1. science
2. ecology
3. waste management
4. recycling

PRESORTED
STANDARD
PERMIT #3036
WHITE PLAINS NY
Vol. X, No. XIV
Thursday April 9, 2015 • $1.00
142 Billion
Westchester’s Most Influential Weekly
$
2015 NYS Budget
Prioritizes:
• Education
• Economic Development
• Ethics Reform
• Capital Improvements to Infrastructure
• Affordable Housing & Social Services
Story Page 2
WWW.WESTCHESTERGUARDIAN.COM
Page 2
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, APRIL 9, 2015
Community/GovernmentSection
STATE BUDGET
Summary of The New York State Budget
The New York State Budget
Passed a $142 Billion Dollar Budget
on April 1st. The budget reportedly:
• Holds spending growth below 2%
while investing $5.4 Billion in the
NYS economy.
• Includes a 6% increase in school
funding for a total of $23.5 Billion
with the goal of improved teacher
preparation, certification and evaluation along with new authority
to improve failing schools, tying
increased funding to reforms.
• Provides comprehensive disclosure
laws for Public Officials with outside
income; the strongest in the nation,
according to Governor Cuomo.
• $1.5 Billion is dedicated to
the
Upstate
Revitalization
Initiative “to jumpstart the best
regional approaches to economic
development.”
• $1.3 Billion is allocated to stabilize
the Thruway Authority and keep
tolls down while funding critical
repair & maintenance and supporting the ongoing construction of the
new NY Bridge.
• $500 million to ensure every New
Yorker has broadband access by the
end of 2018: reportedly the largest
and most ambitious broadband
investment in the nation.
• $400 million over four years to
support debt restructuring and other
capital projects
Specific Education
Initiatives Include:
• A CUNY/ SUNY Full Scholarship
Program with the goal of recruiting
the best and the brightest into the
Education field for top students,
in return for a 5 year New York
teaching commitment.
• Graduate Education Program
Accreditation: the first statewide
uniform admissions standards for
teacher preparation programs will be
established with authority to close
failing programs.
• A teacher “BAR” Exam / CTE: In
addition to the current state requirement that teachers pass a “BAR”
Exam, teachers will now be required
to complete 100 hours of continuing education and re-certify every 5
years or lose their licenses.
• A re-designed teacher evaluation
system will be established, rating
teachers with regard to student performances and teacher observations.
Districts will choose between a
standardized state measure or a statedesigned supplemental assessment.
Teachers who receive an ineffective
rating when both subcomponents
are combined, must be rated ineffective overall.
The Commissioner must have this
evaluation system in place by June 30,
2015; local districts must put evaluations
in place by November 15, 2015 in order
to be eligible for increased aid.
• The Chancellor of the Board of
Regents is tasked with recommending by June 1, 2015, measures that
will decrease the overall amount
of state and local testing while
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Travel-Levy.............................................................................8
Eye on Theatre.......................................................................10
Arts........................................................................................12
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Cultural Perspectives.............................................................15
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Community.............................................................................3
Continued on page 6
Commercial • Industrial
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Table of Contents
Editorial...................................................................................2
improving test quality and reducing
test related stress and anxiety.
• Other initiatives include modifications to the tenure system to be
based upon performance and not
just time in the system, bonuses of
up to $20,000 for top performers,
new procedures to remove ineffective teachers, measures to intervene
Sam Zherka, Publisher
Mary Keon, Acting Editor /Advertising
Publication is every Thursday
Write to us in confidence at:
The Westchester Guardian
Post Office Box 8
New Rochelle, NY 10801
Send publicity 3 weeks in advance of your event. Ads due Tuesdays, one week prior to publication date. Letters to the Editor & Press Releases can only be submitted via Email:
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Read us online at:
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The Westchester Guardian is a weekly newspaper devoted to the unbiased reporting
of events and developments that are newsworthy and significant to readers living
in, and/or employed in, Westchester County. The Guardian will strive to report fairly,
and objectively, reliable information without favor or compromise. Our first duty
will be to the PEOPLE’S RIGHT TO KNOW, by the exposure of truth, without fear or
hesitation, no matter where the pursuit may lead, in the finest tradition of FREEDOM
OF THE PRESS. The Guardian will cover news and events relevant to residents and
businesses all over Westchester County. As a weekly, rather than focusing on the
immediacy of delivery more associated with daily journals, we will instead seek to
provide the broader, more comprehensive, chronological step-by-step accounting of
events, enlightened with analysis, where appropriate.
From amongst journalism’s classic key-words: who, what, when, where, why, and
how, the why and how will drive our pursuit. We will use our more abundant time,
and our resources, to get past the initial ‘spin’ and ‘damage control’ often characteristic of immediate news releases, to reach the very heart of the matter: the truth.
We will take our readers to a point of understanding and insight which cannot be
obtained elsewhere.
To succeed, we must recognize from the outset that bigger is not necessarily better.
And, furthermore, we will acknowledge that we cannot be all things to all readers.
We must carefully balance the presentation of relevant, hard-hitting, Westchester
news and commentary, with features and columns useful in daily living and employment in, and around, the county. We must stay trim and flexible if we are to succeed.
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, APRIL 9, 2015
Page 3
community
RDR Representative Meets with New Rochelle Residents on March 30th
By Peggy Godfrey
RDRXR, the development company that has
been designated the Master
Developer for downtown
New Rochelle, held a community meeting on March 30th at 2 Clinton
Place. The meeting was announced on
CrowdSource New Rochelle.
The goal of the meeting,more of which
are planned,is to elicit community feedback
from residents so that future development
reflects a collective vision: a process known
as crowdsourced placemaking.
Brandon Palanker, Vice President of
Marketing and Public Affairs for RDR
opened the meeting, attended by slightly
more that 50 city residents. Palanker
outlined the social, economic and environmental benchmarks that prospective
proposals must meet in order to move
forward as viable projects, calling these:
the triple bottom line. Residents can
register to become active NR Future
members and submit proposals for future
New Rochelle development through the
website: nrfuture.com
One idea Palankar proposed was
a “walkable downtown” where visitors
“park their car once and stay there all
day.” Jim Killoran, Executive Director
of Habitat for Humanity, speaking for
many whose businesses depend upon
automotive traffic, responded immediately to this, saying: “if the development
does not benefit the taxpayers or the city
as a whole, it should not move forward.”
Palanker replied that: “the project is not
a residential project but one that features
mixed-use development.”
Palanker also explained that the
company “wanted people to stay in New
Rochelle,” pointing out the “tremendous
amount of cultural and financial diversity”
here. He also stated that the company
wishes to work with the city to create
pedestrian friendly streets and not just do
“what is feasible.” He also observed that
“there is no plan everyone likes 100%.
Although there is no specific plan,
the recommended action plan will need
new zoning, according to Palanker,
noting the tremendous assets of the city,
including the transit center, neighborhoods, the waterfront and downtown
living. He explained that downtown
living is needed “because that is where the
market wants to be….And his company
wants to create something the market
wants.”
Palanker also stated that his company
might be interested in development near
Iona and near the Waterfront, in addition
to the previously discussed sites at the
train station and the library parcel.
During the second part of the
program, Sirris Barrius of RDRXR
presented a video projecting what a redeveloped downtown New Rochelle
would look like, with wide sidewalks,
walkable streets and the re-developed
transit center.
Andrea Bonilla, another RDRXR
employee, then spoke about the importance of the company’s crowdsourcing
placemaking and the need for public
input on what they want to see here: a
central plaza, no cars, a boutique hotel
or any number of downtown activities.
She asked for “three words that describe
people’s values for downtown.
Resident Amy Heyman asked how
the company would determine what
a substantial response would be, for
evaluation purposes. Jim Killoran stated
that New Rochelle residents already live
in a downtown with high-rise buildings
and suggested a different plan that would
bring City Hall back downtown.
The conversation was re-directed
to crowdsourcing and resident input, as
Palanker emphasized the plan being used
and urged the group to let his colleagues
go through this process.
The aim is to co-create a plan and
the city council will discuss these plans. A
meeting with the library is also planned.
Those present were anxious for more specifics and the sentiment was that “people
want to be spoken to like adults.”
Councilman Ivar Hyden suggested
the downtown plans are simplistic and a
more unified vision for the city needed to
be developed. He felt that the people of
New Rochelle were “being talked down
to” and that New Rochelle residents are
intelligent.
Laraine Karl reminded the group
that this is an election year and this developer might not be dealing with the same
councilmembers next year. She was told
that this project needs zoning changes,
but RDRXR has faith in the process
and that SEQRA (State Environmental
Quality Review Act) requirements
would be followed. Bill Kann asked
RDRXR representatives if they would
refrain from making campaign contributions, since this is an election year.
Palanker responded that “this is a great
question and he will bring it back to his
team. This was followed by a statement
that “there are 70,000 residents in New
Rochelle and 7 activists, however, “New
Rochelle is an engaged city.” Joe DeRosa
added that the Avalon buildings had
been given 30-year tax abatements that
were even transferred when the buildings
were sold. The reply referred to “permissible zoning.”
When discussion turned to the
library, residents were told the library
would not move unless the library board
wanted this to happen.
The next meeting will take place on
April 14th, again at 2 Clinton Place, New
Rochelle from 6:30-8:30OM Check the
Website for updates: nrfuture.com/event/
calendar & https://www.facebook.
com/nrfuture EXPLORE
VISIT OUR OPEN HOUSE
SATURDAY, APRIL 11 AND 18
#NEXTGENED
ENGINEERING | TECHNOLOGY | MANAGEMENT | AVIATION
Page 4
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, APRIL 9, 2015
COMMUNITY
City of New Rochelle News
Alternate Side Enforcement
Resumes April 1:
Alternate side of the street parking
restrictions will resume as of April 1
for those streets and portions of streets
subject to winter suspension from Jan.
1-March 31. A complete list can be
found in the City Code Article X
Schedule 312-84 available with further
information at www.newrochelleny.
com/altsidestreets .
Summer Youth Employment
Applications Now Being
Accepted
New Rochelle youth ages 14 to 21
are encouraged to apply for summer positions through the following New Rochelle
Youth Bureau’s Summer Employment
Programs. Applications will be received
until May 15. Only one child per family
household will be considered. All positions
are contingent on funding.
