|
Three Years
|
Mar. 17th, 2008 @ 08:59 pm
|
|---|
|
Today marks the last day of the third year of The Judge Report. Since even I'm beginning to lose track of much of it, I've decided to limit The Best of Year Three to the calendar year 2007 post March 18, and in future years I'll just archive the "best ofs" to the calendar year, Revised Gregorian.
Readership continues to grow, due in no small part to the dozens of people daily searching out my piece on Father Corapi. I notice big spikes on Saturday and Sunday evenings!
Thanks to all.
********
The usual navigation rules apply. When you reach the bottom of the page, find the navigation bar in the left column and click on "Previous Page".
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
What if God Were One of Us
|
Dec. 29th, 2007 @ 03:38 pm
|
|---|
|
I read an article recently that proclaimed that Catholics will be the key to the coming presidential election. "They" almost always back the winner in recent decades. (I'd cite the source, but I've laid off all of my research assistants --see prior post--- and I'm too lazy to look it up).
Personally I find the whole concept a bit hilarious as Catholics are split almost exactly along the national fault lines. It is rather remarkable, when you think about it, that the most organized, structured, anchored ecclesial body in the country has no more homogeneous political thought than a group of a thousand random citizens, notwithstanding the ability to communicate directly with millions of the flock on a weekly basis.
On the other hand, the decidedly loosely structured religious groups that we tend to lump together with the term "Evangelicals" have the most fantastic underground communication system imaginable and tend to roll together in giant waves unseen by the movers, shakers, plotters and pundits among us.
Hence Pat Robertson, 1988, Iowa. Hence Huckabee, virtually unknown outside his own state. Hence Jimmy Carter, 1976.
I have many friends and a few relatives who are evangelicals and God is the center of their universe and they tend to think of themselves as in the world but not of it. I tend to feel that way myself, sometimes, and certainly understand and applaud their disdain for the popular culture.
For good reason they don't trust a lot of politicians. Neither do I. And they certainly get turned off by people who do lip service to their various causes and then do nothing at all when they take office.
So, in a "them against us mindset" their natural inclination is to give full support to someone they know to be one of them.
They carry a lot of clout in elections, and have been voting overwhelmingly with the Republicans. But individually they are not all conservatives in relation to the broad spectrum of political issues. Over the years many have been suckers to populist clap-trap. The rush to Huckabee is frankly a little scary, as the man possesses no obvious attributes that would make you ordinarily think he is qualified for the highest office in the secular world.
Being on God's side is good. Having Him on your side is good, too. I tend to view God as a Conservative-Republican Pro-Lfe Catholic Red Sox Fanatic, myself. I think we believers all like to think of Him as one of us.
But really, that doesn't mean any one of us is ready to be PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
POSITION WANTED
|
Dec. 28th, 2007 @ 08:33 pm
|
|---|
|
Doesn't that have a quaint, almost Victorian sound?
"He's seeking a position. I'm sure he'll be placed some time soon."
Ah, well.
Today I prepared my last Common Council agenda, went out to lunch with some folks from City Hall, threw some more personal stuff, including all but one coffee mug, into the box I've been keeping by my desk for the last couple of months. I put the talking Napoleon Dynamite back in his clear plastic shell and tossed him in the box, too. The Controller had a bunch of things to discuss with me and we solved one problem after another and then she said, as she always does, "That's it."
Yeah. That's it.
So I guess come Wednesday I'll be scratching for clients again and maybe eventually I'll have enough work to reopen my old office, which fortunately still has my sign on the door (this would be third time around).
I really don't want to do that.
What I'd really like is a POSITION, with like a regular steady income and maybe a few benefits, something to keep me busy until it makes economic sense to collect my state retirement (the early retirement penalty is really too great right now).
So, readers, I'm 56 and a half years old, I've been admitted to the New York Bar for 28 years, served as Assistant District Attorney, Social Services Attorney, City Court Judge (nine years), Family Court Judge (6 years), Assistant Public Defender, City Attorney and a broad-ranging private practice typical of small town lawyers.
But I don't have to be a lawyer. That's just my background. I've also done a fairly successful radio talk show (for the sponsors, that is) and am pretty quick on my feet. I love to write and I love to express my opinion, and I have an opinion about just about everything. I have a brain crammed-full of trivia. I know most of the endings of the five Latin declensions and am willing to memorize and say the rest.
I can write instant parodies of most popular songs written on or before D-Day and show tunes through 1966. I've written a murder mystery that no one reads even though it's free on this blog and advertised with every post.
I once wrote a joke for Rodney Dangerfield ("I tell you, I get no respect. My wife gave me a St. Anthony medal. I lost it.") but never sent it to him. I have a movie plot in my head that would be one of the great films of all time. I can still make a hell of a snow cone and my tomato sauce is the best on the hill.
At Ground Zero I learned to cut bagels seventy dozen at a time, but I don't think the wrist would hold up anymore.
I haven't got a great singing voice, but it has heart and a little style and I notice my nearly six week old granddaughter gurgles and chirps and smiles when I sing to her.
No reasonable offer refused. Reply rgoing-at-yahoo.com.
[UPDATE] AND I was Editor-in Chief of the Bishop Scully Kaleidoscope, 1968-69!
My page editors Margaret Gutowski, Frank Romeo and Debbie Dado sit across from a pensive me. I got to be chief because I can read upside down and pretend to be working better than any of the others.
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
Mitt Romney
|
Dec. 27th, 2007 @ 09:58 pm
|
|---|
|
Somewhere around three centuries ago a branch of the Going family left Ireland for Australia and later wandered over to New Zealand where they encountered Mormon missionaries, sometime in the 19th century, and converted. One of them ended up in southern California a few miles from my brother.
