgeddsboudit!

Sunday, November 20, 1978: If you were a Philadelphia Eagles fan listening to the game on the radio late in that afternoon, you were close to giving up. Your team playing in Giants Stadium at the other end of New Jersey was losing 13 to 17. The hated Giants controlled the football with only 32 seconds left to play. The Eagles were out of time outs, the situation was in doubt. Yet, here is how the team’s second year play-by-play announcer, 36-year-old Merrill Reese, described what happened next:

Under thirty seconds left in the game. From here on Pisarcik can fall on the ball and there’s nothing the Eagles can do.

And Pisarcik fumbles the football.

It’s picked up by Herman Edwards.

15-10-5-TOUCHDOWN, Eagles.

I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it!

The Eagles beat the Giants, 19 to 17 before a shocked crowd.

This unbelievable finish that Eagles fans call to this day, “The Miracle at the Meadowlands” (and Giants fans, “The Fumble”) were resurrected by the last play the Seattle Seahawks ran in Super Bowl XLIX. Having reached the Patriots one-yard-line with 26 seconds remaining in the game and down four points, the Seahawks needed a touchdown to win the game. They elected to try a pass play instead of simply handing the ball to their formidable running back, Marshawn Lynch.  Unfortunately for Seattle, Malcolm Butler, a Patriot defensive back read the play and jumped the receiver’s route intercepting the football at the goal line. Game, set and match; the New England Patriots were the Super Bowl Champions for the fourth time in the Brady-Belichick era and the Seattle offensive coaching staff was the goats.

Darrell Bevell, Seattle’s offensive coordinator, told the press, “It didn’t turn out the way I hoped it would.”

Indeed, Mike Francesa, the foremost sports radio host in New York, opined: “The single worst big-moment call in the history of sports. If I live to be 200, I’ll never see anything as dumb in my life.”

The Giants bone-headed play selection at the end of that Eagle game back in 1978 was the choice of their offensive coordinator, Bob Gibson. On the previous play, Joe Pisarcik, the Giants quarterback took a knee. Then, for reasons unknown, Gibson called for a running play instead of telling Pisarcik to take one last knee to end the game. In situations like this, it is considered professional courtesy for the offense to tell their opponents that they would take a knee. The big defensive linemen would stay in their place to avoid unnecessary injuries to either team. When none of the Giants linemen said anything, an Eagles defender asked, “Are you guys running a play?”

“We are,” came the response. Gibson called a running play by Giants fullback, Larry Csonka. Pisarcik turned to hand the ball to Csonka, missed and only managed to hit Csonka’s leg. The ball went bouncing away where Herman Edwards scooped it up on the run and scored the winning touchdown.

The sports writers were horrified. Dave Klein wrote a piece that appeared under the headline, “Eagles Take Advantage of Boner Call.” Klein wrote:

It should not have happened. It could not have happened. There was no way the Giants could have lost yesterday. But they found a way. Blame it on a gross and grievous error on the part of the coaching staff.”

Gibson was fired the next day and never spent another minute with a football team at any level ever again. Gibson retreated to Sanibel Island where he opened a bait shop, a bar and a restaurant called Gibby’s. Today at 87, he resides in nearby Fort Myers still unreachable and uncommunicative about that horrible play on that Sunday afternoon.

So far, the Seahawks have rallied around Bevell and his boss, head coach, Pete Carroll admits he too signed off on the play. Unfortunately, plays that are directly responsible for losing a championship never go away and the goat carries this with him forever. Bevell is that goat.

Gibson was smart getting out to start a new life in paradise. Bevell may want to consider a similar move. If you don’t believe me, ask Bill Buckner.

Avery Robert Fisher (1906-1994), grew up an aficionado of classical music. He went on to experiment with audio designs and acoustics with the goal of developing a radio receiver capable of creating sound the equivalent to the experience of listening to a live orchestra. He developed high fidelity just before World War II when paired with newly invented FM radio, fulfilled his goal. His Fisher Radio Company became a leader in developing quality sound receivers culminating with the remarkable 22-tube stereophonic TA600 radio introduced in 1959, a radio of such quality that it retailed for $350 (equal to $2,800 today.) Mr. Fisher sold his company to Emerson Electric in 1969 for $31 million.

Mr. Fisher is best remembered for his philanthropy.  He donated $10.5 million to the New York Philharmonic in 1973 and in return the trustees agreed to name their new quarters at Lincoln Center, Avery Fisher Hall, in perpetuity or so it seemed.

