January 8, 2015 - WestchesterGuardian.com

Transcription

PRESORTED
STANDARD
PERMIT #3036
WHITE PLAINS NY
Vol. X, No. II
Westchester’s Most Influential Weekly
Thursday January 8, 2015 • $1.00
Mario Cuomo
Former 3 Term
Governor of
New York State
June 15, 1932January 1, 2015
WWW.WESTCHESTERGUARDIAN.COM
Page 2
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, JANUARY 8, 2015
GOVERNMENT
Proposed New Year’s Resolutions for New Rochelle
By Peggy Godfrey
RESOLUTION
NUMBER ONE:
THE NEW
ROCHELLE BOARD
OF EDUCATION NEEDS TO
SHOW MORE RESPECT FOR
THE VIEWS OF RESIDENTS:
Residents of New Rochelle spent
many hours of their time giving
input into the selection process for
a new Superintendent of Schools.
Consequently, it is dismaying to find that
their freedom of speech was curtailed
shortly after the new Superintendent
of Schools, Dr. Brian Osborn, was
appointed. The New Rochelle Board
of Education under Board President,
Lianne Merchant, imposed new rules on
resident participation in early September
2014. A person who has signed up in
advance to address the School Board
has been reduced from five minutes
to three. These rules go further, stating
those who have not signed up by 3:30
p.m. that day, will have to “show” their
hands if they want to speak, and based
upon the time of the meeting and the
number of people who want to speak,
the Board will decide how many citizens
can address them. Vince Malfetano, a
long time community activist, decried
these changes. He feels that it has dramatically reduced public input and
participation at Board meetings, and
wonders if these changes were initiated
by the present Board of Education leadership to stifle and suppress criticism of
their actions and board scandals. It is
Malfetano’s hope that more members
of the community will take the time
to become involved and vote in school
board elections in May because usually
only 8-10% of the public vote.
RESOLUTION NUMBER TWO:
RESPECT FOR VETERANS
NEEDS TO BE GIVEN FOR
MORE THAN TAX REDUCTIONS.
Veterans who served our country
deserve the real estate tax reductions
granted this year by both the City and
School Districts, but a “Don’t tread on
me” yellow Gadsden flag did not have
to be removed from the city property
adjacent to the Armory. For many
years, the United Veterans and Patriotic
Association had been given the responsibility to replace United States flags at
the Armory. In March 2013, the historic
Gadsden flag was placed on this flagpole.
The City of New Rochelle took it down,
claiming it was a divisive flag. A federal
judge agreed with the City of New
Rochelle but the plaintiff stated they
will appeal the decision. This flagpole is
adjacent to the New Rochelle Armory,
which has been sadly neglected by the
city. Veterans deserve to be treated with
respect in the New Year.
RESOLUTION NUMBER THREE:
THE RESIDENTS OF NEW
ROCHELLE SHOULD
EXPECT CITY BOARDS AND
COMMISSIONS TO CONSIDER
THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE
RESIDENTS WHEN THEY MAKE
DECISIONS IN THE NEW YEAR.
Without a doubt, the philosophy
of a board of committee member can
have a strong influence on how he or
she votes. This certainly was evident in
the recent vote for the New Iona Dorm.
After the possibility vote was taken,
the Chairman of the Planning Board
clearly stated he was an “urbanist.” What
conclusion can be drawn from this statement? Is the Planning Board trying to
“urbanize suburban New Rochelle?
Former State Assemblyman Ron Tocci
feels people move to New Rochelle from
New York City because they want to live
in a less densely populated area. When
new development in New Rochelle
changes the suburban landscape to an
urban environment, the results are sadly:
overcrowded schools, traffic congestion,
inadequate sewers and a host of other
problems. The over development of the
waterfront, such as was proposed for
Echo Bay was an example of how the
residents rose aup against the urbanization of the area. Sensible suburban
development Tocci’s view is what should
occur.
RESOLUTION NUMBER FOUR:
GIVE BACK THE DEVELOPMENT
PROCESS TO THE RESIDENTS.
Why should the residents of New
Rochelle be put on the defensive when
development is sought? Future visions
planning was proposed a few years
ago, especially for determining what
residents wanted to downtown development, yet the plan was never completed.
Apparently, the substantial amount
of residents’ input was completely
ignored when the new Commissioner of
Development was hired. New Rochelle
residents are not fools, and should not
be fooled by any public relations rhetoric
claiming New Rochelle can be enhanced
by some new proposal that will appeal to
the entire city and “the larger region.” Is
there anyone so naïve who believes this
transformation is possible without major
relocations of residents, and probably
some businesses from the targeted area
Community/Government Section.............................................2
Government............................................................................4
Technology..............................................................................5
From My Easy Chair..............................................................6
Community.............................................................................6
Creative Disruption.................................................................7
Travel.......................................................................................8
Arts/Entertainment Section.....................................................10
Eye on Theatre.......................................................................10
Cultural Perspectives.............................................................11
Food.......................................................................................13
Calendar................................................................................14
Movie Review........................................................................15
Legal Notices.............................................................................14
LET US ALL RESOLVE IN
THE NEW YEAR TO MAKE
DECISIONS THAT WILL MAKE
EVERYONE PROUD OF THE
SUBURB KNOWN AS NEW
ROCHELLE. _ _ _
Peggy Godfrey is a freelance writer in New
Rochelle, NY _
Mission Statement
Table of Contents
Community.............................................................................2
near the train station and downtown?
The use of city property such as the
library and train station to lessen the
financial burden for the developer is
proudly touted. However, this is far from
a realistic goal. The public library serves
many purposes now in the community: from computer access after school
student use, civic programs in both a
side room or the use of the auditorium
for music, film, plays and many other
activities. Library employees who asked
how the library would fit into the new
downtown proposal were told that the
library’s footprint doesn’t matter, only
the proposed developers’ design does.
Even when the question of the need for
parking spaces was broached, the answer
given was the City has plenty of parking;
it just is not in all the right places. How
much confidence will residents have in
this RDRXR proposal when reasonable questions don’t’ elicit reasonable
responses?
Sam Zherka, Publisher
Mary Keon, Acting Editor /Advertising
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From amongst journalism’s classic key-words: who, what, when, where, why, and
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Page 3
GUARDIAN OPINION
The Inaugural Speech: Which Path for the Governor? Advance Career or
Benefit Greatest Number of Citizens?
By Stephen Mayo
What to expect from
the inauguration speech of
an incumbent governor?
Ringing challenges to the
public for hard work and
sacrifice? Impassioned calls to the legislature for confronting economic, social and
policy issues with verve and inventiveness?
Perhaps this was asking too much
of Governor Andrew Cuomo while
his father, three-term former governor
Mario Cuomo was gravely ill and unable
to attend the presentation at One World
Trade Center in Manhattan. Shortly after,
New Yorkers were saddened to hear of the
elder Cuomo’s passing, and for this, one
can only offer heart-felt condolences to
the Governor and his family.
But dismay over the father’s death
only accents the severe deficit in substance
of most political speeches compared to
those of the gifted Mario Cuomo.
After acknowledging the help of old
pals Assembly Speaker Silver and Senator
Schumer and new ones like Republican
Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano
and NYC mayor Bill DiBlasio, Governor
Andrew recounted the state’s difficulties
in his first term: chronic unemployment;
vexing climate conditions exemplified by
Superstorm Sandy; threats to safety in the
killings in nearby Sandy Hook, CT and
minority community unrest over shootings by police officers; competitiveness of
public education and training in the face of
growing international economic competition; and the opportunities and resources
lost to political gamesmanship “in this age
of hyper partisanship.”
His tally illustrated the enormity of
the roadblocks to public prosperity, but
failed to present ways of escaping it.
Business and labor leaders would
bemoan the current course of New York
State economic policy. It remains profoundly challenging for small businesses
and major construction projects to get
started; state environmental and local
zoning rules / regulations present real
hardships to entrepreneurs and their jobcreating enterprises. The just-announced
permanent ban on hydro-fracking for
shale gas in the southern tier region near
Binghamton and Elmira is a discouraging
signal to energy producers and a profound
disappointment to upstaters seeking
meaningful employment in industries
with high salaries and generous benefit
packages.
By most reckonings, the state is
dead last or next-to-last in job creation
among the states; a record that worsened
in Cuomo’s first term. New York has
now fallen behind Florida to fourth place
among state populations. There has been
no serious effort at reducing the cost of
state government through departmental
cost-benefit analyses, consolidation of
agencies or privatization of state functions.
To his credit, Cuomo challenged local
government bodies to restrain budgets
with a 2% tax cap and incentives to consolidate and eliminate redundant local
services, but where is a comparable effort
for Albany itself?
The much-heralded “Safe Act, his and
the legislature’s knee-jerk response to cries
for government to “do something” about
gun violence, turns out to have been scapegoating of the hunting and gun hobbyist
sector and nothing more. Cuomo’s derivative pronouncements on alleged police
excesses seem to have been coordinated
with his new urban affairs maven, Mayor
DiBlasio. With the choice of saying
nothing or siding with the most extreme
voices of divisiveness and racial pandering
like DiBlasio, Al Sharpton and President
Obama, he has come down firmly, but
precisely where? On this, he exhibits a
patented ambivalence. Where is the leadership? His father Cuomo would have
taken the temperature of the controversy
and at least provided thought- provoking,
consensus-seeking insights.
As to the chronic issue of education
and Medicaid budgeting, Cuomo has
taken advantage of every federal subsidy
and one-shot funding trick to delay financial days of reckoning. More innovatively,
he has stood up for “Charter School
choice” against teachers’ unions; a rarity in
a state where public employee lobbies have
commandeered the budgetary agenda
for decades under both Republican and
Democratic administrations and legislative majorities.
Less impressive is Cuomo’s unwillingness to confront the philosophical issue
of public sector unionism and its bloating
effect on public finance. Now would be
the perfect time for a “man of the Left” to
lay down the laws of economics to unions
and their dependents in the Assembly
and Senate. His stance on Common Core
also displays an inability to see past political correctness and comprehend the true
cause of educational mediocrity and structural insolvency; the failure of local boards
of education to consider competition
and choice in the delivery of compulsory
public schooling.
Finally, spending and tax levels have
leveled off at the rate of inflation (2% or
so) after years of four percent increases.
That is something to celebrate, but if it
were not for a three-year extension of a
“millionaires’ tax” (surcharge on highest
wage-earners; delivering $2 billion
annually to state coffers), and continuing reliance on litigation-settlement deals
with banks and other corporate evil-doers,
the deficits would have been far worse.
For the incumbent of course, such fiscal
sleight-of-hand provides other rewards,
such as the gifting of tax rebate checks
to members of the politician’s pampered
“harried middle class” constituency in a reelection year.
Cuomo’s rhetorical blast at “hyperpartisanship” in the speech cannot be taken
seriously. His own rhetorical excesses have
become the stuff of legend. Can anyone
justify his suggestion that members of the
GOP with “extreme views” have no place
in New York? Albany needs more philosophical variety, not less. The State Senate
with its occasional and bare Republican
majority has lived in fear of counterparts
in the Democrat Assembly and governor’s
office for years.
