It was 20 years ago tonight. Not exactly. It was actually four days off, on Nov. 25, but what really matters is it was the night before Thanksgiving in 1998.
I had been producing the 11pm news at CBS affiliate WFSB-3 in Connecticut. It was my last newscast there, before moving to Philadelphia – and also the last weathercast for the legendary Hilton Kaderli, who retired that night.
In fact, Hilton and I just got off the phone. He and his family are doing great. He mentioned he had just been doing a bit of work in his study, and his wife is working on their Thanksgiving turkey as I publish this!
The reason for both of us leaving the same night was, back then, TV stations depended on Nielsen ratings. That company picked times around four months to measure viewership. Then, starting on a Thursday and ending on a Wednesday – every November, February, May and July – networks and stations would go all out to show you their best programming along with their sexiest, dirtiest, most dangerous and practically anything to get you to watch. No vacations were allowed, so the A-team would be on every newscast, every day and night.
In 1998 – for the first and last time, I believe – Nielsen ended the ratings period on the night before Thanksgiving rather than the week before, postponing or canceling news people’s vacation plans.
We were all turkeys in 1998!
Stations still use those times to have their on-air people announce retirements, reveal health issues, and more to get you to watch – even though Nielsen now realizes there are more than four months in a year, and doesn’t ask randomly selected viewers to fill out diaries about what they watch anymore. Old habits are hard to break.
The 11pm news was arguably most important (financially, why else?) because it followed the network’s huge primetime audience, and had 35 minutes to fill commercials, rather than the typical 30 for a half hour. Stations would then sell ads based on the ratings for at least the next few months, while also looking at year-to-year. People’s jobs depended on good ratings.
This was my first job outside of Florida, my first time in New England cold and my first time living away from home (except for college).
Downtown Hartford was basically a dead center of a doughnut, but not the night before Thanksgiving. (Why weren’t we live from outside?) The day before Thanksgiving was still busy with travel. (Yes, we had a live picture.)
Since then, the station moved from there, two towns south to Rocky Hill. (Yes, Weathersfield and Rocky Hill are towns, while Hartford is a city!)
These days, Al Terzi – the dean of Connecticut TV news, who actually spent some time in West Palm Beach – moderates a weekly political show on WTIC-Fox 61. Denise D’Ascenzo is still at it at Channel 3 after 32 years (and will always be my shiksa sister!), but gets to drive home at a decent hour. No more Nightbeat for her! We can all see and hear Joe Tessitore on ESPN’s Monday Night Football.
I thank Tom Lowell, Steve Sabato and Deborah Johnson for the opportunity. I followed Tom up from Miami.
Plus, my friend Megan Robinson who followed me up and started producing weekend mornings, before becoming an executive producer in Charlotte. We went to dinner every Sunday night in a different town so we could study the state we covered.
Reporters Dennis House (now anchoring and also blogging, so I get a weekly email to keep up with the area!), Jennifer Watson (in Atlanta), Melissa Francis (Fox Business) and Susan Raff (still there!) found news or followed up on developing stories, sometimes live so late and further away than they would’ve liked to have been.
Assignment editor Andre Hepkins left WFSB and returned as a reporter. Now, he’s a big-time anchor in Baltimore. And Dana Luby kept getting promotion after promotion and recently went from long-time news director of the station to its general manager! Plus, Mike Guerrieri (Vice President of Creative Services at NBC’s Miami station) with the prime-time teases that kept so many viewers up longer than they would’ve liked.
Of course, I’ll never forget the late, great newscast director Jeff Bright. And I’ll never be able to mention everyone whose work went into making the newscast such a success, so please forgive me.
We were a #1 team. I should’ve made more of it. Come to think of it, I think I fought like hell with every one of the people mentioned at least once (except Gayle)! Every one of cared that much and made each other better.
I mentioned I ended up moving to Philadelphia. I stayed six years, returned to Miami for some time before getting back to Philadelphia (for Part B, as this post’s title suggests).
Click here for how The Hartford Courant reported that day.
Now, to the video!
1 of 3: Lots of touches I remember starting, the New England Patriots’ move to Hartford(!), Hilton’s memories, and perhaps a record number of municipalities mentioned in the first tease instead of the typical three
2 of 3: Michael J. Fox reveals he has Parkinson’s and Hilton’s final forecast
3 of 3: Sports, Hilton’s final good-bye and classic clips
(Why didn’t I get an on-air mention after 19-1/2 months?)
Bonuses:
Gayle King’s friend Oprah joins Hilton on weather in 1992
And click here to read and watch the most memorable moment in WFSB history (at least involving Hilton)!
Plus, thank you to Spencer Medbery for providing most of the clips!
If you like what you read here, subscribe with either your email address or WordPress account, and get a notice whenever I publish. Don’t rely on social media with its hacking issues and censoring like this, this and this. I’m also available for writing/web contract work. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennycohen
President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh will be giving the Senate Judiciary Committee calendars from 1982 to back up his continued denial of sexually assaulting Christine Blasey Ford. That’s according to The New York Times, late Sunday afternoon.
The year 1982 was 36 years ago. Do you have your calendar from back then? Heck, were you even alive back then? (I was and I remember, but my calendar situation was mainly my parents’ responsibility at that time.) At least Judge Kavanaugh can’t say his was accidentally deleted from wherever we keep our calendars, these days. On the other hand, looks like we’ll be keeping our calendars forever!
Photo by rawpixel.com on Pexels.com
I explained in a lawsuit about 17-18 years ago (half the time since 1982?!) – when I mentioned plans and the other side immediately asked for my calendar – they’re good for some things and not for others. Calendars will tell what your plans were when you wrote (or saved) them. They were your intentions. Calendars won’t tell whether you actually followed through with the plans or changed them. Maybe you got sick.
(“So as I told you, despite what my old calendar said,no, I didn’t go to a movie with my friend Harry, that night!”)
Judge Brett Kavanaugh
Anyway, the calendar is supposed to help with Judge Kavanaugh’s denial, at least to some degree.
Let’s see. He was born in 1965. (Damn! All these “old” people’s birth years are getting closer and closer to mine!)
During that clerkship, he worked alongside Neil Gorsuch (born 1967!). He and now-Justice Gorsuch attended the same prep school! Small world.
SIDEBAR: Remember, Justice Gorsuch’s nomination came after President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland, who remains Chief Judge of the Federal Appeals Court, DC Circuit, where Kavanaugh has been a Circuit Judge since 2006! Again, small world.
But the Republican-controlled Senate never took up Judge Garland’s nomination.
BACK TO THE STORY: You’ll remember, President Donald Trump nominated Gorsuch to succeed the late Antonin Scalia. He was 49 and the youngest (successful) nominee to the Supreme Court since none other than Clarence Thomas! Justice Thomas was 43, back in 1991. You may remember, his nomination proceedings to replace the retiring Thurgood Marshall (quota?) were contentious from the start over the issue of abortion and Thomas’ conservative political views.
Then and now: Clarence Thomas at the EEOC (1989–1990), and as a Supreme Court Justice
Whose name is missing from that last paragraph? Law Professor Anita Hill, of course!
She’d worked under Thomas at the U.S. Education Department and then at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It wasn’t until the end of Thomas’ confirmation hearings that her behavior allegations against Thomas were leaked to National Public Radio’s Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg (still on the job!) from a confidential FBI report. I think we have déjà vu.
BACK TO THE STORY: Many of us actually learned the phrase “sexual harassment” during the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill frenzy. Hill – a Yale Law School graduate and University of Oklahoma law professor – testified a mutual friend introduced her to Thomas. Then, he asked if she’d leave a private firm and work as his assistant at the Department of Education. After being happy for three months, he asked her to go out with him socially and everything changed when she told him it wouldn’t be right, since she was her supervisor. (I’m summarizing her statement from that same link above, sure to bring back memories for us older folk.)
“I thought that by saying ‘no’ and explaining my reasons, my employer would abandon his social suggestions. However, to my regret, in the following few weeks he continued to ask me out on several occasions. He pressed me to justify my reasons for saying “no” to him. These incidents took place in his office or mine. They were in the form of private conversations which would not have been overheard by anyone else.
“My working relationship became even more strained when Judge Thomas began to use work situations to discuss sex. On these occasions, he would call me into his office for reports on education issues and projects or he might suggest that because of the time pressures of his schedule, we go to lunch to a government cafeteria. After a brief discussion of work, he would turn the conversation to a discussion of sexual matters. His conversations were very vivid.
“He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals, and films showing group sex or rape scenes. He talked about pornographic materials depicting individuals with large penises, or large breasts involved in various sex acts.
“On several occasions Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual prowess. Because I was extremely uncomfortable talking about sex with him at all, and particularly in such a graphic way, I told him that I did not want to talk about these subjects. I would also try to change the subject to education matters or to nonsexual personal matters, such as his background or his beliefs. My efforts to change the subject were rarely successful.”
Then, Prof. Hill testified,
“During the latter part of my time at the Department of Education, the social pressures and any conversation of his offensive behavior ended. I began both to believe and hope that our working relationship could be a proper, cordial, and professional one. When Judge Thomas was made chair of the EEOC, I needed to face the question of whether to go with him. I was asked to do so and I did. The work, itself, was interesting, and at that time, it appeared that the sexual overtures, which had so troubled me, had ended. I also faced the realistic fact that I had no alternative job. While I might have gone back to private practice, perhaps in my old firm, or at another, I was dedicated to civil rights work and my first choice was to be in that field. Moreover, at that time the Department of Education, itself, was a dubious venture. President Reagan was seeking to abolish the entire department.”
There were no problems for her first few months.
“However, during the fall and winter of 1982, these began again. The comments were random, and ranged from pressing me about why I didn’t go out with him, to remarks about my personal appearance. I remember him saying that ‘some day I would have to tell him the real reason that I wouldn’t go out with him.’
“He began to show displeasure in his tone and voice and his demeanor in his continued pressure for an explanation. He commented on what I was wearing in terms of whether it made me more or less sexually attractive. The incidents occurred in his inner office at the EEOC.
“One of the oddest episodes I remember was an occasion in which Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office, he got up from the table, at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can and asked, ‘Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?’
“On other occasions he referred to the size of his own penis as being larger than normal and he also spoke on some occasions of the pleasures he had given to women with oral sex. At this point, late 1982,1 began to feel severe stress on the job. I began to be concerned that Clarence Thomas might take out his anger with me by degrading me or not giving me important assignments. I also thought that he might find an excuse for dismissing me.
“In January 1983, I began looking for another job. I was handicapped because I feared that if he found out he might make it difficult for me to find other employment, and I might be dismissed from the job I had.
“Another factor that made my search more difficult was that this was during a period of a hiring freeze in the Government. In February 1983, I was hospitalized for 5 days on an emergency basis for acute stomach pain which I attributed to stress on the job. Once out of the hospital. I became more committed to find other employment and sought further to minimize my contact with Thomas.”
