A PENNY SAVED…

With the end of the year approaching and newspapers offering advice on what to do about your 2008 income so it doesn’t get completely taken away from you by IRS next year, I’ve decided to contribute my bit to the flood of good advice pouring in on the necessitous taxpayer. At the end of this paper I’ve reprinted some directions for a process that will enable you to send in a perfectly calculated return to IRS where its correct arithmetic will lend credibility to its deductions and exemptions. The formula is derived from my experience working for H&R Block, but it’s not copyrighted so far as I know, so I’m free to pass it on.

My opening tax tip here is aimed particularly at my fellow citizens of New York. They are most in a position to take advantage of it because the New York government considers it’s such a privilege for you to be permitted to live here that you should be charged the earth for doing so. So, as the late Senator Moynihan said “Going from New York’s taxes to any other state’s is like falling off a cliff.”

It’s good to remember this if you’re an average New Yorker not having the advantage of home ownership, the average person’s tax shelter. In most states that would mean you can’t itemize your deductions and have to take the standard deduction offered by Uncle Sam. For 2007 this was $5,380 for a single person with no dependents. But in New York a person with taxable income of $55,600 after the $3,400 personal exemption would have paid $5,385 combined New York State and New York City tax, $5.00 more than the standard deduction. Clearly, the standard deduction should not be taken and Schedule A should be prepared and submitted. ”A” of course has room for lots of things that possibly are not fully considered in the standard deduction, such as charitable contributions, casualties and the like.

Between New York City and Yonkers, which also has a local income tax, it would not be surprising to find that there might be as many as a million taxpayers who would benefit from this. And a little exploration of the state tax schedules would enable non-city residents of New York to determine at what level of income they would be able to discard the standard deduction and start itemizing. If they find themselves unable to reach the right level to participate they might find it useful to pay two year’s state and local taxes in one year in order to take advantage of the opportunity to itemize not otherwise available. The penalties for late payment of one year’s taxes would have to be considered first.

Anything wrong with the above kind of thinking? Probably yes, if you’re a tax enthusiast who thinks that governments are unique creations which always know how to spend money better than private citizens do. Having spent twenty-eight years of my life working for a government, I disagree. Look at earmarks, for instance. They’re wrong since they all represent expenses which have been refused by the groups most likely to benefit from them because they don’t believe the benefits will justify the expenses. The famous bridge to nowhere is an example. No state, county or local government was willing to pay for it, but a little group of supporters still wanted it and managed to saddle the U.S. government with the expense. Too many government projects are no different from this. Whenever it’s proposed that government at any level should spend money on improvements that the local government closest to their site has refused to support, that should have the effect that an “Abandon Ship” signal has on the high seas. But still politicians choose to go down with the ship.

When I think about deductions I think about Dan Gurney, a native of my town, who was America’s leading race driver of the mid-Twentieth Century. As such he made up to $250,000 a year by risking his life on the track. It was big money then and taxed accordingly. Gurney had never heard of tax shelters and so paid top dollar to the government up to 70% or 80% of his income. Are there still people who believe in that kind of thing? Or do they agree with Judge Learned Hand that everyone is entitled to arrange his affairs so as to pay the least possible amount of tax and incurs no opprobrium (my phrase) by doing so?

Now we come to my recommended method, known as the Zero Check Tape, of getting your arithmetic straight so as to get an A and a gold star from the teaching staff at IRS. It goes like this --

Enter all income and all subtractions from income as follows: All income amounts are entered as negative figures. All subtractions are entered as positives. No totals are
entered. The only positive amount entered as positive is the amount on Line 43 of your 1040, Taxable Income. When you have entered this you will be ready to get your total. If the total is zero then all your arithmetic is correct and you will not be embarrassed by IRS notifying you about your mistakes.

If your total is a negative figure then you have over-reported your income amounts and you need to go back on your tape to find out where it happened. If your total on the other hand exceeds the Taxable Income figure then you have made the mistake(s) on the deductible side of the equation and you must examine those figures..

Usually you will find that you have put your figures in correctly and the problem is with the totals you entered when completing your return. Remember the Taxable Income figure is derived from these, not the individual entries on Schedules A,B,C,D and so on.

This is the reason for doing the check tape as a check and not as the original source of the return. It can be said that it goes back to the roots of the return and looks for trouble in the place where it is most likely to have started. To avoid searches for errors found by the tape pay close attention to the job of extracting correct totals from the schedules you use in completing your return. Add them up right and when posting them on Form 1040 see that they are valued correctly in summing up its figures. By the way, if you do a check tape with twenty or more figures entered and it comes out with a zero total, you will definitely experience a mathematical high. Thrill City, in other words.

EXPLANATIONS EXPLANATORY OF THINGS EXPLAINED (A. Lincoln)

Whatever happens in the election Tuesday, it is now clear that the Republicans have a great deal of regrouping to do to get right with the electorate in the matter of choosing candidates who can (a) stay out of trouble; and (b) get themselves elected as a consequence. The Stevens case just concluded provides all the incentive needed for that.
Before Stevens we had the case of Governor Rowland of Connecticut. He also was the victim of impulsive contractors who insisted on making alterations to his home despite everything he could do to prevent them. To add insult to injury they then refused to present him with a bill for their services, which he was forced to accept without payment.

In court language “Rowland” came before “Stevens” and should have served as a warning to him, but it didn’t. He rushed right into the trap. All of a sudden from living in a hovel he was installed in a palace. He didn’t give it any thought, just gave all the credit to his fairy godmother and returned to his senatorial duties, coincidentally seeing to it that his benefactors weren’t overlooked when it came to the awarding of government contracts.

What a guy! To think that all this brought a sudden end to an illustrious career. (I didn’t think it was so illustrious. Cf. my piece “Back to Your Sled, Senator Ted”, indexed here.
Could this have hexed him?) The lesson I draw from it is that the Republicans will have to stop nominating homeowners for office and restrict nominations to apartment dwellers only. Apartments can be altered and enlarged too, but not the way houses can. They are not as likely to be invaded by tradesmen determined to redo them while the owner is totally unaware of their presence. No, I don’t think it would matter much if some of them were rent-controlled, but they would be hard to get. The Dems have 'em sewn up.

None of the current hoo-haw is unfamiliar to people like myself who remember the case of Happy Chandler in 1945. Happy was a Senator from Kentucky who was chosen by the major league baseball clubs to be the new Commissioner of Baseball succeeding the deceased Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. It turned out that he also had been ambushed by unscrupulous contractors who had installed a swimming pool in his backyard without him knowing a thing about it. “You could have knocked him over with the diving board", he was so surprised, as one newspaper put it. But he got the job anyway.

One who didn’t get a job under similar circumstances was Ed Flynn, the Democratic boss of the Bronx, who was nominated by President Roosevelt to be his ambassador to Australia in 1943, but was not confirmed by the Senate when it became known that he had improved his country property upstate by using Belgian building blocks belonging to New York City but not being used for anything.

Governor Rowland went to jail for ten months for his indiscretions and Senator Stevens faces jail too. Chandler and Flynn lived in more easygoing times and their only real punishment was the bad publicity they got. It’s not so simple today. Apartments, I say again, are the only protection available to the Grand Old Party to keep their officeholders out of stir. Please do it now, before it’s too late.
All this shows how concerned I am for the future of the party. Thing aren’t looking good for it at the moment, but people who actually expect the Democrats to overcome the current economic problems and create prosperity will find they have made the mistake of committing suicide out of fear of death. Higher taxes and ‘spreading the wealth’ just won’t do it. The one industry that will come back bigger than ever will be the tax shelter
business. As for the underground economy, that won’t just grow, it will metastasize.

So, assuming the Republicans get clobbered this year, I look for them making a comeback in two years, completing it in four years by taking back the presidency. That’s a quick turnaround alright, but opinion shifts happen that way nowadays. People want instant gratification and if they don’t get it from one president, they’ll go looking for it from another.

I just can’t picture the Demos solving the economic problem. They’re too much given to playing the giddy goat for that. They deal mostly in cliches like all the talk about wealth “trickling down.” What is the meaning of that? The rich get richer, we know, and that’s a terrible shame, but they do spend their money which eventually reaches right down to the sharecropper who grew the cotton that went into the making of their shirts. That’s redistribution by the way, which the Democrats have exalted to the status of a creed.

Do we change all this to make redistribution more perfect maybe? What happens to the sharecropper? It’s all right because someone more deserving is getting the money that used to go to him? Tell that to Maw and Paw Kettle.

The whole trickle-down concept comes from Karl Marx anyway, not the clearest thinker who ever existed. A better economist, Joseph Schumpeter, to whose work I was introduced at Columbia University, shot a few holes in this concept when he wrote “the capitalist engine is first and last an engine of mass production which unavoidably means also production for the masses.” He went on to say “It is the cheap cloth, the cheap cotton and rayon fabric, boots, motorcars and so on that are the typical achievements of capitalistic production, and not as rule improvements that would mean much to the rich man. Queen Elizabeth (the First) owned silk stockings. The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort.”

Ford put millions of people around the world in motorcars. Rockefeller produced billions of gallons of oil to keep these cars running. How is that a trickle down? For those who don’t like the way these men did their work, I ask who do you have in mind that would have done it better?

In case you care, I ain't rich, just willing to be. I think stockholders should demand CEO’s take their pay in stock to show faith in their companies, not in cash to cushion their fall when the company crashes. I think Congress shouldn’t force banks to lend to mortgagors who can’t make their payments. I think income gaps happen in discovery eras when pioneers like Columbus and Bill Gates clean up until the discoveries are absorbed and things equalize.