The governor proposes to “be fearless
enough to admit the truth,” but fails to
confront the truths of: serious education
reform; relief of counties and municipalities from excessive state rule making and
regulation (unfunded mandate relief )
and; real deregulation of industry and
commerce. Matters of state competitiveness, hospitability to private business
and other concerns of the free market
will not disappear; nor will they await
the political maturation of state lawmakers and executives. More resourceful
and enterprising state governments in
the South and Midwest will continue to
draw employers and opportunity-seeking
citizens from over-regulated and overtaxed Northeastern states like New York.
Will the second term New York
governor accept the challenge? Face down
political orthodoxy and so enable the
public to reach its highest and greatest
potential? Concerning this tension
between governing for one’s own advantage and governing for the benefit others,
perhaps one politician said it best:
“Decide exactly what you want to
achieve. Do you want to help people, or do
you want to be powerful?”
This politician was Mario Cuomo.
Can Andrew find better counsel this: to
seek the course of greatest prosperity for
the greatest number of citizens of the
former Empire State?
Stephen I. Mayo is an attorney, owner of
Mayo Linoleum Works, LLC and host of “The
Steve Mayo Show” on WVOX radio, 1460
AM; Mondays from 6 to 7 PM with co-host
Cornelia Mrose. www.thestevemayoshow.
com
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Page 4
GUARDIAN OPINION
When Black Officers Turned Their Backs, They Are, In Fact Turning Their
Backs On The Black Community As Well!
By Damon K. Jones The world witnessed
police officers turning their
backs at a funeral of one of
their fallen comrades when
the Mayor of city who was
invited by the family of the fallen officer
spoke.
To turn your back on someone or
something is to refuse to help or assist.
What message are union leaders like PBA
President Pat Lynch sending to the taxpayers
of the city by instructing his members to turn
their backs on the office of the Mayor that
de Blasio was elected to, by a Democratic
process, which is a right that every American
holds dear?
What is most disturbing is seeing Black
Police Officers join in the buffoonery and
side-show of PBA President Pat Lynch and
other police leaders who joined in on the
“Back Turning”. When Mr. Lynch decided
that the Mayor didn’t support officers of
the NYPD, the Mayor was being honest
of his concerns of his own Black son having
encounters with police.
Mayor de Blasio concerns are the same
concerns of millions of black, brown and
even white families that believe in a just and
accountable policing system.
Mayor de Blasio’s concerns should be
the same concerns of every Black Police
Officer in NYPD, as well as every other
Black Police Officer throughout the country.
At any given day a Black Police
Officer’s family member could be a victim of
the same issues that the protesters are protesting about throughout the country. On
any given day a without our uniform on, the
Black Police Officer can be a victim or the
same situations that the protesters are protesting about.
Upstate New York Fracking Ban
and believe that history will prove this is
the wiser course of action. We must resist
all attempts to exploit and destroy the
pristine beauty of our state and guard our
water supply from prospective pollutants.
The Westchester Guardian Offers
Condolences to the Cuomo Family
offers our deepest condolences to
Mrs. Cuomo, the Governor and their
family, upon the loss of former New
York State Governor, Mario Cuomo.
The former Governor was an eloquent
and passionate, nationally recognized
voice for the causes he supported who
served three terms as Governor of
the State of New York. How sad for
Governor Andrew Cuomo to lose his
father on New Year?s Day, shortly after
he was sworn into office for his second
term. Our thoughts and prayers are
with them through this difficult time.
turned their back, realized that former
Governor Paterson’s “Police on Police
Shooting Task Force” concluded that “racial
bias” plays a role in an officers decision to
uses deadly force on a subject?
Before Black Officers join a protest
that is against the constitutional rights of
citizenry of victims that look like you, as dues
paying members of NYPD PBA, Black
Police Officers should ask PBA President
Pat Lynch and other Police leaders who
support his stance, what solutions have they
brought to the table to make sure that these
issues are being resolved?
As a national organization of Black
Law Enforcement Professionals, we recognize that there are four degrees of separation
from Black Law Enforcement and the Black
community when it comes to questionable
and alleged police crimes: Either we know
the victim, we know someone who knows
the victim, the victim is a family member; or
we are the victim.
Black Police Officers should no longer
permit themselves to be relegated to the role
of brutal pawns in the chess games of those
like PBA President Pat Lynch and others
when it affects the communities in which
we serve.
We are mothers, fathers, husbands,
wives, brothers, sisters, neighbors, and
members of the black community. Donning
the blue uniform should not change this. On
the contrary, it should sharpen our perception of our responsibilities as Black men
and women in a society and a police departments and a Police Union Presidents like Pat
Lynch that are seemingly unresponsive to
the needs of Black people.
Damon K. Jones New York Representative Blacks In Law Enforcement of America Mario Cuomo: June 15, 1932-Jan. 1, 2015
GUARDIAN EDITORIAL
Governor Andrew Cuomo has
made the unpopular choice to ban
fracking in upstate New York. While we
look forward to new opportunities for
economic growth for our friends in the
upstate counties, we applaud this decision
By Joining in this protest by PBA
President Pat Lynch, Black Police Officers
have become covert cowards. You have
nodded and winked at institutional policies,
practices, and patterns of behavior that disproportionately inflict misery upon your
birth communities. It will become impossible for Black Police Officers to tell the truth
in your homes after lying all day on your jobs.
Have Black Police Officers who turned
their backs forgotten the many Black
Officers that have complained about being
racially profiled while off-duty by those with
whom you stand with your back turned?
Have the Black Police Officers that
turned their backs forgotten about the over
20 incidences of Black cops being shot, shot
at or killed in New York by their White
counterparts while the incident has never
happen in the reverse?
Have the Black Police Officers who
Mario Cuomo, the 52nd governor of
New York and father of Governor Andrew
Cuomo died on New Year’s Day at the age
of 82, shortly after his son took the oath of
office for his second term. At the direction of
Mayor DiBlasio, flags throughout New York
City will remain at half-mast for 30 days, in
his honor.
The former Governor Cuomo, a gifted
orator, served three terms, from 1983 to
1994, having previously served as NYS
Secretary of State, appointed by former
Governor Hugh Carey in 1975 and elected
Lieutenant Governor as Hugh Carey’s
running mate in 1978.
Mr. Cuomo’s life story is the quintessential American success story.The son of Italian
immigrants, Mr. Cuomo grew up in Queens,
attended Catholic schools, and signed with
the Pittsburgh Pirates at the age of 18,
playing in the Georgia-Florida league, until
a fastball blinded him for a week. Cuomo
subsequently, left professional baseball to
attend college St. John’s University ultimately
graduating at the top of his law school class.
He was called upon by former NYC Mayor
John Lindsay to arbitrate a dispute between
Forest Hills residents and developers of lowincome housing and this drew Mr. Cuomo
into public life.
The former governor was passionately
opposed to the death penalty and he dramatically expanded the NYS prison population,
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to cope with a nationwide crime wave. He
was an ardent supporter of the right to
abortion, though he maintained he did not
personally support it.
Mr. Cuomo’s liberal positions propelled
him to the forefront of national politics yet
he ultimately declined the opportunity to
run for president or to accept a nomination to the Supreme Court, to the surprise
of many. His massive funding of social
programs at a time of economic hardship
for upstate counties eventually cost him the
1994 election when he lost to Republican
State Senator, George Pataki, the former
Mayor of Peekskill.
Mario Cuomo is survived by his wife,
Matilda, their five children: Governor
Andrew Cuomo, CNN anchor Chris
Cuomo, Madeline Cuomo, Dr. Margaret
Cuomo, Maria Cuomo Cole and fourteen
grandchildren.
Community/GovernmentSection
COMMUNITY
Westchester Community College Under Scrutiny After Fraudulent Transcripts Emerge
By NANCY KING
EDUCATION
Westchester
Community College is the
latest public institution to
come under scrutiny of the
New York and
Statethe
Inspector
As the Governor
State
General
when
it
was
revealed
that
former
Legislature debate the amount of afunding
assistant
coach
falsifieditacademic
they willbasketball
dedicate to
education,
is worth
transcripts
andUnited
forgedStates
an administrator’
reviewing the
Chamber ofs
signature.
Asreport,
a result,Leader
the community
college
Commerce
and Laggards
regarding
Postsecondary
and Workforce
has
canceled
its 2014-2015
Basketball
Readiness,
pg. 24 ofthe
thestory
study.doesn’t stop
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“To
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paring
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Westchester Community Collegebeyond
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we used
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three
measures
of
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workforce readiness: performance on
states and several teams.
Advanced Placement (AP) exams, graduMt.the
Vernon
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star,
ationFormer
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Jamell
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a given state will attend college by age 19.
and
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Thesewas
three
scores
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as
Education
simple rations, which were then averaged
into a readiness index. We ordered the
scores and curved them such that there
were 10 A’s, 10 B’s 11 C’s, 10 D’s and
10- F’s.
COMMEMORATION
scholarship. He played on the award winning
team and was granted, upon completion of
what was thought to be a two-year stint with
WCC,
a full
scholarship
ball with
“passing.”
College
Board, to
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organization
nationally
ranked Florida
A&M
University.
that administers
AP tests,
provided
the
Not
afterthe
hisnumber
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on both
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in theinformed
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the number
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and
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that Walker’
at
exams.had been stripped a year prior, after it
WCC
was revealed he only taken one class at the
Percentage
Students
college.
In order toofmaintain
a scholarship at
Graduating
from
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School
the college, a student must
be matriculated
This number, sourced from Education
for a full credit load.
Week’s Diplomas Count 2014 report,
Uponthefurther
investigation,
it was
provided
four-year
cohort graduation
revealed
that
there
are
several
other
former
rate—that is, the number of incoming
9th
WCC
students
who
are
also
playing
basgrade students who graduated four years
ketball
later. for Division 1 schools and that they
too might be at a new school under less
Chance
at College
by 19St John’s
than
transparent
circumstances.
This information
by
University,
famous for was
their compiled
Red Storm
Thomas
senior scholarinto
at the
team,
hasMortenson,
opened an investigation
the
Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity
in Higher Education. Mortenson
compared the number of freshmen
enrolled in any two-and four-year college
in the United States, and then divided that
by the number of ninth graders four years
earlier in each state. This number did not
of
the White
account
for highPlains
schoolDepartment
tranfers out of
of
Public
Safety
to
commemorate
the
state or students who dropped out of high
third
shooting
death
schoolanniversary
and earnedofa the
General
Education
Diploma
(GED).
of
Kenneth
Chamberlain Sr. The 68
eligibility of their star forward, who attended
WCC last year. Quinnipiac University in
Connecticut is now reviewing the transcripts
of theirscored
star player,
McLean,
New York
a Gianni
B on this
who
also
attended
Westchester
Community
scale:
College.