By 2014, $10.5 million dollars wasn’t what it used to be in the last 40 years while technology has raised people’s expectations to experience performances that a 1973 facility cannot possibly produce. And so the current trustees determined that Avery Fisher Hall needs a $500 million restoration.

The trustees at Lincoln Center recently reached agreement with the Fisher family to pay his descendants $15 million together “with other inducements in hopes of luring a much larger donor willing to subsidize…” this project.

So much for perpetuity!

Curiously, shortly following this press release, the American Museum of Natural History announced their plans to build: “A $325 million, six-story addition designed to foster the institution’s expanding role as a center for scientific research and education.”

The addition will be called, the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education and Innovation. Robin Pogrebin reported in The New York Times: “Mr. Gilder has been involved in every major initiative of the museum’s during the last 20 years…His gift will put his total contributions to the museum at more than $125 million during that period, making him the single largest donor in the institution’s history.”

Richard Gilder, Jr. (born May 31, 1932) is another New York philanthropist, well-respected for his contributions to his alma matter, Yale, the Central Park Conservancy,  other institutions and, of course the Museum of Natural History. His success in life came as the founder and lead partner of Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co, a firm specializing in trading stocks and short selling.

In recognition of his generosity, the museum had already named its Richard Gilder Graduate School after him. This school has bestowed a Ph.D. in comparative biology, something rare for a museum.

Good luck Mister Gilder in your effort to be known in perpetuity. Most Americans would never think about this fate. We’re born, live and die. With luck our families and friends remember us for a time. This is good.

Famous and infamous make it into history but relatively unknown people who, through a flaw in our capitalist system, acquire considerably more wealth than they are entitled to, feel a driving need to achieve immortality by buying their way into it as they contemplate their own end.

Once we called them robber barons. The Rockefellers, Mellons, Harrimans and Vanderbilts of years gone by who flooded charities with money. So too do the current super rich; the Kochs, Tishes, Langones, Buffets and Gates who give back so much because they own so much. Their names may remain for eons, more or less.

But the shelf-life for Mr. Gilder’s perpetuity is limited. I hope he negotiated an acceptable time frame that his name will stand in place at the museum and its grad school or that the museum will have to payoff his descendants when it is removed.

Sam Roberts who wrote the piece about Avery Fisher’s demise noted that not that long ago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art proposed to name their Roman Sculpture Court in perpetuity after Leon Levy, a collector and philanthropist. Leon’s wife, Shelby White, had the wherewithal to ask, “How long is perpetuity?”

The Met’s director replied, “For you, 50 years.”

Ms White was not pleased as their daughter was in her 20s at the time so she insisted that this director extend his definition of perpetuity to 75 years.

The director agreed and the deal was done. Leon got 75 years of immortality and the Met got $20 million.

“New York is the fastest track in the world”

John Lindsay

Special Monday Edition

Back in the day, Vince Lombardi supposedly once proclaimed as head coach of the Green Bay Packers: “All I want is my unfair advantage.” Not surprisingly, so does every other head coach in the NFL but it appears that Bill Belichick has taken this concept to a true art form. We may never know just how far Coach Belichick has been able to refine the practice of one-upmanship but it has earned him the honorary title of “Bill Belicheat.”

The coach is already the NFL equivalent of a convicted felon thanks to “spygate,” and it appears his quest to find his unfair advantage knows no bounds or limits. Spygate cost his team, the New England Patriots, and himself personally, a boatload of money and their number one draft choice. But rather than repent, it turns out that he is as unrepentant and as incorrigible as Richard M. Nixon. Like Millhouse, Bill just can’t let well enough alone. Nixon was on his way to kicking George McGovern’s ass in the 1972 presidential election, but he couldn’t resist letting his brain trust; Ehrlichman, Haldeman, Mitchell and their operatives, Colston, Hunt and Liddy unleash the Plumbers and raid the DNC headquarters in that DC complex known as Watergate.

Nixon was forced to resign, but Bill just keeps rolling along defiant and unapologetic. It seems what’s good for New England is good for the NFL and what’s good for the NFL is good for New England. Let’s examine his current “alleged” transgression.

Possibly, the coach wasn’t happy with his balls and those of his quarterback, Tom Brady. They were just too big for their liking so they conceived a plan to shrink then during the AFC Championship Game so they would be easier to grip. This is a no-no and the Indianapolis Colts, their opponent who they crushed on the playing field in Foxboro, complained to the league. When the story first broke, quarterback Brady commented on a Boston sports radio station, “Ha, ha, ha, I think I’ve heard it all at this point.”