THE WRESTLER AND THE BOXER

Following in the footsteps of Joe Biden this week I‘m borrowing my material from an outside source, the late Dan Parker, sports editor of the late New York Daily Mirror. Dan found the sports world to be a reliable source of characters ready to contribute to the public’s amusement and instruction. Off-beat people were Dan’s meat and today I’ve reprinted part of his stories about some outstanding ones. Two of his targets, though, Blinky and “Mr. Grey“. were serious fellows out to corner the fight racket, as it was known to them, which didn’t stop Dan from kidding them to death and eventually getting them sent to jail and out of business for fixing fights and cheating fighters. But first, let’s meet a less sinister character who made his scores without using muscle, although he had almost too much of that.

This is the story of a 300-pound wrestler named Haystack Muldoon, arrested while fishing in Belmar, New Jersey, for hanging out bum checks in Florida, Canada and South Dakota, among other places. “In fact Muldoon’s checks had converted large sections of the United States into a tennis court as they ricocheted all over the map.”

But he had a redeeming feature. He worried that his arrest would cast a shadow on the great game to which he had dedicated his life, professional wrestling. Dan was touched by this because in his opinion it was impossible to bring disrepute on wrestling, since it had no repute to start with. He wrote:

“Muldoon’s tender concern about damaging the game merits at the very least a benefit wrestling show to help him square the rap in the Sunshine City where he passed a number of bounceroos. He vacationed at the beach in March and before leaving he wrote checks of pure latex consistency for the following trinkets and necessities: Two diamond rings for $10,000 and $3,170 respectively; $124 for an imported wrist watch; $1,000 for a gold coin collection with $55 legitimate moolah returned to him as change; checks for $970 and $350 cashed in the restaurant where he ate and a $1,000 number he gave the restaurateur when he heard the poor fellow was short on hard money after emptying his strong box to cash the other two checks; $225 for a hotel bill and $300 for an advance payment on a motel room for next winter. ( Note. All 1963 figures; 50% of today’s.)

The odor of fish that arose when Muldoon started sobbing about the damage he had done to the Game he loved didn’t come from this but from the boatload of fish he had caught. The miracle of the loafer and the fishes in this case was that among the 70-odd specimens in the boat there wasn’t a single sucker. Haystack apparently had caught all he wanted of that species in Florida.”

Now we pass on to the story of Blinky Palermo, consigliere of Frankie Carbo, aka “Mr. Grey”, in his time considered to be the kingpin of the boxing game in America, owning a piece of most of the major fighters in the country, making their matches for them and dictating the outcomes, always collecting his commission before they ever saw any of their money.


“Out on $100,000 bail since then, Palermo carried his case to the Federal Court of Appeals, which ruled that there were no grounds for a new trial. The Supreme Court of the United States, to which Frankie Carbo, Blink’s boss, carried his case, turned him down some months ago and Carbo was transferred at his own request to the “Rock”, Alcatraz. Since then Carbo, along with the other inmates of Alcatraz, which has been abandoned, was moved up the road to McNeil Island Penitentiary, Washington.

When Palermo lost out in the Court Of Appeals in California the assumption was that he had been sent to join his padrone Frankie on the island up Puget Sound way, particularly after the trouble he’d managed to get in while free on bail. This was the matter of offering a boxer named Cortez Stewart $50 per day to act as Sonny Liston’s sparring partner while he was training for a fight in Chicago last September, according to Stewart’s testimony before the New York State Senate’s “investigation” of boxing. What made this testimony significant was that it seemed to bear out the charge that Blinky was still Liston’s behind the scenes manager, which if true would make perjurers out of a lot of fight racket notables including (sakes alive!) Sonny himself, who swore on a Ring Record Book that the Blink was no longer associated with him.

Then Palermo’s appeal in the Los Angeles case involving his attempt, with Carbo and strong arm hoodlums, to steal fighter Don Jordan from his rightful owners, two West Coast promoters, was denied by the higher federal Court and boxing men thought the jig was up for Blinky. But they reckoned not with his attorney, Jacob Kosman, a Philadelphia lawyer’s Philadelphia lawyer. He had Palermo’s $100,000 bail continued while he prepared a petition asking the Supreme Court to review Palermo’s case, which he filed Friday. Now comes the most disgraceful thing of all. Blink has gone to work! Those lily-white hands always so nicely manicured to set off the gold toothpicks with which he was wont to chisel from the crevices of his 18-carat dentistry the fragments of veal scallopini or garlic wedged there, are now being soiled by manual labor -- selling used cars. They are much harder to sell than Blinky’s usual line -- gold bricks -- but Palermo has connections as well as persuasive ways. You never can tell when Ike Williams, his onetime lightweight champ, will mortgage the old homestead to buy a Blinky Scored Cylinder Special at only a slight markup, in memory of the days when Palermo took two $30,000 purses Ike earned, tossed them in the air and let the champ keep all the loot that remained aloft.”

Dan concluded this tribute to a remarkable character by referring reverentially to lawyer Kosman as a “learned Blackstoneite” and suggesting Palermo’s female supporters knit him some pig’s bristle pajamas to tickle him silly while in jail.

I haven’t forgotten the election, whatever you may think. I keep thinking of Obama’s campaign as an obamination and himself as obaminable. The name of his pals the ACLU is really code for All Criminals Love Us and as for ACORN, that obviously stands for Associated Criminals Out to Rob the Nation.

VICTOR LAZLO EXPOSED

Election time is always a season for revising history and rearranging facts to use them to your advantage or your candidate’s advantage. This has given me the idea of trying my own hand at that kind of thing without reference to any election, but just for the experience. I don’t have the nerve to fool with actual history, but I have succumbed to the urge to rewrite some semi-history originating with Hollywood in the momentous days of World War II. What I’m talking about is “Casablanca”, the most famous of all war pictures from those days and one which has convinced a lot of people that it’s actually a slice of real history or anyway close to it.

I’m contemplating a new version written from a different viewpoint and called by a new title “The Murder of Major Strasser.” The major, you will recall, was shot down in cold blood by Humphrey Bogart just as he was trying to prevent Victor Lazlo and his wife Elsa from boarding a plane out of Casablanca. Humphrey and his cohort Captain Renault (Claude Raines) then fled from justice after Raines issued spurious orders to his cops to “round up the usual suspects.” (A transparent cover-up for his own collusion, of course.

Probably he would have been the first to squeal on Bogart if they were caught escaping.)

The real facts of the case are quite different from the Hollywood version. Major Strasser, you see, was actually an anti-Nazi, though forced to work for them as an army officer. He was part of the group who were then planning to assassinate Hitler and end the war. The High Command were suspicious of him and sent him to North Africa to get him out of the way. He had no choice but to pose as a zealous Nazi and pretend to be dedicated to smashing the underground resistance of the French in Casablanca.

It was easier for him to keep up this pose when he found that the underground was attempting to help Victor Lazlo to escape to America with his wife to work on the creation of the atom bomb. This was not revealed in the movie, where Lazlo was vaguely identified only as a “resistance leader.” Major Strasser knew better. He knew Lazlo was a nuclear physicist and also…a Communist. Strasser was an anti-Communist just as much as he was an anti-Nazi. He knew that having Lazlo in America at Los Alamos meant that the secret of the bomb would be made known to the Russians at the first opportunity.

That was why he raced to the airport to intercept Lazlo’s escape. When he arrived he was murdered by “Rick”, who was part of the Communist escape team protecting Lazlo. The major didn’t know about “Rick’s” activities in running guns to the Reds in Spain during the civil war there, which he bragged about when far gone in drink. If he had he would have been on his guard, but as a German democrat he trusted Americans. That wasn’t wrong, but trusting the Hollywood type was.

After the war the spy ring at Los Alamos was exposed and, yes, with the help of the Lazlo couple, who turned state’s evidence and testified against their fellow conspirators. For this they were enrolled in the Witness Protection Program and disappeared from view. I believe myself that they were living next door to me a couple of years ago. They once caught me staring at them trying to determine whether my memory was playing me tricks or not, which apparently made them uneasy. The next day their house was deserted and they had left for parts unknown. Was it Paris maybe? Is that what Rick meant when he told Elsa “We’ll always have Paris“? Was he planning to meet her there again? What about old Victor? I haven’t gotten to that part of my screenplay yet. But I fear the worst for Vic.

In this essay I have tried to do belated justice to the reputation of a much misunderstood man, who was unappreciated by those he served, perhaps better than they deserved. However he never complained of this but instead pressed on in the line of duty without recriminations. Circumstances prevented him from expressing his true sentiments, which were of goodwill toward all mankind, including his enemies. He has been abused by many who should have known better and his character has been brought in question. He has been judged by those who knew him only as a man ready to draw a gun on anyone who got in his way. This aspect of his character does not reflect the reality of the sensitive, caring person concealed behind the mask he wore. Those who know the real man are confident that history will vindicate him and place him among the heroes who have served democracy most loyally without getting the recognition due them.

--------

To a reader: No, you’re all wrong. I wasn’t talking about George Bush.

 

 

 

 

 

 VICTOR LAZLO EXPOSED

Election time is always a season for revising history and rearranging facts to use them to your advantage or your candidate’s advantage. This has given me the idea of trying my own hand at that kind of thing without reference to any election, but just for the experience. I don’t have the nerve to fool with actual history, but I have succumbed to the urge to rewrite some semi-history originating with Hollywood in the momentous days of World War II. What I’m talking about is “Casablanca”, the most famous of all war pictures from those days and one which has convinced a lot of people that it’s actually a slice of real history or anyway close to it.

I’m contemplating a new version written from a different viewpoint and called by a new title “The Murder of Major Strasser.” The major, you will recall, was shot down in cold blood by Humphrey Bogart just as he was trying to prevent Victor Lazlo and his wife Elsa from boarding a plane out of Casablanca. Humphrey and his cohort Captain Renault (Claude Raines) then fled from justice after Raines issued spurious orders to his cops to “round up the usual suspects.” (A transparent cover-up for his own collusion, of course.
Probably he would have been the first to squeal on Bogart if they were caught escaping.)