Hill ended up taking a job at Oral Roberts University.
“The dean of the university saw me teaching and inquired as to whether I would be interested in pursuing a career in teaching, beginning at Oral Roberts University. I agreed to take the job, in large part, because of my desire to escape the pressures I felt at the EEOC due to Judge Thomas.
“When I informed him that I was leaving in July, I recall that his response was that now, I would no longer have an excuse for not going out with him. I told him that I still preferred not to do so. At some time after that meeting, he asked if he could take me to dinner at the end of the term. When I declined, he assured me that the dinner was a professional courtesy only and not a social invitation. I reluctantly agreed to accept that invitation but only if it was at the very end of a working day.
“On, as I recall, the last day of my employment at the EEOC in the summer of 1983, I did have dinner with Clarence Thomas. We went directly from work to a restaurant near the office. We talked about the work that I had done both at Education and at the EEOC. He told me that he was pleased with all of it except for an article and speech that I had done for him while we were at the Office for Civil Rights. Finally he made a comment that I will vividly remember. He said, that if I ever told anyone of his behavior that it would ruin his career. This was not an apology, nor was it an explanation. That was his last remark about the possibility of our going out, or reference to his behavior.”
In case you were wondering (and who of a certain age wasn’t?), further discussions of pornographic videos Thomas had allegedly rented, including the now-famous Long Dong Silver, must’ve happened during questioning or cross-examination.
Anyway, members of the Judiciary Committee didn’t treat Prof. Hill very nicely. For reasons we don’t know and can only imagine, two women who made statements supporting Prof. Hill to Senate staffers never testified.
“Professor Hill, now that you have read the FBI report, you can see that it contains no reference to any mention of Judge Thomas’ private parts or sexual prowess or size, et cetera, and my question to you would be, on something that is as important as it is in your written testimony and in your responses to Senator Biden, why didn’t you tell the FBI about that?”
Déjà vu, once again.
“Professor Hill, you said that you took it to mean that Judge Thomas wanted to have sex with you, but in fact he never did ask you to have sex, correct?”
And then the former Philadelphia D.A. asked,
“What went through your mind, if anything, on whether you ought to come forward at that stage, because if you had, you would have stopped this man from being head of the EEOC perhaps for another decade? What went on through your mind? I know you decided not to make a complaint, but did you give that any consideration, and, if so, how could you allow this kind of reprehensible conduct to go on right in the headquarters, without doing something about it?”
You can see and hear some other lowlights in these clips:
Feb. 8, 2018: Prof. Anita Hill (by Gage Skidmore via Wikipedia)
Thomas denied everything and called the hearing a type of “high tech lynching.”
As we know, the nomination was moved to the full, Democratic-controlled, Senate, and Thomas was narrowly confirmed, 52-48.
Despite the Déjà vu, those were accusations of sexual harassment. The allegation against Kavanaugh is attempted rape.
Kavanaugh denies it happened, but he has had confirmation trouble before. In 2003, when President George W. Bush (#43) nominated him for his current job – Circuit Judge for the Federal Appeals Court, DC Circuit – it took him three years to get approved! He was considered too partisan and wasn’t sworn in until 2006.
Let’s not forget Judge Kavanaugh already has a job for life. Every federal judge does. It says so in the Constitution.
In fact, I got called for federal jury duty back in 1995, while producing afternoon and early evening coverage of the O.J. Simpson murder trial for WSVN in Miami. This was just before the L.A. jury was going to deliberate the verdict and we potential Miami jurors were warned, our case could last weeks.
I was angry after waiting a whole day in the courtroom doing nothing. Finally, we were questioned and I told off a federal judge using the line, “You have a job for life but I have to earn mine every day!” (You’re welcome again, Patrick and Alice!)
At the end, they divided everyone up into groups. Those in my group were very happy to be there, even though the judge hadn’t announced which group would get to go home, have to come back, etc. (Yes, we got sent home for good.) What I won’t do for a job!
So Judge Kavanaugh will not get any more job security if he is confirmed. He will just get more publicity as a justice on the nation’s highest court. (Would you still want that?) And the opportunity to influence the entire country. Also, don’t forget the ability to sell more books further into the future. Plus, maybe a movie, The Notorious B.M.K. (His middle name is Michael.)
Nina Totenberg (NPR)
In 1987, President Reagan’s nomination of Judge Douglas Ginsburg (no relation to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, of the movie mentioned in the last paragraph) to the High Court ended with his withdrawal nine days after it was announced. Judge Ginsburg, 41, was President Reagan’s second choice after the Senate refused to confirm Judge Robert Bork.
That was a big deal at the time. President Reagan ended up nominating David Souter and not long after, President George H.W. Bush (#41) nominated Anthony Kennedy, who – again – is retiring now. But the way the FBI conducted background checks changed forever, causing a lot of other people to have to answer questions about whether they’d experimented with smoking pot.
Judge Ginsburg continues to serve as a Senior Circuit Judge in that same Federal Appeals Court, DC Circuit, I’ve already mentioned twice. No more ‘small world’ reference. It’s getting late and two pieces of more important news just happened.
Of course, a background check is different than investigating a person who is under suspicion of a crime, but the FBI does that for the president, in order to avoid an embarrassment like the Judge Ginsburg incident. Investigations are not left to people appointed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, as was recently suggested, because that’s obviously political.
Rachel Maddow
Maybe this will again change the questions that candidates for high positions, who will need to be confirmed by the Senate, will have to answer. The questions will have to be more specific than whether somebody sniffed glue in high school, which was one of the additions after the Judge Ginsburg incident, as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow showed!
Let’s stop for a moment and recognize the stories uncovered by these two female journalists.
Perhaps new questions to be asked as soon as the Kavanaugh case ends will include dates of every “base” achieved ending in loss of virginity, as the analogy has gone, which could be a threat to the privacy of willing and non-willing second parties.
Perhaps it will be the height of the #MeToo movement because it could uncover old crimes committed by men who are supposedly upstanding citizens these days. That would be an important lesson to young men with high career hopes, but probably not amount to anything because no president would nominate anybody so much more prone to rejection rather than confirmation.
And we’d never know who they are.
Besides, how many men, in addition to more women these days, would be considered 100 percent innocent of any coming-of-age antics that has probably been around since just after the introduction of the world’s oldest profession?
That brings me to a point somebody – I forgot who – brought up on Facebook last week, probably in a meme.
What about the thousands of victims of priest sexual abuse, just the ones right here in this country? They didn’t speak up right away, for obvious reasons. Should their stories not be heard, even if there’s a statute of limitations to prevent criminal charges?
Then why are people calling for a vote on Judge Kavanaugh before hearing from Dr. Blasey Ford? Should Prof. Hill have not been heard, all those years ago?
According to the York (Pa.) Daily Record, last Monday – less than a week ago – a Pittsburgh-area man and Catholic school kindergartner filed a class action suit as lead plaintiffs,
“seeking the full disclosure of all Catholic dioceses’ records concerning sexual abuse by priests. …
“The complaint notes that the recent grand jury report that identified 301 predatory priests in Pennsylvania (click here to see all 1356 pages) ‘emphasized it did not believe the report identified all predator priests and that many victims never came forward.’
“‘Lack of a complete accounting and disclosure … constitutes a clear and present danger,’ the suit concludes.”
So while Dr. Christine Blasey Ford gets ready to testify against Judge Kavanaugh this Thursday, I’ll close with two pieces of news just in and can’t be ignored as I was about to publish:
“The second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, claims that Kavanaugh waved his penis in front of her face while she was inebriated at a dormitory party during the 1983-1984 academic school year. She told Farrow and Mayer that she believes an FBI investigation of Kavanaugh’s actions is warranted.”
Judge Kavanaugh’s response:
“This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name — and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building — against these last-minute allegations.”
And from White House spokesperson Kerri Kupec:
“This 35-year-old, uncorroborated claim is the latest in a coordinated smear campaign by the Democrats designed to tear down a good man. This claim is denied by all who were said to be present and is wholly inconsistent with what many women and men who knew Judge Kavanaugh at the time in college say. The White House stands firmly behind Judge Kavanaugh.”
On the Judiciary Committee: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
“The office of Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley released the unredacted initial letter” Dr. Blasey Ford “sent to Sen. Dianne Feinstein in July detailing her account of the (alleged) incident” that both Dr. Blasey Ford and Sen. Feinstein expected to remain confidential.
To me, it looks like another alleged victim has just been betrayed.
Folks, will this ever end?
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I try not to go more than a week without posting something. Unfortunately, it has been 11 days dues to holidays that won’t be letting up anytime soon, and also my IT support specialist classes. (Last night, I finished Course 2, Week 1, out of 5 courses.)
I just don’t like blogs that give a sentence or two without any thought. They’re a waste of time and I’d be embarrassed to post with my name, so I tend to put them on social media. (You can see my last 20 my Twitter posts from @feedbaylenny right here on this site and visit it to see the whole thing. It’s not private. My last blog post, from 11 days ago, is down to #17 which shows I use it a lot.)
And I hate blogs that haven’t been touched in years. Yes, they exist!
Regular readers and those who know me know I tend to be moderate. In the middle, politically.
I’m putting this post out there because of a discussion on my Facebook page over Eric Trump’s shekels comment and the Washington Post article near the top of it. I expected some support. Any support.
So let me explain to a wider audience:
The #WalkAway movement (walking away from the Democratic Party) became organized because its founder said so much of the left had gotten
There are a variety of reasons for not supporting the Democratic Party. It’s turning more to the left, engaging with extremist groups on that side, welcoming more anti-Israel activists, and it unfairly helped Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries. (I’m referring to disliking the unfair help and not referring to Sen. Sanders. I think my first and next-to-last reasons explain enough.)
But that doesn’t automatically mean conservatism is the answer. You can be conservative on some issues and not others. Ask yourself whether a man married three times with a mouth like his can be considered conservative in most uses of the term.
Check out who goes to his rallies. Look closer and see the staging: Always at least one black person and don’t forget getting rid of the “plaid shirt guy”, last week – actually a 17-year-old high school senior.
Tyler Linfesty changed his Twitter profile picture to show his now-famous eyebrow raise!
It definitely doesn’t make President Trump the cure for the far left, and certainly not members of his family who are only part of this discussion because they were the lucky sperm.
Trump has done some good things, arguably the best president dealing with the Middle East, but he’s not perfect there. (Don’t tell me politics has no part in his actions and comments, as he gains Evangelical and some Jewish support.)
Luckily, he says there should be no question between right and wrong when it comes to terrorists and their supporters, unlike certain Democrats. (See Sarsour, Linda.)