Our branch of the family settled in Upstate New York in the mid-19th century, less than three hours via the Thruway from Palmyra where Joseph Smith began the whole thing, but the Mormons had gone by then and we missed the whole thing.
The better part of thirty years ago the last Going in Ireland, also Robert, put me in touch with the old fellow in California, Lionel Going, and we kept up a lively correspondence for a while. If you like genealogy, and it's one of my favorite hobbies, there's nothing like having a Mormon 12th cousin, and Lionel Going was invaluable in my research, sending me acres of hand-written charts.
Along the way he also let me borrow original manuscripts of both his and his wife's autobiographies, and they were fascinating.
Mrs. Lionel Going, then pushing 90, as I recall, had been born into a polygamous Mormon sect in Mexico. Part of the deal for Utah entering the Union involved giving up polygamy, and those who held to it as an article of faith fled the country and managed to live unbothered south of the border. Another child born into that sect was George Romney, whose monogamous parents returned to the United States at the time of the Mexican Revolution.
George, of course, grew up to run (and rescue) American Motors and got himself elected Governor of Michigan. He was, in the parlance of the time, a "me too" Republican, that is, essentially a Democrat in philosophy who knew how to run things better.
In 1964 he became a stalwart in the STOP GOLDWATER movement, in which a triad of big state liberal Republicans, Romney, Nelson Rockefeller of New York and William Scranton of Pennsylvania, pooled their resources in an attempt to prevent the conservatives from taking over the Republican Party, caused a ruckus at the convention in San Francisco, walked out while Goldwater was speaking and then sat on their hands in the fall.
I may have been only thirteen at the time, but I sure recognized that George Romney was not a guy I had any use for. He was not only belligerently anti-conservative, but humorless as well, a handsome man to be sure, but with all the charm of John Kerry.
He was the leading candidate of the "moderates" for the 1968 election (Rocky was lurking in the background hedging his bets, several times announcing his "active non-candidacy"), but blew it all in a famous flip-flopping double-barreled suicide when he announced his opposition to the war in Vietnam, claiming that his previous support had been due to "brainwashing" by the generals.
A compassionate Richard Nixon rescued him from total oblivion by making him Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, a position for which he was well-suited.
***********
So what's all this have to do with his son Mitt?
Well, I'm just outlining my prejudices so you know where I'm coming from. I'm no natural fan of the Romney family.
Clearly the administrative skills of the father were inherited by the son. Mitt Romney's ability to muscle the Olympic bureaucracy for the Salt Lake City games demonstrated mastery bordering on genius. The political skills honed there served him well in Massachusetts, a state where it's hard to put together a dinner party if you're only inviting Republicans.
Mitt is comfortable with today's conservatives, though personally I don't consider him "one of us" in the sense that there are quite a few clearly defined "movement conservatives" who, though disagreeing on any number of things, lend a hand to each other with various causes and certainly recognize each other as natural allies.
Romney, I think, is more of a loner than a joiner. He is certainly conservative in temperament, values, virtues and for the most part philosophy. He has leadership skills, but he is not a Conservative Leader, in the sense of a Taft, Buckley, Goldwater and certainly Reagan.
One can imagine him running the federal government competently, but not making the major changes or waves that some of us would like to see. He's really just a friendlier version of the old man, tolerant and maybe even affectionate toward the conservative wing of the party, but not of it.
No problem voting for him in November, and nobody would look more like a president than Mitt, but for right now I don't think he makes my top three.
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
Rudy
|
Dec. 19th, 2007 @ 09:18 pm
|
|---|
|
This is where I met Rudy Giuliani on November 11, 2001, at Ground Zero. I'm somewhere in the lower right, I think. The occasion was a tribute to all the nations who lost citizens on September 11, something like 92 as I recall. The Secretary General of the UN was there, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, numerous ambassadors, New York's two senators, including her, the Governor and the President of the United States.
We were the receiving line. They came to shake our hands.
President Bush was most gracious and took his time with everyone, as did Governor Pataki. Rudy followed, friendly, relaxed and considerate. He signed my hardhat, right where I wanted: over a photo-sticker of those guys raising the flag. It remains one of my proudest possessions.
Whether I end up voting for Rudy or not, I have long been a fan, going back to his days as District Attorney in Queens. Better never try to tell him that something can't be done. He took on the Mafia, for crying out loud.
I remember New York City before Giuliani. He changed it utterly. Today it is one of my very favorite places to visit. Those who pooh-pooh his involvement and deny him the credit he is due are self-delusioned idiots.
Oh, he's done some things to annoy the hell out of me from time to time. He's that kind of guy, after all. He never seemed particularly interested in advancing the Republican Party beyond himself in New York City, but then there weren't too many elected Republicans in city government once you got past the mayor.
I sure wish he was truer to his church's teachings on life issues. I don't think, though, that I imagined the twinkle in his eye at Cardinal O'Connor's funeral when Cardinal Law praised O'Connor's defense of human life from conception to natural death, a remark which caused a thunderous standing ovation which Rudy joined in way ahead of the squirming Clintons in front of him.
But he hasn't been good on that issue, and that means a lot to me. Of course, his duty as president would only rarely coincide with life issues, and then primarily in the selection of judges, and on that score I like the kind of judges he likes, and I trust his sincerity in that regard. So as far as that goes he is not a typical liberal Republican, certainly not in the mold of Rockefeller or Lindsay or Gerald R. Ford.
On economics and trade and defense and foreign policy, he's pretty dead on with conservative principles. On immigration, a bit all over the lot. As are most of the candidates.
He's articulate and a proven leader. He eclipsed every politician in America after 9/11. His calm, steady hand at the helm kept us together, and not only kept his city from falling apart, but brought it back to life.
He may not end up being my first choice, but there is a whole lot that I like, and if he makes it through the nomination process I will have no trouble in the slightest pulling his lever.