Collegepassed
in Bronxville
• 25.4%Concordia
of our students
an AP
and
SUNY Purchase are also investigating
Exam.
all
theirofcurrent
athletes who
transferred
• of
78%
our students
statewide
have
from high
school.after allegedly
tograduated
their respective
schools
• 47.3% of
our students
have a chance
at
attending
Westchester
Community
College.
college
by age
19 of
according
to Mortenson
At the
heart
this scandal
is former
data.”
assistant basketball coach Richard Fields.
Arguably, many more than 47.3% of
Last
month,have
Fields
admitted
thatsince
he
our students
a chance
at college
provided
false
transcripts
and
he
also
forged
the Mortenson data cannot account for
an
administrator’
s signature
students
who attend
college when
out of doing
state,
so.
Oddlyofenough,
Fields do.
denies
any doing
as many
our students
However,
we
must ensure
that every
who wishes
anything
wrong.
Call student
me ignorant
but I
to attendthat
college
is equipped
with the
skills
thought
forgery
was a criminal
offense.
to
succeed
there.
Funding
more
charter
Nearly every state in the union has a student
schools will help this effort.
athlete who is under investigation for tranThe Teachers Union can argue that
script
fraud!
poverty is the overwhelming factor in poor
student performance yet Catholic schools,
even those located in poverty stricken
neighborhoods, have consistently offered
disadvantaged students solid educations
that have enabled countless numbers of
students to escape poverty, within one
generation.
At Harlem
an indedeath
by the
White Academy,
Plains Police
in
pendent elementary school, located at
the early morning hours of November
1330 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan “75%
19,
2011 ofafter
hisstudents
medicallast
alertyear
bracelet
students
their
came
went
off, in error.
from households
withChamberlain,
incomes belowthat
the
minimum wage
threshold
yet their
morning,
shouted
through
his 2014
door
Page 5
The transcript scandal at Westchester
Community College has given sports fans
a glimpse into the ugly side of the college to
professional
sportsreflected
superhighway.
One must
testing results
an average
16
wonder
how
professional
point gain
for many
first year
students onathletes
standardized
tests; almost
of their
students
that
we watch
in thehalf
NBA
or the
NFL
reading
scoredbecome
above the
90th percentile
have
superstars
due to in
fraudulent
comprehension
andyou
more
thanthe
onedots,
third
beginnings.
When
connect
it
of their students scored above the 90th
seems as if a young person with raw talent
percentile in Math,” according to their
iswebsite:
pluckedharlemacademy.org.
from the play-yard toThe
participate
school
in
collegiate
sports
at
a
junior
college,
offers an extended day and stresseswhere
core
they
live in
hope and
of being
noticed
by a
skillsthen
reading,
writing
critical
thinking.
100%yearofcollege.
Harlem
Preparestudents
are in
four
If they
lucky enough
to
College
Prep
do well
be
scouted
andprograms.
picked upWe
bywould
that four-year
to consider
what
methods
are
school,
they and
theteaching
school, must
then hope
used in schools that produce such results.
that they are good enough to be drafted into
Interestingly, the Chamber study
the NBA
or NFL. It doesn’t matter if they
found that “the National Council on
are
legitimate
studentsranking
or not, of
it’s just
the
Teacher Quality’s
teacher
bragging
rights (do
they receive
cashinas where
well?),
quality reveals
a sharp
divide
that
schoolsand
receive
as a kickback
every
statesthese
succeed
where
they struggle.
Statesthey
consistently
scored
in the
time
can send a kid
up tohigher
the pros.
In the meantime the NCAA has issued
the following statement: ”Student athletes
must meet academic standards throughout
their
on campus
to
childcareers
is in school
andtoonremain
time eligible
and that
participate
That may
homeworkin inter-collegiate
assignments sports”.
are understood
anda completed.
Attending
be
great statement
on paperparent-teacher
but one must
conferences
andhow
working
with schools
take
into account
those legitimate
student
to address
the reasonsCommunity
why a childCollege
is not
athletes
at Westchester
performing up to their potential is very
are feeling right about now. Their basketball
important. Many libraries offer after
season
canceled,
a legitimate scholarship
school ishelp
with assignments
and are a
may
be
in
jeopardy,
and
their
classmates
who
great resource for parents
who
cannot help
are
non-scholarship
casting a very
their
children withstudents
specificare
subjects.
shadyThough
eye at them.
For York
the restState
of us who
live to
New
achieved
passable
grades
watch
college
ball andoverall
who can’on
t waitthe
to seeU.S.
the
Chamber
of Commerce
therewe’ll
is
talent
displayed
during Marchstudy,
Madness,
room
for
improvement
and
we
cannot
also be wondering if the talented athlete we’re
afford to be complacent. We must work
watching
on TV has earned a legitimate ticket
together to get the most value for the
to
the
big
dollars wedance.
invest in education, as this is an
ability to identify teacher quality, retain
good teachers, and exit bad ones – a signal,
perhaps, of the effectiveness of the past
decade’s policy emphasis on connecting student performance data to teacher
evaluations – but scored extremely low on
preparing teachers and expanding the pool
of good teachers.” Study, Pg. 9
Education is a partnership between
parents and the schools. Parents must
be prepared to do their part to aid their
child’s education by making sure their
investment
future
of our
children.
Nancy
King isina the
freelance
writer
in Westchester
We urge the Governor and the Legislature
County,
NY
to support and fund more charter schools
to offer parents more choices in the education marketplace.
*Leaders and Laggards, A State-byState Report Card on K-12 Educational
Effectiveness. The United States Chamber of
Commerce Foundation C. 2014
Community Marks 3 Years Since the Murder of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr.
AP Quotient
The AP By
program
NANCYoffers
KING challenging college-level courses to high school
Onsuccessa by frigid
students, measuring
using
evening,
rigorous examsNovember
with a 5-point
scale ona
which a score vigil
of 3,4was
or 5held
is considered
in front
year old former marine was shot to
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by
Pleasantville
Police Officer
and
The aU.S.
Chamber of Commerce
Foundation
Center for Education
Ferguson
Missouriand
is Workforce
holding its collective
the shooting
1615 Hbreath
St. NW,concerning
Washington, DC,
20062
death of Michael Brown at the hands
of the police.
that he needed no help and that all
Wednesday night’s vigil, organized
he wanted was to be left alone. What
by the Westchester Coalition for Police
should have been a routine wellness
Reform included community members,
check erupted into a small army of
religious leaders and family members
Setting
officers shouting racial slurs at the A Public School with a Private
of others School
who have been
killed at the
elderly man. As the situation escalated,
hands of the police. Though it was a
We are accepting new student applications for Grades K-8
the elderly man became more and
frigid night, at least three dozen indiEstamos
aceptando
nuevas solicitudes de estudiantes
para los grados K-8
more agitated and as we all know now,
viduals attended the vigil. Kenneth
Chamberlain was eventually shot and
Chamberlain Jr. vowed to continue
Information Sessionson• his
Sesiones
killed by those police officers after, they
mission toInformativas
seek justice for his
alleged, he lunged at them with a knife.
January 13 • 2015 •father
13 de
las 2:30toPM
andenero,
to workatirelessly
prevent
February 12, , 2015 • 12
las 5:00
PM
thisde
sortfebrero,
of tragedya from
ever happenShortly after the killing, District
police
again.
Unfortunately,
shootings of
Attorney Janet DeFiore impaneled a on behalf of innocent victims
Marchof19,
2015ing
• 19
demarzoa
las 9:30AM
the innocent people in this country are
Grand Jury to investigate the killing shootings. He has also petitioned
260 Warburton
Ave., Yonkers, NY
United
States
Department
of
Justice
becoming so common place that when
and of course, the Grand Jury found
remaining offending
DeadlineoneMarch
27, a2015
@ 8AM
hears about
fatal shooting
at the
the death of Mr. Chamberlain to be a to charge theApplication
officers
with
violating
the
Federal
Civil
handsLimite
of the police,
the incident
La Fecha
Parathat
Entregar
justifiable homicide citing the reason
That case is cur- gets little more than brief media
that the police had to fatally shoot Rights of his father.
La Solicitud Del Sorteo
es el 7 de Abril, 2015
him was because they themselves were rently under consideration by the DOJ. coverage. Until we end that racially
The family of Mr. Chamberlain has divided standoff with law enforcein perceived danger.
The Date:
only police
Lottery
April also
8, 2015
Lamillion
Loteria
selawsuit
Llevara a Cabo en Abril 8, 2015
filed a •$21
dollar
ment, we will unfortunately be hearing
officer who was For
terminated
after
the
an application or more
information
pleasePlains
call •and
Para obtener informacion Llame al
against
the
City
of
White
about incidents like this one for years
incident was Police Officer Stephen
to come.
Hart. Hart was the officer who shouted the White Plains Police Department.
What continues to make this
out the racial slur.
Nancy King is a freelance writer in
story soand
troubling
is that
the learning
motivate
instill
a death
love atfor
in all children.”
In“We
the aim
3 to
yearsinspire,
since Mr.
Westchester County, NY
hands
of
police
officer
continues
to
be
Chamberlain’s death, his son, Kenneth
260
Warburton
Yonkers
NY 10701
common. DJAve.
Henry was
shot to death,
Chamberlain Jr. has crusaded
tirelessly
Charter School of Educational Excellence
914.476.5070 X 18
Page 6
GUARDIAN OPINION
Political Chicanery in New York: An Invitation to Anarchy!
By STEPHEN MAYO
Over the past weeks,
long respected local police
departments in New York
City and Westchester
County have been subjected
to an unprecedented campaign of vilification
and slander by America’s media and political elite.
The chance deaths of AfricanAmerican men in confrontations with local
patrolmen in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten
Island, New York, have unleashed torrents of
underemployed criminal defense attorneys,
loafing academics and other insta-pundits
on unsuspecting television, cable and radio
audiences. These prophets of racial rancor,
with scarcely any evidence, have attributed the tragedies to the officers’ prejudices
and some vague institutional intolerance,
facilely disregarding the calculable volatility
of police–civilian encounters on the mean
streets of our cities and suburban and rural
towns.
As if these antics were not enough to
agitate the fears and prejudices of simple
citizens and professional police across the
nation, other denizens of the cosseted elite in
the media/academic/entertainment industrial complex have weighed in with crack pot
theorizing and psycho-social navel gazing
of their own. The incumbent president, a
national attorney general, a peanut-gallery of
local ward-healers and the usual collection of
rabble-rousers, racial racketeers, incumbent
officeholders and “wannabees” clutching at
the rungs of higher office, have exploited the
tragedies for their private political advantage.
The latest misconduct of the insular
leftist gentry is becoming a national disgrace.
In stark contrast, our municipal police
forces have been models of conservative
restraint and have acquitted themselves with
a calming sobriety.
But that should be no surprise to the
average citizen, concerned more with existential economic and familial concerns than
seeking to undermine the matrix of confidence and security that buttresses American
civil life. It is no accident that police work
is not for the weak, the weak-willed or the
thin-skinned. How many of us in the civilian
sector would continue in our pursuits after
the insults, calumnies and now physical
assaults that have become the currency
of everyday urban commerce? That is the
definition of a professional, devoted to his or
her craft; and in the case of peace officers, to
the highest calling of civic service possible.