Network Youth Leadership
Program:
This program provides youth ages
14 to 17 years with job readiness skills
training and actual work experience
for six weeks during July and August.
Stipend payments are $175.00 weekly
for a 20-hour week. Fifty-five percent of
program participants must meet income
eligibility guidelines.
TANF Summer Youth
Employment Program:
This program is supported by the
Westchester/Putnam Local Workforce
Investment Board will employ income
eligible youth ages 14 to 18 for six weeks
during July and August.The rate of pay is
$8.75 per hour, 5 hours per day. All youth
must meet TANF income guidelines.
Potential Candidates
Summer Internship
Program:
This program will employ eight
young adults ages 18 – 21 with specific
internships to an assigned Governmental
Departments or local Community –
Based Agencies/Programs. The program
operates for six weeks during July and
August. Pay is $8.75 per hour, 5 hours
per day. No income eligibility required. Funded by the New York State Office of
Children & Family Service and contingent upon current State funding.
Applications for all programs are
available 8:30 AM-4:30 PM MondayFriday in the Youth Bureau office, 515
North Avenue, New Rochelle and on
line at www.newrochelleny.com/
youth. Application deadline is Friday
May 15, 2015 at 4PM. For more information, contact the Youth Bureau at
654-2045.
The Youth Bureau is currently
seeking worksite partners to host interns,
as well as program sponsorships. For
more information on the Board of
Commissioners’ Financial Sponsors
Campaign for Youth Employment,
please contact the office.
Yard Waste Collection
Begins April 7
The Department of Public Works,
Bureau of Streets and Highways will
begin Yard Waste Collection on Tuesday,
April 7, 2015.
Residents are reminded that in order
to be collected, yard waste must be placed
at the curb by 7:00 a.m. on the scheduled
collection day (6AM during summer
months) in accordance with the following guidelines:
Brush and branches: No longer
than 4 feet in length with a diameter of
no more than 3 inches, tied in bundles.
DO NOT tie with fishing line, tape or
metal wire.
Grass, twigs, leaves and other loose
yard waste: Place in open containers or
biodegradable bags weighing no more
than 75 lbs.
Logs, stumps, stones, dirt, fruit,
seaweed, clumps of grass, treated
wood chips, root balls, acorns and
other large debris WILL NOT BE
COLLECTED and must be disposed
of by the homeowner. See www.
newrochelleny.com/debris for further
information
Collection days and areas are as
follows:
Tuesday: From the north side of the
Metro North Railroad/New Haven Line
to Eastchester Road, Beechmont Drive,
and Barnard Road
Wednesday: From the north side of
Quaker Ridge Road to the Scarsdale
border
Thursday: From Eastchester Road,
Beechmont Drive and Barnard Road,
both sides to the south side of Quaker
Ridge Road
Friday: The area south of the Metro
North Railroad
When a holiday occurs on any of the
collection days, Monday is the alternate
collection day. Please do not put yard
waste out for collection prior to the night
before the scheduled collection day.
Yard waste collection will continue
until October 30. For further information, visit www.newrochelleny.com/
DPW or contact the Yard Waste and
Fall Leaves 24 hour hotline at 654-6510.
City of New Rochelle
Upcoming Meetings and
Events
All meetings are broadcast on
NRTV Cablevision channel 75 and
Verizon channel 28. Meetings are also
streamed live and can be viewed on
demand through the City website www.
newrochelleny.com/ccmeetings.
Meeting dates can change. For the
latest information subscribe to events
calendars, news flashes and updates on
the City’s website www.newrochelleny.
com. Facebook: cityofnewrochelle and
Twitter @newrochelleny April 7: Zoning Board Meeting 7:00
PM City Hall Annex B-1, 90 Beaufort
Place
April 8: Municipal Arts Commission
6:00 PM City Hall Annex B-1, 90
Beaufort Place
April 8: Historical Landmarks Review
Board 7:30 PM City Hall Annex B1, 90
Beaufort Place
April 14: City Council MeetingCommittee of the Whole 3:45 PM City Council Conference Room, 515
North Avenue
Public Hearings and Citizens to
be Heard 7:30 PM City Council
Chambers, 515 North Avenue
April 15: Civil Service Commission
3:00 PM City Hall Annex B-1- 90
Beaufort Place
April 21: City Council Regular
Legislative Meeting 7:00 PM City
Council Conference Room, 515 North
Avenue
Opening-NRCA Rotunda Gallery
Exhibit “Trending…Celebrating Now!”
5-7PM www.newrochellearts.org
April 28: Planning Board Meeting 7:30
PM City Hall Annex B-1- 90 Beaufort
Place
April 29: IDA & CLD Meetings 7:30
PM City Hall Annex B-1, 90 Beaufort
Place
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THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, APRIL 9, 2015
Page 5
GOVERNMENT
Congress and the President Need to Consult – and Not Just On Iran
By Lee Hamilton
Sustained
and
respectful consultation
between the President
and Congress would go a
long way toward avoiding
the bitter battles over foreign policy that
we’ve seen of late.
Congress has developed a fondness
for open letters when it comes to Iran.
First came the warning shot signed by
47 Republican senators that touched off
a storm of criticism. Not to be outdone,
the House checked in with its own
bipartisan and more diplomatically
stated letter to the President, warning
that its members must be satisfied with
any agreement before they’ll vote to
reduce sanctions.
What lies behind these moves? I
think Congress feels left out of foreign
policy-making. I have considerable
sympathy for this impulse. Over the
decades, too much power has drifted to
the President when it comes to foreign
affairs. The Congress has been deferential, even timid, in allowing this to
happen.
Moreover, the administration has
not done an especially good job of consulting with Congress. The President is
the chief actor in foreign policy, and it’s
his obligation to reach out and develop
a sustained dialogue with Congress on
foreign policy matters. As far as I can
tell, he has not done that sufficiently.
Yet much as I want to see Congress
speak up on foreign policy, how it does
so matters. The Senate’s letter to Iran
was ill-considered and unhelpful. Its
purpose was to defeat the nuclear negotiations, and it undercut the President
while he was trying to negotiate a deal
with another world leader. It raised
questions about America’s reliability,
invited doubt about the President’s
ability to negotiate a deal, and created
a major distraction at a crucial moment.
The letter undermined not only this
President’s credibility, but undermines
future presidents’ as well. It suggests
that no one in the U.S. government is
empowered to strike a deal.
The letter did focus appropriately
on presidential use of executive orders
to conduct foreign policy, but it wrongly
implied that presidents are hamstrung
in the conduct of policy. The senators
suggested that an executive order on
Iran is likely to be reversed by a future
president, which is not true. Presidential
deals with other countries are rarely
overturned by their successors.
In part, this is because once an
agreement is in place it becomes very
difficult to undo — especially if it’s
working. Also, presidents are reluctant to
reverse their predecessors’ work because
they don’t want to undercut the same
tool they themselves rely on to pursue
their foreign policy goals.
As a nation we’ve gotten into the
bad habit of using executive orders
for the most important foreign policy
initiatives — including such watershed
moments as Richard Nixon’s opening
toward China and President Obama’s
accord with Syria banning the use of
chemical weapons. In recent decades,
94 percent of pacts between the U.S.
and other countries have been under
executive orders; just 6 percent are done
by treaty. This is because treaties require
a two-thirds vote of the Senate before
they can be ratified, and that has become
a near-impossible milestone to reach.
Yet the fact that a president can act
on his own does not mean that he should
do so. The reliance on executive orders
means we have no clear mechanism,
or even requirement, for the President
to consult and work with Congress on
foreign policy. So Congress feels left out
of the action, and in an effort to deal
itself back in it behaves clumsily, as the
Senate did with the Iran letter.
The way past these bitter battles is
meaningful consultation. The President
and the Congress need to consult regularly and in depth before problems come
to a head. Sustained and respectful consultation would go a long way toward
avoiding the acrimonious contention
over foreign policy that we’ve seen of
late.
Edward S. Corwin, a professor of
jurisprudence at Princeton in the first
half of the 20th century, once called the
Constitution an “invitation to struggle
for the privilege of directing American
foreign policy” — a line that is far better
known than Corwin himself. Over the
last half-century, the contest has largely
been decided in favor of the President.
Congress’s bid to reopen the
question is not, in and of itself, a bad
thing. But if the President and the
Congress want to avoid these flareups and strengthen the nation’s foreign
policy, they should exercise in-depth,
sustained consultation.
Lee Hamilton is Distinguished
Scholar, Indiana University School
of Global and International Studies;
Professor of Practice, IU School of
Public and Environmental Affairs;
and Chairman, Center on Congress
at Indiana University. He served as
U.S. Representative from Indiana’s 9th
Congressional District from 1965-1999.
For information about our educational resources and programs, explore
our website at www.centeroncongress.
org. Go to Facebook to express your
views about Congress, civic education,
and the citizen’s role in representative democracy. “Like” us on Facebook
at “Center on Congress at Indiana
University,” and share our postings with
your friends.
The Center on Congress is a research center
of the
Source URL: http://congress.indiana.
edu/congress-and-the-president-needconsult-%E2%80%93-and-not-just-iran
Reprinted with written permission from
The Center of Congress
Diana O’Neill
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Westchester Community College Under Scrutiny After Fraudulent Transcripts Emerge
By NANCY KING
Westchester
Community College is the
latest public institution to
Page 6
come under scrutiny of the
New York State Inspector
General when it was revealed that a former
COMMUNITY
assistant
basketball coach falsified academic
transcripts and forged an administrator’s
signature. As a result, the community college
has canceled its 2014-2015 Basketball
season. However the story doesn’t stop
previously,
there,April’s
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Mt. Vernon
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Jamell
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WCC
effect positive
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and
at the school
on a full basketball
and was
relationship
building.
scholarship. He played on the award winning
team and was granted, upon completion of
what was thought to be a two-year stint with
WCC, a full scholarship to play ball with
nationally
ranked Florida A&M
University.