He may not be the guy you want on the news every night for four or eight years, but if there is a crisis, there's no man in America I would feel safer with.
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
Brokered Convention?
|
Dec. 17th, 2007 @ 08:11 pm
|
|---|
|
The Republican nominating process is getting more and more interesting as it's getting more and more splintered. The early caucus/primaries (when the country is not yet fully focused) and the compressed primary season, lead to the real possibility of the first genuinely brokered Republican convention in my lifetime.
Brokered conventions used to be the norm, back when state party leaders would actually get together and decide the nominees. Classic examples from both parties are found in David Pietrusza's excellent 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents.
Back in the olden days, there were only a handful of primaries, which provided some interest and momentum, but rarely decided the final outcome. There were close conventions in 1952 and 1976, and Nixon's 1968 nomination wasn't entirely in the bag until convention time, but those were at most two or possibly three-men races at the end. Today we have so many cross-currents pushing and shoving their way through the Republican coalition that anything can happen.
The sudden surge for Huckabee seems to be fueled mostly by Baptists and Evangelicals flocking to one of their own, much as they ran to Jimmy Carter in 1976, ignoring some of his less than conservative positions. Romney's strong in a lot of places, and should get a fair lift from New Hampshire, but maybe he just ends up as a regional candidate. Rudy leads the field in the polls nationally, and will doubtless carry quite a few delegates from the northeast and Florida and some other places. McCain has enough strength to carry a few states. Fred Thompson should catch on here and there.
You want a pro-life candidate, you skip Giuliani, unless you want strict-constructionist judges, in which case you will actually support Rudy if you trust Ted Olson's opinion, and I generally do, except that Robert Bork says Romney's the guy, but you may be worried about his flip-flopping and besides Thompson has the Right to Life endorsement and McCain's record is quite acceptable in that area, but he formed the gang of 14 which may have messed up getting some better judges and some of the professional evangelicals don't like him because, well, he doesn't particularly like them, and then there's all those other guys.
If defense is your big issue you might go with Rudy because of his leadership and proven skills and pretty clear-headed foreign policy, or McCain because of his experience or Romney because he's got executive ability, or Thompson because he's articulate and knows his way around a submarine. You'd probably avoid Huckabee unless you're an evangelical and Ron Paul's not on your radar.
Like supply side economics? You've got Rudy, except he's from New York, McCain, except he voted against the tax cuts though he opposes repealing them, but wants to rein in spending, which is ok, and Thompson. Romney's record is hard to figure, since he governed Massachusetts with a democratic legislature. Not saying he wouldn't be good, just no way to demonstrate it.
Hate McCain-Feingold enough to decide your vote? Well, McCain's not for you and Thompson voted for it.
Immigration your issue? Take your pick. lots of nuances, not a whole lot of demonstrated conviction.
I just don't see the scenario where one of these guys suddenly pulls way ahead of the pack. And if no one pulls ahead, everyone stays in, one way or another.
And why not? If the convention goes multiple ballots, all bets are off and the real give and take begins.
So now maybe it comes down to who impresses the heck out of the delegates at convention time. Who is their second choice if their first choice falters? How many of the delegates are driven by ideology and how many are party "professionals"? How high do the negatives get?
The latter is a real concern, because the rough and tumble of this election is already taking its toll, and things are being said about each other that will not be forgotten next summer, even if necessity makes strange bedfellows.
And maybe it will just come down to the state of the world at the time of the convention.
It's early, but my guess at this point is that a brokered convention favors Fred Thompson. He's likable, strong, in tune with the major branches of the coalition, and not making too many enemies.
If Mr. Pietrusza can take a few minutes away from his upcoming book on the 1960 election, I'd be interested in whether he sees a comparison to the 1920 Harding strategy. And I'd like to hear from the rest of you, too.
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
What's Wrong with John McCain
|
Dec. 14th, 2007 @ 07:06 pm
|
|---|
|
Let's face it: there are quite a few annoying things about John McCain, and some of them are good and sound reasons why he should not be the Republican nominee for President of the United States.
For example, he talks too much.
There are times when it seems like he is on every single radio and television news and comment show every single day. He expresses an animated opinion about everything. Too much. Too much.
Of course, I've never spent five and a half years in a North Vietnamese prison camp. Nor do I know what it's like going years with no one to speak to, trying to work out tapping signals in Morse Code just so you can maintain the barest semblance of sanity and social connection. I suppose if I had, I might be able to appreciate a guy who exercises his right to free speech even more than I do. I suppose that for him just being able to open his mouth must be a never-ending thrill.
But he's stiff.
Yeah, well, I guess having your shoulders smashed to smithereens by your captors and your legs broken and knees shattered and being routinely beaten three times a week, that can make you a little stiff.
Too old.
He's always looked too old. Must be that white hair that grew in when his torturers left him for dead.
Divorced and remarried.
His Penelope waited for him all those years, all those years when they should have been growing together and instead, through no fault of their own, they grew in separate ways. He reached his mid-life crisis with a long period of lost youth behind him. I think maybe we can avoid judging him too much on that one.
McCain-Feingold: bad law. It is. It really is. Bad judgment on his part, thinking he can reform a corrupt system of pay to play that's been going on for centuries. Instead of making things right, all they did was open up new ways to pass the sleaze. Mr Hsu and his pals, for example. In the process, the first amendment is trampled upon. Of course, in McCain's world trying to make politics honest is a good thing, and I'm sure that's what he thought he was doing. I won't hold it against him very much.
He's wrong on immigration.
He has a very real position on immigration, one he's willing to vote for, one he believes in. He's wrong, but I have to say I admire, truly admire his willingness to fight for what he believes in, even in the face of overwhelming popular disapproval, especially among Republican primary voters. He was willing to let his poll numbers tank on an issue that he wasn't going to win anyway. That's character, I'm pretty sure.