Imagine if the fields of teaching, social
work, transportation or other essential
governmental or municipal services were
attacked in the same manner as our police
for the errant behavior of an individual or
over departmental policy? Excoriated in the
daily press, betrayed by city hall and their
entire work product challenged over its
essential validity and simple moral worth?
By now, you would have seen the streets
of our cities and villages flooded by demonstrating teachers, social workers, EMTs
and other public employees demanding
that administrators and political leaders “get
their backs” and vouch for their rights, labor
protections and reputations. Representatives
from civil service, SEIU, AFSCME and
other bargaining agencies would be condemning the bureaucrats responsible for the
mistreatment of their clients and damage to
their reputations.
Instead, our uniformed forces have
largely attended to their duties and resisted
the temptation to “buck authority” or otherwise challenge civilian departmental
management. In fact, until the horrific
double-murder of officers Liu and Ramos
in Brooklyn last week, New York City police
officers have displayed remarkable self-control in the face of the provocative personal
ruminations of New York City mayor Bill
DiBlasio. As if to mimic such opportunism on the local Westchester level, one
New Rochelle Democratic city councilor
offered incendiary prescriptions of his own,
including a proposed “peace march” against
unspecified local racialism. The normally
loquacious mayor offered no corrective for
the dangerous buffoonery.
This is not the time for politicians to fall
prey to self-consumptive populist impulses.
This is not the time for fools to “rush in” with
ill-advised “Aktions” that only spread the
distemper to the advantage of a minuscule
minority of assorted racialists.
It is the time for public officials to put
aside their careers, ignore their campaign
coffers and offer unquestioning support for
the 99% of police officers and other guardians of peace and public order who protect
our safety, enforce our laws and then go
home to enjoy the serene private lives that
their toils have earned them.
If any changes to the practice of policing
are called for, then elected officials should call
on city councils and state and national legislatures to improve the rules, protocols and
training, and even economic regulation that
control current police practices. (Regulation?
More like over-regulation, like what commanded the enforcement of the state
revenue-enhancement drive that enabled
the death of Staten Island’s unfortunate
Eric Garner over his marketing and sale of
UNTAXED LOOSE CIGARETTES!)
Any utterance, statement or action by
politicians amounting to less than such a
wholesale and unmitigated endorsement of
the role and performance of our municipal
law enforcement personnel and agencies is a
wicked betrayal of the public trust.
And compounding such misbehavior
with a call to street protest or civil disobedience against our police at such a sensitive
time is nothing less than an invitation to
anarchy.
Stephen I. Mayo is an attorney, owner of Mayo
Linoleum Works, LLC and host of “The Steve
Mayo Show” on WVOX radio, 1460 AM;
Mondays from 6 to 7 PM with co-host Cornelia
Mrose. www.thestevemayoshow.com
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Page 7
TravelSection
TRAVEL
The Berkshires–Rolling Hills and World-Class Culture.
By Richard Levy
I came to the
Berkshires for the very
first time twenty years ago,
for a special concert at the
legendary
Tanglewood
Music Festival. You see, Leonard Bernstein
was conducting the Boston Philharmonic
for just one performance and I was a huge
“Lenny” fan. We had seats right up front,
inside the Music Shed. When he gracefully
walked out, Bernstein received a thundering, ten-minute standing ovation with
people shouting Bravo, Maestro, whistling
and clapping endlessly. I know he was very
touched; I was close enough to see tears
rolling down his face as he took bow after
bow and threw endless kisses to his fans. I
don’t remember taking a breath until the
first piece of music they were performing
was finished. Watching “Lenny” in action
was like watching poetry in motion. He
magically led his orchestra like a man totally
possessed: his gray hair waving wildly, his
arms and body moving gracefully through
the air as the mesmerized musicians played
like one finely tuned instrument. I love this
Bernstein quote:
“If I don’t become Tchaikovsky or
Stravinsky when I’m conducting their work,
it won’t be a great performance”. That night I
became hooked on Tanglewood and over
the next few days, hooked on the Berkshires.
But don’t worry if you’re not into classical
music, there are hundreds of other interesting things to do and see.
Where exactly are the Berkshires?
New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts
all come together on the map just for a few
miles, then Route 22 suddenly turns and
you’re headed straight into Berkshires, in
Massachusetts. It’s only 90 scenic minutes by
car from Westchester on Route 22, to reach
the lovely town of Great Barrington, MA.
Route 22 is my favorite way; it takes longer
but at least you go through colorful towns
versus the boring Turnpike. The best place
to stop on the way up is the “Red Rooster”
roadside snack bar: perfect for a quick, delicious snack and coffee.
Now back to why I love the Berkshires!
One word says it all “CULTURE”. Yes, the
Berkshires are filled with some of the finest
world-class cultural events, places, institutions and experiences you’ll find anywhere,
including NYC: endless á la carte culture,
Another thing I really like about the
Berkshires is their demographics. You’ll
be sure to bump into very sophisticated,
cultured, educated people here, including a
number of former advertising “Mad Men”
like me. Spend a few days here and you will
meet an eclectic mix of people with two
things in common: they love their precious,
refined Berkshires and its endless world of
culture. This is a very gentrified, tranquil,
stress-free place to spend a few days -- or
the rest of your life! In fact, they haven’t had
a demonstration in the Berkshires since the
protest against the Viet Nam war in the
late 60’s. It’s a miracle that such an amazing
place has managed to remain so pure and
unspoiled all these years. The Berkshires are
Boaton Pops at Tanglewood
Acorn’s Hope Bed & Breakfast
the perfect place to unwind, turn off your is surrounded by idyllic rolling hills, beautiengines and smell the roses; let me re-phrase
fully inspiring in every season, with a wide
that -- the pine forests. A modest place in
variety of first class restaurants, lots of unique
near a pasture with a babbling brook or in
shops, fashionable boutiques with things
the woods with views of the rolling hills is you won’t find anywhere else and lovely,
still very affordable to buy or to rent.
over-crowded antique stores where you can
still “steal something” of greater value. There
My favorite town in the Berkshires
is an authentic Western shop with the best
is unequivocally Great Barrington: a very
artsy, cultured place that’s just the right selection of cowboy boots this side of Dallas,
size, offering everything a cultured, refined many NYC quality art galleries includperson would ever want. Great Barrington ing Sanford Smith‘s gallery; one even has
Boaton Pops at Tanglewood
exhibitions in a bank vault.
My favorite place to stay is the “Acorn’s
Hope” Bed & Breakfast, which is not far
from town. You’ll absolutely love it. It has
only four beautiful rooms, decorated with
antiques. And at approximately $175 a
night, including a delicious full breakfast,
you won’t want to leave, My favorite room is
the “Lilac” with its four-poster romantic bed,
but the others are also very lovely. Susanna,
the gracious owner, will make you a hearty
Breakfast while her boisterous parrot amuses
you with her chatter. (Make reservations
the moment you finish my article or it will
be booked.) Three other charming places to
stay in Great Barrington are the Windflower
Inn, The Inn at Sweet Water Farm and
The Wainwright Inn. For a super bargain,
just minutes away, stay at the Monument
Mountain Motel, offering nice, no frills
rooms for only $75 a night.
My favorite place to eat is The Old
Mill, (worth a Guide Michelin Star). Reserve
a table near the fireplace and order their fresh
oysters to start and their signature pankocrusted Idaho Rainbow Trout. Also be sure
to eat at John Andrews historic restaurant
just outside of town. Founded in 1790, it’s
everything you ever dreamt an atmospheric
New England restaurant might be like 200
years ago. Order the huge, plump Steamed
Prince Edward Island Mussels; plenty to
Continued on page 8
Page 8
TRAVEL
Continued from page 7
share and worth a Guide Michelin Star.
Craving Japanese food? Eat at Bizen -- the
finest Japanese restaurant in the Berkshires,
right in the middle of town: it’s like eating
in the Ginza district of Tokyo. Right across
the street is the very casual 22 Railroad Street
Pub: whether you order steak or chops,
you won’t be disappointed, but I love their
famous huge burgers overflowing with great
toppings. Wash it down with one of their
local craft beers or ales.
For the best home made ice cream
you’ve ever eaten, go to the SoCo Creamery
also on Railroad St. Be sure to try at least
four of their unique flavors – there are 50
flavors to choose from. And for pizza, you
must go Baba Louie’s Pizza on Main Street,
famous throughout the Berkshires for
oven-fired thin crust pizzas adorned with
the most creative assortment of fresh ingredients a pizza has ever seen. For breakfast
or brunch there’s only place I would go to,
that’s Martin’s family restaurant at the end of
Railroad Street. Wait in line for a table, --it’s
worth it for a world class breakfast.
Next door be sure to stop into Crystal
Essence shop, an eclectic store with very
unique things to buy, not just crystals.
Be sure to visit the breathtaking “Bish
Bash Falls” -- not far from Great Barrington,
located in Washington Mountain State
Park. (Enter though the NY side; the
Massachusetts road was being upgraded,
so check with the Berkshire Tourism office
Bish Bash Falls
before you go.) It’s a 10 minute scenic hike
to the falls and when you get there you’ll be
astonished by the spectacular 60 feet high,
roaring waterfall gushing endlessly out of the
side of the mountain: it’s the kind of waterfall you’d expect to find in a South American
Rain Forest. Bring lunch for a picnic beneath
the falls and be pleasantly spritzed by the
falls as you eat. This is the perfect place to
meditate, so bring your mantra.
The Berkshires are fabulous in all four
seasons. Some folks like the buds bursting
in Spring; some love the changing leaves
of Fall and others like the tranquil, snow
coated landscape of Winter, --especially the
skiers. The best place to ski is Butternut, not
far from Great Barrington and perfect for
the whole family, with bunny slopes and a
challenging Black Diamond. The lift tickets
are cheap and you can rent everything you
need for a reasonable price. They also have
fabulous cross-country skiing. Also consider
night skiing, available at nearby Catamount.
My favorite season is summer in The
Berkshires. There are Tanglewood concerts
every summer weekend and not just classical music: on Sunday afternoons they have
great jazz and popular music concerts. In
fact, James Taylor still performs there. Look
for the Tanglewood ad in the Sunday NY
Times in April and make reservations.) It’s
only $20 admission to sit on their beautiful lawn which surrounds the Music Shed
where the orchestras plays, while tickets to
sit inside are three times more expensive and
absolutely not as much fun. (Except, of course,
on those rainy nights…) Tanglewood aficionados have a ritual that goes back 50 years:
they stake out a place on the great lawn and
bring folding tables, chairs, tablecloths, candelabras, gourmet meals and wine and feast
until the concert starts. But you don’t have to
bring food, just a bottle of wine, glasses and
a corkscrew, because there’s a great takeout
available at the local restaurants. Bring a large
blanket or small folding table, chairs and a
couple of large umbrellas, in case it rains. Be
sure to get to there at least two hours before
the concert starts, to secure your “choice
position” on the great lawn. There’s also a
great gift shop.