THE WESTCHESTER
GUARDIAN
Not long after his arrival at Florida A&M,
an anonymous tipster informed the college
and the NCAA that Walker’s scholarship at
WCC had been stripped a year prior, after it
was revealed he only taken one class at the
college. In order to maintain a scholarship at
the college, a student must be matriculated
for a full credit load.
growth, work experience, opportuniUpon further investigation, it was
ties for new friendships along with the
revealed that there are several other former
reward of being needed and appreciWCC students who are also playing basated. for
English
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ketball
Divisionand
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and that they
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famous
for NY.
their Red Storm
spring an
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12-hour training
team,This
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into the
April’s Child Seeks Volunteer Parent Aides
A one-hour orientation, scheduled
at the convenience of the
COMMEMORATION
volunteer, is a prelude to twelve hours
of training that will take place in
May. Those interested are invited to
learn more about the Center’s 90%
KING
success recordByinNANCY
helping
children live
in a healthy andOnsafe environment.
a
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Volunteers can
expect quality
traininga
November
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and ongoingvigil
supervision,
personal
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front
session will be two Saturdays, May 9
and 16, from 9:00AM to 3:30PM.
Call (914) 997-2642 to schedule
an orientation session and for more
information.
Orientation and training take
of the White Plains Department of
place in our White Plains office. Our
Public Safety to commemorate the
volunteers are important to us.
eligibility of their star forward, who attended
WCC last year. Quinnipiac University in
Connecticut is now reviewing the transcripts of their star player, Gianni McLean,
who also attended Westchester Community
College. Concordia College in Bronxville
and SUNY Purchase are also investigating
all of
their currentBUDGET
athletes who transferred
STATE
to their respective schools after allegedly
attending Westchester Community College.
At the heart of this scandal is former
assistant basketball coach Richard Fields.
Last
month,
Continued
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page 2 admitted that he
provided false transcripts and he also forged
in failing schools, expanded pre-K
an administrator’s signature when doing
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Requirements
athlete who is under investigation for tran“Public officials will be required to
script fraud!
The transcript scandal at Westchester
Community College has given sports fans
a glimpse into the ugly side of the college to
professional sports superhighway. One must
wonder Thursday,
how many professional
APRIL 9,athletes
2015
that we watch in the NBA or the NFL
have become superstars due to fraudulent
beginnings. When you connect the dots, it
seems as if a young person with raw talent
is plucked from the play-yard to participate
in collegiate sports at a junior college, where
they then live in hope of being noticed by a
four year college. If they are lucky enough to
local governments communities
be scouted and picked up by that four-year
eliminate
of then
services,
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they and duplication
the school, must
hope
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well?),
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these schools receive as a kickback every
time
theymillion
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a kid
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• $65
beup
invested
in Ports
Summary of The New York State Budget
disclose all outside earned income they
receive, from whom they receive it, the
actual services performed to receive the
income, and whether there is any connection to the state government or the
office that they hold or their public
duties.”by the White Plains Police in
death
and Rail Hub infrastructure for
large-scale infrastructure projects.
$40 million of this will create a
link from the Port of New York to
the Port of Oswego via additional
inter-modal rail yards. $15 million
will enhance the Port of Albany.
$10 million will go to the Port of
Ogdenberg to deepen the harbor for
larger ships and expanded grain and
salt storeage. These initiatives anticipate increased port activity due to
the expansion of the Panama Canal.
• $50 is dedicated to capital improvements for the State Fairgrounds in
Onondaga County.
• $50 Million will expand and protect
agriculture in the Southern tier and
the Hudson Valley.
Other Initiatives include budget
lines for Affordable Housing: $447
Million statewide; Student Loan
relief:
students
who remain
in police
New
on
behalf
of innocent
victims of
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The family of Mr. Chamberlain has
amount
earned.
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Urban
Youth
Job
also filed a $21 million dollar lawsuit
Programthewill
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and
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continue
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DJ Henry
was $780
shot toMillion
death,
In the meantime the NCAA has issued
the following statement: ”Student athletes
must meet academic standards throughout
their careers on campus to remain eligible to
participate in inter-collegiate sports”.That may
be a great statement on paper but one must
take into account how those legitimate student
athletes at Westchester Community College
are feeling right about now. Their basketball
season is canceled, a legitimate scholarship
already
on the
an addimay
be inspent
jeopardy,
andHomeless,
their classmates
who
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$480 Million
will are
be casting
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watch
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who can’t wait
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also be
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the big dance.
structure
improvements and additional
tools to
stabilize
health
carein Westchester
providers
Nancy
King
is a freelance
writer
to
advance
transformative
goals:
$700
County, NY
million will go to East Brooklyn and
$300,000 to create an integrated health
care delivery system in Oneida County
and decrease hospital beds.
The budget also contributes
to the Environmental Protection
Fund,
BrownfieldsPolice
Reform
and and
the
by
a Pleasantville
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lective
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night’s
vigil, organized
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by the Westchester Coalition for
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and
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CUNY2020
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it wasfora
Regional
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frigid night, at least three dozen indiRegional
planning
will be
viduals
attended
the councils
vigil. Kenneth
established
to
align
community
colleges
Chamberlain Jr. vowed to continue
withhisother
colleges
outside
to
on
mission
to seek
justiceNYC
for his
set goals
regional
basis with
other
father
andontoawork
tirelessly
to prevent
stakesortholders
suchfrom
as ever
government
this
of tragedy
happenagencies,
business
and
industry.
ing again. Unfortunately, shootings of
An additional
innocent
people in $25,000,000
this country will
are
go
to
the
I
Love
NY
Campaign
as
becoming so common place
that when
the hears
tourism
industry
supports
one
about
a fataldirectly
shooting
at the
nearly of900,000
jobsthat
throughout
the
hands
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state. little more than brief media
gets
The NYS
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we end Capital
that racially
will double
to $100,000,000
making
divided
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with law enforceequitywe
investments
in hi growth
techment,
will unfortunately
be hearing
nologyincidents
companies
leverage
the
about
like “that
this one
for years
states
industrial and cluster strengths.”
to
come.
The budget was delivered on time
Nancy
is ain freelance
writer
in
for the King
5th year
a row. For
further
Westchester
County,
NY
information visit:
www.governor.ny.gov/news
Community Marks 3 Years Since the Murder of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr.
third anniversary of the shooting death
of Kenneth Chamberlain Sr. The 68
year old former marine was shot to
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the early morning hours of November
Pension Forfeiture
19, 2011 after his medical alert bracelet
“Public officials who are convicted
went off, in error. Chamberlain, that
of public corruption should not have
morning, shouted through his door
taxpayers pay for their retirement. The
that he needed no help and that all
budget applies New York’s pension forhe
wanted
was
be left
alone.who
What
feiture
law to
all to
public
officials
are
should
have
been
a
routine
wellness
convicted of public corruption, includcheck
erupted
into a small
army of
ing those
who entered
the retirement
officers
shouting
racial
slurs
at the
system before enactment of the pension
elderly
man.
As
the
situation
escalated,
forfeiture law in 2011. The law allows
the
elderly
man became
morespouse
and
a judge
to protect
an innocent
more
agitateddependent
and as we all
know now,
and minor
children
and
Chamberlain
was
eventually
and
goes into effect
after
a secondshot
passage
killed
by those police
officers after,
of a constitutional
amendment
bythey
the
alleged,
he
lunged
at
them
with
a
knife.
legislature and voter approval in 2017.”
ShortlyState
after thewill
killing,contribute
District
• The
Attorney
Janet
DeFiore
impaneled
$250,000,000 towards the construc-a
Grand
to investigate
the stations
killing
tion Jury
of 4 new
MetroNorth
andinofthe
course,
theCo-op
GrandCity,
Jury Morris
found
Bronx:
the Park,
deathParkchester
of Mr. Chamberlain
be a
and HuntstoPoint,
justifiable
homicide
citing
the
reason
extending access to more than
that93,000
the police
had to fatally shoot
area residents.
him
was
because
• $150 milliontheyis themselves
dedicatedwere
to
in perceived
danger.
The
onlyDisaster
police
Counter-Terrorism Efforts,
officer
who was
Prevention
andterminated
Response. after the
incident was Police Officer Stephen
• $150 million is dedicated for transforHart. Hart was the officer who shouted
mative economic development and
out infrastructure
the racial slur.
projects on Long Island
In the 3 years since Mr.
• $150 million is allocated for municiChamberlain’s death, his son, Kenneth
pal restructuring to help the 10,500
Chamberlain Jr. has crusaded tirelessly
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THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, APRIL 9, 2015
Page 7
non-reporting of these bugs to the
software companies creates – “The
government’s use of zero-day vulnerabilities is controversial, not least
because when it withholds information about software vulnerabilities
to exploit them in targeted systems, it
leaves every other system that uses the
same software also vulnerable to being
hacked, including U.S. government
computers and critical infrastructure
systems.”
While stating that there had
been a policy established in 2008
to review the bugs as found and
determine which ones might be
revealed for correction, the article
casts doubt that there was much real
follow-through on the policy. EFF’s
Andrew Crocker is quoted as commenting on his agency’s review of
the documents. “Based on the documents they’ve released and withheld
there’s really not a lot of paper to back
up [the government’s claims about]
this being a rigorous process with lots
of actual considerations in it. There just
isn’t support for that in what they’ve
released. It continues to raise questions
about how thorough this process is and
how much is there when the rubber
meets the road.”
The Fire Code episode of the
CSI Cyber show provides a rather
scary indication of what a zero day
bug could do. Black hat hackers
found a bug in the “firmware”
(software on a chip) contained in a
recently released computer printer.
The bug left the chip prone to over
heating and burning under certain
conditions – if there was paper in
the printer, a large fire could be
started rapidly. In the episode, one
person was killed in a resultant fire
and the black hat (hacker name
– JU5TU5 ( Justice)) was in the
process of blackmailing the government before he was caught.
Far-fetched? Not totally –
what the episodes do show is that
there must be stringent controls
over software development with
even penalties for the release of
“buggy software” into the marketplace – there would be cries that
such policies would inhibit software
development but there must be
some protection for the general
public. With little protection, it gets
much worse when the Internet of
Things really kicks in – then we’d
really need CSI: Cyber.