“the political party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (Fattah) apparently (thinking) the day is the perfect time to mock the US’ current president with tasteless cartoons that dishonor the solemnity of the day and the thousands of lives affected by the brutal attacks.”
Think they’re right? Who can forget Palestinians celebrating 17 years ago when they couldn’tblame Donald Trump?
Trump has made some bad policy decisions (civil rights, labor unions), said some very bad things (Sen. John McCain, daily lies and exaggerations, calling the media the enemy), and been involved in some bad behavior (Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels). Plus, he needs a turnstile for his administration officials because of his management style and it seems he gets to political professionals so much, that they suddenly can’t keep secrets anymore!
To sum up Donald Trump, he does not take people and make them better.
He has huge personal issues, possibly more than any other president, that have influenced his two older sons over the decades. That, and their wealth and fame, guide them. They may be New Yorkers, and live in close proximity to many of us Jewish people, but they are not us and obviously haven’t been influenced by us.
To be fair, I have to add, a Trump-supporting cousin added to the Facebook exchange above shortly before publishing, saying his father Fred was good to Jews and best friends with a rabbi. To quote, “This family has been surrounded by Jews, who basically run the real estate business in NY.”
My response was basically that he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease since his grandsons weren’t even teenagers, so there couldn’t have been much influence. According to Wikipedia, “(Fred) Trump supported Jewish and Israeli causes and institutions, including donating the land for the Beach Haven Jewish Center in Flatbush, New York. He significantly supported Israel Bonds” and other non-Jewish charities. He knew about being of German ancestry and having Jewish tenants, postwar, and we both know the world and people’s behaviors have changed over all this time. I ended by saying I wouldn’t compare Donald to his father, and the grandsons are even more different. (Fred loaned Donald $1 million but kept his business in Brooklyn and Queens. “It was good for me,” Donald later commented. “You know, being the son of somebody, it could have been competition to me. This way, I got Manhattan all to myself.”) That’s not such an appealing quote to me.
In fact, I doubt the young Trumps would admit to being influenced by anybody but their father and revered grandfather, through stories told about him. Eric Trump using a Jewish term in response to Bob Woodward (not Jewish) making money selling a book makes absolutely no sense, and there’s no connection except that it’s a Jewish stereotype. Conservatives try not to label people but this Trump generation tends to.
So let’s look at Eric Trump.
He and his brother, Donald Jr., like hunting. They sure didn’t get that from us!
“On a wild game hunting trip in Zimbabwe in 2011 … the Trump sons reportedly killed a number of exotic animals, including an elephant, crocodile, kudu, civet cat and waterbuck.”
Eric is an executive at the Trump Organization and was a boardroom judge on The Apprentice. See any daddy influence with either?
He likes his name on things like the Eric Trump Foundation (AKA The Curetivity Foundation. Why would it need an alternate name?), and the Eric Trump Foundation Surgery & ICU Center in the Kay Research and Care Center on the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital campus in Memphis. Great charity, but I wonder who the influence was. Maybe his mom? Keep reading and please, don’t name anything after me until I’m dead. Or a little less humble.
According to Wikipedia, The Curetivity Foundation’s 2016 tax return shows contributions almost doubling from $1.8 million in 2015 to $3.2 million in 2016, when his father ran for president. (To the younger Trump’s credit, he announced in December, 2016, he’d stop active fundraising for it to avoid speculation donors were using him to gain access to his father, the soon-to-be president.)
The foundation gave about $3 million to St. Jude and other charities but also paid $145,000 to for-profit properties owned by the Trump family. Peanuts (or shekels) for some, but nobody I know personally. That shows how rare such wealth is.
“The best part about all this, according to Eric Trump, is the charity’s efficiency: Because he can get his family’s golf course (Trump National Westchester) for free and have most of the other costs donated, virtually all the money contributed will go toward helping kids with cancer. ‘We get to use our assets 100% free of charge,’ Trump tells Forbes.”
However, “That’s not the case,” according to Forbes. “It’s clear that the course wasn’t free.”
The magazine reported,
“The Trump Organization received payments for its use, part of more than $1.2 million that has no documented recipients past the Trump Organization. Golf charity experts say the listed expenses defy any reasonable cost justification for a one-day golf tournament.”
Also, the Donald J. Trump Foundation
“apparently used the Eric Trump Foundation to funnel $100,000 in donations into revenue for the Trump Organization. … More than $500,000 was re-donated to other charities, many of which were connected to Trump family members or interests, including at least four groups that subsequently paid to hold golf tournaments at Trump courses.”
Worse, Forbes said,
“The president was never known for giving his foundation much money, and from 2009 to 2014, he didn’t give it anything at all.”
Why can’t one family have one foundation? Do the Trumps disagree so much on donations? Couldn’t they save on accounting bills?
And the clincher, according to Forbes, is
“All of this seems to defy federal tax rules and state laws that ban self-dealing and misleading donors.” And, “The person who specifically commanded that the for-profit Trump Organization start billing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the nonprofit Eric Trump Foundation, according to two people directly involved, was none other than the current president of the United States, Donald Trump.”
The article has a lot more details, including, 1. Why the price of the tournament suddenly tripled in 2011, from $46,000 to $142,000, according to the foundation’s IRS filings. Also, 2. Golf tournament costs escalating “to $230,000 in 2013, $242,000 in 2014 and finally $322,000 in 2015 … according to IRS filings.” Plus, 3. This quote attributed to the president:
“I don’t care if it’s my son or not–everybody gets billed.”
You didn’t know any of this before? Neither did I, and I would’ve probably remembered. Besides, the story got picked up by ABC News, CNBC and Business Insider.
There must’ve been a lot of other news going on at the time for this to be buried. Did anyone keep the newspaper from Wednesday, June 7, 2017?
Looking at the big picture, the world is a tough place. So is Washington, but Americans need to give the office of the president and the people who holds that title support during his term (no, not on every issue!). Then, we can reevaluate in about two years.
As for Congress, I have personal questions over whether to support the better candidate if he or she is a Republican, as I believe in my newly-drawn district, since all of Pennsylvania was redrawn due to gerrymandering. That would hurt the chance of getting at least one house of Congress out of Republican control, which could lead to more fair discussions and debates. But it’ll never happen in Philadelphia, and that’ll have to wait for another time.
So for now, I hope you’re safe if you’re in the path of Hurricane Florence!
The best picture I saw is one guy’s painting on a wall, “Hey Flo… Kiss my grits!” Notice it uses both the storm’s name and southern location in terms of food.
Waffle House even posted it on Twitter. (Click here if you don’t know the importance of that regional restaurant chain during storms.)
And of course, we can’t forget Flo on the TV show Alice!
And a special thank you to everyone who visits this site and reads, except certain lawyers, but that may be an eye-opening discussion with full names, evidence and legal documents fully exposed. That can’t happen until next month.Luckily, I’ve learned not to dwell on certain things and hopefully it won’t come to that, but it’s not up to me. As they say in legalese, “Plaintiff has exhausted his administrative remedies.”
You’ve added 300 page views in the past 11 days and while the Sept. 3 post was one of my better ones, if I can say so, I know not all the traffic came from there. So please continue looking through and comment below any article. Remember, I can use some support after that Facebook post above! Also check comments on posts that interest you, since I’m always updating there!
Again, please leave your comments in the section below, and don’t miss out. If you like what you read here, subscribe to CohenConnect.com with either your email address or WordPress account, and get a notice whenever I publish. I’m also available for writing/web contract work.
I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure you’ve had a busy week, between getting used to having your kids in school or planning what to do on this long holiday weekend.
Sorry for the folks in “sunny Florida” with plans ruined while dealing with Tropical Storm Gordon. (But you’re welcome for this souvenir to help you remember the occasion.)
I’ve been doing a lot of reading, besides taking my Google IT Support Professional Certificate class on Coursera, so I haven’t been able to share them on this blog like I should. I say “should” because they follow-up on issues I’ve raised here and you deserve a resolution to what you read here. Often, I put information on social media (my Twitter feed @feedbaylenny is on this page), or in the comments section of blog posts, but it’s only right to follow through in the format you saw it, and update the original. Unfortunately, most media don’t do so.
“no evidence, nor even the suggestion, of impropriety, unscrupulous behavior, favoritism toward Sinclair, or lack of impartiality related to the proposed Sinclair-Tribune merger.”
Of course, the deal never happened since the FCC eventually questioned Sinclair’s candor over necessary sale of some stations. Tribune backed out and sued Sinclair for $1 billion for alleged breach of contract. According to Reuters, Tribune said Sinclair
“mishandled efforts to get the transaction approved by taking too long and being too aggressive in its dealings with regulators.”
Now, Sinclair is countersuing.
“In Delaware Court of Chancery, Sinclair rejected Tribune’s allegations and suggested the companies had been very close to winning U.S. Department of Justice approval.”
It accused Tribune of pursuing a
“deliberate effort to exploit and capitalize on an unfavorable and unexpected reaction from the FCC to capture a windfall.” Tribune called Sinclair’s counterclaim “entirely meritless” and “an attempt to distract from its own significant legal exposure.”
Do you have access to the internet? Of course you do, since you’re reading this. (OK, maybe you’re reading a friend’s printout of this post.) Regardless, in December, the FCC under Ajit Pai repealed many net neutrality rules passed in 2015 during the Obama administration. Think of it as price up or speed down. Those internet service providers (ISPs) you love to hate, according to Variety, had been banned from
“blocking or throttling traffic, or from selling ‘fast lanes’ so websites and other types of content can gain speedier access to consumers.”
But luckily, denying all Americans equal access to a free and open internet got very controversial. Friday, California lawmakers passed a bill what Variety called “the strongest government-mandated protections in the country” and it’s now on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk. Brown hasn’t said whether he’ll sign it. But the FCC ’s repeal forbids states from passing their own net neutrality rules. If Gov. Brown signs California’s bill, this could go to court. Pai, a former Verizon lawyer (think Fios), claims net neutrality stifled investment and burdened ISPs with regulation. Since June, ISPs have been able to make changes as long as they’re disclosed. So far, Reuters reports major providers have made no changes in internet access.
Here’s more controversy from the FCC, and something I hadn’t written about before. This time, the agency is accused of lying to its watchdog, Congress, and it involves a TV comedian. More than a year ago, during the height of the net neutrality debate, the FCC claimed its “comment filing system was subjected to a cyberattack,” according to The Verge. On May 7, 2017, our old friend John Oliver, who I’ve shown on this blog several times, asked Last Week Tonight “viewers to leave pro-net neutrality comments on the commission’s ‘Restoring Internet Freedom’ proceeding.” Oliver encouraged them
“to flood the FCC’s website with the use of memorable links like gofccyourself.com and justtellmeifimrelatedtoanazi.com. That night, the FCC’s filing system crashed.”
LANGUAGE: Viewer discretion advised.