Likewise, while other politicians are sucking up to the locals in Iowa, McCain is telling them that farm subsidies are not good for America.
*******
I'm not voting for McCain. There are many good reasons not to.
I'm just starting to forget what they are.
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
Uncle Dave
|
Dec. 10th, 2007 @ 06:49 pm
|
|---|
|
The Christmas mail brought a little treasure today, courtesy of Mary Ann Louison Luffman, daughter of my father's cousin Margaret Koch Louison, who passed away recently.
Mary Ann is just wonderfully nice and before I begin my story, allow me to pay as big a compliment to her as I have ever given anyone: she is as good a person as her mother was.
******
Mary Ann's grandmother, Agnes Going Koch, and my grandfather, James Edward Going, were brother and sister. They had a sister, Anne Marie Going Mondore (Aunt Rhea), and a brother David.
The rest of them we pretty much know all about because they stayed within 35 miles of Amsterdam at pretty much all times, but Uncle Dave has always been something of a mystery. In 1917 his stepmother, Sarah Hussey Going, sent him to the store for some hot cross buns.
She didn't hear from him again until 1922 when, upon exiting St. Mary's Church after Sunday Mass, she spotted him walking up East Main Street with a duffel bag.
"And just where," she asked, "are my hot cross buns?"
*********
That's Uncle Dave Going, second from the left, in this photo enclosed in a beautiful Christmas card from the Luffmans. He joined the army during the World War and stayed in. Dad said he was a great cook and that may have been what he did, though no one is sure. As easy as he popped in, he popped back out again, dropping by periodically to visit his relatives, but never staying in touch.
So far as we know, his last trip to Amsterdam took place sometime after my grandfather died in 1934. Still a bachelor, he promised my widowed grandmother that she would never want for anything as long as he lived. "May, what's mine is yours."
He then took his leave and a few minutes later my grandmother left the house to go to work. Before getting there, she remembered something she had left behind and turned around, arriving at the house just in time to see Uncle Dave crawling out the window with her wallet.
********
Once in a while over the next thirty years Uncle Dave would pass through Amsterdam on the train and would ask a departing passenger to kindly pass his regards on to his relatives. There was a rumor that he had settled around Seattle when he finally retired from the Army. We are not aware that he ever married, though there were enough unaccounted-for years that anything is possible.
Then, in the summer of 1967, his sister, Aunt Rhea, came for a visit (it was the only time I met her) and she bore the startling news that Uncle Dave had resurfaced, after a fashion. Earlier that year he had been found in a gutter in Schenectady, suffering from severe dementia (he would have been in his early 70's).
He became a ward of Schenectady County, living in the Glenridge Home. In his wallet they had found Rhea's address. She went to see him a couple of times, but he wasn't awfully communicative or oriented.
Cousin Margaret, with her nursing skills and sweet personality, got more out of him than anyone. She would drop in on him periodically over the final decade of his life. When she'd mention having gone to Mass his eyes would come alive.
"St. Mary's, I'll bet!"
*********
And so they brought him home to St. Mary's when he died in the late 70's (still without the hot cross buns). He had outlived his siblings and my father.
I saw him for the one and only time lying in the coffin. He was short (as is obvious from the picture) and had a rather pronounced nose, I thought.
And now I know what he looked like when he was 22.
I can see a bit of my dad and a bit of my grandfather and even a trace of Laura Ann when I squint (but that's a grampa talking).
**********
He was buried with military honors at Fairview Cemetery. At the conclusion of the ceremony, by unanimous consent of the family, the flag of a grateful nation that had adorned his coffin was presented to Cousin Margaret.
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
The Strangest Thing
|
Dec. 9th, 2007 @ 11:36 pm
|
|---|
|
It's really the strangest thing. I haven't changed all that much in recent years in philosophy or outlook. And yet, less than four years ago I was gung-ho for a person who I thought would be a fairly obvious candidate for president, one whose life story, guts and patriotism would bring her right to the top and in the process change America forever.
Then she became Secretary of State and instead Condoleezza Rice faded from the political scene forever.
How is this possible? Even if she lacked the burning desire for the office, wouldn't she at least be talked up as the one who got away? Her predecessor, Colin Powell, made something of a career out of being a non-candidate.
But Condi? She holds the most important appointed position in the most important government on the face of the earth during a critical period of war and peace, and there is NOBODY saying "DRAFT RICE!" It was not all that long ago that Dick Morris wrote a book predicting the big show down between Hillary and Condi. The scenario seems almost laughable now.
What happened?
A big part of it, I think, is that she is perceived to have risen a step too high for her talents. I don't know whether that's fair, but she certainly hasn't left a deep impression of having brought the world or even her department under control. Her initiatives have been both over-reaching and under-achieving. Perhaps if she had not played with such high expectations, the lack of results would not have seemed so obvious. But that's all part of the diplomacy game, a game that a president needs to be able to play, and one in which she has displayed startling ineptitude.
Which brings me to another big point. When, in anyone's political memory, has there been a presidential election in which absolutely no one associated with the incumbent administration is even being considered for the job? I'm not talking only about major figures like the Vice President. I'm talking NOBODY, not even a candidate polling at .0003.
George W. Bush has headed the Republican Party for seven years and there is absolutely no Bush bench. Zero.
We have lots of competent people running, but not one served as so much as a file clerk in this administration.
Even in the closest historical parallel I can think of, the Democrats in 1952 when incumbent Harry Truman dropped out after being upset in the New Hampshire primary by Estes Kefauver, 74 year old Vice President Alben Barkley was still gathering votes at the wide-open convention and Truman was still a major mover and shaker behind the scenes.
No, I think this election is without precedent, and it is truly the strangest thing.