CREATIVE DISRUPTION
It’s Not All Made-for-Television Fiction
By John F. McMullen
If you are all concerned about the
“Internet of Things”
(“IoT”) that pops up
more and more in the
media – and I think that you should
be – you should be watching CBS’
relatively new FBI crime drama
“CSI: Cyber” starring Academy
Award winner Patricia Arquette
(2014 Best Supporting Actress for
“Boyhood”).
A little background -- Last
February, over a year ago, CBS
announced plans for a spin-off from
its long running “CSI” (“Crime
Scene Investigation”) series to focus
on Cyber Crime and, on April 30,
2014, the pilot for the new series
ran as Episode 14 of the main
series. The actual series began airing
March 4, 2015 and its Season 1will
run through May 6th of this year.
To the uninitiated, the first
three episodes in the series may
seem rather far-fetched; to those
who follow technology closely,
they ring all too true. The episodes,
respectively, deal with “hacker”
intrusions into home baby monitors,
the controls of an amusement park
roller coaster, and to computer
printers (I put “hackers” in quotation
marks because this term, originally used
to mean those who push the envelope in
computer development has evolved to
be used for “computer criminal” and
its use in this manner causes offense
to many pioneers in technology development such as Steve Wozniak and
Linus Torvalds. The terms that have
come into vogue to separate the good
guys from the bad guys are now “white
hat hackers” and “black hat hackers”).
A review of the devices “hacked”
into by the perpetrators focuses
attention on various items that are
controlled by computer and are
thus vulnerable to attack – and the
only one of the three that we associate directly with computers is
set afire remotely through Wi-Fi
connections. In the IoT world,
the large majority of household
devices – televisions, coffee makers,
blenders, security systems, garage
doors, electric stoves, blenders,
baby monitors, lights, heating & air
conditioning systems, microwaves,
and computer networks – are all
controlled by computer chips and
networked through WiFi systems
connected to the Internet, making a
whole household a prime target for
computer criminals and terrorists.
The first concern is obviously
security. Non-professional Internet
users tend to have low tolerance for
secure passwords – lengthy passwords (8 characters or greater) that
contain upper-case and lower-case
letters, numbers, and “special characters” ($, *, #, etc.) that are changed
periodically. To be fair, it’s not only
non-professionals; the rules for
maintenance of secure passwords
are annoying to everyone (I have the
rules just mentioned for my account at
Purchase College and it is a “real pain” to
have to change the password regularly).
There are sophisticated “password
cracking programs” available to
anyone on the “Dark Web” (the very
secure hard to reach “seedy back alley of
the Internet” -- http://www.pcmag.
com/article2/0,2817,2476003,00.
asp) so these annoying password
requirements are actually our first
line of defense against intruders.
The fourth episode of the series,
“Fire Code,” which aired on March
25th, dealt with both WiFi vulnerability and the even more insidious
exploitation of a “Zero Day” bug.
While I had known for a good while
that a Zero Day bug was a software
error undetected at the time of the
product’s release to the public, I
hadn’t been aware of the extent of
the possible risk to the public until
I was preparing to interview the
founder of the Justice Department
Computer Crime Unit, Mark Rasch
on the November 3, 2013 episode
of the “Weekly johnmac Radio
Show” (http://www.blogtalkradio.
com/rapidtalk/2013/11/03/thejohnmac-show). When I went to
see a recent television interview
that Mark and ACLU representative Christopher Soghoian had
with Washington Post reporter
Nia-Malika Henderson on the
subject of alleged FBI intrusion
into the computers of subjects of
investigations (“The FBI In Your
Computer”-http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/video/
onbackground/inside-the-fbishacking-program/2013/08/09/310d06e4-012311e3-9a3e-916de805f65d_video.
html), I found that the FBI had
engaged a number of free-lance
hackers to scour recent releases
of Microsoft, Apple, and Linux
Operating Systems and web
browsers searching for unknown
bugs.
Once such zero days were
found, the hackers turned them
over to the FBI which, rather
than reporting them to the firms
for correction, used the bugs to
provide entry into the computers of suspected criminals and
terrorists. The problem with this
procedure is that, by not notifying the Microsofts, et al, the
FBI was leaving all users of the
particular software unprotected
to invasion by identity thieves,
Chinese hackers, or any other
miscreants who might stumble
onto the Zero Day.
A recent article in Wired
Magazine, “US Used Zero-Day
Exploits Before It Had Policies
for Them”
(http://www.wired.
com/2015/03/us-used-zero-dayexploits-policies/), reveals that the
use of Zero Days was an on-going
government enterprise long before
my exposure to the magnitude of it.
According to the article and based
on a document obtained by the
Electronic Frontier Foundation
(“EFF”) (after the civil liberties
group sued the Office of the Director
of National Intelligence for the information), “AROUND THE SAME
time the US and Israel were already
developing and unleashing Stuxnet on
computers in Iran, using five zero-day
exploits to get the digital weapon
onto machines there, the government
realized it needed a policy for how it
should handle zero-day vulnerabilities.” The government then formed
a task force to come up with guidelines in 2008 – five years before the
mention of Zero Day bugs in the
Washington Post interview.
The article reinforces the
point made above about the risk
to the general public that the
Creative Disruption
Creative Disruption is a continuing series
examining the impact of constantly accelerating technology on the world around us.
These changers normally happen under our
personal radar until we find that the world
as we knew it is no more.
Comments on this column to johnmac13@
gmail.com
John F. McMullen is a writer, poet, college
professor and radio host. Links to other
writings, Podcasts, & Radio Broadcasts at
www.johnmac13.com, and his books are
available on Amazon.
© 2015 John F. McMullen
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Page 8
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, APRIL 9, 2015
GOVERNMENT
TRAVEL
Madrid: The Crown Jewel of Spain
On Sunday mornings visit El
Rastro: Madrid’s huge flea market.
Who knows, maybe you’ll find an old
unsigned early El Greco! For a memorable Madrid lunch, stop by a local
market to pick up some Serrano ham
(Jambon), baugettes, manchego cheese
and bottle of wine for a romantic picnic
at “Parque del la Retiro” (Magnificent
park overlooking the lake.
Plan to take a one-day tour of the
historic city of Toledo: home to La
Mancha castle and the statue of Don
Quixote. On another day, visit Segovia,
the town where time stands still and
the 2,000 year-old Roman Aqueduct is
By Richard Levy
I was twenty-two
years old the first time I
visited Madrid and just
out of college. The only
thing I knew about the
city was what I read in The Sun Also
Rises, Death in the Afternoon and
By-Line Ernest Hemingway. He had
painted such an adventurous, vivid and
passionate picture for me, I felt as if I
had already been there.
Cibeles
Eager to trace Hemingway’s footsteps, I somehow managed to stay at
the luxurious Palace Hotel, now the
Westin Palace, even though I couldn’t
afford it. The first time Hemingway
stayed there, he was a free-lance reporter
covering the Spanish Civil War for
the American Newspaper Alliance,
and he couldn’t afford it either. One
night General Franco’s bombs badly
damaged the Palace and the guests fled,
so Hemingway, who had always wanted
to stay there, seized the moment and
checked in. The management gratefully
gave him one of their best rooms for a
handful of pesos.
For most of the Civil War,
Hemingway lived where most of the
expats stayed: at the Hotel Florida,
demolished in 1964.
Case de Cisneros
Madrid seemed alive with boundless energy as I wondered around on
my first day there. Eventually I made
my way over to one of Hemingway’s
favorite cafes: Cervecería Alemana,
located at end of the Plaza Santa Ana.
A cross between a German beer hall
and a Spanish tapas bar, it is still as
loud and boisterous as it was when he
hung out there and they have kept his
favorite table near the window empty,
as a tribute to him. Of course, I ordered
what he would: a plate of grilled sardines
along with the house beer: “the best beer
in Madrid,” according to Hemmingway.
La Venencia, an old sherry bar also
near Plaza Santa Ana was another of
Hemingway’s haunts. It’s hard to find,
so look for a pair of old wooden shutter-like doors that mark the entrance.
Republican soldiers used to hang out
Gran Vía Night
Fountain Madrid Glorieta Carlos V
Don Quijote Statue in El Toboso
Olive Trees
Museo del Prado, Madrid
spent most of his evenings stopping at for yourself. Though many people love
his favorite tapas bars, drinking lots of the bullfights, just as Hemingway did,
wine and schmoozing. At most tapas the numbers of those who wish to ban
bars, you’ll get free tapas each time you Bull Fighting and the slaughter of these
proud animals is on the rise. If you go,
order another glass of wine.
Casa Botin, featured in The Sun buy aisle seats so you can make a hasty
Also Rises, was Hemingway’s favorite exit, if needed.
restaurant and his favorite meal was the
suckling pig washed down with Rioja
Alta wine. The restaurant has recently
been renamed and is now called El
Sobrino de Botin. (Make reservations
before you leave NY.)
here during the Spanish Civil War
and Hemingway, a war correspondent,
would sit at the bar hoping for news
from the front. La Venecia serves only
sherry: five delicious varieties poured
from old barrels, perfectly complemented by an inexpensive tapas menu.
Afterwards I went back to my hotel,
took a siesta, awoke at 9PM and headed
over to the Plaza Mayor. Hemingway
A few days later, I was sitting in
the Plaza de Torres, Madrid’s legendary bullfighting ring. As the fanfare and
parade of Matadors began, trumpets
blared, crowds cheered and it got very
quiet when the majestic bull trotted
into the ring snorting and kicking. The
Matador stood very erect in the middle
of the ring awaiting his bull and the
elaborate “fight” commenced. By the
end I was totally disillusioned and unexpectedly sick to my stomach. This was
not the beautiful “art form” Hemingway
had raved about in his books, but a wellorchestrated slaughter of the bull: a true
blood sport. I quickly exited the arena
and headed for the nearest bar. Don’t
allow my feelings to sway you; decide
Museio Reina Sophia
Most local folks, or Madrileños as
they’re called, don’t go to dinner until
10PM and often don’t get home until
dawn. So how do they stay up so late and
then get up for work the next day? Their
secret is the siesta: the beloved two-hour
nap they’ve taken every afternoon for
centuries. Most shops also close for a few
hours to take their siesta, leaving visiting
tourists with little else to do. So if you’d
like to enjoy Madrid’s nightlife like a local,
everyday at two o’clock, head back to your
hotel for a two-hour nap. (And you don’t
have to sleep; after all you’re on vacation!)
side by side with modern buildings. The
Alcázar commands the high ground
on a promontory above two rivers.