The next morning, senior officials concluded, according to emails uncovered by the inspector general, “some external folks attempted to send high traffic in an attempt to tie-up the server.” Of course, the site was shut down by a surge of valid complaints. Several people disputed the unsubstantiated fabricated traffic claim in emails, but the DDoS theory was passed on to commissioners, like Pai, who told members of Congress (Fake News Alert!) what happened that evening was “classified as a non-traditional DDoS attack.” Now, the agency’s inspector general is reporting
“there was no distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, and this relaying of false information to Congress prompted a deeper investigation into whether senior officials at the FCC had broken the law.”
Turns out, an Oliver producer gave the FCC a “heads up” days before running the episode but it never responded, and the commission knew Oliver’s show had the power to move enough viewers to crash their system! According to that busy inspector general’s report, “We learned very quickly there was no analysis supporting the conclusion” that it was a DDoS attack. That’s when FCC officials started being investigated for allegedly breaking the law by providing false information to Congress. But the Justice Department decided not to prosecute.
Google search results for “Trump News” shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of….
It also reported Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) wrote a formal letter to the Federal Trade Commission, released Thursday, asking it to “reconsider the competitive effects of Google’s conduct in search and digital advertising.” But it wasn’t just Google for Trump.
CNN is working frantically to find their “source.” Look hard because it doesn’t exist. Whatever was left of CNN’s credibility is now gone!
The hatred and extreme bias of me by @CNN has clouded their thinking and made them unable to function. But actually, as I have always said, this has been going on for a long time. Little Jeff Z has done a terrible job, his ratings suck, & AT&T should fire him to save credibility!
“I think what Google and what others are doing, if you look at what is going on with Twitter and if you look at what’s going on in Facebook, they better be careful because you can’t do that to people. …I think that Google and Twitter and Facebook, they are really treading on very, very troubled territory and they have to be careful.”
What’s going on at @CNN is happening, to different degrees, at other networks – with @NBCNews being the worst. The good news is that Andy Lack(y) is about to be fired(?) for incompetence, and much worse. When Lester Holt got caught fudging my tape on Russia, they were hurt badly!
And as you just read, the president also claimed NBC Nightly News anchor “Lester Holt got caught fudging” his tape on Russia, but the peacock network fought back and posted the video of Trump’s extended, unedited interview with Holt last year.
No wonder he hates the media!
Of course, I won’t completely defend the news media from allegations of dumbing down and doing anything for profit in too many cases. But I’d love to see some of these disagreements fought out in open court. I don’t care who sues who. I just want the evidence presented so the truth becomes obvious to everyone.
Wikipedia: Cohen at King’s Garden, Odense, Denmark, Aug. 17, 2013
Also, I want to know why all Lenny Cohen searches show Leonard Cohen the musician instead of me!
As for the big tech companies, Yahoo! Finance reports,
“Wednesday morning, the Senate Intelligence Committee will question Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg on their responses to foreign disinformation campaigns. The committee also invited Google CEO Sundar Pichai, but he declined to testify — another Google representative will testify in his place.
“Wednesday afternoon, the House Energy & Commerce Committee will quiz Dorsey on Twitter’s ‘algorithms and content monitoring.’”
NBC News has reported Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced changes to the platform’s news feed product since the data issue March, with “more posts from friends and family” and “less public content, including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses.” Now, NBC continues,
“The goal was to make Facebook more social with fewer commercial and product posts. Publishers ranging from big businesses to mommy bloggers are forced to post more content that they create personally, rather than sharing products or affiliate links.
“With these changes, some small publishers claim to see a massive downside.”
What I want to know is why in July, Zuckerberg decided Facebook would not ban Holocaust deniers! Fortune reported,
“Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, said he found Holocaust deniers ‘deeply offensive.’ Then he said, ‘but at the end of the day, I don’t believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong—I don’t think that they’re intentionally getting it wrong. It’s hard to impugn intent and to understand the intent.’”
So Holocaust deniers are simply uninformed? Are you kidding me, Mark? I would’ve hoped Sandberg, who grew up in North Miami Beach, whose brother David was my high school class valedictorian, would’ve set him straight. The Times of Israel reports Sandberg “said in an interview last year that, as a tech company, Facebook hires engineers — not reporters and journalists.” Personally, I find this would be one fight losing my job over. There has to be a line somewhere. Go far enough and you’re “just following orders” and we know what made that phrase so well known.
“I personally find Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and I absolutely didn’t intend to defend the intent of people who deny that.” Then, he “reiterated a distinction he tried to draw in the interview: Posts that advocate violence will be taken down, but those that peddle misinformation will stay but ‘would lose the vast majority of its distribution in News Feed.’”
Sounds like he has lost the vast majority of his mind!
Also coming up this shortened Labor Day week, Morning Brew reports Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will “introduce a bill requiring major employers—like Amazon, Walmart, and McDonald’s—to cover the cost of government assistance programs its workers rely on…programs like food stamps, public housing, Medicaid, and more.” For years, there has been criticism years about the way Amazon pays and treats workers at its warehouses. According to The Washington Post, the Democratic Socialist said his goal
“is to force corporations to pay a living wage and curb about $150 billion in taxpayer dollars that go to funding federal assistance programs for low-wage workers each year. The bill … would impose a 100 percent tax on government benefits received by workers at companies with 500 or more employees. For example, if an Amazon employee receives $300 in food stamps, Amazon would be taxed $300.”
Sanders-021507-18335- 0004
Keep in mind, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos (another who spent years in Miami) also owns The Washington Post!
Two last things: The cemetery near Detroit finally fixed my grandfather’s grave. In June, it took hours to find the marker since it was buried under inches of dirt. Now, it has been raised and leveled.
And this weekend is the 3?th anniversary of my bar mitzvah. The party had an animal theme, of course, and all the kids got t-shirts like this. (Yes, I’m keeping the specific year as evergreen as the narrator says on that Philadelphia show The Goldbergs on purpose, even though there are readers who were there!)
So that’s about it. All the original pages I found have been updated.
Before I go, I also have to thank every one of you for more than 16,800 page views on this site! The numbers have risen exponentially recently, and I wonder why. Please let me know if there’s anything I should be doing more here.
Leave your comments in the section below, and don’t miss out. If you like what you read here, subscribe to CohenConnect.com with either your email address or WordPress account, and get a notice whenever I publish. I’m also available for writing/web contract work.
What a morning, and I hadn’t even gotten to the vet’s office!
It was time for Frisky’s first annual physical. That’s not counting the office visit she had a year ago, after I adopted her from Morris Animal Refuge on Clear the Shelters Day.
Frisky has always been a tough one. She was only four months old, which is extremely young to have had “the surgery” and be up for adoption – so I was told.
Her well-written bio read,
“I’m very mature for my age. I’m a Miss Smartypants. I’m going to be your favorite.”
Take out your resumes! How many of you have bios ready to go?Casey’s baby picture, before we met
I didn’t grow up a cat person and had Casey for just about nine years at that point. When I got him at the Humane Society in Miami, I’d been told not to get a kitten but someone older, who knew how to be a cat.
Casey was seven months old. I didn’t even know cats could jump, and his timing with the camera was impeccable! My vocabulary wasn’t, with my then-five-year-old nephew Preston watching.
Casey has been wonderful, moving with me from South Beach, to closer to my parents between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, to a Tennessee rental, then a Virginia house, to a Philadelphia rental and now our condo.
Casey’s first birthday and helping me grade papers.
The boy really knows how to take a catnap!
He taught me a lot about cats. I knew he could use company and he had so much to offer!
Casey on South Beach watching KYW’s Carol Erickson do the weather in Philadelphia, and having a good conversation with his grandmother.
So Clear the Shelters Day, 2017, sounded like the perfect (not “purr-fect” – I’m not like that!) opportunity to get him a little brother or sister, but I’d actually been thinking about it for a few years.
I’d asked around about getting a second cat and learned about keeping them in separate rooms until they got used to each other.
Ten days after meeting
I was familiar with Morris through one of our Fox anchors, Lucy Noland. She hooked me up, and I got a tour and brought them donations. The funny part is, I lived two blocks away for two-and-a-half years (2001-2004) but never went inside!
Anyway, Clear the Shelters Day is one of the busier days because the animals are free to good, loving homes. Just get to know each other, do some paperwork and bring a carrier if you’re taking a cat!
On Aug. 19, 2017, Pedro and I showed up, and it was like I was a kid in a crowded candy store.
I told them what I was interested in, and they showed me where to look. It was a lot more cramped in Center City Philadelphia than a pretty new building in North Miami Beach.
Others were looking but Frisky didn’t get much attention. I don’t know why. Maybe it was that others heard what I did, and she was only four months old.
Anyway, she wasn’t very friendly. Maybe it was the ruckus going on. I can understand that! It took patience to get her to adjust, and she needed a little work on her eyes. (I don’t know her background.) She only recently started letting me pet her for more than a few seconds!
Last December, my parents visited and not only did Frisky steal food, she hid under the bed, waited for my frail mother to walk by, and then attacked her ankle when she did! She still goes after Pedro’s toes with her teeth. Luckily, I’ve long had a habit of wearing socks.
On the other hand, years earlier in Miami, Casey and some other kittens were out on the floor at the Humane Society. The others were playing but Casey only wanted to be with me! That was an easy decision!
One of Casey’s birthday cards, last year
(Truth be told, he started as KC. I changed the spelling. I wouldn’t confuse him with a name change.)
Back to today.
I really had to fight to get Frisky into the carrying case. Fur was flying! She didn’t even care about the treats in the contraption.
I ended up with clothes looking white even though they weren’t, because of her hair, and scratches all over my arms from nails that had never been cut. (Last year, we forgot, and I couldn’t do it myself. Earlier tonight, my friend Ric mentioned I should’ve used a towel to hold her. Duh!)
Finally, I won.
We drove to the office and I signed her in. She listened to a big loud doggy wearing a satellite dish in the waiting room, who might have put her in her place. By then, after what I’d been through plus all that barking, all I was thinking about was Tylenol.
The good news is Frisky weighs 9.5 lbs., which means she’s a big girl but not fat. (I don’t think she minds you knowing that, or her age for that matter.) Her teeth and everything else looked good, and she got three shots so quickly I didn’t even notice.
Oh, and she got her nails clipped for the first time! That’ll come in very handy when she’s in a mood.
Luckily, she didn’t have fleas. The doctor said he has been seeing them early and often this year, even in indoor cats.
But that wasn’t all.
We had to stop at the post office. Frisky came thisclose to getting mailed to her grandparents in Florida. I wonder if my mother would’ve signed for her.
Then, we walked to the Rite Aid across the street for a special cleanser for my arms. The doctor suggested it so I wouldn’t get cat scratch fever. (Frisky may be healthy, and Casey too, but they still have to step in their potty litter box.)