With the Berkshires having so many
fabulous cultural places, you’re not going
to know where to start. If you want to get
close to nature and clear your head, one of
my favorite things to do, not far from Great
Barrington, is take the two hour easy hike
up to the peak of Mt. Washington, and
enjoy spectacular vistas in every direction.
Norman Rockwell Museum
Four Freedoms Gallery, Norman Rockwell Museum
John Andrews Farmhouse Restaurant
Page 9
TRAVEL
It’s not the North face of Everest, but you’ll
still rave about your hike up there to your
friends. The trail is boldly marked and easy
to follow. On the way up you’ll pass small
waterfalls and streams winding their way
down the mountain. The trail runs into the
Appalachian Trail, which goes all the way to
Canada, so maybe take your Passport. Ha!
For serious fans of modern dance, there’s
no place better than the world famous Jacobs
Pillow Dance Festival every summer, --not
to be missed, so book early. For Broadwayquality theater there are many choices; my
favorite is The Stockbridge Theater, where
sometimes you’ll catch Hollywood’s top
actors who’ve always wanted to perform on
stage.The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center,
in Great Barrington, which opened in 1905,
is one of the oldest surviving theaters in the
country.
Great Barrington is quite near other
enchanting towns, but first, you must visit
the lovely and historic town of Stockbridge
fifteen minutes away. Have a nice lunch at
the Main Street Café and don’t miss the
wonderful Norman Rockwell Museum. Buy
an affordable print of one of your favorite
Rockwell paintings. I spent an afternoon
with Norman Rockwell, many years ago
while consulting for The Brooklyn Museum
when they were planning a major Rockwell
show. As I arrived, he was putting the finishing touches on a painting. Mr. Rockwell
was so very gracious and humble. We sat
in his living room and had tea and cookies,
baked by his wife. I was surprised when he
started talking about the Viet Nam war and
how he was a pacifist. He then went on tell
me how he created his famous Americana
paintings. First he’d come up with an idea
for a painting, and then ask ordinary folks
in Stockbridge to pose for him. He’d arrange
them for the painting he wanted to paint,
took a photograph and painted from an
8”x10”photograph.
Do stop for a drink at the historical
landmark Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge.
Consider splurging and stay there for a
night. It’s about $250 with breakfast, but life
is short. Stockbridge was also the home of
“Alice’s Restaurant”, which is long gone, but
still lives on in Arlo Guthrie’s popular song
by the same name; “You can get anything you
want at Alice’s Restaurant, except Alice”.
If you are into health and wellness, head
over to the Canyon Ranch in Lenox and
treat yourself to a very special Spa Day. It’s
also great for couples. (Make a reservation).
If you’re an art lover, like me, you must
make time to visit the world-class permanent art collections and special exhibitions
at the Clark Museum and Williamstown
Arrowhead, Herman Melville’s home in Pittsfield, MA
Diana O’Neill
Holistic Health
Services
College Museum in Williamstown. It’s not
close by, but worth the trip.
“Moby Dick” fans should head to
Pittsfield and check out Herman Melville’s
historical Arrowhead home where he wrote
many of his most famous books. Also check
out the Hancock Shaker Village in Lenox to
discover what made the Shakers special and
maybe buy something Shaker.
If you have time, wander through all the
charming towns nearby: Lenox, Pittsfield
and Lee, with their interesting shops, restaurants, galleries, and historic places. Driving in
the Berkshires is a treat for your eyes, with
vistas of rolling hills, picture book farms, red
barns, towering silos stuffed with corn and
herds of cows munching on pure Berkshire
grass. Look closely and you will also see
some folks raising elegant Llamas and beautiful long horn Asian cattle, I even saw a pair
of longhaired water buffalos. I promise that
every day you spend in the Berkshires will be
special. In fact, the hardest part is deciding
where to go and what to do.
It’s very easy to lose yourself in the
Berkshires, given the non-stop, tempting
cultural events in just about every season.
Once you experience the Berkshires, you’ll
Lilac Room, Acorn Bed & Breakfast
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just want to keep coming back. If that’s
check out the special places I’ve told you
the case, consider stopping by Wheeler &
about, go directly to this one fabulous
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Barrington. This is the perfect time of year Berkshires website. http://berkshires.org/
business_category/performing-arts/
to get a super-deal on a summer rental. Visit
for the day, or maybe even spend a romantic
I’m looking forward to seeing you this
night at the Acorn’s Hope B&B ‘s “Lilac
Summer at Tanglewood,…or having a
Room” with its four-poster bed. You just
picnic lunch under Bish Bash Falls; or maybe
might find the dream place you’ve always
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wanted, ant at the very least you’ll have expe(After all, you already know what I look like!)
rienced a wonderful Berkshires day.
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Page 10
CREATIVE DISRUPTION
So, What Really Is This Big Data?
by John F. McMullen
Just when it seems
that we have heard enough
about “Big Data,” something new comes along
to get our attention.
Natasha Singer’s December 27, 2014
New York Times article, “The Scoreboards
Where You Can’t See Your Score” (http://
www.nytimes.com/2014/12/28/
technology/the-scoreboards-whereyou-cant-see-your-score.html) deals
with the “scoring” of us, the consumers, by
rating agencies using statistical analysis of
the material, big data, that has been collected
and amalgamated about us.
Before going into scoring, it is important to understand what we mean by the
terminology we are using. None of this
activity would be possible were it not for
the unprecedented ability of firms to amass
vast amounts of data about each of us.
Collectively, all of this data is referred to as
“Big Data” but, as Pam Baker points out
in her comprehensive book on the subject,
“Data Divination: Big Data Strategies,”
“attaching the word ‘big’ to data is unfortunate
… data considered big by today’s standards will
likely be considered small or average by future
computing standards.” Implicit in this statement is the understanding that there will
be greater and greater collection of data on
everything and that there will be the need for
constant development of new analytical tools
to analyze the data.
So, for the purpose of this piece, big data
will simply mean all the data that is collected
and stored anywhere for re-selling and / or
analysis. This data will be both taken from
public records, available to all, and collected
from credit purchases, social media sites,
on-line purchases, and any other source
where the person may be identified by name
or account or any other clue in the item
which might be used as an identifier.
Within the category of public records,
there are “data sets” (intelligent groupings
of data) that are provided to the public
by governments or public agencies with
encouragement to users to build applications to make the data useful. We call this
data “Open Data” and many government
entities throughout the world provide sites
of public data and encourage the development of “apps” to make use of the data. The
United Nations provides data.un.org, the
US government provides www.data.gov
and New York City provides a variety of
resources including the NYC Open Data
platform, Open NY, and Enigma.
The constant need for new tools that
Baker mentions is obvious when one considers the many possibilities for data to be
inaccurate:
The data itself may be in error.
The method of collection may be
suspect.
The amalgamation methods to form
user profiles may be flawed.
The analysis tools brought to bear on
the data may be suspect.
In short, the attempt to reduce everything possible to scientific analysis may itself
be far from scientific.
One expects the public data available
to be less prone to error than the non-public
but I know from personal experience that
there can still be errors – a track of land that
I own is listed on the public record at an
address adjacent to my house when actually
it is ten blocks away at a different address (it
is correct on the official map of the area – but not
in the official public record).
The data can also be in error due to
some unusual anomalies – a childhood
friend of mine lived in an apartment house
in New York City that had another family
with the same first and last names of parents
and two children. Years later, my friend was
almost denied a mortgage until he was able
to show that it was another “James Jones”
from the same address.
The collection of data from structured
files, such as those from the Open Data files
enumerated above is pretty straight forward
but the “scrubbing” of data from Facebook
and Linkedin files or resumes submitted via
e-mail is much more difficult and prone to
error. Moreover, the building of profiles from
widely disparate sources is even more prone
to error. In various repositories having information about me, I am “John McMullen,”
“John F McMullen,” John R McMullen,”
“john.mcmullen,” “jfmcmullen,” “johnmac,”
and “johnmac13” -- and there are other
John McMullens and John F McMullens
out there so it is never clear that you have
the one for whom you are looking (financial
files may have Social Security numbers so the
linking of files from different financial firms
would be easier). Profile-building algorithms
will attempt to use other possibilities such as
telephone numbers, zip codes, street address,
marital status, etc. to complete the work but
it is always possible, in the case of multiple
files, that they will be in various stages of
updating.
Finally, the analysis tools in use may not
be sufficiently sophisticated to provide the
certitude called for in particular problems
– but, worse case, may sprew forth answers
anyhow.
In short, we are in the early stages of a
work in progress – but we plunge ahead as
we get more and more overwhelmed with
data.
To return to scoring -- There are many
implications to be drawn from this process,
most of them negative, at this time, in my
judgement and in that of University of
Maryland Law Professor, Frank Pasquale
,who writes in this new book, “The Black
Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That
Control Money and Information” (Harvard
University Press), “Important corporate actors
have unprecedented knowledge of the minutiae
of our daily lives while we know little to nothing
about how they use this knowledge to influence important decisions that we — and they
— make.”
Singer explains the process underlying
the scoring -- “Data brokers amass dossiers
with thousands of details about individual
consumers, like age, religion, ethnicity, profession, mortgage size, social networks, estimated
income and health concerns such as impotence
and irritable bowel syndrome. Then analytics
engines can compare patterns in those variables
against computer forecasting models. Algorithms
are used to assign consumers scores — and to
recommend offering, or withholding, particular
products, services or fees — based on predictions
about their behavior.”
She futher points out “most people in
real life are not aware of the types and frequency
of rankings to which they are subject. While a
federal law called the Fair Credit Reporting
Act requires consumer reporting agencies to
provide individuals with copies of their credit
reports on request, many other companies are
free to keep their proprietary consumer scores to
themselves.”
Singer quotes Michael Fertik and
David Thompson from their forthcoming book, “The Reputation Economy: How
to Optimize Your Digital Footprint in A
World Where Your Reputation Is Your Most
Valuable Asset” (Crown Business) as adding
“This will happen whether or not you want to
participate, and these scores will be used by others
to make major decisions about your life, such as
whether to hire, insure, or even date you.”
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Page 11
paying too much.”
Two and a half years later, it has still not
caught up and the tragedy is that, in most
cases, the only ones familiar with the practice
and the possibility of error are those who are
just as happy to see it continue the way it is,
pending possible improvements.
This is just another case of the need for
an informed and interested public.
Creative Disruption is a continuing series
examining the impact of constantly accelerating technology on the world around us. These
changers normally happen under our personal
radar until we find that the world as we knew
it is no more.
Comments on this column to
johnmac13@gmail.com
John F. McMullen is a writer, poet,
college professor and radio host. Links
to other writings, Podcasts, & Radio
Broadcasts at www.johnmac13.com,
his books are available on Amazon, and he
blogs at http://open.salon.com/blog/
johnmac13.
© 2014 John F. McMullen
CREATIVE DISRUPTION
So, What Really Is This Big Data?