Originally the site of a Roman fort, the
Alcazar is currently a museum, and also
houses military archives.
A visit to Madrid is not complete
without spending a day at the Museum.
Three museums are clustered along
Paseo del Prado, east of the old city: the
Museo del Prado, considered one of the
finest art museums in the world; the
Thyssen-Bornemisza, a baron’s collection of classical art; and the Reina Sofia,
Madrid’s modern art museum.
You will love the Prado Museum
even if you’re not an art lover.
Hemingway, who hated Museums,
loved the Prado because he admired the
Spanish masters. A neo-classical work
of art, the Prado houses masterpieces
by Goya, Valasquez, El Greco and my
favorite artist, Hieronymus Bosch, I love
“The Garden of Delights,” painted in
Continued on page 9
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, APRIL 9, 2015
Page 9
Palace Hotel, Madrid
Some of my other favorite cafes are: Spanish pop and is decorated like a
Cafe Circulo de Bellas Artes, a soaring lavish 16th century palace with a marble
hall on the ground floor of Madrid´s staircase, and two dance floors.
art center with lots of atmosphere and
Where to stay in Madrid? The
food at reasonable prices. This is a great classic five-star Ritz Hotel is the “grand
place for lunch as it is close to the best old lady of Madrid” and an exquisite
shopping and museums.
example of Spanish architecture, close to
One of my favorite bars is Areia, the Prado and “Parque del buen Retiro.”
Or stay at AC Hotel Palacio de Retiro.
The Hotel NH Palacio de Tepa is only a
five-minute walk from the Plaza Mayor.
Now for a little bit of Madrid’s
history: In 1561 King Philip II made
Madrid the capital city of his vast
empire. The historic center was the
spectacular Plaza Mayor square –inaugurated in 1620 and one of the most
Taberna Los gatos - Tapas Madrid
popular sites in Spain– a living example
of the splendor of the city during the
decorated in an artsy Moroccan style. 16th and 17th centuries. Near the Plaza
Dark, but very inviting, the floor is Mayor is the Royal Palace, “the jewel
covered in sand giving it a beach-like in the crown.” An imposing building
vibe. There are big cushions on the floor, dating from the 17th century, the palace
and if you’re lucky, a four-poster bed to features a mixture of Baroque and clashang out on. Drop by La Corolla bar sicist styles. Just east of the Palace Real
where their specialty is tostas: small is Plaza de Oriente square: semi-cirpieces of toast served with a variety of cular landscaped gardens where one of
delicious toppings. (You won’t be able the walkways is lined by 44 statues of
to stop.) Then there’s Museo Chicote, medieval Spanish kings.
an old Hemingway haunt; famous for
Madrid’s historic Plaza de España
having served their unusual drinks to is nearby and you will find there a
many celebrities over the years, includ- towering monument to Miguel de
ing: Ava Gardner, Frank Sinatra, Lana Cervantes Saavedra overlooking bronze
Turner and Orson Wells. I also loved sculptures of Don Quixote and Pancho.
Café Central, with its art deco decor, Nearby are the Teatro Real opera
mirrored pillars and marble-topped house and the modern cathedral of La
tables. Café Central features blues and Almudena consecrated by Pope John
jazz on weekdays and Flamenco during Paul II, in 1993.
the weekend.
The national New Year’s Eve celIf you’d like to go dancing, head for ebration is broadcast from the Puerta
Palacio Gaviria.This stunning club plays del Sol, a bustling center of shops and
Segovia Aqueduct
businesses where Spain’s network of
roads come together. You will find
here, the statue of the Bear and the
Strawberry Tree, heraldic symbols of
Madrid, representing the resilience and
industry of the residents.
The best way too get around
Madrid is on their very easy to navigate
and affordable Metro: a 10 ride ticket
is 7 Euros. (Or splurge and take a taxi.)
Bring home some Serrano smoked ham
and prints from museum gift shops, castanets, to practice Flamenco and a small
statue of Don Qixote. Attention Chefs:
saffron is 50% less here!
How to get to Madrid? Iberia, the
airline of Spain offers the most flights.
(Check Google.com/travel for best fares
for dates you’re considering.) Don’t go
to Madrid in August: it’s stifling hot
and many restaurants are closed. The
best months are May, June, September
and October. And before you go, read
Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, or
take it with you, after all, you’re going to
Madrid, his beloved city. Buen viaje!!!
We are grateful to the Tourist
Office of Spain for the photos (©
Tourist Office of Spain) used to illustrate this story; 666 5th Ave., #3502 NY,
NY 10103. T. 212.265.8822. For further
information on traveling to Spain, visit: spain.info/en, SpanishTourism.com or
WecomeToSpain.com and pick up one
of the Spain guide books to take with
you.
GOVERNMENT
TRAVEL
Madrid: The Crown Jewel of Spain
Continued from page 8
1649: a bizarre depiction of mankind’s
sins, virtues and demonic punishments.
This painting will astound you.
After your Prado experience, go to
the Reina Sofia Museum and spend
as much time as possible admiring
Picasso’s Guernica, the famous anti-war
painting: a black and white abstraction
of the horrors of the Spanish Civil war
in which 420,000 Spaniards are estimated to have died. * Most museums
are closed on Mondays and many stores
are closed on Sundays.
One of my favorite Madrid neighborhoods for strolling, is the Gran Vía,
see non-touristy Flamenco, or the Casa
Patas, where they will guarantee you
great seats near the stage if you have
dinner at there. Flamenco is considered
a cultural art form, in Madrid, not just a
floorshow.
Madrid’s
traditional
cuisine
includes: Gallinejas – Pieces of lamb fried
in its fat; Callos a la Madrileña - A hot
pot of spicy beef tripe; Cocido Madrileño
- chickpea stew with meat; Oreja de
Cerdo - pigs ears fried in garlic and Sopa
de Ajo -garlic soup. My favorite restaurants are, Tasca la Farmacia: a Basque
restaurant with “pintxos” (Basque tapas.)
The house specialty is Cod, prepared
Toledo
Retiro, Madrid
Literally “Great Way”, referred to as
“Broadway;” one of the busiest avenues
in Madrid, running from Plaza de
España to Plaza de Cibeles. You’ll stroll
though the cinema district, shopping
malls, historic Plaza de Cibeles and
the massive intersection of Calle de
Alcala and Paseo del Prado where you’ll
be awed by the beautiful Fountain of
Cibeles, portraying the Roman goddess
of fertility sitting upon a chariot pulled
by two lions. Keep walking and you’ll
come to one of the world’s most beautiful city halls, the Palacio de Cibeles, an
impressive structure with a spectacular
classic facade.
If you’ve never seen Flamenco, visit
Las Tablas one night: the best place to
as croquettes, incorporated into stews
or fried. Go to Zalacaín, winner of a
Michelin star, for fine Spanish cuisine,
where their classic dish is mushroom
and foie gras lasagna. Also consider La
Terraza del Casino, with two Michelin
stars, one of Madrid’s most innovative
restaurants; order their tasting menu of
20 small dishes. (Expensive, but the best
meal you’ll eat in Madrid.)
The most popular tapas bar in
Madrid and my favorite is El Tigre.
This is a lively place, and with every glass
of wine or beer you order, you will also
be served get free plates of tapas. (One
night stuff yourself with tapas and forget
about dinner.)
Royal Palace, Madrid
* The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and
Extermination in Twentieth-Century
Spain. By Paul Preston. HarperPress;
American publication by W.W. Norton
Page 10
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, APRIL 9, 2015
CALENDAR
News and Notes from Northern Westchester
By Mark Jeffers
April is a big
birthday month for the
Jeffers family and friends,
my darling wife, daughter,
sister, aunt, best friend
and many good friends all celebrate. Guess what, I forgot how expensive greeting cards are, after writing
hundreds of them and gift shopping; I
just had enough time left to write this
week’s “Broke on Birthdays” edition of
“News and Notes.”
They say that laughter is the best
medicine, then you won’t want to miss
the 2015 Westchester Comedy Festival
featuring area comedians competing at
various locations throughout the county
on April 18, 22, 23 and 26, call 914-3389373 for details.
Our friend Kaz will love this
event…local Lincoln Historian, John
Muranelli; will give an informative
presentation on the Assassination of
President Abraham Lincoln commemorating 150th anniversary of his death
at the Ossining Library on April 16th at
7:00pm.
Congratulations
to
New
Rochelle resident Ron Tocci, a former
Democratic Assemblyman, who has
been named Westchester’s new Director
of the Veterans Service Agency, taking
over for Vito Pinto.
Fore! The municipal golf courses
owned by Westchester County are now
open (bring your boots) for the season,
weather and conditions permitting.
The courses include Mohansic
in Yorktown Heights; Maple Moor
in White Plains; Saxon Woods in
Scarsdale; Hudson Hills in Ossining;
and Dunwoodie and Sprain Lake, both
in Yonkers.
In what is being called one of the
largest-ever such donations to the New
York park system, philanthropist David
Rockefeller has donated $4 million
to create an operating endowment to
support the Rockefeller State Park
Preserve, Governor Andrew Cuomo
announced recently. The park, located
in Pleasantville, was created in 1983
and is more than 1,400 acres in size.
In addition to the endowment funds,
Rockefeller also intends to donate
another 500 acres to the preserve in the
Volunteer Work Corps Day at
Edith G. Read Wildlife Sanctuary
Saturday, April 11th: 11AM-3PM
Assist with
invasive
plant
removal,
trail
work,
beach
cleanup, and more
at Read Wildlife
S a n c t u a r y,
Playland
Park,
Rye. Wear long
pants and shirts/
sweaters
with
long sleeves; bring
gloves.
Tools
will be provided. The Edith G. Read
Sanctuary consists of 179 acres on Long
Island
Sound
along a migratory pathway and
home to diverse
marine life. The
Sanctuary
is
recognized
by
the
National
Audubon Society
as an Important
Bird Area due
to its significant
habitats
and
flyway. * (*WestchesterCounty.gov)
future.