The real facts of the case are quite different from the Hollywood version. Major Strasser, you see, was actually an anti-Nazi, though forced to work for them as an army officer. He was part of the group who were then planning to assassinate Hitler and end the war. The High Command were suspicious of him and sent him to North Africa to get him out of the way. He had no choice but to pose as a zealous Nazi and pretend to be dedicated to smashing the underground resistance of the French in Casablanca.

It was easier for him to keep up this pose when he found that the underground was attempting to help Victor Lazlo to escape to America with his wife to work on the creation of the atom bomb. This was not revealed in the movie, where Lazlo was vaguely identified only as a “resistance leader.” Major Strasser knew better. He knew Lazlo was a nuclear physicist and also…a Communist. Strasser was an anti-Communist just as much as he was an anti-Nazi. He knew that having Lazlo in America at Los Alamos meant that the secret of the bomb would be made known to the Russians at the first opportunity.

That was why he raced to the airport to intercept Lazlo’s escape. When he arrived he was murdered by “Rick”, who was part of the Communist escape team protecting Lazlo. The major didn’t know about “Rick’s” activities in running guns to the Reds in Spain during the civil war there, which he bragged about when far gone in drink. If he had he would have been on his guard, but as a German democrat he trusted Americans. That wasn’t wrong, but trusting the Hollywood type was.

After the war the spy ring at Los Alamos was exposed and, yes, with the help of the Lazlo couple, who turned state’s evidence and testified against their fellow conspirators. For this they were enrolled in the Witness Protection Program and disappeared from view. I believe myself that they were living next door to me a couple of years ago. They once caught me staring at them trying to determine whether my memory was playing me tricks or not, which apparently made them uneasy. The next day their house was deserted and they had left for parts unknown. Was it Paris maybe? Is that what Rick meant when he told Elsa “We’ll always have Paris“? Was he planning to meet her there again? What about old Victor? I haven’t gotten to that part of my screenplay yet. But I fear the worst for Vic.

In this essay I have tried to do belated justice to the reputation of a much misunderstood man, who was unappreciated by those he served, perhaps better than they deserved. However he never complained of this but instead pressed on in the line of duty without recriminations. Circumstances prevented him from expressing his true sentiments, which were of goodwill toward all mankind, including his enemies. He has been abused by many who should have known better and his character has been brought in question. He has been judged by those who knew him only as a man ready to draw a gun on anyone who got in his way. This aspect of his character does not reflect the reality of the sensitive, caring person concealed behind the mask he wore. Those who know the real man are confident that history will vindicate him and place him among the heroes who have served democracy most loyally without getting the recognition due them.

--------

To a reader: No, you’re all wrong. I wasn’t talking about George Bush.











VICTOR LAZLO EXPOSED

Election time is always a season for revising history and rearranging facts to use them to your advantage or your candidate’s advantage. This has given me the idea of trying my own hand at that kind of thing without reference to any election, but just for the experience. I don’t have the nerve to fool with actual history, but I have succumbed to the urge to rewrite some semi-history originating with Hollywood in the momentous days of World War II. What I’m talking about is “Casablanca”, the most famous of all war pictures from those days and one which has convinced a lot of people that it’s actually a slice of real history or anyway close to it.

I’m contemplating a new version written from a different viewpoint and called by a new title “The Murder of Major Strasser.” The major, you will recall, was shot down in cold blood by Humphrey Bogart just as he was trying to prevent Victor Lazlo and his wife Elsa from boarding a plane out of Casablanca. Humphrey and his cohort Captain Renault (Claude Raines) then fled from justice after Raines issued spurious orders to his cops to “round up the usual suspects.” (A transparent cover-up for his own collusion, of course.
Probably he would have been the first to squeal on Bogart if they were caught escaping.)

The real facts of the case are quite different from the Hollywood version. Major Strasser, you see, was actually an anti-Nazi, though forced to work for them as an army officer. He was part of the group who were then planning to assassinate Hitler and end the war. The High Command were suspicious of him and sent him to North Africa to get him out of the way. He had no choice but to pose as a zealous Nazi and pretend to be dedicated to smashing the underground resistance of the French in Casablanca.

It was easier for him to keep up this pose when he found that the underground was attempting to help Victor Lazlo to escape to America with his wife to work on the creation of the atom bomb. This was not revealed in the movie, where Lazlo was vaguely identified only as a “resistance leader.” Major Strasser knew better. He knew Lazlo was a nuclear physicist and also…a Communist. Strasser was an anti-Communist just as much as he was an anti-Nazi. He knew that having Lazlo in America at Los Alamos meant that the secret of the bomb would be made known to the Russians at the first opportunity.

That was why he raced to the airport to intercept Lazlo’s escape. When he arrived he was murdered by “Rick”, who was part of the Communist escape team protecting Lazlo. The major didn’t know about “Rick’s” activities in running guns to the Reds in Spain during the civil war there, which he bragged about when far gone in drink. If he had he would have been on his guard, but as a German democrat he trusted Americans. That wasn’t wrong, but trusting the Hollywood type was.

After the war the spy ring at Los Alamos was exposed and, yes, with the help of the Lazlo couple, who turned state’s evidence and testified against their fellow conspirators. For this they were enrolled in the Witness Protection Program and disappeared from view. I believe myself that they were living next door to me a couple of years ago. They once caught me staring at them trying to determine whether my memory was playing me tricks or not, which apparently made them uneasy. The next day their house was deserted and they had left for parts unknown. Was it Paris maybe? Is that what Rick meant when he told Elsa “We’ll always have Paris“? Was he planning to meet her there again? What about old Victor? I haven’t gotten to that part of my screenplay yet. But I fear the worst for Vic.

In this essay I have tried to do belated justice to the reputation of a much misunderstood man, who was unappreciated by those he served, perhaps better than they deserved. However he never complained of this but instead pressed on in the line of duty without recriminations. Circumstances prevented him from expressing his true sentiments, which were of goodwill toward all mankind, including his enemies. He has been abused by many who should have known better and his character has been brought in question. He has been judged by those who knew him only as a man ready to draw a gun on anyone who got in his way. This aspect of his character does not reflect the reality of the sensitive, caring person concealed behind the mask he wore. Those who know the real man are confident that history will vindicate him and place him among the heroes who have served democracy most loyally without getting the recognition due them.

--------

To a reader: No, you’re all wrong. I wasn’t talking about George Bush.

 

 

 

 

VICTOR LAZLO EXPOSED

Election time is always a season for revising history and rearranging facts to use them to your advantage or your candidate’s advantage. This has given me the idea of trying my own hand at that kind of thing without reference to any election, but just for the experience. I don’t have the nerve to fool with actual history, but I have succumbed to the urge to rewrite some semi-history originating with Hollywood in the momentous days of World War II. What I’m talking about is “Casablanca”, the most famous of all war pictures from those days and one which has convinced a lot of people that it’s actually a slice of real history or anyway close to it.

I’m contemplating a new version written from a different viewpoint and called by a new title “The Murder of Major Strasser.” The major, you will recall, was shot down in cold blood by Humphrey Bogart just as he was trying to prevent Victor Lazlo and his wife Elsa from boarding a plane out of Casablanca. Humphrey and his cohort Captain Renault (Claude Raines) then fled from justice after Raines issued spurious orders to his cops to “round up the usual suspects.” (A transparent cover-up for his own collusion, of course.
Probably he would have been the first to squeal on Bogart if they were caught escaping.)

The real facts of the case are quite different from the Hollywood version. Major Strasser, you see, was actually an anti-Nazi, though forced to work for them as an army officer. He was part of the group who were then planning to assassinate Hitler and end the war. The High Command were suspicious of him and sent him to North Africa to get him out of the way. He had no choice but to pose as a zealous Nazi and pretend to be dedicated to smashing the underground resistance of the French in Casablanca.

It was easier for him to keep up this pose when he found that the underground was attempting to help Victor Lazlo to escape to America with his wife to work on the creation of the atom bomb. This was not revealed in the movie, where Lazlo was vaguely identified only as a “resistance leader.” Major Strasser knew better. He knew Lazlo was a nuclear physicist and also…a Communist. Strasser was an anti-Communist just as much as he was an anti-Nazi. He knew that having Lazlo in America at Los Alamos meant that the secret of the bomb would be made known to the Russians at the first opportunity.

That was why he raced to the airport to intercept Lazlo’s escape. When he arrived he was murdered by “Rick”, who was part of the Communist escape team protecting Lazlo. The major didn’t know about “Rick’s” activities in running guns to the Reds in Spain during the civil war there, which he bragged about when far gone in drink. If he had he would have been on his guard, but as a German democrat he trusted Americans. That wasn’t wrong, but trusting the Hollywood type was.

After the war the spy ring at Los Alamos was exposed and, yes, with the help of the Lazlo couple, who turned state’s evidence and testified against their fellow conspirators. For this they were enrolled in the Witness Protection Program and disappeared from view. I believe myself that they were living next door to me a couple of years ago. They once caught me staring at them trying to determine whether my memory was playing me tricks or not, which apparently made them uneasy. The next day their house was deserted and they had left for parts unknown. Was it Paris maybe? Is that what Rick meant when he told Elsa “We’ll always have Paris“? Was he planning to meet her there again? What about old Victor? I haven’t gotten to that part of my screenplay yet. But I fear the worst for Vic.

In this essay I have tried to do belated justice to the reputation of a much misunderstood man, who was unappreciated by those he served, perhaps better than they deserved. However he never complained of this but instead pressed on in the line of duty without recriminations. Circumstances prevented him from expressing his true sentiments, which were of goodwill toward all mankind, including his enemies. He has been abused by many who should have known better and his character has been brought in question. He has been judged by those who knew him only as a man ready to draw a gun on anyone who got in his way. This aspect of his character does not reflect the reality of the sensitive, caring person concealed behind the mask he wore. Those who know the real man are confident that history will vindicate him and place him among the heroes who have served democracy most loyally without getting the recognition due them.