In an earlier article on the subject, a
little over two years ago (August 2012),
“Secret E-Scores Chart Consumers’
Buying Power” (http://www.nytimes.
com/2012/08/19/business/
electronic-scores-rank-consumersby-potential-value.html), Singer wrote
“Federal law governs the use of old-fashioned
credit scores. Companies must have a legally
permissible purpose before checking consumers’
credit reports and must alert them if they are
denied credit or insurance based on information
in those reports. But the law does not extend to
the new valuation scores because they are derived
from nontraditional data and promoted for
marketing.” She quoted the concern of those
familiar with scoring that the law had not yet
caught up with the practice: David Vladeck,
Director of the Bureau of Consumer
Protection, Federal Trade Commission
– “The scoring is a tool to enable financial institutions to make decisions about financing based
on unconventional methods. We are troubled
by these practices.” and Ed Mierzwinski,
Consumer Program Director, United States
Public Interest Research Group – “There’s
a nontransparent, opaque scoring system that
collects information about you to generate a score
— and what your score is results in the offers you
get on the Internet. In most cases, you don’t know
who is collecting the information, you don’t
know what predictions they have made about
you, or the potential for being denied choice or
Arts & EntertainmentSection
EYE ON THEATRE
Sondheim on Screen
By John Simon
There are two antithetical things a show can do:
dazzle you or enlighten you
or, at best, both together.
Both is what the James
Lapine-Stephen Sondheim musical, “Into
the Woods, ” aims to do and does, but at the
cost of sowing some confusion.
This was true of the Broadway premiere
(1987) and is now for the Hollywood
adaptation.
Ultimately, the authors set themselves a
difficult, perhaps impossible task, assuming
that they had an overarching one, and were
not merely following ill-defined instincts.
The idea was to take several of the Grimm
fairy tales, some of them reconceived, and
with one freshly minted added, fuse them
into a significant whole, perhaps even a
world view.
But what do you get from such a
mashing together? There is such a thing
as a fairy-tale world that underlies these
stories: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood,
Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Prince
Charming (or two such princes, one for
Cinderella, one for Rapunzel). Also a Witch,
perhaps even a vengeful giantess (I’m not
sure whether in Grimm), with passing references to Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.
But that does not mean that they can be
slapped together into a single meaningful
whole.
It is like taking several novels by a single
novelist, stirring them together in a pot,
and expecting a rich result. The style can
prove consistent, but the story—or stories—
cannot cohere.
So “Into the Woods” wants to be about
(a) parents and children, (b) pursuing one’s
dream, (c) the dangers of leaving home, (d)
a wood, or woods, possibly enchanted, as a
unifying constant), engendering (e) a commonality leading to a community, with its
benefits.
There were audiences enough for the
original Broadway musical of 1987 to garner
765 performances despite mixed reviews.
But, paradoxically, a 2002 revival, despite
an equally strong cast, made it only to 279.
Too many school and little theater productions may have killed the appetite for it—to
say nothing of its not having been such a hot
show in the first place.
The present movie version, however,
does have novelty value, film audiences
being largely different from theater ones.
Unfortunately, from my viewpoint, the
director is Rob Marshall, who made a botch
of “Chicago,” which did not prevent it
from winning an ill-deserved Oscar. Here,
however, he is a bit more respectful of the
musical aspects.
The faults here strike me as the stage
show’s faults writ large. For few musicals
have there been as many birthing pangs as
there were for the original “Woods,” which
had any number of numbers cut, rewritten,
reshuffled, also last-minute additions and a
change of leading lady, etc. That sort of thing
is common enough among musicals, but this
one rather overdid it during the San Diego
tryouts.
Particularly interesting here is that
after much tough stuff meant to make the
show more adult and uncompromising, it
somehow ended with not one but two feel
good numbers, “No One Is Alone” and
“Children Will Listen,” providing a good old
happy ending, however questionably earned.
If anything, the child Rapunzel is largely
alone, and does not listen to her mother the
Witch trying hard to keep her from leaving.
The Baker’s father, who walked out on his
wife and may have caused her suicide, pops
back in out of nowhere, spouts advice, and
pops right back into a presumably lonely
nowhere, alone.
Fairytales have morals, but they are single-minded ones, not multiple, complicated,
and self-contradictory. Sondheim’s music,
to be sure, even more than his usual clever
lyrics, does provide unification. What might
make for monotony from lesser composers, becomes in these expert hands an aural
landscape as darkling as any forest—well,
any musical-comedy forest, knock on wood.
Sondheim moreover takes liberties, as exemplified by his switching between “wood” and
“woods,” according to the requisite rhyme.
He also bravely opts for triple rhymes, as for
instance, in “Our moment, / Shimmering
and lovely and sad. / Leave the moment,
just be glad / For the moment that we had.”
Which, by the way, pretty much sums up the
proceedings.
The plot concerns the Witch’s bargain
to lift her curse of barrenness from the childcraving Baker and Wife, if within three
days—by the time of an auspicious blue
moon--the couple will provide her with a
cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood,
hair as yellow as corn, and a slipper of pure
gold. Pretty absurd when you consider that
witchery would be more suited to such a task
than bakery.
The rather unconvincing request,
however, involves us with Jack, his demanding mother and their precious white cow,
which she wants to sell; Red Riding Hood
and her crimson cape; Rapunzel and her
yellow hair; and Cinderella and a golden
slipper conjured up for her as part of a
ballroom outfit by the arboreal ghost of
her dead mother, who, by similar illogic,
could have done her much greater good
Page 12
EYE ON THEATRE
Sondheim on Screen
than just a set of clothes. But this is what
was needed by the escaping girl to shrewdly
glue a glittering slipper to the palace stairs
for the Prince to find, with you know what
consequences. Golden hair is what attracts
his brother, the younger Prince, to Rapunzel.
Greedy, gold-hungry bunch, these Princes.
It is, I’m afraid, a second-rate imagination that thought up these improvements
on the Bothers Grimm, as it may have
also the Giantess seeking revenge for Jack’s
killing her brother. Altogether Shakespeare’s
Midsummer forest has nothing to fear from
the competition of these woods.
The camera work by the excellent
Australian cinematographer, Dion Beebe,
however, does amply and aptly convey a
magical world, to which the uniformly
coordinated performances (unlike the
accents, some British, some American) do
make mostly valiant contributions, as do
some well-chosen bits of landscape, like
the multiple waterfalls for the Princes to
sing of their “Agony” around. They are well
played by Billy Magnussen and Chris Pyne,
and equally by their neatly contrasted black
or white steeds. James Corden is a fine
comedian, albeit a talent the Baker’s part
hardly lets him deploy. As his Wife, Emily
Blunt, gets the biggest opportunities, and
lives graciously up to them. Contrariwise,
Lilla Crawford, a good stage Annie, remains
unflattered by the camera. Many have
relished Anna Kendrick’s plucky Cinderella;
as did I, though I could have wished her
prettier.
Tracey Ullman is a properly cantankerous Mother to the somewhat monotonous
Jack of Daniel Huttlestone—no Daniel
Radcliffe he. MacKenzie Mauzie is just
another pretty, young blonde, for which an
actress whose bravura lies not in her name
might have served better. Tammy Blanshard
and Lucy Punch, as Cinderella’s nasty
Stepsisters are just right, as is the wonderful
Christine Baranski, if only she were accorded
more of a part as the Stepmother.
Johnny Depp, in a splendidly vulpine
getup (wonderful ears protruding from his
hat), is unfortunately more charming than
both Princes rolled together, which thus
deprives the story of needed menace. Good,
though, that this Wolf has a small part, or he
might have wolfed down the entire show.
The Giantess, who is mostly heard in thunderous footsteps, is given the needed rousing
voice by Frances de la Tour, a worthy successor to Broadway’s admirable Judi Dench.
Well, does a film perhaps too childish
for gown-ups and probably too adult for
children (but children will listen nevertheless) spell success at the box office?
Quite likely: there aren’t too many of
those around.
Comedian Alfons was raised in Kuwait
and began acting while still a student in his
school’s theater run by London Academy
for Dramatic Arts. When he returned to
Egypt with his parents, Alfons worked as a
copywriter for advertising agencies and as a
voiceover actor in TV ads and independent
shorts before graduating in the class of 2006
of the American University in Cairo with a
degree in Performing Visual Arts. During
this period, his most famous appearance
was as an actor in Nokia campaign playing
Qwerty Man and co-starring with Asser
Yasseen in Wadaa Helmak (Say Farewell to
Your Dream) a cautionary short about drugs,
directed by Amr Waked. After spending
three consecutive years in Canada where
he continued to work in TV ads, Alfons
returned to Egypt in 2011 only to be cast
in the once-popular al-Bernameg, hosted
by Bassem Youssef. Alfons worked as a
co-writer and co-star in the show’s various
comic sketches until al-Bernameg was pulled
off from the air in 2014. Alfons has also guest
starred in numerous hit TV shows including al-Kabeer Awi starring Ahmed Mekky
and Donia Sameer Ghanem and Ramadan
Galak with fellow co-stars of al-Bernameg.
“While al-Bernameg was still on the air, I took
a one month leave to fly to Emirates to shoot my
role in From A to B”, said Shady. “In the film,
I play Ramy, an internet activist who joins his
friends Omar and Jay in roadtrip to commemorate the memory of their deceased friend Hady by
driving from Abu Dhabi – via Saudi Arabia,
Jordan, and Syria to arrive in Beirut, on what
would have been Hady’s twenty-fifth birthday.
The events of the film take place in 2011; while
Hady died in the 2006 events that took place in
his country, Lebanon”.
The film’s first script draft was cowritten in English by Egyptian producer
Mohamed Hefzy a few years ago, but the
funders subsequently decided to shoot the
film in Arabic, anticipating the project would
be well received throughout the Arabic
world. “They relied on my previous talent as
copywriter to translate all the English language
jokes into an Arabic equivalent”, revealed
Alfons.
The team shot footage throughout the
Arab countries and surrounding deserts. It is
not only a funny journey, full of breakdowns,
wrong turns, shady mechanics and camels,
but most of all it is a self-discovery for the
trio of friends. The shooting went smoothly
under the direction of Emeriti director Ali
Mostafa and his professional multinational
team. Hence, the final result. “According to my
experience at the film premiere in Abu Dhabi
Film Festival last October, audiences from different age groups and backgrounds positively
reacted to the story and the jokes of the film”, said
Alfons. “This success surpassed our expectations.”
“I have always had this idea about doing a
John Simon has written for over 50 years on
theatre, film, literature, music and fine arts for the
Hudson Review, New Leader, New Criterion,
National Review, New York Magazine, Opera
News, Weekly Standard, Broadway.com and
Bloomberg News. He reviews books for the New
York Times Book Review and Washington Post.
To learn more, visit the www.JohnSimonUncensored.com website.
CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
From A to B
By Sherif Awad
A wave of new films
coming from the Arab
Gulf is starting to take a
remarkable position among
the repertoire of our region.
There have been attempts, not only to make
shorts and documentaries in the Gulf, but
also to create features with quality competing with Egyptian and Maghreb films.
