Summer Camp Fights

Sports radio was all talk the last two days about the dust-up in the New York Jets training camp Tuesday that left starting quarterback Geno Smith with a broken jaw that will sideline him anywhere from six to 10 weeks. Smith was hit, some say sucker-punched, by Ikemefuna Enemkpali, a teammate, now an ex-teammate, an egregious infraction of acceptable camp behavior. 

I was particularly amused by Mike Greenberg of ESPN’s Mike and Mike morning show. Greenberg told his sidekick, former NFL defensive lineman Mike Golic, that he had never been in a real fight. I identified with Greenberg’s experience, or lack thereof. Until I harkened back to my fifth year at sleepaway summer camp. That year my annual summer rivalry with Elliot Levine came to a head. 

A little background: I first met Elliot in 1957 when I was eight-years-old, my second year at Camp Massad Aleph in Tannersville, Pa. Though a scrawny (read that, really skinny) kid, I was a pretty good athlete. The prior year I was arguably the best in my division.

So on the first day of my second year at Massad, I was quickly alerted to the prowess of one of our new bunkmates. I was told he could punch a ball all the way up the hill outside our bunk to the flagpole, a truly prodigious feat. With trepidation, I stepped outside to witness what proved to be an accurate accounting of his talent. He also could pitch softball better than I. He was, in short, a better athlete.

Naturally, we sustained a rivalry throughout that summer and the next three that we shared together, culminating in an after-lights-out fight one Friday night when we were 11. The tussle ended after he flipped me against the metal frame of a bed and a counselor mercifully showed up to end the mismatch. Actually, it didn’t quite end there. As we wanted to tangle, the counselor said, let’s do it the old fashioned way, with boxing gloves. Elliot outweighed me by about 30 pounds, but that didn’t matter to anyone except me. I’d like to say I acquitted myself admirably in the ring, but I’m still a little woozy as to the particulars of that encounter.

Our rivalry ended that summer. The following year my brother, sister and I went to a different summer camp. By the time Elliot and I re-engaged in high school, our competition had pretty much ceased. I even turned out to be the pitcher on our school softball team, undefeated our senior year. Elliot played shortstop.

GOP Disses Wal-Mart: Twice last week Republicans disrespected Wal-Mart. Once during the candidates’ debate last Thursday and again the following night on Real Time with Bill Maher, a prominent Republican said Amazon was the largest retailer in the world.

That must have been news to the good people in Bentonville, Ark. After all, Wal-Mart had global sales last year of $473.1 billion compared to Amazon’s $89 billion. 

If anyone should have corrected the Republicans it possibly should have been Hillary Clinton. For several years she served on the retailer’s board of directors. 

Just Wondering About Radio Ads and Noah

Here are some things that stop me cold in my tracks:

I wonder why an organization devoted to round-the-clock news, WCBS Newsradio 880, airs commercials that are creepy at the least and blatantly false and misleading in the extreme. I’m referring to all the radio spots about health claims (how’s your testosterone level?) and debt relief (what’s the size of your credit card balance?) and any number of other questionable ads. Don’t they vet the claims? You’d think the standards of an all-news radio station would be higher than simple talk radio which allows shills to promote gold and silver as hedges against post-apocalyptic  times.

I’m also curious as to whom exactly these ads are targeted at and how they match up to WCBS Newsradio 880’s actual audience. I’d have thought the radio station’s listeners were above average in education and income. Yet these ads seem to appeal to the lowest common denominator. 

Treading Water: Pictures of Russell Crowe dressed as Noah in the new Darren Aronofsky film Noah startled me when I saw him wearing pants and fingerless leather work gloves. But a little research on the Web revealed that gloves go back at least to ancient Egypt (here’s a graf from gloves.com.ua: 

“History has a lot of facts of using the gloves in ancient times. They were popular and served as a protection of the hands in Old Egypt. The Pharaohs wore them as s symbol of their high position and women wore them to protect the beauty of their hands (they rub their hands with honey and fragrant oils and put on thin silk gloves). In those times the gloves were made as small pockets without holes for fingers. Then they were made only with one thumb (as today's mittens). Egyptian women used these mittens to protect hands while eating or working.”)

As for trousers, they seem to have sown up (I know it should have read “shown up” but I couldn’t resist the pun) about the time horses were domesticated enough to be ridden. According to a 2009 Reuters article (http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/03/05/us-horses-history-idUSTRE5246HI20090305), “Horses were first domesticated on the plains of northern Kazakhstan some 5,500 years ago -- 1,000 years earlier than thought -- by people who rode them and drank their milk.” 

If Bible believers are to be believed, our world is just 5,774 years old, giving Noah plenty of time to fashion himself a pair of tight fitting pants instead of trampsing about in a bulky robe.  