--------

To a reader: No, you’re all wrong. I wasn’t talking about George Bush.

LOQUACIOUS LADY

The title today is a pun on an old movie title “Vivacious Lady.” I assume it’s not necessary to name the person to whom I’m referring. Having her there, by the way, had a good effect on her opponent. He became a gentleman for once. He didn’t do his usual cuss-you-out-then-grin act and he didn’t use the word “malarkey” once. There is new hope for his redemption.

There was one statement of his, twice repeated, that made me ponder. That was the one about all our spending in Afghanistan amounting to only three weeks expenditure in Iraq. It’s unbelievable on the face of it, no matter how much faith he has in it. And also, how are people figuring out what we’re really spending in either of those places? I believe they’re counting in the normal cost of maintaining an army, period, without regard to where it’s stationed or what it’s doing. In other words the army is going to cost us money whether it’s over here in Fort Dix or overseas in Fallujah or some such place. That has to be considered a fixed cost and shouldn’t be charged to the war. Are the war opponents resorting to Enron accounting?

So much for politics. Now, about baseball. The candidates weren’t the only ones debating the other night. The Phillies and the Brewers were doing it too. I never thought of baseball as comedy before this, but it was this time. The Phils had two men on base and two out when their pitcher, Myers, came up to hit against the best pitcher in the game, Sabathia, who, to be fair, was pitching on only three days rest for the second time. Nevertheless it seemed like he could be still resting and not have any trouble disposing of a hitless wonder who had come up to bat 58 times in the regular season and got only four hits. This gave him an average of .068.

He started off by whiffing a couple of times preparatory to striking out and ending the inning. But it didn’t end. Sabathia missed the strike zone once or twice and Myers did the rest by hitting foul balls out of play. The fans saw what was going on. They started to cheer and wave their rally towels, but above all they started to laugh. And so did I. We were watching David and Goliath at it again. I kept thinking of Myers’ 4-for-58 and shaking my head like I was looking at a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Sabathia seemed to react the same way. This couldn’t be happening to him. But it was. He had to throw nine pitches, thereby straining his arm just the way the fans wanted, and finally succeeding only in walking Myers. The cheering was ear-shattering.

The walk loaded the bases. The next batter, Victorino, then hit a home run, a grand slam in newspaper language, which scored everybody and put the game out of reach for the Brewers. Delirium swept the stadium. There was every reason for it. There had been a baseball moment which might never come again. I put it right up there with Babe Ruth’s called home run.



Philadelphia hasn’t had too many moments like this. In my young days Philly was completely off the radar screen. They had last won a pennant in 1915. They played in a place called Shibe Park. The only way we even knew anything about them was because they had two players called Morrie Arnovich and Sam Nahem, an outfielder and a pitcher. They got in the New York papers because Nahem came from Brooklyn and both were Jewish when Jews drew a lot of attention due to their persecution by Hitler and also for being in professional baseball, where Jews were scarce and two on one team was exceptional. Neither of them was a threat to Hank Greenberg as a folk hero, but they did make people somewhat conscious of the Phillies’ existence.

The Phils were soon forgotten, though, and didn’t surface again until 1950 when they astonished the world by winning the National League pennant with players like Del Ennis and Richie Ashburn, along with a pitcher named Robin Roberts. After that they subsided to their natural level and it took another thirty years for them to come back to life again in 1980. This time their stars were Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton and they actually won the World Series. Not only that, but they drew two million fans to their games.

Since then the Phillies have been players, as the saying is, and people don’t faint with astonishment anymore when told they are a threat to win a pennant. If ever there was a lesson about rising to higher things from our dead selves, etc., they have given it to us. Also we’ve learned a lesson in patience from their fans. Thirty-five years between their first two pennants and then another thirty years until the next one. A man could live on promises in a town like that, the people are so forbearing. Come to think of it, that’s what their teams did, isn’t it? It wouldn’t do for New York. We even go sour on the Yanks if they don’t win every year. “What have you done for me lately?” is our motto.

I’ll close this with some lines from a poem which appears to have been written by a Yankee fan:

The snow listens so hard it vanishes
The pastures clear themselves of everything but wind
The ponds collapse
The ground moves

The Yankees are heading north.

Robert Lord Keyes
(Real name, I think. Not to be confused
with Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He was not a
Yankee fan. He was born too soon or he would have been.)

I TOLD YOU SO

So here we go again. Another Depression is coming. Or so some people think. Well I’m ready. I’ve been expecting it. You see, childhood impressions are lasting. The impression I got as a child of the Big One was that hard times were normal I’ve never really believed in the prosperity that came after them. Unconsciously I knew there had to be a catch somewhere. It was all too good to be true. Eventually the roof would fall in.

With that cheerful outlook I went through the boom years with one ear always cocked for the sound of the dam breaking and the flood coming. I am now paddling as fast as I can to stay ahead of the surge.

What was the Depression like? I can only give a kid’s description. What it meant to kids was …really not much. Not because we were above it or immune to its effects, but because we took them for granted without thinking too much about how they came to be. We heard plenty of talk about people being “on relief” and we knew it wasn’t good, but we didn’t dig any deeper than that. Talk abut the WPA was always current, but most of us had only a vague idea of what it all meant. It was mostly just a set of letters you saw on a lot of signs at construction sites.

Since there seem to be a lot of militant teachers in the schools today, it wouldn’t be surprising to see some of them using the current problems of the economy as a excuse for indoctrination of their students against the evils of the capitalist system, but that didn’t happen in my school. The teachers didn’t look on us as a lot of little buds ready to burst into full bloom but as a set of unlicked cubs in need of firm handling just to learn our ABC’s, never mind any theories of economics, politics or anything above the schoolyard level. They didn’t worry about your self-esteem. They dealt with it by telling you things like “you have a head and so has a pin.”

My family was involved in one of the better-known episodes of the Crash in 1930. In December of that year the Bank of United States in New York failed and left 500,000 depositors with empty pockets. This was the first important bank in a big city to go under and the sensation was nation-wide. No history of the Depression fails to mention it. So we in the family had our little brush with fame but, as the man said about being tarred and feathered, if it wasn’t for the honor of the thing, we’d just as soon have gone without it.

Because we had our money in that bank. How it got there I don’t know. This was a Russian-Jewish bank established by immigrants, serving mostly their own community. Its origin was indicated by its name, which omits the article before the title, as Russian does. Whether intentionally or not, the name also was notable for the implication it carried that this was somehow a government bank. What could be safer than that? Is that what my father thought when he entrusted his money to it? I’ll never know.

I do know something good about it though. It took years and it involved a lot of small checks sent in the mail, but eventually the depositors had their losses made good. They got back everything they had put into it. We were included of course, but I’m unable to report that we got rich off this reimbursement. For that we would have had to have real money there in the first place and I fear that was not quite the case with us in those days.

In previous essays -- am I obsessed with the Hungry Thirties, I wonder? -- I’ve mentioned other aspects of those days which have faded from the memory of most people by now, but which remain with me more or less vividly. One of them was the army of the unemployed I saw one winter morning lined up on our neighborhood shopping street with long-handled shovels in their hands while they waited for the word to start cleaning up after the heavy snowfall of the night before. It wasn’t quite the same as a chain gang, but let’s say it did familiarize me with the concept so that I recognized it when I encountered it in road-gang movies later on. I actually saw one of them in 1952 when a Georgia man gave me a lift from Fort Gordon to Atlanta and we passed “a lot of fellows who didn’t pay their support” busy whacking weeds along the roadway in regular Paul Newman style.

I’ve also previously mentioned the prevalence in those days of brother-in-law jokes usually referring to the need of finding a job for one of them who’d moved in with the family while out of work. In the jokes it was always the wife’s brother, not the husband’s, who moved in and became a fixture, not only on the couch but also in the mind of the husband, who developed an obsession about moving him out. It was funny, but not, I suppose, to people who were actually having the experience. My own family was in this class, as I’ve just now recalled. My maternal uncle did stay with us a while but I only found out about it afterwards since I was too young to know about it when it happened. From what I learned later, it seems possible that some joke material could have come out of the situation.

From reading this you can see I didn’t suffer too much in the last depression. “Pure insensibility, sir” as a famous man once said. I didn’t know enough to be, ah, depressed. I had enough to eat, enough to wear, quarters for the movies, free rides to Rye Beach on my father’s railroad, the Boston and Westchester. My father didn’t own the railroad, he was a conductor on it. He said an old New York family, the Goelets, owned it or at least started it, to compete with the Vandebilts, who owned the New York Central. If they did, they’re shy about it because their Google entry doesn’t mention it. They’re now in the wine business and apparently still in real estate. The railroad? That’s in bankruptcy, or was, until all the assets were disposed of beginning in 1939. My father and his friends were among the assets, but they got jobs on the New York subways, which took over two miles of the line.

That was life in the Great Depression. Bankruptcy was something we all lived with. Having it around again is nostalgic all right, but, hell, you could say the same of polio if it came back. That kind of nostalgia we don’t need. I prefer to look back on the positive aspects of those days. What were they? That’s easy. We were kids. That says it all, doesn’t it?


























































I TOLD YOU SO

So here we go again. Another Depression is coming. Or so some people think. Well I’m ready. I’ve been expecting it. You see, childhood impressions are lasting. The impression I got as a child of the Big One was that hard times were normal I’ve never really believed in the prosperity that came after them. Unconsciously I knew there had to be a catch somewhere. It was all too good to be true. Eventually the roof would fall in.

With that cheerful outlook I went through the boom years with one ear always cocked for the sound of the dam breaking and the flood coming. I am now paddling as fast as I can to stay ahead of the surge.

What was the Depression like? I can only give a kid’s description. What it meant to kids was …really not much. Not because we were above it or immune to its effects, but because we took them for granted without thinking too much about how they came to be. We heard plenty of talk about people being “on relief” and we knew it wasn’t good, but we didn’t dig any deeper than that. Talk abut the WPA was always current, but most of us had only a vague idea of what it all meant. It was mostly just a set of letters you saw on a lot of signs at construction sites.