Among the new films that recently
received great acclaim in national and international media, is the road movie From A
to B, written and directed by Emirati filmmaker Ali F. Mostafa. Modeled after a mix
of The Big Chill (1984) and Road Trip (2000),
the Emirati film has three friends reuniting
to take a car trip to Beirut in memory of their
Shadi Alfons
lost, fourth companion. The three friends are
played by Fahad Albutairi of Saudi Arabia,
Fadi Rifaai of the Arab Emirates and
Egyptian comedian Shady Alfons.
Fadi Rifaal, Fahad Albutairi, Ali Mostafa and Shadi Alfons at ADFF Opening Night
Fahad Albutairi, Shadi Alfons and Fadi Rifaal
Page 13
especially hope that From A to B resonates with
the Arab audiences”.
Born in Cairo, Egypt, Sherif Awad is a
film/video critic and curator. He is the film
editor of Egypt Today Magazine (www.
EgyptToday.com) and the Artistic Director
for both the Alexandria film Festival ,
and the Arab Rotterdam Festival in The
Netherlands. He also contributes to Variety,
in the United States and is the Film Critic of
Variety, Arabia (http://amalmasryalyoum.
com/ennode189132 and The Westchester
Guardian: www.WestchesterGuardian.com
Born in Cairo, Egypt, Sherif Awad is a film /
video critic and curator. He is the film editor of
Egypt Today Magazine (www.EgyptToday.
com), and the artistic director for both the
Alexandria Film Festival, in Egypt, and the
Arab Rotterdam Festival, in The Netherlands.
He also contributes to Variety, in the United
States, and is the film critic of Variety Arabia
(http://varietyarabia.com/), in the United
Arab Emirates (UAE), the Al-Masry Al-Youm
Website (http://www.almasryalyoum.com/en/
node/198132) and The Westchester Guardian
(www.WestchesterGuardian.com).
CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
From A to B
road trip film set in the Middle East”, said
director Ali F. Mostafa, whose father is from
Dubai, and mother is from London. Mostafa
grew up in the Unite Arab Emirates with a
love for cinema, who decided to follow his
passion and went on to pursue a Master’s
degree in Filmmaking from the prestigious
London Film School. In 2006, Ali established a production company called AFM
Films to maintain the creative freedom to
write and produce innovative work.
In 2009, he released his debut feature
City of Life, breaking box office records
for an Emirati film. After City of Life, Ali
conceived the idea for From A to B and developed it into a script in collaboration with
Mohamed Hefzy. In 2014, Image Nation
and twofour54 co-produced the film in collaboration with Rotana, making it the first
Emirati film to open the Abu Dhabi Film
Festival (ADFF):
“Because my first film City of Life was a
drama, I really wanted to try something that
had some comedy. When discussing the early
concept, I wanted to follow a route that would
be interesting for Arab audiences. Abu Dhabi
was my first choice being the capital city of the
UAE - and being that my first film was about
Dubai, it was important for me to start there.
On the journey from Abu Dhabi to Beirut, the
landscape changes so drastically from one place to
the next. I love being able to show that. There are
also significant cultural changes as you cross the
different borders. My ultimate goal is to make
films that are accessible to all audiences, but I
COMMUNITY NOTES
Sgt. Candito Souza, Memorial Antarctica: Photographs by Diane Tuft
The Portugese American Community
Center (PACC) commemorated Sgt.
Candito Souza, U. S. M. C. WWII, on
October 4, 2014, with a memorial plaque.
Sgt. Souza made the ultimate sacrifice on
December 26, 1943 in New Guinea and
was posthumously awarded the Bronze star.
The presentation represents the bravest in
America and Sgt. Souza is believed to be the
First Portuguese American lost in WWII
from the City of Yonkers. Those present at
the ceremony included John N. Romano,
President of the PACC, Christine Marques,
Aurora Pereira – Secretary and Daniel P.
Romano, PACC Attorney.
Now Thru February 1, 2015
Selections from Gondwana, Images of an Ancient Land
Lead Corporate Sponsor: Gabelli
Funds Also generously supported by The
Charles M. And Deborah G. Royce
Exhibition Fund
This exhibition features a selection of
large-format photographs by Diane Tuft,
a New York-based mixed-media artist
and photographer.
Sunday, January 11, 3:00 –
4:15 pm Panel Discussion:
Exploring Antarctica
Bruce Museum curator of science and
penguin expert Daniel Ksepka moderates
the panel including photographer Diane
Tuft, artist Elise Engler, Yale Peabody
Museum invertebrate researcher Eric
Lazo-Wasem, Stony Brook University
assistant professor Heather Lynch, and
state ornithologist and UConn associate professor Margaret Rubega. *
Reservations are required: 203.413.6757
or info@brucemuseum.org. Lectures
are free to Bruce Museum Members and
$15 to non-members. Lectures are supported in part by The Bruce Museum and
the Marjorie Sims Lawrence Foundation.
Artists, research scientists, and
explorers venture to Antarctica on expeditions of discovery that challenge their
personal limits and help us understand
how this remote, frozen continent
impacts us all. Hear their stories and be
prepared for a lively discussion.
Lake Vanda Composition Photo by Diane
Tuft
WESTCHESTER NETWORKING FOR PROFESSIONALS
NEXT MEETING JANUARY 21, 2015
Due to conflicting circumstance our December 3rd event has been
postponed to Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Event details are below:
Event Title: New Year & Holiday Networking Celebration
When: Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Time: 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Location: Vintage Bar & Restaurant, 171 Main Street, White Plains, NY
Details:
Join Westchester Networking for Professionals as we celebrate a New Year for an evening of networking, mingling with friends, making
new connections, some laughs and great conversations with business owners, professionals and entrepreneurs while enjoying open bar,
appetizers and a GOOD TIME. Attendees are asked to bring a non-perishable food item to donate to the food drive in support of
Food Bank for Westchester. For ticket information visit http://www.wnfp.org or call (914) 266-0347.
Event Host and Contact
Westchester Networking for Professionals
Email: info@wnfp.org
Phone: (914) 266-0347
Page 14
LE G A L N O T I C E S
LAUGHTEROLOGY, LLC Articles of Org. filed NY
Sec. of State (SSNY) 11/10/14. Office in Westchester Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom
process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of
process to Mr. Robert Mankoff 122 Ridegecrest
Rd Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510. Purpose: Any lawful activity.
774 POST ROAD, LLC Articles of Org. filed NY Sec.
of State (SSNY) 9/24/14. Office in Westchester Co.
SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process
may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process
to C/O Stern Keiser & Panken 1025 Westchester
Ave Ste.305 White Plains, NY 10604. Purpose: Any
lawful activity.
Open 7 Days A Week
NYC’s #1
TOPlESS
SPORTS
BAR
THE STAN GROUP, LLC Articles of Org. filed NY
process to Incorp Services, Inc One Commerce
Plaza 99 Washington Ave Ste. 805-A Albany, NY
12210-2822. Purpose: Any lawful activity. Registered Agent: Incorp Services, Inc One Commerce
Plaza 99 Washington Ave Ste. 805-A Albany, NY
12210-2822.
• Gentlemen’s Club
• sushi RestauRant
• Fine DininG
NYC’s oNlY BoDY SUSHI
252 West 43rd St.
212-819-9300
(Between 7th & 8th Ave.)
www.mycheetahsnyc.com
FREE ADMISSION WITH THIS PASS
The New
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NEW YORK’S
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PREMIER
PREMIER
GENTLEMEN’S
GENTLEMEN’S
CABARET
Notice of formation of IMFORMATIO, LLC. Art.
of org. filed with SSNY on 11/24/14. Off. location:
Westchester County. SSNY shall mail process to
the LLC, 2828 Broadway 9E, New York, NY 11024.
Purpose: Any lawful activity. SSNY designated as
agent of the LLC upon whom process against it
may be served.
35176 253RD AVENUE LLC Articles of Org. filed NY
process to Maggie J. Segrich 116 Main St Irvington, NY 10533. Purpose: Any lawful activity.
THE CAFE AT 178TH, LLC Articles of Org. filed NY
process to The LLC 686 Bronx River Rd #5G Yonkers, NY 10704. Purpose: Any lawful activity.
MNG 178TH, LLC Articles of Org. filed NY Sec. of
State (SSNY) 7/16/14. Office in Westchester Co.
SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process
may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process
to The LLC 139 Hart Ave Yonkers, NY 10704. Purpose: Any lawful activity.
CABARET
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COMPLIMENTARY
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Mon – Sat Before 9PM
20 W. 20th ST. (btwn 5th & 6th)
COMPLIMENTARY
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FOR
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SYNERGY MEDICAL ARTS, PLLC Articles of Org.
filed NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 11/14/14. Office in
Westchester Co. SSNY design. Agent of PLLC
upon whom process may be served. SSNY shall
mail copy of process to The PLLC 103 S Bedford
Rd Ste. 205 Mount Kisco, NY 10549. Purpose: Any
lawful activity.
RON RET REALTY, LLC Articles of Org. filed NY
process to The LLC 374 McLean Ave Yonkers, NY
10705. Purpose: Any lawful activity.
CALENDAR
News and Notes from Northern Westchester
By Mark Jeffers
I just sent in the final
college payment for our
middle daughter, two down,
one to go! I was so excited
I almost forgot to sign the
check, but I did remember to write this
week’s “bounce free” edition of “News &
Notes.”
Congratulations to ArtsWestchester as
they will be receiving a $76,000 grant as part
of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Regional
Economic Development Council Initiative.
A Technology Workshop will be held
at the Pound Ridge Library on January 8th
at 11am.
If one of your New Year’s resolutions
to pare down, the Vietnam Veterans of
America has scheduled a local pickup on
January 15th; they are looking for clothing,
shoes and bedding items, please call 800775-8387 for more information.
And they say our house is a three ring
circus, well the Royal Hanneford Circus is
returning to the Westchester County Center
celebrating their 40th year of fun on February
14 -16.
The Trailside Nature Museum at
Ward Pound Ridge Reservation presents
“Naturalist’s Choice Hike” on Saturday
January 10th.
Here’s a great way to give back, a blood
drive is being sponsored by the Emanuel
Lutheran Church in Pleasantville on January
10th from 9am to 3pm.
The wild and crazy folks from the Fox
Lane Sports Boosters Club are again sponsoring a 24 hour Bowl-a-thon fundraiser
at Grand Prix NY in Mount Kisco from
9:00am, Saturday, January 24th through
9:00am Sunday, January 25th. Proceeds
from this year’s Bowl-a-thon will raise funds
to assist the Gallagher family and refurbish
the Middle School Athletic Shelter. Last
year’s event drew 700 participants as bowlers,
spectators and well-wishers.
Congratulations and three cheers to the
Somers Girls High School soccer team as
they recently won the Class A state soccer
championship.
The Bronxville Women’s Club’s
Midland Music Series, located at 135
Midland Avenue in Bronxville, announces
its All-Beethoven program that was postponed from December 13th will now take
place on January 10th. Artistic director for
the series is Oxana Mikhailoff. This evening
will be a program of music by one of the
most beloved, and famous, of composers:
Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven’s music
ends the Classical period and begins the
Romantic period. Find out more by coming
at 7:30pm for the pre-concert lecture with
the concert beginning at 8pm. A reception
follows the program. Pianist Lisa Yui will
perform Beethoven’s Sonatas Op. 10, No.