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
The Presidential Race
|
Dec. 7th, 2007 @ 07:34 pm
|
|---|
|
Herewith some thoughts on the race for the presidency, 2008 edition, coming soon to a voting booth near you.
I'm a political junkie. The first election I can recall was when I was 5 in 1956. By 1958 I was waking up the morning after election day and asking Dad who had won the election for Governor. "Brown!" he spat out bitterly, which I thought odd at the time since the race was between Nelson Rockefeller and Averill Harriman. (I was many years a grownup before I realized he had been commenting on the California race, where his hero Bill Knowland had gone down).
By 1960, all of nine, I was having my picture taken with Vice President Nixon at the Schenectady Airport. In 1964 I participated in Goldwater Victory Parades, made phone calls, and handed out copies of None Dare Call It Treason in front of Johnson-Humphrey-Kennedy headquarters on East Main Street.
I worked on the Buckley for Senate campaigns (met him and most of his siblings, even took his wife to lunch). In 1976 I followed Reagan around New Hampshire for a couple of days, and by 1980 got myself elected in a contested race as a delegate to the Republican National Convention, where I met all kinds of famous people. Al D'Amato even hung with us.
And now here we are again with the voting about to start and I have to confess that this political junkie has not watched a single debate. Oh, I've followed them well enough. I read the reports and analyses. I know what the candidates have been saying and not saying. I just haven't felt the slightest urge to actually WATCH them do it. Not once.
And so I had to go to Google Images tonight for this:
Yeah.
This guy has snuck into the top tier of Republican candidates for president and I didn't have the slightest idea what he looks like. That's Mike Huckabee from Hope, Arkansas, they say. He used to be Governor. Or he is Governor. I don't even know.
So here's my theory: If Mr Judge Political Junkie has no idea what Mike Huckabee looks like, how deep can his support really be? My guess is that he is where he is because of who he is not, not because of who he is or particularly what he says.
I'm told he's witty and relaxed in the debates. Good. I like that. I'm told he's pretty good on life issues and that's a big plus. But his tax record ain't so hot, his trade policy might be deemed demagogic, or the polite word, "Populist". Running a corner drug store doesn't prepare you to be CEO of WalMart as H. Ross Perot once said of another Arkansas Governor.
Doesn't excite me.
Even now that I know what he looks like.
My prognostiscope says: Can't Happen.
[more to come]
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
The Curse of the Eclectic Blogger
|
Dec. 5th, 2007 @ 09:54 pm
|
|---|
|
"I'm getting hooked on The Judge Report," said a City Hall person. "It's eclectic."
More eclectic than ever, I fear. The size of my regular audience has nearly doubled in recent months (not to any stratospheric levels, but up is good). Unfortunately much of it comes from a direction I had never intended. For a long time I had avoided discussing Amsterdam stuff, what with my job as the city attorney in a hyper-partisan environment and the practical necessity of feeding my family, etc., but my brief campaign for mayor brought some of that out in the open and the fact that I became an issue myself necessitated a certain amount of comment, especially after my talk show ended.
So now there is a demand for my patented cynical local observations, coming at a time when I don't feel particularly cynical because holding the granddaughter pretty much makes me forget about the other stuff.
But, notwithstanding the blessing of Laura Ann, I'm also not feeling particularly witty and bright these days. In less than four weeks I'm going to have to figure a way to support this clan and I don't have a whole lot of irons in the fire nor many obvious options. This is not the first time I've been in this situation, and probably not the last. The fact is I've been re-inventing myself every three or four years for a long time, and at 56 I'm running out of steam. Starting about four years ago I began suffering from what I later learned were optic migraines, visual distortions usually triggered by strong light which is generally a precursor for a full-blown migraine attack, but fortunately not so for me, yet.
At first they were rare events, a couple of times a year. For the last week or so they've been coming several times a day. When they hit, reading is almost impossible as I try vainly to ignore the pulsing flash of zebra-light at 4 o'clock in my visual range. The worst attack came right after a cup of coffee and I've stayed off caffeine since, which has helped somewhat.
Anyway, nothing serious, just annoying and depressing.
Looking back at my first couple of seasons, I think I wrote some pretty good stuff on a fairly broad range of topics. I was doing full-blown Shakespearean parodies, amusing photo-captioning, serious and comic essays on the Harriet Miers appointment to the Supreme Court, reasonably deep Right to Life observations, a series of Dawn Patrol Carnivals to keep the troops together while Dawn Eden wrote her book, an original analysis of the Scooter Libby indictment which holds its own.
I'm well aware that I haven't written anything that good in a long time. My blogger buddy Nightfly kept me in his "Pantheon" long after I deserved to continue to be there. I was finally demoted.
I think it's time I earned my way back.
So, I'm going to be a little less eclectic. I've pretty much had it with Amsterdam politics and am tired of writing about it. I'm putting my eagerly-awaited memoir of my four years in City Hall on the shelf, maybe forever. The new mayor and her corporation counsel will have enough problems of their own without my pontificating from the sidelines. They are good people and I wish them well and will do all I can to help in any way I can.
I will try to be funny again, and I will try to do some real analysis on national issues. This may seem an odd ambition, but I would really like to some day be considered as an important guest blogger on National Review Online. I should, perhaps, be paying some attention now to the presidential race. I actually know something about the law and observe the Supreme Court reasonably closely.
But I'll also continue to follow my beloved Red Sox. And there'll still be family stories and entertaining anecdotes of my youth, and eulogies for people you never heard of, but who deserve to be remembered.
Stick with me. The best is yet to be.
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
At Long Last, Mr. Wills
|
Nov. 30th, 2007 @ 08:26 am
|
|---|
|
Apparently the virulently partisan efforts of Fourth Ward Alderman William D. Wills to denounce, vilify and otherwise push the boundaries of acceptable political theater have extended past the deathbed of James D. Marks and into the grave as well.