Since there seem to be a lot of militant teachers in the schools today, it wouldn’t be surprising to see some of them using the current problems of the economy as a excuse for indoctrination of their students against the evils of the capitalist system, but that didn’t happen in my school. The teachers didn’t look on us as a lot of little buds ready to burst into full bloom but as a set of unlicked cubs in need of firm handling just to learn our ABC’s, never mind any theories of economics, politics or anything above the schoolyard level. They didn’t worry about your self-esteem. They dealt with it by telling you things like “you have a head and so has a pin.”

My family was involved in one of the better-known episodes of the Crash in 1930. In December of that year the Bank of United States in New York failed and left 500,000 depositors with empty pockets. This was the first important bank in a big city to go under and the sensation was nation-wide. No history of the Depression fails to mention it. So we in the family had our little brush with fame but, as the man said about being tarred and feathered, if it wasn’t for the honor of the thing, we’d just as soon have gone without it.

Because we had our money in that bank. How it got there I don’t know. This was a Russian-Jewish bank established by immigrants, serving mostly their own community. Its origin was indicated by its name, which omits the article before the title, as Russian does. Whether intentionally or not, the name also was notable for the implication it carried that this was somehow a government bank. What could be safer than that? Is that what my father thought when he entrusted his money to it? I’ll never know.

I do know something good about it though. It took years and it involved a lot of small checks sent in the mail, but eventually the depositors had their losses made good. They got back everything they had put into it. We were included of course, but I’m unable to report that we got rich off this reimbursement. For that we would have had to have real money there in the first place and I fear that was not quite the case with us in those days.

In previous essays -- am I obsessed with the Hungry Thirties, I wonder? -- I’ve mentioned other aspects of those days which have faded from the memory of most people by now, but which remain with me more or less vividly. One of them was the army of the unemployed I saw one winter morning lined up on our neighborhood shopping street with long-handled shovels in their hands while they waited for the word to start cleaning up after the heavy snowfall of the night before. It wasn’t quite the same as a chain gang, but let’s say it did familiarize me with the concept so that I recognized it when I encountered it in road-gang movies later on. I actually saw one of them in 1952 when a Georgia man gave me a lift from Fort Gordon to Atlanta and we passed “a lot of fellows who didn’t pay their support” busy whacking weeds along the roadway in regular Paul Newman style.

I’ve also previously mentioned the prevalence in those days of brother-in-law jokes usually referring to the need of finding a job for one of them who’d moved in with the family while out of work. In the jokes it was always the wife’s brother, not the husband’s, who moved in and became a fixture, not only on the couch but also in the mind of the husband, who developed an obsession about moving him out. It was funny, but not, I suppose, to people who were actually having the experience. My own family was in this class, as I’ve just now recalled. My maternal uncle did stay with us a while but I only found out about it afterwards since I was too young to know about it when it happened. From what I learned later, it seems possible that some joke material could have come out of the situation.

From reading this you can see I didn’t suffer too much in the last depression. “Pure insensibility, sir” as a famous man once said. I didn’t know enough to be, ah, depressed. I had enough to eat, enough to wear, quarters for the movies, free rides to Rye Beach on my father’s railroad, the Boston and Westchester. My father didn’t own the railroad, he was a conductor on it. He said an old New York family, the Goelets, owned it or at least started it, to compete with the Vandebilts, who owned the New York Central. If they did, they’re shy about it because their Google entry doesn’t mention it. They’re now in the wine business and apparently still in real estate. The railroad? That’s in bankruptcy, or was, until all the assets were disposed of beginning in 1939. My father and his friends were among the assets, but they got jobs on the New York subways, which took over two miles of the line.

That was life in the Great Depression. Bankruptcy was something we all lived with. Having it around again is nostalgic all right, but, hell, you could say the same of polio if it came back. That kind of nostalgia we don’t need. I prefer to look back on the positive aspects of those days. What were they? That’s easy. We were kids. That says it all, doesn’t it?

GUNFIGHT AT THE OBAMA CORRAL

I keep saying this isn’t a political blog, but somehow the politicians keep getting into it. especially Joe Biden. I called him Senator Malarkey a few weeks ago, but instead of taking warning that his sins had found him out, he kept recurring to the use of his favorite word, which will eventually be identified with him and used against him. His latest outburst came yesterday in Virginia where he made a speech reassuring gun owners that even his own running mate Mr. Obama “ain’t” about to take his shotguns away from him and he better not try. So don’t buy that malarkey.

Biden’s known for his foot-in-mouth trouble, so what he probably meant was that Obama hadn’t any plans for seizing his shotguns rather than that he’d better not try. There are plenty of people that are ready to believe that both Obama and Biden are going to try and all the forthcoming denials and explanations aren’t going to change that. I can almost hear Obama now “Thanks, Joe, now everybody thinks you’re ready to fight me over your lousy guns. Talk about malarkey…”

A vice president threatening to make hash of a president is something new even in this campaign, but that’s Joe. God knows what he’ll come up with next. A bailout for the steroids industry? Everybody else is getting one. It could happen.

All this brings up the subject of famous flubs of the past. There were also not-so-famous ones not reported by the media but encountered by me in the course of my work in the police department. One of them was perpetrated by a chap who later became police commissioner. He tried to be eloquent in his pronouncements to the troops, but unfortunately I haven’t preserved his flights of fancy and can only come up with one which has lodged in my memory. This was his announcement that it was now “bell weather” to put into effect some brainstorm of his for the salvation of New York from undesirable elements threatening its existence. Probably there are still ex-cops puzzling over what may have been meant by this neologism, but not reaching any conclusion.

I knew and I treasured it at the time, but failed to safeguard the document introducing it along with some other lulus, so that they have now been lost to posterity. Another gem I’ve lost came from an inspector who wrote us that some figures he was receiving from the field would not withstand veracity. Really it was not advisable for some of our leaders to attempt innovations in their work product. Plenty of cliche's could be had.

If Biden doesn’t watch out he could find himself cast as the new Sam Goldwyn or Yogi Berra. These were the two victims who got themselves credited with an almost unlimited number of “gaffes” (new word) mostly dreamed up by joke writers, some of them allegedly working for Goldwyn, but all of them interested in giving newspaper columnists some material to fill their spaces with and ready to use a well-known name to alert the public that a joke was intended. So we had Goldwyn shouting “Bon Voyage” to an incoming ship, announcing that an oral contract wasn’t worth the paper it was written on, using two words, “im” “possible” to describe a movie script he didn’t like.

When Goldwyn jokes stopped, Yogi Berra became a natural to hang broken English stories on. He brought it on himself by saying to a crowd in his native St. Louis who gave him a “night” in 1947 that he wanted to thank everyone “who made this night necessary.”

That was all the hint the sportswriters need that here was a new Goldwyn to whom any possible misuse of the English language could be attributed without fear of reprisal since Yogi was one of the most forbearing people existing in America. If he had enemies he didn’t know it. His favorite pastime when he became a catcher after coming up as an outfielder was talking to the opposing batters as they came to the plate against the Yankees. Most of them enjoyed it even though sometimes it ruined their concentration and cost them a hit.

They ragged him of course. I remember pictures in Life magazine of Dizzy Trout, the Detroit pitcher, hanging by one arm from the rafters of the dugout while inquiring from Yogi how his wife liked living in a tree. I had an English cousin visiting me who saw her first baseball on TV and asked “Who is that funny little man?” He was made for the gags, so the gags kept coming:

“Bill Dickey learned me all his experience.” (Not a gag).
“You can observe a lot just by watching.”
“Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”
“I didn’t really say all the things I said.”

There were lots of other words of wisdom, some real and some invented. I like “It’s déjà vu all over again,“ but people say it’s unlikely Yogi knew enough French for that. So we’ll never know. It’s happened to great men as well as ballplayers. There are many who doubt that Calvin Coolidge ever said “When a lot of people are out of work unemployment results.” I heard remarks attributed to Mario Procaccino, a mayoral candidate in 1969, that I knew from reading had first been hung on Mayor John P. O’Brien in 1933. He was alleged to have told a Harlem crowd “My face may be white, but my heart is black.” So was Mario thirty-six years later.

If I were an unscrupulous Republican I would get to work now dreaming up Yogiisms to hang on Biden. Doonesbury the other day quoted Newt Gingrich as creating a lexicon of abuse for Republicans to use. So what else is new? I remember the Demos from my earliest days. Their favorite phrases were “economic royalists,” “princes of privilege,” “reactionaries,” “neo-Nazis,” “pro-Nazis,” “fifth columnists,” “isolationists,” “xenophobes,” “anti-Semites,” “union-busters,” “war profiteers,” (after Pearl Harbor), “native fascists,” “book-burners,“ and other such terms of endearment. The fat is in the fire. I’m afraid there will be quite a bit of name-calling this year too. Biden will be shouting “Malarkey!” at all and sundry and, what the hell, if Yogi and Goldwyn could stand for a few funny expressions being attributed to them at their expense, why should he mind? I kind of expect to hear some “Bidenisms” soon. I can’t wait.

9/11 AND BEFORE

Today as I staggered away from my mailbox with an armful of credit card offers and Christmas catalogues I found something new in the heap. It was from my old employer, the New York Police Department, and it was a questionnaire asking for my opinions about their work for a survey now being conducted by two professors from local universities who want to probe beneath the surface to find out what the department is really all about.