Congratulations to our friends
Mitch and Lynn Samberg the new
owners of Bedford 234 farm-to-table
restaurant located in Bedford Village,
take it from me it’s a great place with
wonderful food, drink and friends…
In Sleepy Hollow, it’s time once
again for the Historic Hudson Valley’s
annual Philipsburg Manor’s “Sheep-toShawl” festival being held on April 18
and 19. Some of the activities include
dyeing wool, weaving cloth, and sheep
shearing. Master storyteller Jonathan
Kruk will also be on hand to spin a few
yarns of his own…
Pulitzer Prize poet Jorie Graham
will read from her 2015 collection
“From the New World: Poems 19762014” on Sunday, April 19th at the
Katonah Library at 4pm.
Hilltop Hanover Farm in Yorktown
Heights will host an eco-gardening
workshop on May 23rd at 10am.
This item falls under the category
of new and different (and free). On
Sunday, April 12th at 11:45am head
down to Aikido of Westchester at 100
Mamaroneck Avenue in White Plains
Daughter’s of Liberty’s Legacy Presentation
Sunday, April 12 2-4pm, Northcastle Public Library
The North Castle Historical
Society’s annual meeting, which
is open to the public will take
place on April 12 from 2 p.m.
to 4 p.m. at the Armonk Public
Library. The society will present
a living history program entitled
“Daughters of Liberty’s Legacy.”
Cynthia Abbott Kauffman will
portray Ann Fisher Miller, born in
1728, wife of Elijah Miller who made
their home at 140 Virginia Road
in White Plains. Mrs. Miller was a
hostess to General Washington and to
to other colonial Generals. She played
a great role in the birth of Methodism
in this area and her family sacrificed much in the cause of Freedom.
Admission is FREE.
WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN LEGAL ADVERTISING
[email protected]
and join them for a one hour introductory workshop focusing on entry level
overview of Japanese swordsmanship,
along with a fun practice session of
gekken. What is gekken…it is Japanese
sword sparring with padded swords. The goal of gekken practice is to replicate the feel of a sword fight in a safe
and fun way. You don’t need any martial
arts experience to attend, just show up
wearing loose comfortable clothing
such as t-shirt and sweat pants. Bring
your family and friends to try a session
of gekken...who doesn’t like a little
friendly sword fighting!
Over in Katonah, The Friends of
John Jay Homestead will present “In the
House,” on May 2nd an evening highlighting the historic house and plans for
restoration and preservation.
“It’s all about the cheese,” isn’t that a
song…no, it’s a class being held at Plum
Plums Cheese in Pound Ridge on April
19th, the class real title is “The Plum
Plums Cheese Primer.”
As we started the column on a
birthday note, we would like to end with
special birthday well wishes to our dear
friend Charlie, as he turns 97, Happy
Birthday to a great man…see you next
week.
LE G A L N O T I C E S
NOTICE is hereby given that a license, Serial # Pending
for beer & wine & liquor has been applied for by the
undersigned to sell beer & wine & liquor at retail in restaurant known as KLO LLC DBA: Made In Asia. Under
the Alcoholic Beverage Control Law at 111 Bedford Road
Store #3, Armonk NY 10504 for on-premise consumption.
PALMIERI ARMONK, LLC Articles of Org. filed NY Sec. of
State (SSNY) 11/26/14. Office in Westchester Co. SSNY
design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served.
SSNY shall mail copy of process to C/O Anthony Palmieri
820 S Fulton Ave Mt Vernon, NY 10550. Purpose: Any
lawful activity.
SIMON PRODUCTIONS, LLC Articles of Org. filed NY Sec.
of State (SSNY) 1/6/15. Office in Westchester Co. SSNY
design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may be served.
SSNY shall mail copy of process to The LLC 200 West End
Ave Apt 19B New York, NY 10023. Purpose: Any lawful
activity.
STARLIFTER 6TH PROPERTIES LLC Articles of Org. filed
NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 11/24/14. Office in Westchester
Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may
be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to The LLC 14
Burling Ave White Plains, NY 10605. Purpose: Any lawful
activity.
149 LOCKWOOD AVENUE, LLC Articles of Org. filed NY
Sec. of State (SSNY) 2/5/15. Office in Westchester Co.
SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom process may
be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process to C/O John
Flannery 19 Gray Rock Lane Chappaqua, NY 10514.
Purpose: Any lawful activity.
30ne- Thirty, LLC. Notice of Formation of 30ne- Thirty, LLC.
Arts of Org. filed with SSNY on 11/14/2014. Office location:
Westchester County. SSNY designated as agent of LLC
upon whom process against it may be served. SSNY shall
mail process to: P.O. Box 1318. 15 South 1st Ave. Mount
Vernon, NY 10550. Purpose: any lawful act or activity.
Notice of formation of DNR EVENTS, LLC. Articles of organization filed with the Secretary of State of N.Y. (SSNY) on
3/2/2015. Office location: Westchester County. SSNY has
been designated as agent of the LLC upon whom process
against it may be served. SSNY shall mail process to the
LLC, 1457 Elm Street, Peekskill, NY 10566. Purpose: Any
lawful activity.
Notice of formation of Limited Liability Company (LLC).
Name: STAY PRAYED UP, LLC (stayprayerful.org).
Articles of Organization were filed with the Secretary of
State of New York (SSNY) on 02/02/15. Office location:
Westchester County. SSNY has been designated as
agent of the LLC upon whom process against it may be
served. SSNY shall mail a copy of process to: C/O STAY
PRAYED UP, LLC, 77 Locust Hill Ave. Apt. 329, Yonkers NY
10701. Purpose: Any Lawful Purpose.
HOME AGAIN CONSIGNMENTS L.L.C. Articles of
Org. filed NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 2/18/15. Office in
Westchester Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom
process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process
to The LLC 3 Lyman Pl Dobbs Ferry, NY 10522. Purpose:
Any lawful activity.
Washington’s Headquarters Museum:
The Elijah Miller House located at 140
Virginia Road, White Plains, NY 10603.
Photo courtesy of the National Register of
Historic Places.
The North Castle Public Library
is located at 19 Whippoorwill Road
East, Armonk: http://www.northcastlelibrary.org
SHOP THE NEST LLC Authority filed with Secy. of State
of NY (SSNY) on 8/15/14. Office location: Westchester Co.
LLC formed in Delaware (DE) on 4/7/14 SSNY designated
as agent of LLC upon whom process against it may be
served. SSNY shall mail process to The LLC 20 Purchase
ST Rye, NY 10580. DE address of LLC: 3411 Silverside RD
#104 Wilmington, DE 19810. Arts. Of Org. filed with DE
Secy. of State, PO Box 898 Dover, DE 19903. Purpose: any
lawful activity.
THE MACHINE MARKETING GROUP, LLC Articles of Org.
field NY Sec. of State (SSNY). Office in Westchester Co.
SSNY design 12/15/2014. Agency of LLC upon whom
process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process
to 208 Wagner Avenue, Mamaroneck, NY 10543. Purpose:
any lawful activity.
THE SIERRA GROUP HOME INSPECTIONS, LLC Articles
of Org. filed NY Sec. of State (SSNY) 2/24/15. Office in
Westchester Co. SSNY design. Agent of LLC upon whom
process may be served. SSNY shall mail copy of process
to Registered Agent: Incorp Services, Inc 99 Washington
Ave Ste. 805-A Albany, NY 12210. Purpose: Any lawful
activity.
PUBLICATION EVERY THURSDAY: 914.216.1674 M-F 11A- 5P
SUBMIT ADS TUESDAY, 10 DAYS PRIOR TO RUN DATE
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, APRIL 9, 2015
Page 11
Arts/EntertainmentSection
EYE ON THEATRE
A Glimpse of Heaven
By John Simon
“Skylight” (London
1995, Broadway 1996),
by David Hare, is a great
play, and I love it. So, I
trust, will you. If you’re
in a great hurry, you could stop reading
right here, but I hope you will go on.
Much of the best Anglophone
drama today comes from England
and Ireland. Think Ayckbourn and
Stoppard, Friel and Simon Gray, Peter
Barnes and the rediscovered Terence
Rattigan; and David Hare. What he
has accomplished on stage, screen and
television is remarkable. From this play
it emerges that the loving and lacerating conflict between a man and woman
in a tight space is the essence of drama:
drama at its most pared down and also
most demanding.
Carrie Mulligan in a scene from
Skylight. Photo: John Haynes
We get here wealthy fiftyish restaurateur Tom Sergeant, in one of whose
establishments eighteen-year-old Kyra
Hollis, a runaway from a dreary suburb
and a bad father, works as a waitress. She
catches Tom’s eye—and possibly also a
lower organ—and he takes her home to
his wife, Alice, and his two children. She
becomes, as it were, a third child, as well
as Tom’s clandestine mistress.
When, after six years and through
a mistake of Tom’s, Alice finds out,
Kyra, feeling guilty, escapes. Unforgiving
Alice develops cancer. Tom buys a finer
house, provides his bedridden wife with
all comforts, including a skylight with
view of birds and heavens. It is now
three years later, and both Alice and
Kyra’s father have died. Kyra lives in a
shabby suburb in a skimpy apartment,
and teaches school in a similar suburb
way across town. On long bus rides back
and forth, she overhears people revealing their difficult lives, while she herself
is essentially content.
Now Tom’s son Edward, eighteen
and adrift, seeks out Kyra, apparently to
elicit her reconciliation with his “bastard
father.” Later Tom himself drops in, and
the play becomes a long and fascinating agon between him and Kyra. Even
though she feeds him and eventually
even goes to bed with him, he leaves
with things unresolved. When, in the
same morning, Edward returns, he
brings the one thing Kyra said she had
been missing: full breakfast. What does
this suggest?
Hare captures flawlessly the way
people talk or fall silent, hesitate or leap
forward.
When she wonders whether
Edward came with a specific purpose,
he replies, “No, I mean yes, well, partly.”
She says of her cold digs, “Here, we
have even indoor fog. It seems more
like Russia than England.” Edward
sells frankfurters outside football games.