There is pending before the Common Council of the City of Amsterdam a resolution for Tuesday night's meeting which commends the life of Jim Marks, as faithful and honest and true a public servant as ever has graced our presence, a gentleman of the first order and a prince of men.
Among Jim's many unsung accomplishments is his tireless effort to promote and support the Riverlink Park, a public gathering spot for social events and concerts on the banks of the Mohawk River. The enthusiasm he showed for the grand vision of a fully developed waterfront was contagious. He envisioned promenades on both sides of the river, linked by pedestrian bridges to river islands and revitalized Bridge and Main Streets.
The fact that he was one of very few Republicans on the Waterfront Commission and Waterfront Foundation meant nothing at all to him. He never saw the river as being a particularly partisan issue. (In the immortal words of Fiorello La Guardia, "There is no ideology for removing snow.")
The funeral procession for Jim Marks on Monday led, in the rain, past City Hall and then across the river, pausing on the return at a spot on the bridge overlooking his beloved Riverlink Park.
The pall bearers, who included the Mayor, three aldermen and myself, were greatly moved by the sight. Mayor Emanuele spontaneously suggested that the park be named after Jim, a man who in life never sought any honors or glory or anything at all for himself. The four of them asked me to prepare a resolution to make it happen.
But Mr. Wills, for whom absolutely everything is political, and who firmly believes that the only vote on the Common Council that matters is his, has decided to once more kick the dead Mr. Marks in the teeth and embarrass himself, his ward, his party and the City of Amsterdam by releasing the following email to the other office holders, incoming office holders, and the press (I make no attempt to correct his text):
In an effort not to make a mochrie of someone who has just passed away, I am requesting that the Resolution honoring Jim Marks not dedicate the Riverlink Park to him for the following reasons:
- Although Jim played a significant role recently there are others who played a much more important role in getting the park built to begin with like Paul Tonko, Virginia Whelly, Doug Nadler, Paul Parillo, and those who worked hard like Jim to keep it going like the Gavrys.
- The Riverlink Park has many memorial bricks laid in place and it would be a dishonor to only honor one special individual and not the rest. I suggest that a plaque or memorial stone be erected in his honor at the Park.
- If you still pursue the naming of the Park after Jim I will read aloud every person who expired in our Community in the last year, dedicated individuals who all paid their taxes on time, some who went to war on our behalf, some who volunteered their lives so others can live better, etc. and request that we start renaming streets, public buildings, etc. in their honor. I will have every family petition that their “special” deceased individual be honored for their contribution to our Community and/or Country.
Lets not make a mochrie of someone’s unfortunate passing or use it to make a point that you have the votes until the end of December. Apparently some of you did not get the message this past election. It’s not about power, it’s about people. Please do not drag Mr. Marks name in the mud and insult the many veterans who have done so much for our Country, lived a simple and quiet life never looking for recognition for their valor and dedication, and died without any monument to their name in thanks for their service to their fellow man, community, and country. I ask you to honor him as the resolution proper does and erect a special monument or plaque in his honor at the Riverlink Park . Thanks for your kind consideration of this request.
William D. Wills
4th Ward Alderman
City of Amsterdam
17 Catherine Street
Amsterdam, NY 12010
(518) 843-4660 (voice and fax)
(518) 469-0043 (cell)
I'm surprised he didn't add, "It's for the children!"
There is no part of this that I will miss.
********
I had planned on concluding with, "At long last, Mr. Wills, have you no sense of decency?", but why bother.
[ADDENDUM: The Saturday Recorder chose to correct the Wills text and spare the Mochries from any further mockery.]
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
RIP Henry Hyde
|
Nov. 29th, 2007 @ 09:29 am
|
|---|
|
In an age of wishy-washy wind-checkers, Congressman Henry Hyde stood out by taking stands on issues as bold and as bright as the colors of the flag he loved and served so well.
In the beginning he had many bipartisan allies in his Right to Life cause. Over the years, many of them, for the sake of political expediency, drifted away. The sad case of Jesse Jackson comes immediately to mind.
But Hyde stood his ground. He knew what he believed in, and he fought for his beliefs. He managed to keep the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding of abortions, virtually intact for decades, despite the shifting sands of politics and public opinion.
According to National Review, the National Right to Life Committee conservatively estimates that the Hyde Amendment prevented over a million abortions in the last thirty years. That's a million people walking around today who owe their lives to the tenacity of this one man.
I think it is fair to say that he has justified his life here, and will be welcomed heartily in the next.
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
Goodbye, Farewell and Amen
|
Nov. 26th, 2007 @ 05:13 pm
|
|---|
|
Remarks of Robert N. Going at the Funeral Service for Hon. James D. Marks, November 26, 2007:
What follows is a favorite passage of Jim’s from Shakespeare’s Henry V. It is the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, and the English troops are in nervous anticipation of the battle to come, where they are outnumbered by the fresh French army five to one. They know that if they lose, the victorious French will pick over their bodies, confiscate their goods, strip them of their clothes and otherwise gloat in triumph over them. It is a fight they know they can not win, and yet they go forward, because it is the right thing to do.
For several of us here today, no explanation of this speech is necessary. For us, the last four years have been one long Battle of Agincourt, with the outcome always in doubt. Each day a Band of Brothers met in City Hall. We talked policy and we listened. We strategized. We toiled and struggled and on occasion suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
And we formed, I think, a coalition of honor that will never be forgotten. When listening to these words of Shakespeare, feel free to substitute the names Nicosia, Leggiero, Going and Chiara, Pallotta.
And Jimmy Marks.