2 and Op. 57 (Appassionata) and give the
pre-concert lecture.
The Bedford Hills Free Library will
hold “Book Mayhem” on Friday January 9th
at 4:15pm.
Three hundred of Westchester’s most
influential and powerful people will join
together to raise funds for a new center
for healing sexually abused and exploited
children and the Jewish Child Care
Association’s Cottage Schools for at-risk
children at the first big social event of the
year, “A Tree Grows In Pleasantville,” on
Saturday, January 10th from 6:30pm to 9pm.
The event will be held on JCCA’s
Westchester Campus, at 1075 Broadway in
Pleasantville.“A Tree Grows in Pleasantville,”
JCCA’s 10th annual cocktail party, will
benefit the cottage schools’ programs and
services for vulnerable children with serious
emotional and family problems. The event
will feature a special performance by the
students and launching a new initiative
called The Center for Healing Sexually
Abused and Exploited Children.
With the warm wet weather we have
been having lately, watch out for black ice
with the night time freeze, it is sometimes
as dangerous as snow, be careful…see you
next week.
Mark Jeffers resides in Bedford Hills, New York,
with his wife Sarah, and three daughters, Kate,
Amanda, and Claire.
RETAIL RECON
Retail Recon
My very favorite time to plan for
Christmas is in January! This is when the
holiday is fresh in my mind and I have the
opportunity to consider what went well
and what “needs improvement!” Thankfully,
I took the time to do this last year, as well,
when in the course of my travels I picked
up beautiful fingerless gloves for my nieces
– who will be warm and toasty—and stylish
this winter, while still being able to text all of
their friends. I stashed these in my presents
box and they sure saved me time I did not
have, to shop in December.
I also stock up on accessories and gift
items at craft fairs throughout the year for
birthday and Christmas gifts. I buy these
when I see them, since they will be gone
when I go back and I stash them in the gift
box. This has been very helpful to me since
my weekends spent shopping are now but a
distant memory...
I also invested in a plastic container
from The Container Store to hold holiday
wrappings and this keeps everything neatly
stored until I need it. Hurry to stock up on
discounted holiday wrappings, cards and gift
tags so you can wrap next year’s presents as
soon as you buy them. You never know what
will come up at the last minute; bad weather
can torpedo the best of plans and this is one
less thing to think about.
Speaking of cards, I would like to take
this opportunity to wish my friends and
relatives a belated Merry Christmas and a
Wonderful New Year! If we did not see each
other over the holiday, I am hopeful that we
will get together soon! Editing takes up quite
a lot of time, I have learned. I had the cards,
no problem there, I just ran out the clock.
Lame I know, but I am resolved to do better
next year!
Have a wonderful 2015!
20 W. 20th ST. (btwn 5th & 6th)
212-633-1199
s thevipclubnyc.com
WESTCHESTER
GUARDIAN LEGAL ADVERTISING
WestGuardAdvertising@aol.com
PUBLICATION EVERY THURSDAY: 914.216.1674 M-F 11A- 5P
SUBMIT ADS TUESDAY, 10 DAYS PRIOR TO RUN DATE
Page 15
COMMUNITY NOTES
Learn How Trees Benefit our Homes and Communities at The ArborDay.org Website
Though our winter has been mild, so
far, we will likely have stormy weather
over the next three months and this can
take a heavy toll on trees. The ArborDay.
org/media/stormrecovery website offers
illustrations of damaged trees as a guide
to the best course of action, best made in
consultation with a trusted Arborist. Be
sure to have trees inspected for damage
following high winds and heavy snowfalls, so damaged branches removed,
preventing further problems.
“Trees add value to homes, fight
climate change and help regulate the air
temperature in our communities. Trees
also help improve the quality of the air
and water, absorb groundwater runoff –
reducing municipal sewer maintenance
costs and create beautiful, welcoming
streetscapes. Strategic planting of trees
around our homes can screen unattractive views, block chilly winter winds
and offer shade in the summer, reducing
energy utility bills.”
Winter is the perfect time to plan
our spring plantings and to consider
whether we can add more trees on our
lots and in our communities. While
flowering trees are pretty when in
bloom, fruit and nut trees are also attractive and practical, as well. The Arbor Day
web site can direct you to trees that are
compatible with our climate and many
can be bought, inexpensively, through
the foundation. Also consider gift trees,
which the foundation suggests as great
presents for: “corporate gifts, wedding
favors, fundraisers, loyalty programs,
new accounts, employee and customer
appreciation, grand openings, Earth
Day and Arbor Day celebrations, baby
gifts and most gift giving occasions. Gift
Trees come with growing instructions;
many can be grown indoors or until conditions are right for planting outside.”
The Arbor Day Foundation also
maintains a Community Recovery Tree
Fund to help communities replant after
severe storms devastate local trees so
they can re-plant quickly to minimize
the damage caused by a lack of trees.
The Foundation Fund has assisted New
Jersey communities replant their trees
since Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012.
“The Arbor Day Foundation is a
non-profit conservation and education organization of nearly one million
members, with a mission to inspire
people to plant, celebrate and nurture
trees, organized in 1972 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first
Arbor Day. The Arbor Day Foundation
remains one of the world’s largest
non-profit organizations dedicated to
planting trees, planting and distributing
more than ten million trees each year.
Since 1990, the Foundation has
worked with the United States Forest
Service and the National Association
of State Foresters to plant more than
20 million forestland trees. The Tree
City USA program recognizes and has
honored more than 3300 cities throughout the country who are committed to
planting and nurturing trees.
Through the Foundation’s efforts,
The Rain Forest Rescue Program has
preserved more than 48,000 acres of
Rain Forestland.”
* Information quoted or referenced
for this story is from the ArborDay.org
website.
Page 16
Movie ReviewSection
MOVIE REVIEW
Unbroken
By Mary Keon
Unbroken is the true story of one
of the greatest of the greatest generation – Second Lieutenant Louis
Zamperini, who survived an airplane
crash in the Pacific and internment in a
brutal Japanese POW camp, emerging
unbroken, against all odds. His story
is the triumph of the human spirit: the
ability of one man to find the stamina,
focus and resilience within himself, to
overcome impossible odds.
As teenager who would have been
sent straight to Juvie Hall if the authorities “didn’t have so much respect for his
parents,” Louis managed to turn his life
around, once his older brother, Pete,
encouraged him to join the track team,
explaining: “If he could take it, he could
make it.” Louis took this message to
heart and surprised everyone, perhaps
himself, most of all, with his success as a
long distance runner, finishing eighth in
the 5000 meter race at the1936 Berlin
Olympics, where he sprinted through
his final lap in just 56 seconds. When the
United States entered the war, he joined
the Air Force and became a bombardier,
On May 27th, 1943*, Zamperini’s
plane crashed into the Pacific after suffering catastrophic engine failure. He and
two surviving crew drifted for 47 days
under the relentless sun, with few rations
and little water; barely surviving on raw
fish that they managed to real in while
trying to avoid the pods of sharks that
circled their little yellow raft constantly.
This was the good part of Louis’s war.
As the shadow of a battleship fell across
the little yellow raft, Louis said to his
friend, Philip, “I have good news, I have
bad news…”
The film, directed and produced by
Angelina Jolie, does a very good job of
portraying wartime conditions and the
terror of crashing at sea. In an interview
before he died, Zamperini said that he
was actually unconscious underwater,
following the crash, making his survival
all the more miraculous. There are very
few time stamps to mark just how long
he and his friends are at sea, -- or what
day it is in prison camp, which helps to
underscore the sense of dislocation the
Louis Zamperini
survivors must have felt throughout this
ordeal: one day is not very different from
the one before; and the never knowing
if each day would be their last. At one
point, storm-tossed and terrified Louis,
an atheist despite his parents best efforts,
begged God to “save him and he would do
anything, ANYTHING, if he just got him
through this.”
The principal actors are all well
cast and deliver excellent ensemble
acting. Jack O’Connell, who plays the
adult Zamperini, handles a daunting
task admirably; managing to convey
Zamperini’s defiance despite despair and
exhaustion as he is beaten and forced to
work to support the war effort throughout his imprisonment. C. J. Valleroy who
plays young Zaperini, portrays very well,
the street-smart scamp who is not always
one step ahead of the law. Both Domnhail
Gleeson (Russel “Phil” Phillips) and Finn
Wittrock (Francis “Mac” McNamara)
give excellent supporting performances as
the crew who survive the crash. Japanese
actor Miyavi is very convincing as the
unhinged prison commander Mutsuhiro
“The Bird” Watanabe.
“This is the most amazing true story
I have ever heard,” said author Lauren
Hillenbrand, who wrote the book that
the movie is based upon. “But in a deeper
way, it was an inspiring story because it is
about a man who found a way to forgive the
unforgiveable and that’s something that’s
applicable to everyone’s life. And I wanted
to find out how he did that. That was the
deepest thing that was driving me to work
on this story. Louis tried to make all the use
he could of adversity, so that suffering meant
something. The book has reached a very wide
audience and the will reach a much much
wider audience through the movie. And I
think that made him very happy because I
think he felt his purpose in this world was to
tell that story. To teach people how to use it
for their own benefit, to have joyful lives….
I think the essence of Louis’ story is the
understanding the breadth of possibility is
much wider than we realize and he wanted
people to understand that… and take that
and use it and to overcome the problems in
their lives. He is a lesson in optimism and
perseverance... We are extraordinary survivors; all of us, not just Louis. He wanted us
to know that. Louis was just determined to
keep getting up when he was knocked down.”
Hillenbrand came across Zamperini’s
name on the back of a 1938 newspaper
clipping, in the course of her research
for Seasbiscuit. The story described him
WWW.WESTCHESTERGUARDIAN.COM
as a “Running Phenom, “ and eventually
Hillenbrand decided to contact and write
about him when she finished Seabiscuit.
Louis Zamperini died on July 2,
2014 at the age of 97. Though he did not
live to see the film made, “he did read the
screenplay and loved it,” said Hillenbrand;
he saw some of it before he died and he was
pleased with everything he saw.” She feels
“he knew his legacy would be carried on and
the lessons he wanted to convey to the world
had been conveyed and he was ready to rest.”
Angelina Jolie, the cast and her
crew are to be commended for bringing
this inspirational story to the screen.
Though the audience was small on the
night I saw this movie (as it generally is,
on Tuesdays at 5:30PM), both Zamperini
and Jolie received a round of applause as
the credits rolled at the end. The movie
has been nominated for the Critic’s
Choice Movie award in four categories:
Best Picture; Best Director: Angelina
Jolie; Best Adapted Screenplay: Joel &
Ethan Cohen, Richard LaGravenese
and William Nicholson; and Best
Cinematography: Roger Deakins.**
*WestPointHistoryOfWarfare.com

January 8, 2015 - WestchesterGuardian.com

Transcription

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