Working with him is “The only girl
who’ll sleep with me. Because at least
we smell the same.” Kyra tells Tom,
“You always were excessively manly.” To
which he: “Yes, sort of.”
Again Kyra: “Don’t you think I’ve
preference for emotional threesomes,
Tom opposes “The two of you. That’s
where there’s risk. Not the risk of discovery. But the risk of two people setting
off on their own.”
In the original production, in
London and then New York in 96,
Michael Gambon and Lea Williams
performed splendidly, But now Bill
Nighy and Carey Mulligan are every
bit as persuasive, as is the Edward of
Bill Nighy in a scene from Skylight. Photo: John Haynes
got enough memories? Why should I
want any more?” And he: “It was how
I was always told you could get women
into bed. By doing something called
‘listening to their problems.’ It’s a contemptible tactic . . . Listening is half way
to begging.” Or take Tom’s outburst:
“For Christ’s sake, Kyra, you teach.
Language belongs to the past.” Kyra on
her bus rides: “You open your eyes. You
see the country as it really is.” Hare is a
political playwright too, observing: “This
is the modern game.This is men’s tennis.
People don’t bother with rallies. You put
in your big serve and you hope to hell it
Carrie Mulligan and Bill Nighy in a scene from Skylight. Photo: John Haynes
never comes back.”
What is admirable is the fervor and
authenticity with which both Tom and
Kyra put forward their views, but the
playwright remains passionately neutral:
deeply involved yet without taking sides.
It is in this spirit that the play ends with
a question mark, the ultimate answer left
up to the spectator.
The writing has that amazing
duality: with one foot in the ordinary,
the other transcending into poetry. Thus
Tom is “licking his pain.” Thus Kyra
marvels at “what extraordinary courage,
what perseverance most people need
just to get on with their lives.” Hare
even writes eloquent stage directions,
concisely fixing the characters’ movements (the furniture becomes a kind of
horizontal jungle gym) and unvoiced
thoughts and feelings.
Stephen Daldry, the good director,
observes most of these, but not slavishly.
Bob Crowley’s set has a way of opening
up to show what lies beyond in the
modest depths of Kyra’s apartment, and,
across the street, the all too close other
buildings with random lights turning on
and off. And later snow. There is space,
but there is also constriction. To Kyra’s
Matthew Beard in a scene from
Skylight. Photo: John Haynes
Matthew Beard—all Brits.
The whole play and production
stink—not of frankfurters—but of
humanity. It is a good smell.
John Simon has written for over 50 years on
theatre, film, literature, music and fine arts
for the Hudson Review, New Leader, New
Criterion, National Review, New York
Magazine, Opera News, Weekly Standard,
Broadway.com and Bloomberg News.
He reviews books for the New York Times
Book Review and for The Washington Post.
To learn more, visit his website: www.
JohnSimon-uncensored.com
Page 12
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, APRIL 9, 2015
GOVERNMENT
Remembering Jimmy Cannon
By Robert Scott
The late Jimmy
Cannon, one of the greats
of sportswriting, was
self-taught. His colorful,
almost poetic writing is a reminder that
some of the best reportage in American
newspapers can be found in their sports
pages.
Born in Greenwich Village on
April 10, 1909, the son of a Tammany
politician, Jimmy was a dropout from
Regis High School, a rigorous, tuitionfree, all-male Jesuit institution on
Manhattan’s Upper East Side. He got
his start in journalism at 17 as a copy boy
on the New York Daily News.
Editors soon noticed his skill with
words. He combined a blue-collar background and a white-collar vocabulary to
produce hard-hitting writing tinctured
with the beery sentimentality the Irish
are famous for. His beat as a sportswriter
included not only baseball stadiums and
boxing rings but Broadway.
In an era when sportswriters wrote
about what they saw from the press box,
he revolutionized sports coverage by
going into the locker room to learn the
participants’ view of what happened.
Of all sports, Jimmy liked boxing
most, although he admitted the fight
game was “the red light district of
sports.” It was sordid and barbaric, yet he
was fascinated by its bizarre mixture of
people and the few noble acts or actors
like Sugar Ray Robinson, Joe Louis and
Ezzard Charles.
In 1959, when he joined the Hearst
papers and his column appeared in the
New York Journal-American, his salary
was $1,000 a week, making him the
highest-paid sportswriter in America at
a time when a buck was a buck.
A lifelong bachelor, Jimmy Cannon
was married to his column. Early in
his writing career, he lived in the Hotel
Edison on West 46th Street and ate at
the Stork Club and Toots Shor’s. Later
he moved to an apartment on East
56th Street near Sutton Place, and frequented P. J. Clarke’s on Third Avenue
at 55th Street. Occasionally, I would see
him there at late hours.
My favorite pub was the lesscrowded and scruffier Jimmy Glennon’s
across Third Avenue, where the publican
behind the bar, Irish to the hilt, wore a
vest. Over the cash register, a framed
photo of a regal Queen Elisabeth
sported a black eye.
Drafted early in the Second World
War, Jimmy served in the Army for five
years, three of them as a combat correspondent for the military newspaper
Stars and Stripes. “That was a long time
ago,”was how he would often sum up an
incident recounted from the past.
Jimmy Cannon had a sharp eye
and a keen ear and could say a lot in
only a few words. But he was more
than a mere workaday sportswriter. His
style was influenced by his two writing
idols, Damon Runyon and Ernest
Hemingway. Here’s Jimmy writing
about growing up in his bleak Lower
West Side neighborhood in a piece that
resonates with echoes of Hemingway:
“The big storm turned me back
into the winters of my boyhood. Cold
weather was a plague in my old neighborhood. It was a district of tenements.
The flats were heated by coal stoves in
the kitchen and parlor, which was called
the front room. The more prosperous
families had small oil stoves, which they
moved into the bedrooms as the night
progressed. We felt skiing, ice skating
and tobogganing were pastimes of
millionaires.”
Jimmy was one of the first sportswriters to speak out on behalf of black
athletes. Satchel Paige was an amazing
black pitcher. Ignored for many years
by all-white baseball, He finally made it
into major league baseball at age 42.
Here’s Jimmy on Paige meeting
reporters: “It is the small talk of a witty
man used to killing time on buses or
trains. . . . He understands how to keep
a good day going because he has been
cheated out of a lot of them.”
And on boxer Floyd Patterson:
“Patterson is an urban hermit who
seeks solitude in urban gyms, like a
monk practicing the vows of silence and
loneliness.”
I was one of Jimmy’s many
fans. Another was Frank Sinatra. So
enamored was the singer and actor of
his writing that he had Jimmy’s New
York Post columns and those of Murray
Kempton, another writer he admired,
airmailed to him regularly in California.
A projected Cannon collaboration with
Sinatra on his autobiography never
materialized.
Short and chunky as a fireplug,
Jimmy was unathletic himself. Like
most New Yorkers, he enjoyed walking
the city’s streets and studying people. “I
like my life as a columnist,” he once said.
“A columnist is always permitted to get
off his chest what is bothering him. I
have no need for a psychiatrist.”
On occasional slow sports news
days, he would put together a column of
sharp opinions, laconic observations and
pet peeves titled “Nobody Asked Me,
But . . .” Some of Jimmy’s observations
were memorably biting:
“Christmas is a holiday that
persecutes the lonely, the frayed and the
rejected.”
He found many aphorisms in his
own everyday experience. For example,
“Fishing, with me, has always been an
excuse to drink in the daytime.” Or “I
can’t remember ever staying for the end
of a movie in which the actors wore
togas.”
Jimmy had the map of Ireland for
a face. Thus his complaint, “I don’t like
Boston because all the men look like
me.”
He wrote, “I am always amazed
when I see anyone eating a cheese
sandwich without mustard.”
And how about his “People in bus
terminals look tired even before they
start the trip.” or “England produces the
best fat actors.”? Who could argue with “If I had
a choice of drinking partners, I’d pick
Winston Churchill.”?
Jimmy gave up drinking after the
war when a stomach operation revealed
severe damage. His acknowledged
bad habits of “cigarettes, gambling and
dames” continued as did hanging out in
late-night bars, but he drank no alcohol,
only coffee.
Hard living finally caught up with
him. After a severe stroke that kept him
in hospital beds and a wheelchair for
two years, Jimmy died on Dec. 5, 1973,
at the age of 64, tough and opinionated
to the end. I attended the Mass of the
Resurrection for him at St. Patrick’s and
never saw so many grown men in one
place at one time vainly trying to hold
back tears.
After the funeral, small groups stood
on the steps outside St. Pat’s to exchange
a few last words. As they watched the
coffin being slid into the hearse, Pat
Lynch, who had worked with Jimmy
as a turf writer at the Journal-American,
remarked, “Did you see the altar boy
with the red sneakers?” Then he added,
“Jimmy would have loved that.”
His grave is in Calvary Cemetery in
Woodside, Queens.
So, with a tip o’ the hat to Jimmy
Cannon, lonesome poet of the metropolitan night, gone from our midst 42
years now, a newspaper writer like no
other before or since, we pay tribute here
to his talent and announce our intention
to borrow his title “Nobody Asked Me,
But . . .” for a feature of fact and opinion
to appear occasionally in The Westchester
Guardian.
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, APRIL 9, 2015
Page 13
CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
Waterberg
By Sherif Awad
Last week, we discussed the documentary
Paths to Freedom that
retold the struggle of
Namibians as they fought
to achieve independence, finally realizing it in 1990. In the same context,
another documentary from Namibia
called Waterberg to Waterberg was shown
in 4th the Luxor African Film Festival
and it particularly focused on Samuel
Maharero (1856 – 14 March 1923)
who was the Chief of the Herero
people in German South-West Africa
(today’s Namibia) during these revolts
against German occupation. Maharero
secretly planned revolts with the other
chiefs against the German presence in
1904, however, his Herero fighters were
destroyed at the Battle of Waterberg on
August 11, 1904 and Germany claimed
central Namibia. The surviving Herero
Oral Historian Chief Kambausuka
Tjivau in Namibia
were forced to flee the country they
loved and leave behind everything they
owned. Surrounded and pursued by the
German army, the only way out was to
the east into the waterless sands of the
Kalahari Desert.