But it was great to overhear the doctor tell the technician all the way from where I was paying, “Awesome! What a healthy cat!”
That’s really what counts. Isn’t it?
Please leave your comments in the section below, and don’t miss out. If you like what you read here, subscribe to CohenConnect.com with either your email address or WordPress account, and get a notice whenever I publish. I’m also available for writing/web contract work.
I didn’t plan to be writing this blog right now. I should have already landed in Allentown, got in my car, and been on my way home to Philadelphia.
Instead, I made the mistake of flying Allegiant Airlines.
Please keep in mind I’m writing this on my tablet and phone. Never done that before.
They were an hour late on my trip to Florida on Friday, and an hour late again on my return trip today. And I won’t be getting home until tomorrow.
They abandoned the gate in Fort Lauderdale before making us change gates. No people below. Trust me.
We were over Savannah, Ga., when the pilot told us there was a problem reported with the de-icing gauge. He said they knew wasn’t a problem but it had to be looked into, so we would have to make a sharp turn and fly to Asheville. I’m very familiar with that airport and Allegiant from my time in the Tri-Cities.
But if anything could go wrong…
There was bad weather in Asheville so we had to circle and circle around Spartanburg, S.C., until the weather improved, rather than land in Asheville in a thunderstorm.
Then, just before 9, the pilot came on and announced Asheville weather hadn’t improved, and after another seven or eight minutes, we’d have to go further away, to Knoxville! Jamie, do you need an 11:00 lead on channel 6? Lots of angry people!
We’ve seen “On Time” and “Delayed” but not “Redirected,” ever!
Daniel and Jennifer, you were here. And I picked you up on the outside.
When we got internet service, Allegiant had estimated we’d arrive in Allentown at 12:20am. Now, a replacement plane is headed here, to Knoxville.
But if there was no emergency, why didn’t they just fly us to Allentown?
When the trouble began, supposedly over Savannah, we had already flown about 466 miles north from Fort Lauderdale. We’d still have about 770 miles to go until Allentown. (Those are driving miles.)
But we wasted so much time and fuel circling and detouring that we could’ve been to Allentown! Who makes these decisions?
To hell with the customer! What’s in it for us?
They gave us a little glass of water just before we left Fort Lauderdale so late because their baggage contractor’s workers were taking their time, and the crew was not happy. Gee, free water from Allegiant Airlines! It’s a big deal for them.
And we got a free bottle of water here in Knoxville. Good thing, because everything is closed, although I hear there are vending machines.
Actually, we got free non-alcoholic drinks on the way back!
We found out after finally leaving Knoxville — there was paperwork to be done while we sat on the plane — we’d be getting $50 vouchers. Maybe next time, I’ll use it to check a bag, round trip, if I ever fly Allegiant again. But I’m in no mood to travel on any airline for a very, very long time.
Thank you, @Allegiant, for hour-long #delays leaving Allentown and now also Fort Lauderdale. Oh, and for abandoning the gate and sending the flight alert I signed up for as I was boarding! Flight alert situation was the same in Allentown. But you did answer my #tweet. pic.twitter.com/BgnBIUHQBE
On both flights, I signed up for Allegiant’s flight alerts to be informed if there would be any delays. Both times, I got the alerts way too late to do anything.
So here I am, with water. Not hungry, but restless. Some nice people let me use their multi electrical outlet device because most of the outlets around the gate at the airport don’t work.
I’ve flown a lot and had my share of issues. I spent several days at Kennedy Airport, but not in a row, and they never close that place!
Back in 1987, the plane actually lost an engine and we had to get into crash position and return. But the airline took care of us.
In 2014, my flight from Israel arrived late and I ended up having to make and change arrangements to fly back to Florida. It took all day. But the airline took care of me.
Not so much this time, so I’m going to take care of them.
In 2015, I was supposed to be flown to Richmond for a job interview and that meant flying through Philadelphia in winter. Yes, Shane, your station and your predecessor!
The Richmond leg of the flight was canceled and I ended up spending the day at Philadelphia’s airport. It was a weekday, I couldn’t get out, and nobody I knew could get in to meet up. At least the flight was free, but the parking in Miami wasn’t.
And at least I don’t have to work tomorrow!
I will admit, the crew was very nice. They suffered as well.
So while I get ready to board, enjoy this Allegiant classic from 60 Minutes.
So we finally took off from Knoxville at 12:20am, and landed in Allentown at 1:20am.
Too bad for the folks heading from Allentown to Fort Lauderdale, like I did last week. They were supposed to take off at 8:34pm and arrive at 11:10pm, just like my first flight.
Now, they’re going to depart at 2am. Allegiant only flies the route a few days a week.
And the flight crew is also heading back to Fort Lauderdale tonight. How long are they supposed to work in a day? I’m sure the Federal Aviation Administration has its rules but it turns out, one flight attendant told me they never sign out, they were expecting a 15-hour day and it has happened before.
First, I want to thank you for all your reading. This is my 99th blog and so far there have been more than 14,100 page views. Dozens of you are reading and clicking more than once, even when I don’t post anything, and the numbers have really been going up.
Reading above what’s above would good thing to do over the long weekend. For those of you who haven’t been, I recently achieved the trifecta of categories: golden showers, pass gas (fart), and semen (cum) – all for news reasons, of course, and each used only once – so maybe you’ll start by subscribing.
You never know what’ll come up next!
Here is a hint. It’s called Follow-Up Friday, and it’s good to see Harvey Weinstein in deep (pick a bodily substance from above).
“Weinstein arrived at the precinct at 7:30am, got fingerprinted, then departed in handcuffs—without his books—about an hour later. From there he was driven to the courthouse, where he was arraigned at 9:25am and made bail on a cashier’s check for $1 million.”
Yes, you read “books” and Slate reported,
“Footage of his arrival shows Weinstein entering the precinct with three books in his arms—one about Elia Kazan, another about Rodgers and Hammerstein, and a third, floppy, leather-bound volume that hasn’t been identified.”
Then upon further review, Slate suspected the “books were almost certainly props” since,
Whether criminal suspects in New York get to read books they bring is under debate but Slate noted,
“Under normal circumstances, a person who surrenders to police can expect to wait 12 to 24 hours before heading off to see a judge. This includes time spent waiting to be transported to the courthouse, as officers don’t tend to make this trip until they have a group of people ready for arraignment. The fact that Weinstein got the ‘walkthrough’ treatment—coming in and out in just two hours—suggests that all arrangements (including the amount of his bail) had been worked out ahead of time by his lawyer and the district attorney’s office.”
That shouldn’t happen.
Neither should this: another school shooting. Today’s happened at an Indiana middle school. At least nobody was killed. CNN reports three people were injured — a teacher and a student, according to Noblesville’s police chief — “but hospital officials said at least three people, including one adult, were being treated. One student had an ankle fracture.”
A student was arrested a short time later, in or near his classroom. The chief said he’d asked for permission to leave the room and “he returned armed with two handguns.”
What did Indiana’s former governor have to say?
Karen and I are praying for the victims of the terrible shooting in Indiana. To everyone in the Noblesville community – you are on our hearts and in our prayers. Thanks for the swift response by Hoosier law enforcement and first responders.
It didn’t take long, but Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg is back in the news for a victory against one of the biggest supermarkets in the southeast – Publix – and Florida GOP primary gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam, for that matter.
“No other Florida candidate has ever come close to that kind of subsidy from Florida’s largest Fortune 500 company. Its most recent contribution, a $100,000 donation on April 30, was the largest, too, according to the latest campaign finance filings.”
Also,
“In 2016, WFTS-Channel 28 discovered seven Tampa Bay-area Publix stores failed health inspections. In those stores, food inspectors found rodent droppings, hundreds of pounds of meat and other food stored at unsafe temperatures, bugs and employees not washing their hands, according to the report. Putnam responded the next day by pulling the inspections from the department’s website and eliminating the pass/fail grading system.”
Publix is based in Lakeland, and Putnam lives in Bartow, both in Polk County.
Thanks to Hogg, Publix faced “consumer boycotts, student protests and threats to its wholesome image.” Now, it’s acknowledging the “divide” it caused by its unprecedented financial support of Putnam’s campaign.
“The public face of the gun control movement demanded $1 million Thursday from the Florida-based grocery chain in a tweet, just one day after calling for a “die-in” protest at its stores.”
Early this morning @davidhogg111 teamed up with @ChangeTheRef to create an art instillation outside of @publix in protest of the corporation and their support of Adam Putnam. 17 chalk outlines in multiple parking spots were drawn and wrapped in caution tape. #msd#neveragainpic.twitter.com/043cC2o6kA
He also wanted an acknowledgment for the gun control movement.
I call on @Publix to donate double the money they gave to Putman to the Stoneman Douglas Victims fund, $1,000,000. And never support an A rated NRA politician again.
As for Putnam, he’s sticking with the National Rifle Association and against the wishes of the survivors, some of whom like Hogg, will be old enough to vote against him. The primary is set for Aug. 28.
Hit the question mark for help and type in “political ads.”
The social media giant will tell you,
“When ads with political content appear on Facebook, they’re required to include information about who paid for them. An ad with political content on Facebook can be identified by the label: Sponsored – Paid for by. This label is followed by information about who paid for the ad. Learn more about what’s considered an ad with political content.”
Then, after a way to report seeing “an ad on Facebook that has political content, but doesn’t have a label showing who paid for it,” it tells you “Ads that have political content and have appeared on Facebook on or after May 7, 2018 will also appear in the Archive of Ads With Political Content.”
Something else you won’t be seeing on Facebook anymore are videos from The Weather Channel.
“[Facebook video] hasn’t been beneficial,” said Neil Katz, global head of content and engagement at The Weather Channel, according to Digiday at its Video Summit. “It has been good for Facebook, but it hasn’t been good for us.”
The publication wrote, “The Weather Channel’s Facebook presence included its main page as well as ‘weather-adjacent’ science, nature and travel verticals such as Rockets Are Cool, Crazimals and United States of Awesome.”
In March, The Weather Channel was sold to entrepreneur and entertainment executive Byron Allen, who us older folk remember from Real People. Another wise decision, sir.
Others are not as wise. Watch this news report FTVLive’s Scott Jones found from an excellent reporter, Stanley Roberts, at KRON in San Francisco. His beat is People Behaving Badly. This is for those of you who want to be in public but not on TV.
I love when people who don’t know what they’re talking about keep talking and talking, digging themselves further and further into a hole. By the way, a person has the right to shoot and record video in a public place. As far as consent for voice, which varies by state, a guy holding a video camera close by kind of tells you that you may be recorded! Sort of like a beep when you hear someone’s voicemail. Just a clue for the clueless.