I’ve commented before that I’m disappointed how few books I’ve read in retirement, but one I did read was David Maine’s The Preservationist, recently re-released under a new title, The Flood. It’s a psychological exegesis of the Noah story as explained through the eyes of the arkman himself and his family. It’s like The Red Tent, imaginative story-telling to fill in the blanks the Bible chose not to include, what Jewish scholars refer to as midrash. 

Interestingly, Maine names one of Noah’s unnamed-in-the-Bible daughters-in-law Ilya. She is Cham’s wife. Aronofsky casts Emma Watson as Ila, Shem’s wife. 

One of my favorite examples of midrash on Noah comes from an early routine of Bill Cosby. He imagines Noah arguing every time God proscribes another task. Finally, in exasperation over his recalcitrant subject, God convinces Noah to stop complaining by asking, “Noah, how long can you tread water?”  

Three Letters: Speaking of the Almighty, has anybody else noticed that with the departure of Tim Tebow and the signing of Michael Vick, the NY Jets’ quarterback controversy has gone from g-o-d to d-o-g? 

Sports Edition: Pettitte vs. Clemens; Glickman—A Giant Voice; Midget Football

What’s in a Name? Were the Houston Astros playing with Andy Pettitte’s head Saturday? How weird was it that the starting pitcher for the home team Astros in Pettitte’s final game of his career was Clemens? No, not Roger Clemens, Pettitte’s one-time friend and teammate, both with the NY Yankees and the Astros, who is now his legal adversary in Clemens’ alleged use of anabolic steroids. Paul Clemens pitched for Houston. No relation to Roger, as far as I can research, but clearly a weird confluence of names too eerie for anyone in the Astros organization not to be cognizant of. Perhaps it was added motivation that enabled Pettitte to end his career, some might argue, a Hall of Fame career, with a full game 2-1victory. 

How fitting that two teams that have struggled all year to score runs could not end the season in nine innings Sunday. Today, the Yankees and Astros took a 1-1 tie into the 14th inning. In the top of 14th, Yankees TV announcer Michael Kay said, "For those who didn't want the Yankees season to end, you're getting your wish." You could hear the frustration in his voice as the futility of the play on the field permeated the play-by-play booth. On the next pitch, however, Mark Reynolds hit a tie-breaking home run. And then the Yanks added three more runs, giving the team a 5-1 victory, their 85th against 77 losses, not good enough to make the playoffs for just the second time in 19 seasons. 

Sunday’s finale took so long that Reynolds was shown gathering his equipment and leaving the dugout before the end of the game to seemingly rush to catch a plane home as players dispersed at the conclusion of the last game of the season. It’s been that type of season. Not even a dignified goodbye could be mustered.

A Giant Voice:  Today being a Sunday in the last third of the year, I did what I have done for more than half a century. I experienced a NY Giants football game. I say “experienced” because in the years before the National Football League lifted its television broadcast ban on home games, even those that were sold out, the only way I could indulge my fix was to listen to WNEW AM, the radio home of the Giants. Listening to Marty Glickman call the games became an addiction. Even when Giants games were telecast I would turn off the sound (sorry Jim Whitaker or Chris Schenkel) and supplant it with Glickman’s play-by-play from a radio atop the TV console. Even fans who attended Giants games at Yankee Stadium brought their transistor radios with them to listen to Glickman. 

If you’re a sports fan, sure you root for a team and feel a special alliance with individual players, especially those who played during your youth. Y.A. Tittle of the NY Football Giants (with his balding head he looked a little like my father, though one would never confuse my father’s athletic prowess with that of Tittle). Mickey Mantle of the Yankees. Ernie Banks of the Chicago Cubs. Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Willie Mays of the NY Giants. Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics. Bobby Hull of the Chicago Blackhawks. 

Yet, as powerful as those associations were, perhaps even more deep-rooted were the impressions made by the sportscasters of their time—Mel Allen who called Yankees games, Lindsey Nelson of the NY Mets, Vince Scully of the Dodgers, Ernie Harwell of the Detroit Tigers. The list can go on and on, but it begins with Marty Glickman.

I’m nostalgic for the rich tones of Glickman’s play-by-play reportage after watching an HBO documentary of his life. I knew Glickman as the announcer of the Giants during my formative years of appreciation of football. Like many, I also knew he had been denied participation in the 1936 Olympics Games in Berlin because of anti-Semitism and the U.S. Olympic Committee’s cowardly acquiescence to Nazi intimidation. Glickman and another Jewish runner, Sam Stoller, were removed from the 4x100 meter relay team the morning of the race, which the U.S. easily won. There was lots about Glickman’s life I did not know, including his crafting many of the terms we take for granted when listening to broadcasts of basketball games, such as “swish” and “top of the key.” 