Andrew Botelle, the Namibian
based writer-director of this one-hour
documentary,decided to retrace the footsteps of Maharero and his fighters using
actors to reenact the historic moments.
Esi Schimming-Chase, a young woman
who is a descendant of Maharero,
appears in the pre-title sequence voices
the film’s poetic narration.
One powerfully reenacted scene
involved an African mother who
attempts to escape the colonialists
and abandons her child in a desolate
savannah field, due to the harrowing circumstances. The scene symbolizes what
many Herero men and women were
forced to do for their survival after abandoning their homes and spreading out
far and away to start over again.
The film also reveals how Chief
Maharero died from exhaustion and
heart failure according to his death certificate signed on 14 March 1923. His
remains were brought back to Namibia
a few days after his death.
The story behind the making of
this documentary is also interesting. In
2012, while hiking on the Waterberg
Mountains in South Africa, Botelle
met a local landowner called Richard
Wadley who, started to tell the director
about how Samuel Maharero had lived
for 20 years on a nearby farm more
than 100 years ago. The landowner
also showed Botelle some photos of
Samuel Maharero in 1906-1907 on
the Waterberg Mountains. “My first
thought was, he must have his history
all muddled up, as I knew from my own
Director Andy Botelle and an actor re-creating history
reading that Samuel had fought at the
battle of the Waterberg in 1904, and
had somehow managed to escape to
Botswana, where he died. I had never
heard anything about Maharero living
in South Africa”, said the director. “But
after being shown images of Samuel
Maharero and his followers living and
working on farms in the South African
Waterberg, I was amazed”.
From the documentary, we also
get to know that, four months after
the battle of the Waterberg, Maharero
arrived in the village of Tsau in today’s
Botswana. A week later, the British
High Commissioner granted his request
to settle there. It was close enough to the
Motherland but beyond the reach of the
Germans and so it was a relatively safe
escape.
Once settled in Tsau, Maharero
was forced by the British to live as an
ordinary person with no special privileges and he was forced t surrender his
rifle.He lived in a simple hut, under
Samuel Maherero, Chief of the Herero
Mad Max Fury Road was shot in the Namibian Desert
difficult conditions and like all other
Hereros. The rest of the Hereros were
very poor, with only about 30 cattle
between them. Chief Kambausuka
Tjivau, an oral Historian in Namibia,
explained that Hereros had developed
their own techniques in catching a cow.
A Herero can hold a cow by the tail and
doesn’t need ropes to tie it up or to make
it fall. Tjivau also added that thriving
Herero communities of nowadays mark
the route taken by Maharero more than
100 years ago, as a legacy and symbolic
pilgrimage across southern Africa.
Both Paths to Freedom and Waterberg
were made possible due to the support
of the Namibian Film Commission
(NFC) that helps Namibian-born and
Namibian based filmmakers in producing and finishing their films. NFC also
helps to develop the movie-going habit
to Namibiam people, who most of the
time prefer a night out in bars rather in
cinemas. Namibia Film Commission
also expanded its wings across important festivals like Cannes and Berlin
(where I met some of their past officials
) to promote the Namibian desert as a
shooting location. The result: the new
Mad Max: Fury Road starring Thomas
Hardy as the new road warrior and
the South African Charlize Theron
was partially shot in the Namibian
Desert will make its premiere on May
14 in the next edition of Cannes Film
Festival, as the Official Selection, but
Out-of-Competition.
Born in Cairo, Egypt, Sherif Awad is a
film/video critic and curator. He is the film
editor of Egypt Today Magazine (www.
EgyptToday.com) and the Artistic
Director for both the Alexandria film
Festival , and the Arab Rotterdam Festival
in The Netherlands. He also contributes
to Variety, in the United States and is the
Film Critic of Variety, Arabia (http://
amalmasryalyoum.com/ennode189132
and The Westchester Guardian: www.
WestchesterGuardian.com
Page 14
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, APRIL 9, 2015
Mary At The Movies
Movie Review: Woman In Gold
By Mary Keon
The “Woman in Gold” is the name
bequeathed by the Nazis to the iconic
shimmering Gustov Klimt portrait of
Adele Bloch-Bauer they confiscated
from her family home during the
Anschluss. The picture remained in the
possession of Austrian State Gallery
Belvedere at the end of the war and
was considered a national treasure: the
“Mona Lisa” of Austria; her Jewish
name and heritage erased for decades,
The Woman in Gold movie is
based upon the life of Maria Altmann,
Adele’s niece, who with her attorney,
Randol Schoenberg spent seven years
battling Austria for ownership of her
Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds in Woman in Gold, courtsey of The Weinstein Company
Woman In Gold Poster, courtesy of The Weinstien Company
Katie Holmes and Ryan Reynolds/ Photo courtesy of The Weinstein Company
Max Irons and Tatiana Maslany in Woman in Gold
Aunt’s portrait, left to her and her sister
in her Uncle’s will. Randy Schoenberg,
grandson of the composer Arnold
Schoenberg, litigated the case at great
personal sacrifice and came up with
a novel strategy to exploit a loophole
in international law. Spoiler alert: this
movie is based upon historic facts and
if you are not familiar with them stop
reading now and just go see the movie. For everyone else: Helen Mirren
Continued on page 15
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, APRIL 9, 2015
Page 15
Mary At The Movies
Movie Review: Woman In Gold
Continued from page 14
plays elderly widow Maria Altmann and
Ryan Reynolds is Randol Schoenberg,
an untried attorney who team up to
take on the Austrian government
against all odds. Tatiana Maslany plays
the young Maria and Max Irons plays
her opera singer husband, Fritz. Katie
Holmes is Randy’s understanding wife
and Daniel Brühl plays a Viennese
reporter whose help is invaluable.
Elizabeth McGovern is the United
States District Court Justice who gives
the two their first big break; Jonathan
Pryce has a cameo as a United States
Supreme Court Justice.
The movie intersperses scenes
from the years 1999-2006 with flashbacks to Maria’s childhood where she
lived with her parents, Aunt Adele
and Uncle Ferdinand Bauer-Bloch in
an elegant Viennese apartment decorated with enough valuable works of
art to qualify as a small museum while
an ever rising tide of anti-Jewish sentiment fills the streets outside.
Though initially thinking only of his
fee should they win, Randy eventually
becomes obsessed with the case, persuading Maria to continue litigation when
initial efforts are not successful.
What seemed a quixotic undertaking became a breakthrough for relatives
of Holocaust victims who are still trying
to reclaim property that was stolen from
their families. According to the notes at
the end of the film, more than 100,000
works of art confiscated by the Nazis are
still unaccounted for, housed in private
collections throughout the world. This is
a well-crafted and enjoyable film, with
solid performances all around.
All of Austria mourned the departure of the Woman in Gold as the
painting traveled to the U. S. at the
conclusion of the case. Ronald Lauder
purchased the painting from Ms. Altman
for $135,000,000 in 2006, a record at the
time, and it is now on display at his Neue
Gallery in Manhattan.
Directed by Simon Curtis and
written by Alexi Kaye Campbell.
Cinematography Ross Emory. U.S
distribution: Weinstein Films. Rates
PG-13 for some thematic elements and
brief strong language.
Ryan Reynolds,Helen Mirren and Daniel Brühl , Courtsey of The Weinstein Company
COMEDY FESTIVAL
The Second Annual Westchester Comedy
Festival Takes Place April 18th-26th.
By LIMUS WOODS
The 2nd Annual
Westchester
Comedy
Festival! will take place
from April 18th -26th
2015, moving from city to city each
day, taking place at restaurants, and
theaters throughout the county. LWL
Entertainment received lots of help last
year for the first annual Westchester
Comedy Festival from fun loving supporters who realize that laughter really is
the best medicine.; an old cliché, but there
is a lot of truth in it! Laughing really does
improve our quality of life on so many
levels, and the best part is that you don’t
need a prescription to utilize this natural
stress-relieving remedy.
Among the comedians that will
headline the festival this year, is Rain
Pryor the daughter of legendary comedian
Richard Pryor. Ms. Pryor, who grew
up Black and Jewish, connects with
audiences through real talk and her
unique views on spirituality and race.
Local comedian Kevin Magee, won the
title of “Westchester’s Funniest Comic, ”
last April in Yonkers, after doing wonderful impersonations of everyone from past
U.S. Presidents to famous movie characters. Jamie Roberts will also step up to
the microphone this year, and the executive producer of Sunday Night Live (the
longest running Sunday show in NYC)
is set deliver gut busting real-life material
as usual. New York’s own Angela Cobb (a
regular at Broadway Comedy Club) will
also bring her honest and self-depreciating
charisma to the stage at this year’s festival.
She’ll be joined by the “Latin Lunatic”
JJ Ramirez (star of the award winning
film Latin Legends of Comedy), Kim
Berns (co-host of the comic radio show
“Anything Goes with Kim and Bonnie”
on 1490 WGCH), Regina Decicco
(winner of the 2012 Ladies of Laughter
Competition and nationwide performer
with “The Italian Chicks”), and Phyllis
Yvonne Stickney (who has movie credits
from films such as The Inkwell and Die
Hard with a Vengeance and is set to host
this year’s festival). Visit http://www.westchestercomedyny.com for specific show
times and to purchase tickets.
Talent’s Westchester
Comedy Festival
Talent’s Westchester Comedy
Festival winds up this weekend with
shows at SoYo in New Rochelle,
Wednesday, April 8 at 7PM; at
Rockwells in Pelham on Thursday
April 9 at 7PM and a Kids in Komedy
event at 2PM on Saturday, April 11th.
The final comedic event takes place at
Zabidury’s in New Rochelle, Sunday
April 12th Free Workshop – How To
Be A Standup Comic: 5-6:30PM and
the final comedy show at 7PM: westchestercomedyfestival.com
Open 10AM - 8PM Mon-Sat.
Juice Bar • Smoothies • Salads
Paninis • Rice Bowls
Dine In -Take-Out • Dobbs Ferry Delivery
914.479.5555
MIXONMAINNY.com
63 MAIN ST., DOBBS FERRY, NY
Page 16
THE WESTCHESTER GUARDIAN
Thursday, APRIL 9, 2015
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