To quote the late Mandy Rice Davis as to Brady using the defense of incredulity, “Well he would say that, wouldn’t he!”

Coach Belichick denied any knowledge about balls, underinflated or otherwise and smartly threw his quarterback under the bus, Paraphrasing the coach: Balls this and balls that, you’d better ask Brady how he likes his balls. Personally, I know nothing about any stinkin footballs. Wait, it was the cold, the rain the atmosphere that made it go soft, yeah, that’s it!

Brady was equally erudite: The essence of his Q and A was: I pick out de footballs; they put them in de bag and give them to me when I need them. That’s all I know.

So far the NFL it’s commissioner and the Patriots’ owner, Robert Kraft, aren’t talking, but I’ve got this feeling that ultimately this will be blamed on an anonymous and under-paid ball boy who (per a rumor I am starting) is on his way to Pyongyang on a slow-steaming Cypriot freighter. Bon voyage, ball boy.

How to punish the Patriots, Brady and Belichick as they prepare to face the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX but still allow the game to go on?

I asked fellow NFL fans their feedback and here are the results:

Tom from Waco: “The deflatriots will try to get an edge any way they can even if it means violating the rules and they deserve some kind of punishment.” How about crucifixion?

Mike from Bridgeport: “I am so sick of this crap out of Seattle referring to the fans as the ‘12s.”  Mike believes Brady & Co. should play with their smaller balls while the Seahawks use cement balls.

Vodka Bill from Mastic Beach concurs: “Tom and Bill can’t cheat enough. I am sick to death of Carroll and all that crying, kissing, hugging and praise the Lord stuff. Are there no men?”

Bob from The Bronx: “Make him hire Perry Fool as his defensive coordinator.” Bob’s not a big fan of the Giants former defensive coordinator.

Bill from Florham Park: “Balls this and balls that, enough is enough. Fire Belichick, suspend Brady for the 2015 season and let’s go J-E-T-S, jets, Jets, JETS!”

Bob from Wantagh: “Not cheating; cold weather conditions compress pressure.” Tom from Maplewood, “I concur.” Steve from Ridgewood, “Ditto.”

Dave from Hauppauge: “It’s not about whose balls are bigger, it’s how to beat the spread.”

Geoff from Brunswick: “The league should be in charge of all balls. Have a Balls’ Umpire.”

Marty from Piscataway: “Rumor has it that Brady first tried pine tar for a better grip but that lead to the tuck rule.”

You decide. As for me, I hate Seattle, the city, the team, their uniforms, their hippy-hoppy coach their cops and their coffee and especially their obnoxious fans. A pox on the Seaturds: GO Pats go!

For several generations beginning at the end of the Second World War, the New York City subway system became vilified as unfit for decent people. Never charming, it was reduced to less than civilized by being referred to in demeaning terms like, “rat heaven, the muggers express and the electric sewer.” Rider ship declined as post-war families flocked to the suburbs. Then neglect, old equipment, lousy service and finally crime came to represent the norm. Those who could, avoided it; those who could not, endured.

Some booze, some snooze,

If you snooze they’ll steal your shoes

And the subways keep rolling along.

There were some improvements along the way, air conditioned trains were introduced in 1970, but the comfort of a/c was greatly offset by that scourge of the Seventies, graffiti! Subway cars became graffiti magnets with messages, slogans and name tags covering entire trains, inside and out. Panhandlers of every description worked the trains auditioning their marginal talent, trying out personal shticks to raise cash or begging either benignly or with the suggestion of violence.

Crime soared as respect plummeted reaching a point so low that we measured the safety of day trips by exiting the system before junior high and high school male animals invaded the underground seeking unsuspecting prey during their daily afternoon passages. Their lawlessness culminated when Bernhard Goetz shot four young troublemakers who threatened him.

Koch’s administration was the beginning of a turning point that Dinkins’ incompetence reversed for his four years in office.  Eight years of Guilani and twelve of Bloomberg finally produced a renaissance that lifted the spirit of the city as crime rates diminished and subway rider ship soared with riding the trains at all hours becoming the norm.

In 1997, I experienced a rare Saturday night encounter when I entered the station under Eighth Avenue at Fiftieth Street for the short ride to Penn Station. Concerned that this was a dubious choice, instead I was shocked to find the platform crowded with well-put- out young adults just beginning their night on the town. Even though it was close to midnight they eagerly lined the platform waiting for the next downtown C Train to take them to So-Ho, the meat packing district the Village or the West Village.