Viewing Glickman should be mandatory for anyone who cares about sports, and for anyone who cares how one man can help shape an industry, for Glickman truly pioneered many of the broadcasting standards currently enjoyed in numerous sports. It wasn’t in the film, but my favorite story about Glickman happened one season in the 1960s when the down-in-the-luck Giants needed a win to gain some respectability. Late in a game, Glickman exhorted his listeners, wherever they were, at home, in their car, at the Stadium, to show their support by chanting out loud, “Let’s Go Giants, Let’s Go Giants.”

I’m not too proud to admit that as I listened to Glickman in the basement bedroom of my parents’ home, I cheered along. But what really made the moment special was hearing from my brother’s friend Jerry who was attending a NY Jets game at Shea Stadium. All of a sudden, he later related to us, Shea Stadium erupted in a “Let’s Go Giants” cheer. Jets players and their opponents wondered if they had been transported to another arena. Back then, many attending Jets games were Giants fans who simultaneously listened to the Giants radio broadcasts. 

I always thought Glickman had improvised that call-to-cheer but it turns out the idea originated with Wellington Mara, the owner of the Giants. He suggested the cheer as an in-your-face gesture to the upstart Jets organization, a way of showing which team New York fans truly loved and followed. Of course, the Jets earned a Super Bowl ring before the Giants, in 1969, but since then the Giants have won four titles and the Jets have yet to play again in the penultimate game of the year.

Midget Football: I keep calling them Giants. So far this year they are playing like midgets. They lost their fourth straight game today. They are 0-4 after another shellacking, this time by the Kansas City Chiefs. Though they played better than last week, when they lost 38-0 to the Carolina Panthers, they still managed to be embarrassed, 31-7. 

Why, I wondered, with two minutes to go and the game clearly beyond redemption, why did the coaches risk injury to their best players by keeping Eli Manning and Victor Cruz in the game? It's not as if they needed more experience at their positions. Could it be that the coaches were just as dumbstruck as the players have been? 

It’s going to be a loooong season, one that even a “Let’s Go Giants” chant from Marty Glickman could not hasten to a positive conclusion. 

Birdhouse, Bark-Mitzvah, Maxxed Out

Don’t tell the tax assessor, but we have a new residential unit on the Forseter homestead. It’s a single occupant birdhouse, lovingly painted by our grandson Finley.

I naturally was quick to hang it up next to the bird feeders and promptly sent off a picture to Finley’s parents, only to be cautioned that the little fellow used water color paint that needed a coating to insure it would not wash off in the first rain. A quick trip to the paint store solved that problem. So far, however, I haven’t noticed any birds taking up residency. Of course, this balmy spring-like weather could be the reason the vacancy sign is still lit.

I have noticed, meanwhile, that the Winter King Hawthorn tree we planted in our front yard in Finley Hawthorne Forseter’s honor has been attracting birds and even squirrels eager to munch on the red berries that sprouted on the branches in the late fall. Though horticulture Web sites say the berries last through the winter, when I looked outside a few minutes ago I noticed the berries were all gone. Ah, well...


Barking Up the Wrong Tree: Did you catch the latest craze, as in crazy. Seems some Jewish families are celebrating their dog’s “bark mitzvah” when the critter turns 13 in dog years, roughly when it is two years old. I kid you not. They drape a small prayer shawl over the canine’s body and place a yarmulke on the dog’s head. Here are mutt-shot views of some religiously-garbed hounds: http://www.google.com/search?q=bark+mitzvah&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=7dy&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvnsu&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=9hcLT9m1KuLL0QGe6si3BQ&ved=0CGAQsAQ&biw=1215&bih=583. The potential for more excruciatingly bad puns—”muzzle tov,” chanting the “arf-Torah”—abound.

Several Christian denominations hold annual church services where all manner of animals are blessed, but for pure exhibitionism and, in my view, mockery of the religion, I can’t find a more silly and inane practice than that displayed by some of my co-religionists. See for yourself. Here are two examples of bark-mitzvahs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsNjEzblZDw and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHyKrJgpQqM&feature=related. As one viewer commented on the second video, “The dogs are the most intelligent animals in this video.”


Maxxed Out: Has anyone else been amused by the choice of Pepsi Max to feature the NY Jets in one of its latest commercials? The gist of the spot is an inspirational half-time moment in the Jets locker room that exhorts them to victory.

Well, we all know the Jets failed to make the playoffs this year, the year coach Rex Ryan guaranteed a Super Bowl victory. Based on his size, Ryan no doubt would be better off drinking a reduced calorie beverage. But we also know from Jets players and other team observers that their locker room was far from a unified sanctuary. Indeed, rookie quarterback Greg McElroy labeled several players as selfish, not team-oriented. “I think the fact that we struggled at times this year really led to a really just corrupt mindset within the locker room,” McElroy told an Alabama radio station.