*******
King Henry wanders through the camp anonymously, listening in on the conversations. It is the early morning hour of the feast of Saints Crispin and Crispian. He overhears his cousin Westmoreland say:( Continue here for Henry V. )
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
Gentle Giant
|
Nov. 22nd, 2007 @ 11:34 pm
|
|---|
|
To try, when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star!
The call came early this morning from Mike Chiara, while I busied myself at the stove melting down celery and onions and Jimmy Dean Maple Sausage for the stuffing.
"Jimmy Marks died."
*******
He was at the house with Paula. She asked him to call me to make sure I knew before it hit the news.
Death is always an intrusion, but worse on holidays. My kids didn't know him. Mary only met him a couple of times. I kept my grief to myself, and the day went on. A happy day with family and the joy of a new life, making her first appearance at Grandma and Grampa's house. Not the appropriate time to beg the Lord to welcome into the kingdom His good and faithful servant James Marks. But I remembered him in my own helpless way.
Tomorrow the papers will doubtless speak of his public life: City Historian, former Secretary of Urban Renewal, member of the Amsterdam Industrial Development Agency, only two months into his first full term as Montgomery County Republican Chairman, having taken over last Spring when the former chairman stepped down.
He didn't attend his own election, still in the hospital with near-catastrophic fluid retention, bad heart and kidneys shutting down.
But he rallied and made it home. Even from his hospital bed he had barked orders for the fall campaign and pulled out all the stops. His new regimen required frequent dialysis; he had started to stop by City Hall again on his way home from treatment.
Only a week ago I sat next to him at a spaghetti dinner he threw for the Republican Committeemen, a post-election social gathering designed to regroup and fight the good fight. He was brimming with optimism, planning for the future, announcing time tables, promoting unity, inspiring the troops.
And filling up with fluid again.
*******
Jim had a tremendous understanding of local history and its lessons. We called him "The Professor" and Mike and I loved having him as a talk show guest. He was our first choice for mayor last Spring, but even then it was becoming obvious that the rigor of a campaign would be too much for him.
For the last four years he was among a handful of people who got together on an almost daily basis to discuss city policies and ideas, and he had a million of them. He was not afraid to take an unpopular position if he thought it was the right one, and he suffered a great deal of public abuse as a result. Maybe the most honest man who ever walked the face of the earth, the demagogues accused him (and others) of every nefarious intention imaginable.
Even as he lay near death in St. Peter's Hospital, Alderman William D. Wills attempted to block his re-appointment as City Historian and demanded an ethics investigation. Wills even persuaded nominal Republican Joe Isabel to go along with him.
It was disgusting.
********
But I will remember Jim Marks as I knew him: a sweet and gentle man whose personal kindness knew no limits, whose humor brightened every moment of every day, a friend with whom you could be totally candid, and most of all as someone who loved his hometown more than it deserved and far more than that love will ever be appreciated.
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
Is It a Wonderful City?
|
Nov. 21st, 2007 @ 08:00 am
|
|---|
|
Life goes on, and the wonderful news of the week and the joy of hugging my new granddaughter in her own home is interrupted by the absurdity of my third-to-last Common Council meeting in City Hall in Amsterdam where I remain Corporation Counsel until December 31.
The self-center of attention was, as usual, the bombastic and abysmally ignorant Alderman of the Fourth Ward, William D. Wills. Oh, he held himself back and resisted the temptation to disrupt the brief frivolity at the beginning of the meeting when Mayor Emanuele kindly proclaimed the birth of Laura Ann, but he didn't wait long.
Under "Communications", which is usually the point in the meeting where the City Clerk will read some important or semi-important mail pertaining to the operations of city government, Wills "communicates" a letter he wrote (it was not clear to me to whom) demanding an ethics investigation to determine whether the Chairman of the Industrial Development Agency could also be the City Assessor. He, of course, wasn't referring to "the" City Assessor, Michael Chiara, or "the" Chairman of AIDA, Michael Chiara, but "any" such person, of which we have one.
It was just the latest in a long line of vicious personal and partisan attacks from a man devoid of both conscience and intellect and whose cruelty knows no bounds.
He reads from a state statute while the new Recorder reporter breathlessly writes everything down. "No person having an interest blah blah blah . . ." sounding oh-so-shocked and oh-so-outraged.
"Why don't you read the definition of 'interest', Mr. Wills, and you'll see why what you're reading has absolutely nothing to do with this situation," your genial host casually observed. I pointed out to him, in my capacity as Chairman of the Ethics Committee, that our local ethics board exists to provide advisory opinions to employees and officers of the city, to guide them in their own ethical determinations, not to entertain complaints from third parties. I may have prefaced that with a "If you had bothered to read it, which you obviously haven't," but I'm not sure, being as my ecstatic happiness this week has sometimes clouded my thought processes.
He made some remark about how things will be different in January when someone else is sitting in my chair, and I believe I said, "Even when I am no longer sitting here, Mr. Wills, I will still be right and you will still be wrong."
Well, the Three Snake Coalition is chomping at the bit to take over, confidant that they can bowl over the new Mayor and teach her a thing or two. They'll get their way.
The City wants change, but until we are purged of the poisonous Mr. Wills and his allies, I fear we are doomed to continue the long flush down the toilet.
There is no present or future...just the past happening over and over again...now.
- Eugene O'Neill
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
INTRODUCING
|
Nov. 18th, 2007 @ 02:14 pm
|
|---|
|
Miss Laura Ann Porcello
Born November 18, 2007 12:27 p.m.
Cute as a button, smart as a whip, docile, pleasant, chirpy and wonderful.
Mother, father and baby doing just fine.
Both Grampas, both Grammas and the aunt and uncles all proud as punch.
********
And if she wasn't blessed enough already, she has the two most powerful saints in heaven after the Blessed Mother praying for her!