Boy, what an opportunity! Will I tell them a few things! Bring me my bow of burning gold, bring me my arrows of desire…Oh clouds unfold, bring me my chariot of fire. Does that give you an idea? It does me, that maybe I’m coming on too strong and I need to tone it down a bit. But even so, look at the questions they’re asking. On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate the fairness of the promotion process…? Are they kidding? It’s a racket and always was. And furthermore…

There’s a whole page of questions asking how crimes get reported and whether any pressure is used to get them reported, well, favorably. That means things have changed. Now people are being rated according to the figures they report. My answer as one brought up in the old system, will be “Nobody Cared.“ Figures didn’t matter, connections did. Some had the merit but others had the system. Things went to hell, but City Hall never knew. Nothing changed until fourteen years after I left, when Rudy Giuliani took over. He is the reason figures now do matter. I’ll bet promotions have changed too, but I’m an outsider now, so I’ll let my answer above stand. It was true for my day.

Relative to those days I still preserve my two documents that prove conclusively that the department was then run by a clique of incompetents, for whose incapacity the citizens at large paid the price. My proof? These two General Orders both identify the reductions in various crimes that are to be achieved for the year. The one I cared about was robbery, the key crime that has to go down before all others. The target? A reduction of -- can you believe it -- 2%. And even that wasn’t achieved. A few months later it was reduced to 1%. Can anyone imagine the CEO of an American company announcing that he hoped to achieve a 2% increase in sales in the year ahead? He wouldn’t last another day after his board heard about it. Small minds are out of place in business. They’re out of place in government too, but they can be found there. We had ‘em.

Before I sat down and started writing this diatribe against the Great Satan I had intended to memorialize 9/11 by retelling a story about it to which I had a personal connection because the protagonist is married to my wife’s cousin. I’ll now switch there and tell the story as he has told it -- after a year of silence before he was able to do so. His name is Neil Getter and he was working on the 102nd floor of the South Tower when he looked across at the North Tower 150 feet away and saw it ablaze with smoke pouring out of the floor opposite his. He also saw a man trying to shimmy down the outside of the building to escape the smoke. They looked at each other and the man fell.

To find out what was actually happening Getter telephoned the Huntington Fire Department where he was a volunteer Chief. He got a friend there and asked him to check the TV for reports. The answer came quickly. “It looks bad. You’d better get out of your building.”

Getter, who had gone through the 1993 car bombing of the trade center, didn’t need any more urging even though the Port Authority public address system was blaring out messages for the occupants to stay in their offices. This caused confusion among the employees for whom Getter was responsible as fire marshal. Some refused his pleas for them to leave, but others left without waiting for him. He finished with a group of five whom he led to an elevator. This was a feeder elevator only going to the 78th floor where a mainline elevator was waiting. A fire marshal outside the elevator tried to make them go back upstairs, but Getter pushed him aside and his group got into the waiting elevator.

During the subsequent descent the group felt a jolt that impacted their car, but were able to continue to the main lobby on the ground floor of the building. There Getter pushed them into the ATM enclosure of a bank in order to avoid the stampede of other workers who were now fleeing the building in response to the jolt the group had felt while descending in their elevator. The jolt was actually the impact of a second airplane which had slammed into their building at the 60th floor.

When the first rush of the crowd subsided the group went looking for exits known to them, but found most of them unusable due to the debris pouring down from their own building, which they still didn’t know had been hit. It took them almost an hour to find a useable exit and when they did, their tower collapsed , creating an enormous dust cloud from which they had to run at top speed. Having seen nothing of the outside scene since they first left their office, they had to be informed by others of the two plane crashes that had caused all the destruction.

No public or private transportation was available and calls home were also impossible due to overloaded phone lines, so the pilgrims began a hike of almost thirteen miles to the home of their nearest member, who was able to provide transportation home for the others. Later in the week they found out how lucky they were. Their company, AON Aviation had lost 175 workers, the third highest toll of any company in the World Trade Center. No wonder Neil Getter couldn’t speak about it for a year afterward. But when he did he told a story that will never be forgotten.

DON'T DISS McCAIN

The conventions are over. For two weeks I was glued to my seat (pause for
joke). Okay, now I've come unglued. So did the people at the convention when
Governor Palin got up and spoke. Some of it was relief, to find that she
wasn't using an obscure Eskimo dialect.

She spoke out loud and clear and I was glad to find that she's not a lawyer.
Neither is her partner McCain. Both of their opponents are. This could be
significant. How many people in this country are really ready to support
two lawyers against two non-lawyers? Three or four? I see the possibility of
a landslide. If the two lawyers lose, it will be blamed on prejudice,
meaning the anti-black type, but this can be answered by an admission that yes,
there was prejudice, but it wasn't anti-black. It was anti-lawyer, and this is
considered an acceptable prejudice. It's certainly widespread and even
thought admirable by some people. One can even tell anti-lawyer jokes and get
away with it. You can't do that with blacks. Look what happened to Don Imus.

This kind of thinking opens up a new outlook on the election. It is now
safe to vote anti-Obama without being considered a bigot, at least not a racial
one. Before, you could have said you didn't believe in minority government,
but that would have been considered a bit of thinly disguised racism
revealing the poor condition of your soul and your need for therapy.

I have to admit that even before the lawyer objection arose I had been
inclined to vote against Obama because I had doubts about his claim that the
rising water level of the world would recede if he were elected. That was a bit
of a stretch, I thought. What was he going to do about the Aurora Borealis,
I wondered. The Milky Way? The Andromeda Strain? All these things posed
big problems for whomever was elected and I thought that maybe an older hand
than Obama might be better prepared to deal with them.

Now Biden was an older hand, older than anybody except McCain. I disparaged
him the last time I wrote about him, in fact I referred to him as Senator
Malarkey, but that didn't mean that he didn't have some qualities that
compelled admiration. This was confirmed when I learned the other day that he has a
son who works as a lobbyist and also has been receiving a salary of $1,2
million a year as president of a credit card company. Right away it was easy to
figure that this showed that the senator was a hell of a family man and that
was confirmed by papers in the lawsuit stating that he had indirectly
solicited the job for young Robert so lobbying wouldn't be held over his head in
the election. A million dollar job was the result. Who needed lobbying with
that in hand?

Too bad that there's been a falling out between the Bidens and their
benefactor, but no doubt Big Joe will find a way out of the shemozzle, so that he'll
be able to go back to talking about indictments for Bush and Cheney and who
else? General Petraeus maybe? Condoleezza Rice? Why not Laura Bush? Why
not...? You fill in the names. I think it'll be okay in the end, though. Joe'
s not really a vindictive guy. Just get him out of this jackpot he's in at
the moment, somebody lose some of the papers or something, and he'll forgive
and forget. So will his son, Big Bucks Bob, no square from Delaware.

So much for Biden. His sins will find him out, I'm afraid. McCain is a
different story. He has no sins. His problem is that he's too forgiving of
other people's sins. The Vietnamese tortured him for five and a half years.
Years later, he forgave them. Why? Did they say they were sorry? Did they
promise to change their ways? No way. They had no regrets about anything they
had done to him or to any other American. They remained the same barbarians
they had always been, just like their fellow Asians, the Chinese, the
Japanese, and the North Koreans. Add to that mix the Iranians and some of their
neighbors and do not tell me anything about the ancient civilizations of the
East.

The common denominator of all the people I've mentioned is that they've
fought us and tormented and often murdered the prisoners they took from us.
Many Americans questioned whether we should ever have fought these people in the
first place, but it happened. Not every enemy was guilty, of course. Some
were Christians, not indoctrinated in the vindictive religions of their
continent. Others were just decent people. They had a claim to real
civilization, not just a facility for adapting the machines of the West to their own use
without ever realizing anything about the spirit of the society responsible
for such achievements.

No one maintains that Westerners have always lived up to their own standards
for treating prisoners, which I consider a civilizational benchmark. The
Russo-German war of 1941-45 illustrated this, not the juvenile antics at Abu
Ghraib or other such places. But we have standards, we have the Geneva
Convention and insofar as other nations deviate from these codes, they are criminals
and not deserving of McCain's forgiveness or anyone's.

I hope the McCain administration won't be one of those which goes in for a
lot of forgiving and apologizing all over the place for alleged past
misbehavior by bygone generations of Americans. All this groveling and moaning gets on
my nerves. It might make McCain a good campaign issue. It would serve to
highlight the difference between him and his opponent. An Obama
administration can be relied on to find all kinds of reasons for us to get down on our
knees and seek forgiveness from those whom we have offended. We'll be worn out
from genuflecting and doing penance.

There'll be none of that with McCain, I feel sure. He may forgive enemies
for what they've done to him, but he's not about to apologize for what he's
done to them. He's, you know, tough. He was a fighter pilot after all. That
's the way they are. No apologies, no regrets. The last president that was
conspicuous in that way was Harry Truman. He had quite a number of fights.
I was never a fan of his, but today the Democrats cherish his memory. Let's
hope they remember this the first time John gives them the rough side of his
tongue.






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A FINAL JUDGMENT

It would be normal today to write something about the Democratic convention
just concluded in Denver, but since there were allegedly fifteen thousand
reporters there, I'm assuming there's nothing left to be said that hasn't
already been said, so I'll take a pass on adding my voice to the tumult. Instead I
'll go back to where I left off a few weeks ago and return to the message
left by the late Judge Harold J. Rothwax of the Supreme Court of New York.

Judge Rothwax sat in the criminal court in New York for twenty-five years
and as he did, watched over the gradual "collapse" (his word) of the criminal
justice system. I could paraphrase his comments on this, but I think some
direct quotations will represent him and his case better, e.g: (Emphases added)

"A trial is a minefield and any judicial misstep -- or even a perceived
one -- can lead to reversal of the verdict with no consideration of whether
the defendant is guilty or not."

"The Fourth Amendment does not state that illegally obtained evidence must
be excluded. We've come to that point entirely on our own."

"...the presumption of innocence is a trial presumption -- it does not
relate to the earlier stages of the process." (Arrest, interrogation,
detention, arraignment, etc.)