The arriving carriages were packed with more of the same, twenty something’s and thirty something’s in search of good times. Absent was fear or expectation of danger.

At first this experience was limited to the heavily traveled Manhattan trunk lines but, as New York City’s magnet attracted new generations of young, upwardly mobile residents this phenomenon spread to secondary lines running into Brooklyn and Queens. Over time  this same experience of safe passage spread across lines serving large parts of central and south Brooklyn, Williamsburg, Bushwick and various sections of Queens from Long Island City and Astoria and Flushing.

Still, the subway has never been charming and the old problems are giving way to different issues, issues of entitlement. The hipsters and millenniums desire for their own space is clashing with the reality that subways are a communal way of transport. The coaches are not the same as commuter trains. Seats are limited and the cars have been purposely designed to accommodate as many passengers as possible, most of them standing cheek by jowl during rush hour.

But to hipsters and millenniums, their entitlement doesn’t permit referencing history so overcrowding is a personal affront. Their grievances include, …”smells that offend, sounds that grate and personal grooming not appropriate for a public space. Riders seethe over frequent culprits; the door hog, the pole hugger, the litterbug.”

And the latest infraction; “Manspreading.”  The term may be new, but it’s an old ploy to prevent others from sitting on either side. Slouch down, spread legs and cover head. The guys, mostly young and uncouth who practice this defense know other guys don’t want the hassle to attempt sitting next to them and women find it revolting. So theses punks win their daily battle for space…and so it goes.

In a way though, it is charming that manspreading can be a cause de jure. I sincerely hope that these young, entitled riders are not being naïve lost in their own world of grievances. I sincerely hope that they comprehend the current state of affairs and understanding that New York has no more of a divine right to enjoy peace and tranquility than high-crime urban areas like Detroit, Chicago and Philadelphia.

They should take pause over recent developments in the city under comrade Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s stewardship to consider if hizzoner is doing all that he should be to maintain their domestic tranquility. If not, manspreading will be the very least of their concerns.

Yes, the world continues to spin out-of-control and, yes, we must endure mindless tragedies. But life goes on and includes articles that make it into newspapers that remind us how ridiculous life can be.

Let us begin our journey of this the first silly season of 2015 with a discussion of the term, “pied-á-terre.” To proceed, I must first admit that I am part of the unwashed who didn’t have a clue what this term of art meant until Saturday, January 9^th when I read a piece in the Real Estate Section of The New York Times entitled: Why the Doorman Is Lonely. The author, Julie Satow, used this expression 11 times in her front page piece. For those of you also unfamiliar with pied-á-terre, the definition is: “A temporary or second lodging.”

Ms Satow’s used this term to emphasize her explanation that a significant percentage of upscale condominums and co-ops in NYC (25% to 40%) are not occupied by their owners. This apparently has significant tax and abatement ramifications but reading about it in the detail she provided is slightly less painful then setting my hair on fire.

Item number two: Amateur athletic status versus ESPN, the NCAA, the big time football conferences*, college playoffs and money, Money, MONEY! (*Southeastern, Atlantic Coast, Pacific 12, Big 12 and Big Ten.)

ESPN has ponied up $7.2 billion to televise the three playoff bowls for five years including the championship game played on January 12, 2015 in the AT&T Stadium (ex Cowboys Stadium) between Oregon and Ohio State a game the Buckeyes won, 42 to 20. All three games were incredibly successful generating the greatest viewer ship ever for any broadcast on all of cable television.

In recognition that these are their biggest amateur sporting events of all time, the NCAA has deemed that the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages is a right and proper part of the game day experience. So much for the absolute ban on any alcohol at all NCAA sponsored events including March Madness.

Further proof that the championship game is different, the participating universities can now grant each student-athlete up to $3,000 to pay for his family’s travel expenses. In the battle over whether or not football players should be compensated by their schools, put these developments in the yes column.

Item number three: FBI and Justice Dept. Said to Seek Charges for Petraeus. Oy vey! David Petraeus should have quit while he was ahead as a retired four-star general who led American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and a genuine American hero. But no, he accepted the president’s offer to become Director of the CIA, he was broadly supported by the Senate that confirmed his appointment. And then there was Paula Broadwell an Army Reserve officer who became his biographer and his lover.