And this is something I’ve seen several times before: Philadelphia’s own Frank Rizzo – former police commissioner who served two terms as mayor for most of the 1970s. He’d been out of office for less than a year when approached by a KYW-TV3 investigative reporter. This is something you shouldn’t miss, nor should the people above.
And speaking of Americans and our rights, the Philadelphia region’s two largest grocery store chains aren’t looking too super when it comes to our holidays, at least to me.
I hope Acme and ShopRite don’t know the meaning of Memorial Day, in which we honor our fallen heroes who are no longer able to barbecue or go down to the Jersey Shore. Otherwise, it’s just damn rude and insensitive.
Acme wants you to celebrate Memorial DayShopRite says to have a happy Memorial Day
Their recommendations to party should’ve been reminders to remember.
On that note, please don’t forget to read, show your friends and subscribe if you haven’t.
And have a good, long holiday weekend. (Wouldn’t that have been enough?)
Most of us strive for perfection. Some of us do it too hard, and it can affect our well-being.
Then…
and now.
On the other hand, there are people who just don’t know any better, or worse, don’t care.
I don’t watch TV nearly as much as I used to, especially newer shows, shows not on network TV, etc. One day, I’ll be asking you for advice on being a cord-cutter.
(Unless any of you in the Philadelphia area are experts on watching by streaming over the internet. But how do you get the internet without Comcast in a high-rise when Comcast is the only option?)
CBS
Anyway, I was writing a blog when Sheldon and Amy got married on The Big Bang Theory but watched it on demand over the weekend.
“Leonard is getting emotional helping his buddy get ready. Leonard is happy for Sheldon and that he will be officially and legally Amy’s problem. Ahh. Sheldon adds that he will always be Leonard’s problem.”
Then, Mary Cooper comes in and asks for a moment with her son, Sheldon.
After that, Sheldon describes to Amy,
“how her comments about imperfection in his bow tie makes him want to add the imperfections of the real world into his string theory calculations. Amy then calls his work super asymmetry and he likes that.”
Obviously, the importance of perfection depends what you’re doing.
None of us will be perfect in life, or in any particular part of it. That’s what makes us human. We can and should strive to improve in areas we particularly need it.
Which is why regular readers know I get angry when I see fellow journalists messing up or unwilling to fix their mistakes — especially former colleagues who know better.
That said, look at the Publix bakery. Publix is a big Florida supermarket and expanded into other southeastern states, where fed-up Floridians went when they became former Floridians.
The Miami Herald reports Publix decided “to censor a high school student’s graduation cake” when a South Carolina mom “said she ordered a Publix cake online for her son, Jacob, 18, last weekend to celebrate his summa cum laude designation. She intended the frosting to read: ‘Congrats Jacob! Summa Cum Laude class of 2018.’”
Wow! Ordering a cake online!
Come to think of it, The Herald reports that was the problem!
Mom had gone out of her way when ordering the cake to make sure everything would go right and Publix would accomplish just a tiny fraction of what her son did – reading, baking and spelling.
But…
“A computerized Publix algorithm that trolls cake inscription requests for naughty words didn’t like the Latin word ‘cum’ — pronounced coom — which means ‘with.’
“The centuries-old phrase translates to ‘with the highest distinction’ or ‘praise.’ So the cake maker followed the computer’s instruction — despite (proud Mom’s) explanation of the Latin phrase in the ‘special instructions’ column of the order form — and instead decorated the cake with ‘Congrats Jacob! Summa — Laude class of 2018.’
“The Latin preposition for ‘with’ was replaced by dashes.”
Instead, she “went on Facebook to tell everyone how embarrassing it was to have to explain to her son and 70-year-old mom the other meaning of that preposition when used as English slang.”
Brilliant Jacob may not be as brilliant as credited, or it may say a lot about his graduating class, if he looked at the actual word by itself and had no idea it may have an alternative meaning.
Last night, Stephen Colbert went off on Publix on “The Late Show” and was able to present “another graduation treat made for Jacob — cupcakes with the offending (to Publix) word as decorative frosting,” as The Herald put it.
Blame CBS, not me, if you see a commercial.
I’ll bet he didn’t have to travel to Times Square — a few blocks south of the Ed Sullivan Theater — to have them made, either.
According to The Post, Mom called Publix and the assistant manager offered to remake the cake.
“No,” the paper reported she said. “You only graduate once.”
But she may have ended up smiling financially.
Publix refunded $70 for the cake and gave her a store gift card.
Just don’t try it with Publix, yourself.
The Post wrote it “replicated her experience and got the same result.”
The Washington Post
So the tie Sheldon wore at his wedding in The Big Bang Theory may not have been tied perfectly. That’s not a big deal in the scheme of things. Besides, by the time anyone important (besides Mark Hamill) would see him close-up, there would’ve been plenty of time and movement for the perfect tie to become imperfect. So he gets away with it while dressed better than most of the guys on the show, most of the time, anyway. (And it would probably have been corrected for pictures.)
But as Jacob’s mom said, “You only graduate once,” and she said she explained the situation to the Publix assistant manager because she didn’t want this to happen to anyone else in the future.
Unfortunately,
“as The Washington Post test revealed, that particular ‘c’ word remains profane by Publix standards.”
So nothing was learned. Try putting it on your next license plate instead.
P.S. I have another reward for reading all the way!
In an exclusive, unaired clip from The Big Bang Theory Season 11 finale, the happy couple gets one last wedding present from the late theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.
Hawking died in March. I posted a Facebook article with thoughts then.
Also, I’ll give you these two articles on how the scientist was so misguided on that topic.
And from the same day:
Stephen Hawking reaffirms support of Israel boycott: Hawking sends letter to President’s Conference organizers saying he faced pressure to withdraw from Palestinian academics (Jerusalem Post, May 8, 2013)
Please, if you like what you read here, subscribe to CohenConnect.comwith either your email address or WordPress account, and get a notice whenever I publish.
P.S. Just wanted to make sure no connection between words in Summa Cum Laude and The Big Bang Theory was implied.
In late March, USA Today reported Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King drew criticism when someone from his campaign team mocked González’s ‘look’ in a meme published to King’s official Facebook page.
According to the paper, “It’s part of a wave of recent attempts to discredit González and other survivors as they call for legislation to address gun violence.”
It described
“an image of Gonzalez with tears streaming down her face at (the) March for Our Lives in Washington, D.C., as she recalled the 17 lives lost at her school. … The accompanying text criticizes Gonzalez’ Cuban heritage, seeming to reference the Cuban flag patch seen on her sleeve.”
It was posted on March 25 and was STILL UP moments ago.
You can see, the post says, “This is how you look when you claim Cuban heritage yet don’t speak Spanish and ignore the fact that your ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned Cuba into a prison camp, after removing all weapons from its citizens; hence their right to self defense.”
“King’s page later denied that it was bullying the teen, who has been the victim of right-wing vitriol over speeches remembering her classmates and calling for stricter gun laws, and said that it was strictly focused on communism in Cuba, whose flag Gonzalez was wearing on her arm.”
Maybe except the part about, “after removing all weapons from its citizens; hence their right to self defense.”
Just so you know where many Americans stand, Facebook reported the post got a lot of attention: about 3,400 likes, 2,200 angers, 459 laughs, 154 loves, 114 sad faces, and 110 wow/shocks.
According to a Univision profile, González’s father escaped from Fidel Castro’s Cuban regime and moved to New York in 1968.
You know criticism of the congressman’s post came quickly.
But “Team King” and his supporters stood by the meme.
(Pretty classy! Does this change your opinion of politicians?)
King even angered Cuban-Americans who wrote in an article, “The Cuban flag has nothing to do with communism.”
Even fellow survivor and activist David Hogg tweeted his senator, Florida Republican Marco Rubio, to address King.
Hey @marcorubio@Emma4Change s family fled Cuba to escape totalitarianism and live in freedom just like your family could you please respond to @SteveKingIA
As far as I’ve seen, Hogg got the same response as a third survivor and activist, Cameron Kasky, when he asked Rubio during a CNN town hall to refuse contributions from the National Rifle Association: no answer.
But he did better when calling for somebody to challenge Leslie Gibson, who was running unopposed as a Republican for the Maine House of Representatives. Gibson had described González as a “skinhead lesbian.”
Hey freinds in Maine! Who wants to run against this hate loving politician he's is running UNOPPOSED RUN AGAINST HIM I don't care what party JUST DO IT. https://t.co/vRR7p1ZHKf
“As soon as she walked on the March for Our Lives stage clad in an olive green jacket, a Cuban flag patch on her right arm — the words of another student ‘Welcome to the Revolution’ still ringing in our ears — I knew that the optics wouldn’t favor Emma González.
“Ugh, good thing she didn’t go for the Che Guevara beret, too.
“I’m a gun control advocate, but I am also a Cuban-American marked and wounded by a revolution turned into one of the world’s longest-lasting dictatorships. The men who seized power and repressed — who burst into homes to search without warrants and confiscated businesses, homes, lands, and guns – wore olive green fatigues.”
González did get a complete thumbs-up from Gloria Estefan, who certainly understands the situation in Cuba more than her.
North Miami City Councilman Scott Galvin – who taught middle school U.S. History for a decade, and spoke when I had to organize Career Day at a nearby elementary school outside city limits – wrote about meeting Emma, “and she was polite and warm.”
But later, he recognized a teachable moment and escorted about 70 students from the city’s North Miami High and Alonzo Mourning High for a bus ride to Washington for the March of Our Lives.
Councilman Galvin emailed,
“As she strode on stage, however, she was all tiger. Wow. She emotionally swung into her speech. Then, suddenly, tears streamed down her face and she went silent. It seemed to me that she had frozen. I thought that the pressure of the last six weeks had caught up with her. But I was glad no adult rushed on stage to bail her out. There hadn’t been an adult on stage the whole day, outside of performers. I didn’t want them to start now.
“But her silence continued. One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes.
“At this stage, I was now hoping for someone, anyone to wrap their arms around Emma and save her from this emotional shock. But no one did. I was getting increasingly uncomfortable.
“Suddenly, after four minutes of silence, I heard her watch alarm go off. NOW I understood. Emma allowed her speech to last exactly six minutes and twenty seconds, the exact amount of time that elapsed as a gunman cut down her friends back at Douglas.
“She then told the audience that they needed to stand up for their own lives before someone else had to do it in their absence.
“Wow. What a speech!”
The National Education Association quoted González saying “This was not the end. This is just the beginning” in an email urging members to make their voices heard until Congress passes legislation to stop gun violence.
“A doctored animation of González tearing the U.S. Constitution in half circulated on social media during the rally, after it was lifted from a Teen Vogue story about teenage activists. In the real image, González is ripping apart a gun-range target.”
This tweet from Teen Vogue’s chief content officer, Phillip Picardi, shows the absolute difference but he apparently doesn’t know exactly who’s responsible.