The above announcement probably won't do anything to deter TV loudmouths
and other media mullahs from babbling about the presumption as if it applied
the moment one of their proteges stuck a knife in the back of a taxpayer and
immediately began to plan his trial strategy. He will be bound to have the
assistance of such experts from then on as they apply their great legal
knowledge to his problem. As Erle Stanley Gardner said, marrying two cliches to each
other "Where ignorance is bliss, a little learning is a dangerous thing."
True, true.

"What the presumption of innocence does not mean is that the defendant is
probably innocent." (Emphasis in original.))

(Paraphrase). A New York defendant was arrested for a fur robbery that
became a homicide. He denied everything. A detective deposited the furs
obtained by his accomplice in front of his cell. He then confessed. An appellate
court found that the furs constituted compulsion to confess and reversed his
conviction. "Frankly, insane" said Judge Rothwax.

"The irony of the speedy trial rules is that most defendants and defense
attorneys don't want a speedy trial." I saw this in print in different words
many years ago "Delay never hurt a defendant." In the Fifties in New York,
and even after that, six or seven or more adjournments in a case were routine
and usually succeeded in their objective of wearing out complainants and so
getting the case dismissed.

Judge Rothwax, as can be seen, was not a conformist to legal orthodoxy,
marching in step with the American Bar Association and other such mad scientists
whose role models are the golf course designers who spend their lives building
courses with ever-narrower fairways and ever-wider sand traps. In their
case the duffers are the citizens who come to court expecting justice and
getting -- Johnny Cochran.

Here I'll quote the judge at more length than before because he puts his
case so well that paraphrasing would only detract from it. So I give you the
original:--

"[The Supreme Court's Miranda decision makes] the criminal justice system...
a sporting event in which the defendant has a a sporting chance to evade
society's punishment."

"...why should we try to advocate equality between a defendant and a police
officer -- unless we thought the system was a game, a sport, a fox hunt?"

"A desire for equality cannot be a justification for restrictions on police
investigation. [Why should we worry] that a guilty person's chances of
acquittal have been reduced?"

Is the judge suggesting that only guilty people get questioned by the
police? No, he's simply saying "Miranda" helps no one but guilty people because
the last thing innocent ones need is a warning about keeping silent. They
want to talk and proclaim their innocence.

Of course the judge was not used to cases involving this type of individual.
Not many criminal lawyers are. A criminal lawyer is what Rothwax was
before becoming a judge and serving twenty-five years in that capacity. In one of
his early criminal cases he represented a rapist who maintained that he had
picked up his victim in a park and everything that happened was consensual.
Rothwax found that the girl had only been in the country for a week and didn'
t know a word of English. By the time he became a judge he knew what
everyone else in his field did -- that just about every arrested person has been
guilty of something, usually of the charge under which they've been arrested.

In other countries this doesn't leave lawyers much room for maneuver and
they concentrate their efforts not on getting an acquittal for their client but
on getting him or her the most lenient punishment possible. In America the
arrest of the most blatantly guilty criminal is only the starting point for a
series of attempts to circumvent the law through frivolous motions, delays,
adjournments, evidentiary hearings, false charges, witness tampering, press
leaks, document dumps, mistrials and every other trick conceivable in the
twisted minds of, well, interested parties. I wonder if this kind of thing might
not have contributed to the judge's early death. Maybe he was more affected
by it than he realized. In any case he died lighting the way for others to
follow in a good cause.






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NO CONTENTION, NO CONVENTION

I miss the old conventions
They were always full of hell
From early in the morning
Till the chairman’s gavel fell.

The fought about the platform
And they fought about the ticket,
They argued with the chairman
And they told him where to stick it.

The questioned all credentials
And disputed every seat.
Each motion was essential
And they’d never call retreat.

That’s what they told each other
No compromise for them
When brother fought with brother
In the sweltering stadium.

The temperature was awful
But still they fought and died
Against the schemes unlawful
Of the fiends on the other side.

Some were Dewey, some were Taft
That in the battle reveled.
Their shirts hung out both fore and aft
And all were much disheveled

For either party ’twas all the same
Whatever the bone of contention
And if the unit rule didn’t bring a duel
It wasn’t much of a convention.

But Rayburn was high on his rampart
Where he knew how to control such anarchy
By gaveling down each upstart
Who dared to challenge his monarchy.

He’d a weapon to command and that was the band
Who waited for his direction.
If anyone moved a motion he’d banned
He was silenced with a Sousa selection.

Now we’ve all become good bunnies
Who always mind our manners.
I miss the the Fordies and the Ronnies
Destroying each others’ banners.

I remember the time of Governor Fine
And the Philadelphia story,
He’d the delegate slate from the Keystone State
And great was his power and glory.

Again Pennsylvania showed its power and might
With the Lawrence delegation,
He did his stuff while out of sight
And Kennedy got the nomination.

The party bosses did much assume
Their right to impose their visions.
They settled things in a smoke-filled room
Then told the folks their decisions.

Some of the delegates howled with pain
And protested against these choices.
So the band struck up again
Plus a chorus of a hundred voices.

Today there are no protestors
Except in the streets and avenues.
Inside it’s like a bunch of investors
Hearing the news of their revenues.

The silence of the lambs is prevailing
It’s really quite awe-inspiring.
But what has become of the delegates’ drum
And the fireworks they’d be firing?

What of the shoving in the aisles
And the angry words exchanged?
Now everything’s sweetness and smiles
And even the cheers seem arranged.

Take me back to those days of our history
To conventions that were sweaty and hot
Where each delegate was a separate mystery
Who might have been sober, but was probably not.






Designed and

SENATOR MALARKEY

Now that the Orympics are over it’s the talk of Beijing. Those inscrutable Americans are at it again. They must be planning to assassinate another President. Why else could they possibly be making so much fuss over the selection of a vice president? They’re looking ahead, that’s why. The word is out -- look out. Behind their own Great Wall of secrecy a plot is being hatched that may take years to execute but that will shock the world when the time comes. Talk about the Mysterious East, hah! The West passeth all understanding, as their Bible says.

Well, that’s how the Chinese look at us. They see us making a production out of finding a 65-year-old political hack to play backup to a 47-year-old politician in full health and vigor and naturally they suspect that something funny’s going on. In China, after all, nobody dwells on the possible departure of any of the rulers. It might give someone ideas. Possibly the Americans are just morbid and can’t help themselves, is their conclusion as they go back to their egg foo yong.

As I’ve claimed here before, I don’t study politics or politicians, I just surf the net and stop a while when I see something interesting. That’s not a systematic way to do things, but it’s my way. I miss a lot, but not everything. I ran across Joe Biden a long time ago. Not to mince words, I found him obnoxious. He was very fond of bullying witnesses before his committee, telling them they were dishing out “malarkey” and hectoring them for minutes at a time, then flashing them his inimitable cheese-eating grin to show them there should be no hard feelings. An unattractive performance at best. It’s also been noticed by, among others, Mickey Kaus of Slate magazine. It may make Joe famous yet.

Up to now that hasn’t happened in spite of his thirty-six years in the Senate and two campaigns for the Presidency. Senators for minuscule states like Delaware tend to run into this problem of obscurity. In the Fifties one of them, John Williams, got very well known as a racket-buster and became a national figure considered for vice-president, but rejected due to his small-state status. His chosen successor, William Roth, devised the Roth IRA, but that didn’t lead to higher office either, not that he was thinking of it. So Biden, with no particular record of accomplishment but lots of longevity, has outdone some outstanding predecessors in climbing the political ladder.

Biden isn’t the only man who doesn’t meet my standards of civility in conducting Senate business. A horrible example on the Republican side is Stevens of Alaska, who represents a constituency that is only one quarter the size of Biden’s, but who equals him in egotism. I’ve written about him before. I haven’t seen him in action berating witnesses, but I’ve heard him get off on his colleagues when they resisted his imperial will in the matter of building the famous “bridge to nowhere” for which his constituents in Alaska were longing. As chairman of the Appropriations Committee he let them know that their pet projects would get short shrift in the committee if they didn’t bow to his demands. In fact they had so infuriated him with their defiance that he thought of resigning his post after thirty years in office to protest such disrespect.


He didn’t resign and he didn’t get his hallucinatory bridge, which leads me to wonder whether maybe some of his colleagues didn’t remind him that he represented the most vacant state in the Union, with only about 200,000 inhabitants and no matter what the Constitution said about equality in the Senate, he wasn’t going to compel an electorate of 200 million to put his state’s imaginary needs before their real ones, using their money.

All this was just another sample of senatorial arrogance, of which Biden has a full quotient, as shown by his committee tactics. The only people who get a break from congressional committees are other members of Congress. If a Senator or Representative appears before one of them he or she gets a respectful, polite, even friendly hearing from his legislative colleagues. It’s a glaring contrast to the browbeating and haranguing suffered by humble taxpayers at the hands of their elected representatives.

This makes me wonder whether the heavy load of medals and ribbons sported by service people appearing before Congress might not be a defense mechanism for warding off these attacks. I thought it was simply exhibitionism , but there may be more to it than that. After all, even a ghetto bomb-thrower representing the Ninth Ward of New Orleans might not want to be featured on C-Span as a horsefly buzzing a holder of two or three Distinguished Service Crosses.

Another way to tame the lions would be through the British system of requiring that ministerial appointments in the government be restricted to sitting Members of Parliament. The purpose of this is to ensure that they will be eligible to answer questions from M. P’s. about their departments when they are raised in the House of Commons, where only members can speak. This doesn’t mean they can’t get a good heckling from the Opposition, but at least it will be within the bounds of parliamentary procedure.

If a non-MP should be appointed a government minister he or she will be assigned a member to be their spokesman in the House, but this unusual.

So much for Britain. The legislators aren’t better or worse over there, but the system does keep them from indulging their worst instincts by bullyragging innocent civilians or junior government officials who aren’t in a position to reply. It would be good therapy for Biden and better than putting a muzzle on him to keep him from biting people.