He resigned in 2012 when their affair became public and now the FBI alleges that classified documents have been found on her computer and contend that Petraeus provided them to her. He says he will not take a plea deal to avoid trial. It is up to the Attorney General Holder to make the decision whether to seek an indictment a decision Mr. Holder said he’d make before the end of 2014 but didn’t. Now that this is front page news, it will surely end badly.

Item number four: A statue of Mohammad taken down from a New York City courthouse. This story has the implication of being topical and important. When this New York Appellate Court House next to Madison Square Park was designed, the builders included nine eight-foot marble statues of classical lawgivers to be placed on the roof. Included was one of the prophet Mohammed. Over time, both the building and the statues needed serious refurbishment and it was only then that it became public knowledge that the prophet was among them.

Debate followed over the appropriateness of this piece of art and the Egyptian, Indonesian and Pakistani embassies together with prominent Muslins objected to the State Department. Wiser heads prevailed and the statue was quietly removed during the renovations. The other eight were rehabilitated and reinstalled, but the prophet was “… spirited off to a storehouse in Newark.”

Just one problem with this piece by David W. Dunlap; the courthouse was erected in 1902 and the removal took place in 1955. Please explain to me what’s the point of this piece is except to contrast an age of naïve innocence with our current world of insanity.

Dunlap noted that the statue was last seen in 1983, “lying on its side in a stand of tall grass somewhere in New Jersey.”

I wonder if this field is the same mythical Jersey swamp where all of the bodies and artifacts of the lost New York are said to go? If so, perhaps it marks the place of Jimmy Hoffa’s grave?

(Author’s note: This piece is based on an article by Jeffrey E. Singer and Kirk Semple published in the January 3, 2015 edition of The New York Times. All interpretations and opinions are my own.)

Such is freedom’s siren song that it empowered a forty-nine year old teacher and well-respected calligrapher to leave the life he knew in Toishan, China and take passage half-way around the globe to Brooklyn. Twenty-four years passed as Zhao Ru toiled in a life of relative obscurity working in local garment factories and Chinese restaurants.

Last month, another Chinese immigrant, police officer Wenjian Liu and his partner, Rafael Ramos were struck down by an assassin as they sat parked in their patrol car on a Bedford-Stuyvesant street. Mr. Zhao instinctively knew what his mission was to be, “I could use my calligraphy to memorialize the officer. What a pity it is. He was such a good police officer. He was an only son.”

Acting on his own, Mr. Zhao began contemplating his task to create the funeral scroll that would be a vital piece of the fallen officer’s wake and service. He had done this before and he was used to being hired by friends and family of deceased individuals to create works that would ease their burden and provide inspiration. But this was different, Mr. Zhao knew he had to reach deeply within himself to create the symbols that said what must be said.

And so on Friday, January 2, 2015, he left his Bay Ridge home and set out on the streets of Brooklyn carrying his bamboo brushes and rough drafts in a canvas bag. His first stopped at the Xinhua Bookshop and Stationery Supply in Sunset Park where Jerry Lin helped him select the ink and paper. After some confusion, Mr. Zhao explained, “This is for Wenjian Liu.”

Mr. Lin, who like many others who mourned Officer Liu in this tightly-linked Brooklyn Chinese community, was staggered by this revelation and insisted all material…”is on the house.”

Mr. Zhao also spent time with Dick Chen Lee, a feng shui master from his home town in Toishan. He sort out Mr. Lee’s guidance to help him find the inspiration to write the scrolls before going to the Aievoli Funeral Home in Bensonhurst. For three hours Mr. Zhao crafted three scrolls that he would hang across a significant threshold in the home.

On the two scrolls that would form the vertical columns on either side of the threshold, Mr. Zhao drew seven Chinese characters. One set of characters proclaimed, “In the sphere of law enforcement his vision is left unrealized.” The other read, “For his service to the people, his name will forever be cherished in our hearts.” Mr. Zhao drew four characters on the third scroll that he placed across the top of the threshold: “A model for all police.”

Stepping back from his work, Mr. Zhao explained that “(Officer Liu’s) spirit had moved me to conjure this work.” The dead officer’s spirit had such a powerful affect that gave Mr. Zhao the inspiration he needed. “I rarely see a calligrapher who makes characters of this quality. Without this, the room would lack the high quality of the life he led.”
 

Officer Liu had given his life to protect the freedom Mr. Zhao had sought 24 years ago and Mr. Zhao had selflessly used his talent to repay that debt.