He charged at the man with the rifle. They fought. Finally, Shaw said he managed to wrestle the barrel of the rifle from the gunman and tossed it behind the counter. The suspected shooter got away for a day, and Shaw got a trip to the hospital.
BREAKING: 5 more warrants have now been issued against Travis Reinking charging 4 counts of attempted murder and 1 count of unlawful gun possession in the commission of a violent felony. 1 of the attempted murder victims is hero James Shaw. Reinking's court date is now May 7. pic.twitter.com/YI1NT4qWcf
So VP Pence called disgraced (and Trump pardoned) AZ sheriff Arpaio a "champion" of the "rule of law"?!!? That's sort of like calling Kanye West a "scholar" of "antebellum history."
Speaking of Second Amendment defenders, click here for details on why USA Today said Congressman “King made a name for himself criticizing immigrants.” (Oh, and a bit about a Confederate flag on his desk, despite King being a native Iowan and Iowa being a Union state.)
You can have your say in a more private way. King’s phone number is 712-664-5097 and click here for his campaign website. He’s up for reelection in November.
Please, if you like what you read here, subscribe to CohenConnect.comwith either your email address or WordPress account, and get a notice whenever I publish.
This is my 90th blog post and like most journalists, I identify mistakes all over and somehow — often through publicity — try to get them fixed. But not on this milestone. There’s too much good to write about.
I also want to point out the page CohenConnect Headlines Sitemap has a list of all the blog posts I’ve written and published over the past 3+ years, in chronological order. Nobody — early readers nor myself — can remember everything I’ve done and there hadn’t been a place to look. The right side of what you’re reading (or bottom on mobile) just show the past 10 and the most popular. A regular “sitemap” of category words is well below, on the bottom of the right side (or the bottom on mobile). But the “search” box also works very well, contains both categories and tags, and maybe more.
So staying positive, let’s honor some heroes with this post. These days, there are too few and far between. I remember years ago, while working at WCAU in Philadelphia, Larry Mendte saying on the air with such certainty, “Heroes never admit they are,” or something to that effect.
I’ll start by setting something straight. Two survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Florida posed for a picture with the caption Prom 2018, but they won’t be going together.
That’s despite what Pink News in the UK reported Tuesday, to the disappointment of Cameron Kasky and David Hogg’s many fans.
The publication describes Kasky “lovingly hugging Hogg, who contrasts Kasky’s sloppy smile with a stair which pierces your soul.”
Monday, Kasky posted the picture on Twitter. Click here for that original article, which may not be true, but contained a lot of positive reaction from hopeful supporters.
“Rebecca Boldrick, Hogg’s mother, told TMZ.com that Hogg has another date for the prom.
“Jeff Kasky, Cameron’s dad, told TMZ, ‘Cameron and David love each other very much, as do the 20 or so other kids that are part of their group, but not in a romantic type of way.’”
Then, Cameron’s mother, who has been a friend for about 40 years, posted a picture of the two of them titled “My date” Tuesday night. I’m not naming her because she has not put her name out in the public.
You watched Kasky dress down Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in a CNN town hall for refusing to refuse contributions from the National Rifle Association. In fact, what it took for Cameron to try to get a simple “yes” or “no” answer to his question from a sitting U.S. senator and former presidential candidate from his own state was amazing!
Fellow survivor Hogg also became a gun control advocate and activist against gun violence, but he has been more controversial. New to Florida — his family moved from L.A. at the start of high school — he chose to attend Stoneman Douglas because of its TV production classes.
Hogg may be most famous for what The Washington Post called his “dust-up with Fox News host Laura Ingraham,” who used this tweet to “make fun of the teen’s public lament about being rejected by colleges to which he had applied.”
David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it. (Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA…totally predictable given acceptance rates.) https://t.co/wflA4hWHXY
(It really won’t matter because he plans to take next year off after high school to campaign in the midterm elections.)
The next day, Ingraham apologized to Hogg but not anybody else she’d put down over the years, including LeBron James, and by then it was too late.
Any student should be proud of a 4.2 GPA —incl. @DavidHogg111. On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland. For the record, I believe my show was the first to feature David…(1/2)
… immediately after that horrific shooting and even noted how "poised" he was given the tragedy. As always, he’s welcome to return to the show anytime for a productive discussion. WATCH: https://t.co/5wcd00wWpd (2/2)
So, knowing how TV and news are businesses that revolve around money (Where have you heard that multiple times before?), he urged his 700,000+ Twitter followers to boycott Ingraham’s advertisers.
Pick a number 1-12 contact the company next to that #
The Washington Post noted, Hogg called the apology an insincere “effort just to save your advertisers.”
Then, “In a matter of days, Ingraham lost more than a dozen advertisers, including Johnson & Johnson, Nestlé, Hulu, Jenny Craig, Ruby Tuesday and Miracle-Ear.”
The following message was issued earlier today to employees of Liberty Mutual Insurance by David Long, Chairman and CEO: pic.twitter.com/FVyIBZrnC0
“It’s disturbing to know that somebody can bully so many people and just get away with it, especially to the level that she did. … No matter who somebody is, no matter how big or powerful they may seem, a bully is a bully, and it’s important that you stand up to them.”
He even went as far as to compare the tweet and Ingraham’s criticism of him, saying they “were in line with bullying statements she had made about others: a conflict with gays while she was at Dartmouth in 1984 and, recently, responding to LeBron James’s political statements by saying that the NBA star should ‘shut up and dribble.’”
“I’m glad to see corporate America standing with me and the other students of Parkland and everybody else. Because when we work together, we can accomplish anything.”
Then Ingraham took a week off. Fox claimed the vacation had been planned.
Hogg, now 18, has already made political change.
When Leslie Gibson, who was running unopposed for the Maine House of Representatives, described fellow Parkland student Emma González as a “skinhead lesbian,” Hogg called for somebody to challenge the Republican. He got not one but two other candidates, and Gibson dropped out of the race in response to public reaction critical of his comments.
“The Zionist Organization of America is calling on Parkland survivor and activist David Hogg to change the name of his forthcoming book, as it believes that the title shows ‘shocking insensitivity to Holocaust survivors.’
“Random House publishers announced Thursday that David and his sister Lauren had penned a deal with the publishing house to release a book, #NEVERAGAIN: A New Generation Draws the Line, June 5.”
Lauren is a freshman survivor.
Today @lauren_hoggs and I are announcing our book #NeverAgain that tells the story of the foundation of this movement for those we lost. Lauren and I will be using the money made from the book to help heal the community. #NeverAgain out June 5th https://t.co/Vh2gWVWNGq
The Blaze also reports the book is being described as
“a statement of generational purpose, and a moving portrait of the birth of a new movement.”
“In times of struggle and tragedy, we can come together in love and compassion for each other,” David told Entertainment Weekly. “We can see each other not as political symbols, but as human beings. And then, of course, there will be times when we simply must fight for what is right.”
Sister Lauren added, “It’s amazing to see that so much love can come from so much loss. But from our loss, our generation will create positive change.”
But I’ve had an issue with using the phrase “never again” since it has always referred to one event: the murders of 6 million Jews and millions of others in the Nazis’ organized extermination campaign during World War II. Personally, I think the book title should be changed, and don’t think the phrase should be used in any other matter, but don’t doubt Hogg’s sincerity about the gun issue.
The ZOA said in part,
“By co-opting ‘Never Again’ title for his book opposing guns, David Hogg trivializes the holocaust” and the Hoggs’ book title “offends Holocaust survivors, Jews, and all human rights-loving people.”
Those are sections the Glenn Beck-founded network chose to highlight, due to its own agenda.
“This statement should not be construed as in any way lessening our shock, outrage and pain regarding the Parkland school shooting. ZOA completely sympathizes with the loving, bereft families and all the infinitely precious victims of the Parkland shooting, all other school shootings, and all other shootings. All affected by these tragedies are in our hearts and prayers. …
“It is an expression that should never be politicized or co-opted by anyone, regardless of political affiliation. …
“The Holocaust was unique and unprecedented, in that: it involved a ‘final solution’ designed to murder every single Jewish man, woman and child; Jews were the only people killed for the ‘crime’ of existing; the murder of Jews was an ‘end in itself’ rather than a means to some other goal; and the people who carried out the ‘Final Solution’ were primarily average citizens ‘just doing a job.’ None of the other terrible slaughters and genocides this world has witnessed share all these characteristics.”
We’ll see what happens.
A third of the 20 founding members of the group Never Again MSD is activist Emma González, who has also had to deal with criticism of her bisexual orientation, hairstyle and more, including this.
The Washington Post reported,
“A doctored animation of González tearing the U.S. Constitution in half circulated on social media during the rally, after it was lifted from a Teen Vogue story about teenage activists. In the real image, González is ripping apart a gun-range target.”
I guess you could say desperate liars were targeting her because they had nothing better.
Kasky, Hogg and González — along with fellow students Jacqueline Cohen and Alex Wind — even made Time magazine‘s list of the 100 most influential people in the world for becoming prominent activists, organizing protests, and speaking out publicly to demand stricter laws on gun control.
Time wrote in an article, How we chose the 2018 TIME 100 list of the world’s most influential people: “Barack Obama, who has said that his greatest frustration as President was the failure of commonsense gun-safety laws, draws inspiration from the Parkland, Fla., teenagers who organized the March for Our Lives: ‘They have the power … to reject the old constraints, outdated conventions and cowardice too often dressed up as wisdom.’” Click here for the Time article about the Parkland 5.
Mashable went back further, writing the former president…
Young people have helped lead all our great movements. How inspiring to see it again in so many smart, fearless students standing up for their right to be safe; marching and organizing to remake the world as it should be. We've been waiting for you. And we've got your backs.
I’m in total awe of the extraordinary students in Florida. Like every movement for progress in our history, gun reform will take unyielding courage and endurance. But @barackobama and I believe in you, we’re proud of you, and we’re behind you every step of the way.
“both tweeted support for the Parkland teens following the deadly shooting, and wrote them a handwritten letter in praise of their ‘resilience, resolve and solidarity.’”
Notice the dates on everything. The attack took place on Feb. 14.
Mashable included a typed version of the letter, for those of you having trouble with Mr. Obama’s handwriting, and also a look at celebrities joining in at the March for Our Lives.
Even former NFL placekicker Jay Feely needs a lesson on seriousness, after The Sporting News showed a tweet he posted. It showed a “photo of him holding a gun while standing between his daughter and her prom date” that was intended to be a joke.
Feely should know better. He’s from Florida, grew up there and spent a year with the Miami Dolphins. The next day, he clarified what had happened.