Biden is trying to do an LBJ stunt by running for Vice-President while also running for re-election to the Senate. He can’t lose both, he hopes. God will not be mocked, Joe.

As for Mr. Obama, my suggestion for him is that upon losing the election, he resign from the Senate and run for Mayor of Chicago. It’s his city, but it’s in a state of such chaos that the state governor, a Democrat, has offered to send troops in to restore order. Let Obama show what he can do by becoming Mayor and then cleaning up the town like Giuliani cleaned up New York Now that’s the way to become President!

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS

A contributor to Newsday, the Long Island paper, has created a bit of a
rumpus on the Internet by alleging that the lunatic who recently shot up a
meeting of the Unitarian Universalist church in Tennessee, killing two people and
wounding seven, was inspired to do this by the anti-liberal "rants" of some
conservative broadcasters, some of whose books were found in his home and of
course confiscated. Conservatives have been fighting back on the net, denying
that anything anyone said in a broadcast could possibly trigger such an
outburst by an unhinged individual who acted completely on his own in obedience
to voices he heard in his head, not on the radio.

The writer of the letter, a woman, finds that an atmosphere of hatred has
been created by right-wingers and really needs to be dispelled before more
violence erupts. She names four individuals in her indictment and presents
evidence against them as follows; Rush Limbaugh leads the list, as might be
expected. He said "Liberalism is the greatest threat this country faces." He
also said "The Islamofascists are [for] the Democrats" and "Riots at the
Democratic Convention would be the best thing that could happen to this country."

Sean Hannity was guilty of saying "There are things...worth fighting and
dying for and one of them is making sure Nancy Pelosi doesn't become the Speaker."

Michael Savage got rapped for writing "...[a] catastrophic attack would cause
(liberals) to march thousands of us into the hands of the enemy."

Last on the list, Bill O'Reilly was charged with saying "The far left in
America is dominated by haters, people who despise their own country."

Wow! These guys really rattled their cages, didn't they? Or did they? Not
much, in my opinion. Not enough to cause even the looniest loner in the
country to open fire on his neighbors with the intent of wiping them out. Going
back over the roll of sinners above and looking at Limbaugh first, he simply
made an accusation of a kind that's normal in Presidential campaigns, I.e.,
sinister foreign interests are supporting a candidate I don't like. These
things happen. In the flush days of the Soviet Union Moscow would send as much
as $2 million a year to the American Communist party. After it was counted
by the FBI, who had infiltrated the operation, it went to the Party and was
then distributed to politicians and others who were in favor with Moscow.
None of it went to Republicans.
(Cf. Barron, J., Operation Solo: Washington: Regnery Publishing Inc., 1996)

A Hungarian named Soros pledged $50 million in 2004 to defeat George Bush.
So it seems like foreign powers do try to influence American elections,
meaning that there is precedent for Limbaugh's suspicion of Islamists in this
connection. As for his alleged incitement to riot, it's obviously a pious hope
that the left will show its true colors by going on a rampage at its friends'
convention. It's not a suggestion that his fans should do the rioting.
Whatever one thinks about them, it's for certain that none of them have minds
that are that literal.


The case against Hannity is even flimsier. Saying in effect that Nancy
Pelosi's ascension to Speaker of the House was a matter of life and death is
clearly a bit of humorous exaggeration, common in this country as when Mark Twain
said things like "Congress is our only native criminal class." After all,
nobody in his right mind could imagine anyone staking his life on the outcome
of anything Mrs. Pelosi might or might not do in Congress or out. The idea'
s absurd. If it seemed otherwise to the mad bomber in Tennessee, assuming he
ever even heard of it, it's simply more proof of his derangement. Blaming
Hannity for it is a stretch as long as a giraffe's neck.

Next, Michael Savage. He fantasized a situation where a catastrophic attack
on this country resulted in Hillary and Barack taking over our military and
using it to put down resistance to the "enemy." But who would this incite?
Nobody is expecting that kind of attack on this country. 9/11was
catastrophic enough, but there was no such outcome as Savage describes. So, unlike
France in 1940, there won't be any scope for any "collaborators" to join with
the enemy, whoever he might be. Savage is conjuring up a situation like the
movie "Red Dawn" where the U.S. is invaded and occupied. I avoided the movie
because I didn't like its premise that such a thing could happen. I leave
it to fantasists to take an idea like this seriously. As for Hillary and
Barack, I'm sure they'd never be collaborators. Would they be holding out in
the hills? Sure they would.

Bill O'Reilly and the far-left's hate for the U.S. Is Mrs. Kern-Rugile,
the complainant, a far-left individual? She'd deny it, I assume. So what's
her problem? O'Reilly's right. The proof is to be found on the internet
among other places. The people who spell America "Amerika" and demand the
assassination of Bush and Cheney, who can't even be printed some of the time in
their group blogs because of the obscenity and depravity of their messages,
these are the people Billo is talking about.

Mrs. Rugile shows a disturbing side of her own character in the windup to
her diatribe against those who dare to disagree with her world-view. When
conservatives protest against articles like hers, they usually confine themselves
to asking for more balance in the media concerned. They try to get a
hearing, in other words. They don't think of taking over a publication and setting
up an opinion monopoly therein. That is beyond their aspirations. They
know the weight of journalists' opinions will always be on the left. The
left-to-right ratio in the media is easily fifty to one.

That's what some people would call a monopoly. But it's not good enough
for Mrs. Kern-Rugile. She's not interested in balance or in having different
points of view represented as the conservatives are. Instead she specifically
proposes boycotts for right-wing talkers so as to drive them out of public
life. No more broadcasts, no more newspaper columns, above all no more books.
No more opposition, that is. Familiar, isn't it?






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IN THE WEE SMALL HOURSOF THE MORNING In the Police Department we not only investigated cases, but we re-investigated them and then investigated the investigators. Oh, you mean stealing the crown jewels, assassinations and the like? Well, no, I mean cases involving cops which might mean someone somewhere might draw an inference unfavorable to the department and damaging to our reputations as outstanding defenders of civil liberties acutely sensitive to the rights of citizens and the safeguards of the same laid down in the law. Your friend the policeman, was the image we sought to project. When we could, that is. It was none too easy sometimes. One time was a September night in Queens when two unlucky highway cops encountered a couple of young chaps heading home from a wedding in the wee hours in an exhilarated state. One of them, Donald Pretto, flew by them at seventy miles per hour on the Long Island Expressway, causing them to begin a pursuit. Donald refused to comply with orders to stop and instead raced up a ramp to a local street where he attempted to execute a snappy getaway by means of a U-turn. It didn't work and he instead skidded into the cops' lane so that he and they were now facing each other. They got out of their car and walked toward him, whereupon he backed up enough to get starting room and then drove straight at them. The cops scrambled out of the way and fired one shot at Pretto so that he came to a halt and allowed himself to be dragged out of his car. At this time his friend Giovanni C. showed up in his car and attempted to interfere with the cops so that he was arrested along with Pretto. All concerned then proceeded to the nearest station house. None of this would have required much in the line of investigation if it had not been for the shot that was fired. That, ah, triggered an inquest. A captain took charge and started questioning everybody. Donald admitted refusing to stop but denied he'd driven at the cops. His friend, though, signed a statement that Donald had driven at them. This would have concluded the case favorably for the cops if not for the fact that they still had to account for the shot at the driver, which had missed him, but not by much. Police Department guidelines, which everybody was now looking up, prohibited shooting at a moving car where the occupants were using it as a weapon but not using any other weapons. A couple of doubtful cases had caused this provision to be adopted although in the opinion of some, it placed too much reliance on the ability of cops to get out of the way of cars used as missiles. Whatever about that, the duty captain was left with no recourse except to find that the guidelines had been violated, though he softened this with the finding that there were extenuating circumstances in the fact that the car was coming right at the shooter when he let go. This did not pass muster at Headquarters. The report came back with an inquiry as follows: "Sketch indicates Police Officers directly approached the front of the suspect's vehicle on foot. Were they questioned as to why they placed themselves in such a dangerous position which is contrary to the instructions and training of the Police Academy?" Well, we had an answer to that, kind of. I had to provide it, though, since I was now assigned to tie up such loose ends. Headquarters was being misled by a diagram of the incident that had been sent along with the report. It had a professional look, with everything labeled engineering-style and directional arrows pointing here and there. The mapmaker had left his name off though, so we couldn't ask him why he'd made the cars half their actual size, thereby making it look as if the cops had unlimited room to take cover and protect themselves against an attack by car. Instead the two cars, theirs and Pretto's, were actually cheek by jowl facing each other with only five feet or so between for the cops to maneuver in. At such close quarters there was no time for strategizing, but only for emergency action to save one's skin. I pointed this out in a kindly manner to the people who had sent us the inquiry. I had the urge to tell them what we forgave them for their failure to understand the situation better unlike us soldiers in the field with our front-line experience. I decided that it wouldn' t really be appreciated as it deserved and it might even lead to a reopening of the question as to why we had sent down a comic-strip drawing instead of one that made sense. So it went. Headquarters second-guessed us and we snapped back at them. What did those desk jockeys know about the troubles of the man on the ground? we asked. Let them give up their soft touches and come out here for a while and find out what it's really all about. We'll show them. Terrible bunch of bores we were, you see. We didn't really want anybody coming out to join us with a lot of ideas for new ways of doing things that might upset our accustomed routine. Typical. Here I must enter a caveat. Before you conclude that I was one of a crowd of reactionaries resisting progress at every step, I must tell you that in our view it was the progressive types running our show that were the real obstacles to constructive change. The car-shooting prohibition is an example. It was ill-conceived and simply not practical in every case even though it made no exceptions for changing circumstances. It represented Headquarters at its worst. The thing it did best was to make concessions and promulgate new restrictions to prevent cops from protecting themselves. Eventually I left all that behind. I went to work for a bank. What did I find out? That the people in headquarters didn't really understand those of us in the field.

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