********
More pics under the cut:( Read more... )
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
PLEASE STAND BY
|
Nov. 18th, 2007 @ 12:10 pm
|
|---|
|
FOR AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:
ANNA IS IN THE DELIVERY ROOM!!!
******
UPDATE: I was coming out of church and talking to a good citizen about his sewer backup when Jeanette Constantine, Mary's great friend at school, came running up to me with the news. I had my cell phone off but fortunately hers was on.
We're waiting here with the dog for now, but will be going down to St. Mary's Hospital shortly as soon as Uncle Sy's helper arrives.
WHOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*********
UPDATE (12:30 PM): Nothing new to report.
*********
UPDATE 12:49: IT'S A GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MORE LATER. BYE!!!!!
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
Archives
|
Nov. 11th, 2007 @ 07:44 am
|
|---|
|
Veterans Day Address
Bergen Park
Amsterdam, NY
November 11, 1989
City Court Judge Robert N. Going
How very profound are those moments of silence we observe leading up to the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. How very different from those last moments of that same time in 1918 when every commander and every foot soldier on every side competed to fire the last shot of the Great War. . . .
What are they all about, these veterans we honor today? The answer for them, and for us, can be found in the immortal words of that poem we just heard.
Take up our quarrel with the foe.
Who is the foe? For the armed forces of the United States, the foe has always been the same: he is the enemy of human freedom, anywhere, any time. We have fought him at Lexington and Saratoga and Yorktown, the Barbary Coast, Fort McHenry and Gettysburg.
Our grandfathers met him at St. Mihiel and the Argonne Forest and our fathers at Saipan and Iwo Jima and Monte Cassino aand Normandy. Our uncles fought him to a bloody stalemate in Korea and our brothers faced him once again in Vietnam.
Throughout our history the United States has stood for one principle: Liberty.
Oh, it has not always been possible or practical or prudent to send our troops in. Sometimes the struggle for liberty must go on without us. Sometimes we can only stand by with tears, as we did watching the brave freedom fighters of Hungary in 1956.
And this June in Tienanmen Square .
Sometimes, though, we stand by with cheers as we did in April when the Polish Parliament overthrew the communists, when the Baltic States declared their independence, when the velvet revolution swept through Czechoslovakia, and yesterday when the Berlin Wall came crashing to the ground.
For us, as Americans, we must honor our veterans in the only way we can: by proclaiming liberty throughout the land, and unto all the inhabitants thereof, and by standing with the friends of freedom in all places and at all times.
We cannot do otherwise.
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, Though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
At Long Last Dawn
|
Nov. 10th, 2007 @ 07:51 pm
|
|---|
|
"I'm sorry, Adelaide. I can not get married tonight."
"Why not?"
"I have to go to a prayer meeting."
"Nathan, that is the biggest lie you have ever told me!"
"I swear to you, it's true!"
- Guys and Dolls
This morning I drove up to East Syracuse to attend a breakfast meeting of about 85 Catholic women. Chaste Catholic women. Learning how to be chaster. Really.
Until the priest arrived, I was the only male. By and by a teenage bus boy popped his head in periodically, but that was it.
The occasion was an address by the remarkable Dawn Eden, with whom I have been exchanging emails and blog comments for the last two and a half years, mostly on her esteemed blog, The Dawn Patrol.
Shortly after I discovered her blog, I sent her an old piece I had written on Thomas More and the tough decisions judges sometimes face. Minutes later it was on The Dawn Patrol and in a brief exchange she encouraged me to start my own blog, and then when I hit a slow period she pushed me to start it up again and keep it going.
It was a crazy period in her life. She had just been fired by the New York Post on the eve of what is arguably her greatest front page headline, acknowledging the latest marriage of The Donald with LADY IS A TRUMP. She had put her first tentative toes on the bridge to Rome, having spent a few protestant years after a lifetime of living as an agnostic unchaste Reform Jew.
She landed on her feet, of course, took a job with the Daily News, wrote a book, The Thrill of the Chaste, now in its sixth printing, and has been on a whirlwind lecture tour on two continents for the last year, recently taking a position with the Cardinal Newman Society in Washington.
I had thought of driving to Worcester a couple of weeks ago to see her speak at the Bishop's request, but the City Hall boiler blew and we had an emergency meeting of the Common Council that same night. Over the years she has suggested getting together with Mary and me when we are in New York, but it never lined up. I've seen her on television, listened to her on the radio, seen her in numerous video clips and exchanged dozens of correspondences, but we had never met.
Until today.
******
"You know, you look like a judge! I didn't recognize you without your baseball cap."
Yeah, I guess I don't actually look like a judge in that picture, though I was. Now, almost seven years later, finally I look like a judge and I'm not.
*******
The presentation was sensational and well-received by a mesmerized audience. I have seen the earlier clips from the tour, and it is amazing how much more polished she is now: relaxed and yet brimming with enthusiasm the whole time. She is in near constant motion and if I didn't know better I'd suggest a strong Italian streak in her gestures [NOTE TO SAM ZURLO: THIS IS NOT MEANT TO BE STEREOTYPICAL OR DEROGATORY].
I'll have a second post on her speech after I have edited the video clips. That's how I got in. Dawn convinced them that I was her official videographer.
********
Near the end, she talked about her conversion to Catholicism and how difficult it had been and how she had been helped and aided by the encouragement of her friends at The Dawn Patrol.
"And one of those people is here today. His name is Robert N. Going, whom I met here today for the very first time, and I want to thank him."
Well. Wow.
If only the tiniest part of what she said is true, at long last I'll have something to say to The Lord if He should happen to bring up that other stuff.
*********
"Hi, Daddy. What were you doing in Syracuse?"
"I went to a lecture, Anna."
"What was it about?"
"Chastity."
"Uh huh. Chastity."
"Chastity."
Read and comment on my novel The Evil Has Landed. Free!
|
|
|
|