The prom picture I posted was obviously intended to be a joke. My Daughter has dated her boyfriend for over a year and they knew I was joking. I take gun safety seriously (the gun was not loaded and had no clip in) and I did not intend to be insensitive to that important issue
On a more positive note, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports the prom will be an “over-the-top” party with a touching tribute, and students promising the best prom ever, after 17 people were shot to death at their school on Valentine’s Day. Four seniors were killed. So were seven freshman (that will be some prom in three years), plus three other students and two adults.
Eventually, the prom committee wanted to recognize the tragedy that’ll mark their high school memories. There will be a memorial near the entrance to the ballroom. It’ll also include two members of their class who died in 2016 of cystic fibrosis and suicide. The memorial will be surrounded by couches and designated as a quiet place to sit and think.
Inside, the prom will be stopped by 17 seconds of silence.
It also won’t be expensive. The cost: Just $30 per ticket, and $50 for non-seniors. The hotel, DJ, florist, decorator, and other vendors are donating their services for free or at cost, and the hotel is giving families of the senior victims a free weekend of their choice.
Good for all of them!
Marjory Stoneman Douglas survivors, along with high school students from around the country, were not even born 19 years ago during the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colo.
(I remember it like yesterday. I had returned from vacation, was working at WCAU, and our news anchor Renee Chenault happened to be from Littleton. She ended up going there to report from her hometown, but being local news, did not get the publicity of Katie Couric for touching the hand of a victim’s father on the Today show.)
There were an estimated 150,000 students protesting on Friday’s anniversary at more than 2,700 walkouts, according to organizers.
The Chicago Tribune, in an Associated Press article published Friday afternoon, said,
“In a new wave of school walkouts, they raised their voices against gun violence. But this time, they were looking to turn outrage into action.”
The students, “turned their attention to upcoming elections as they pressed for tougher gun laws and politicians who will enact them. Scores of rallies turned into voter registration drives. Students took the stage to issue an ultimatum to their lawmakers.”
Activists behind a March 14 protest, a month after Stoneman Douglas, estimated it drew nearly 1 million students.
(I find it interesting The Chicago Tribune used an Associated Press article, while I learned Chicago’s Fox TV station asked the other Fox stations for a story they could post on their website, because they were apparently unable to write one of their own. Were there no rallies anywhere near Chicago? Probably plenty, considering the numbers above! At minimum, I would’ve shown the big one around town and then another in a zip code they wanted to target for ratings. Even chopper video would’ve done the job except for hearing the students tell their reasons for walking out, firsthand. But we know how Fox stations operate with sharing web articles. It seems at this point, they’ve become dependent on their sister-stations rather than even try to do the work. I love how so many of today’s young people are the opposite of this kind of corporate laziness!)
The Washington Post noted, “Critics have questioned whether … the high school students demanding that the nation’s gun laws be strengthened are mature enough to understand the complex policy positions they have staked out.”
Isn’t this exactly what we want from our young people? To think, investigate and reconsider if necessary? And don’t these particular students who experienced what they did have unique insight on the issue? Yet some people feel the need to criticize them. Maybe it’s because they need to be heard. Maybe because these grown-ups really have not grown up and are jealous. Or maybe because “the kids are alright” and and it simply bothers them because they have issues of their own.
How much are they bothered?
Click here for “Ted Nugent says Parkland students ‘have no soul,’ calls them ‘mushy-brained children’” (The Washington Post, March 31, 2018).
Nugent, perhaps the NRA’s most outspoken board member, told a San Antonio radio station, “These poor children, I’m afraid to say, but the evidence is irrefutable. They have no soul,” after discussing with the host their belief the teenagers have been manipulated by left-wing ideologues.
“The lies from these poor, mushy-brained children who have been fed lies and parrot lies,” Nugent said. “I really feel sorry for them. It’s not only ignorant, dangerous and stupid — it’s soulless. To attack the good, law-abiding families of America when well-known, predictable murderers commit these horrors is deep in the category of soulless.”
Click here for “How the Parkland teens became villains on the right-wing Internet” (The Washington Post, March 26, 2018).
If ardent NRA supporters don’t lose now, or in this year’s midterms, or even the 2020 presidential election, they should absolutely know the demographics of this country are changing. Eventually, they will lose to people who have felt real pain and others of that generation. It’s going to happen, whether they’ll consider themselves martyrs, or if they’re even alive to feel any suffering from their defeat.
Wikipedia
Also a hero: Last week, the pilot of Southwest Airlines flight 1380, Captain Tammie Jo Shults, landed her plane calmly and successfully, on just one engine, here in Philadelphia. She saved 148 lives.
According to The Guardian, “Those present recalled that after the plane had landed, Shults walked through the aisle to talk to them, to see how they were doing.”
Talk about responsibility AND customer service!
Turns out, The Guardian continued,
“Shults was one of the first female fighter pilots in the US Navy and was elite enough to fly an F/A-18 Hornet. She flew training missions as an ‘enemy pilot’ during Operation Desert Storm, as women were then still excluded from combat missions.”
Also not to be forgotten is the heroism of Waffle House diner James Shaw Jr. Early Sunday morning, outside Nashville, he was sitting with a friend at the restaurant counter when police said a gunman wearing nothing but a green jacket opened fire outside.
As CNN reported, “Glass shattered, dust swirled and Shaw said he saw a man lying on the ground.”
Four people were killed.
BREAKING: 3 persons fatally shot & 4 others wounded at the Waffle House, 3571 Murfreesboro Pike. Gunman opened fire @ 3:25 a.m. A patron wrestled away the gunman's rifle. He was nude & fled on foot. He is a white man with short hair. pic.twitter.com/d1qxRxsGNx
“bolted from his seat and slid along the ground to the restroom, he said. But he kept an eye and an ear out for the gunman. And the moment the shooter paused, Shaw decided to ambush him … before more lives were lost.”
He charged at the man with the rifle. They fought. Finally, Shaw said he managed to wrestle the barrel of the rifle from the gunman, tossed it behind the counter and the shooter escaped.
Investigation on going at the Waffle House. Scene being processed by MNPD experts. This is the rifle used by the gunman. pic.twitter.com/lihhRImHQN
“The gun was hot and he was naked but none of that mattered,” Shaw said, with a burn on his hand a wound on his elbow where a bullet grazed it.
He told reporters,
“I figured if I was going to die, he was going to have to work for it. … I was just trying to live.”
This laptop bag, empty except for a handwritten ID card bearing the name Travis Reinking, was found by a citizen near the I-24 Old Hickory Blvd interchange. Unknown whether it was discarded before or after the shooting. Reinking is believed to have been in that area Sat. night. pic.twitter.com/yduQlXvAFE
Travis Jeffrey Reinking, 29, was arrested Monday, after a 34-hour manhunt.
BREAKING: 5 more warrants have now been issued against Travis Reinking charging 4 counts of attempted murder and 1 count of unlawful gun possession in the commission of a violent felony. 1 of the attempted murder victims is hero James Shaw. Reinking's court date is now May 7. pic.twitter.com/YI1NT4qWcf
NBC News pointed out he went from wearing only a green jacket to a green “suicide smock — a padded gown made from heavy-duty polyester that is held together with Velcro strips.”
If you are of a certain age, you remember Schoolhouse Rock! from ABC on Saturday mornings. The jazz musician who was instrumental in that cartoon series died Monday in Mount Bethel, Pa., 92 miles and an hour-and-a-half drive from Philadelphia.
Bob Dorough was 94.
Wikipedia
Simple Wikipedia
Schoolhouse Rock! ran from 1973 to 1985. The cartoons, including “My Hero, Zero” and “Three is a Magic Number,” (the first in the series) were written and performed by Dorough.
His biography says he “entertained and instructed unsuspecting children.”
Schoolhouse Rock! came back for another five years in the 1990s and its 40th anniversary was marked with a DVD edition of the entire five subject series.
Has a Schoolhouse Rock! tune ever helped you on a test? Do you have a favorite? I especially liked how a bill became a law (“I’m Just a Bill”) and “Conjunction Junction.”
Wikipedia
Finally, there’s the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, site of last night’s Sixers playoff game where they eliminated the Miami Heat. Actually, the topic is replacement names, and Wells Fargo is not a very good corporate citizen.
I have always been against companies buying names for stadiums and liked it when NBC Sports, before losing the NFL in 1998, made it a point of not referring to the names of stadiums but just the city, unless there was confusion between different stadiums.
The stadium, where the Flyers played hockey until their season ended earlier this week, is named for Wells Fargo which is a big bank in Philadelphia and many other cities. Before that, it was named Wachovia. Before that, First Union. FU Center had something special to it. And before that, CoreStates. Just shows you how banks take each other over and waste money having to change the names on every branch and piece of real estate, including the ones they sponsor or use to advertise.
Just two years ago, Wells Fargo’s employees recused of secretly opening more than 2 million deposit and credit card accounts to meet their sales targets and receive bonuses. The bank had to pay $185 million to settle those allegations. It also fired about 5,300 employees for doing what may have been their jobs. In that case as well, Wells Fargo did not admit or deny allegations.
San Francisco-based Wells Fargo has been the nation’s third largest bank by assets.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia
FYI, the late Wilt Chamberlain played for the San Francisco/Philadelphia Warriors and the Philadelphia 76ers, and is widely considered one of the greatest and most dominant players in NBA history. He still holds the single-game scoring record, having scored 100 in one game. It happened March 2, 1962, in Hershey, Pa. against the New York Knicks. The Philadelphia Warriers moved west to San Francisco after that season.
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But luckily, denying all Americans equal access to a free and open internet got very controversial. Friday, California lawmakers passed a bill what Variety called “the strongest government-mandated protections in the country” and it’s now on Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk. Brown hasn’t said whether he’ll sign it. But the FCC ’s repeal forbids states from passing their own net neutrality rules. If Gov. Brown signs California’s bill, this could go to court. Pai, a former Verizon lawyer (think Fios), claims net neutrality stifled investment and burdened ISPs with regulation. Since June, ISPs have been able to make changes as long as they’re disclosed. So far, 
Here’s more controversy from the FCC, and something I hadn’t written about before. This time, the agency is accused of lying to its watchdog, Congress, and it involves a TV comedian. More than a year ago, during the height of the net neutrality debate, the FCC claimed its “comment filing system 
And as you just read, the president also claimed NBC Nightly News anchor “Lester Holt got caught fudging” his tape on Russia, but the peacock network fought back and 
It was time for Frisky’s first annual physical. That’s not counting the office visit she had a year ago, after I adopted her from 
Publix is based in Lakeland, and Putnam lives in Bartow, both in Polk County.
Kasky, Hogg and González — along with fellow students Jacqueline Cohen and Alex Wind — even made 
Also not to be forgotten is the heroism of Waffle House diner James Shaw Jr. Early Sunday morning, outside Nashville, he was sitting with a friend at the restaurant counter when police said a gunman wearing nothing but a green jacket opened fire outside.