Pepsi Max is not the first, and surely won’t be the last, marketer to have a celebrity endorsement explode in its face because of inappropriate behavior or some other event beyond its control. My personal favorite happened in 2005. American Express built a campaign around Andy Roddick’s quest for the U.S. Open Tennis championship. It engaged then-budding comedian/actor Nick Kroll to play Roddick’s “mojo.” After Roddick would be shown going to sleep, his mojo would party and otherwise use his AmEx card to have a good time.

Based on his reaching the quarterfinals during the prior four U.S. Opens, American Express expected Roddick to play deep into the tournament. Kroll’s friends and acquaintances were eager to follow his mojo performance (we’ve known Nicky since our children went to school together— Dan played basketball with him on their championship elementary school team—and I’ve interviewed his father, Jules Kroll, the well-known financial investigator).

Someone, however, forgot to tell Roddick’s opening round opponent, Gilles Muller, about the multi-million dollar ad campaign. He knocked Roddick, and his mojo, out of the Open, in straight sets. I imagine AmEx executives and their ad agency contacts drank something a little stronger than Pepsi Max when that happened.

Catching Up On My Reading

Sometimes I feel there’s just too much stuff to read. I marvel at those who have the time, perhaps I’m really envious of their inclination, to read books and magazines and newspapers and blogs and, oh, you get the picture. I thought today I’d comment on some articles of recent and not so recent vintage:

Earlier this month (Nov. 6) the NY Times magazine section did a short blurb on Switzerland joining other European countries and San Francisco in passing a law making it illegal to own just one guinea pig. Seems the critters are gregarious and prone to loneliness if they don’t have a mate, same sex or not, so the law is intended to avoid animal cruelty. I wonder if the writer, Jacob Goldstein, is aware that in her early journalism career Gail Collins, the paper’s Op-Ed columnist, and her husband Dan Collins, kept two guinea pigs. They named the fur balls Lionel and Stewart, after the owners of the New Haven Register, Lionel Jackson, and his son, Stewart. Dan and I were both reporters for the Register. Gail, at the time, ran an independent news service covering the Connecticut state legislature.


Spare the Rod: The next day The Times ran a story on the merits, and dangers, of spanking children. Followers of a Bible-belting (pun intended) preacher, Michael Pearl, have been accused of going too far in their administration of corporal punishment, resulting in the deaths of several children (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/us/deaths-put-focus-on-pastors-advocacy-of-spanking.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=michael%20pearl&st=cse).

I was spanked as a young child. My rump felt the wrath of my parents’ hands when I misbehaved. My father threatened to use a belt, but never did. Merely unfastening his belt produced the desired effect from me and my siblings.

In justifying their physical discipline regimen, Pearl’s adherents often cite the Bible (“He that spareth his rod hateth his son”). Of course, many choose to focus on more tolerant and loving prescriptions from Scriptures. They recognize that some passages, such as the admonition to stone a stubborn and rebellious son at the gates of the city, are no longer acceptable behavior, unless you’re a Taliban or some other Islamic fanatic.

As for my two children, I don’t ever remember spanking them.

Payback Time: For all those NY Jets fans who disapproved of my schadenfreude moment when their team lost to the lowly Denver Broncos last Thursday, Sunday night was their moment of gleeful revenge as my NY Giants played ineptly in losing to the down and hopefully not resuscitated Philadelphia Eagles.

No Deal: It appears at this writing the Congressional supercommittee charged with finding a deficit reducing formula has been unable to accomplish its mission. Each side points to the recalcitrance of the other to compromise. Congress no longer is an institution where priority is given to the people’s business. Rather, members are more concerned with ideological purity and their ability to win re-election.

No less an observer than former Republican Senate majority leader Bill Frist was quoted in The Times on Saturday thusly: “There was much more willingness (in the past) to reach across the aisle in a bipartisan manner for the good of the country as opposed to the next election.”


Black eyed Friday: USA Today, among others, is reporting a backlash by consumers and store personnel against retail companies that will be opening for business on Thanksgiving (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/11/black-friday-employees-push-back/1?csp=hf). Just remember—I was among the first to rant against this despicable and demeaning practice (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/11/cain-not-able.html).


What Would John Hughes Say? USA Today reported over the weekend the increase in high schools doing away with student lockers (http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-11-14/schools-lockers-safety/51205848/1). Don’t these well-meaning school administrators know they could be stifling the creative juices of the next film chronicler of American youth?


Learning the Trade: Sunday’s Times carried a story on the poor job law schools are doing preparing graduates for real world lawyering (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/business/after-law-school-associates-learn-to-be-lawyers.html?_r=1). I’m not a lawyer, but I can relate to the predicament new attorneys face learning their trade.

After earning a master’s degree in newspaper journalism, I thought I was qualified to be a reporter. Until, that is, I covered my first Board of Selectmen meeting in Seymour, Conn., for the New Haven Register. Oh, I easily followed the reports on requests for more sewer lines and the need to replace police cars. But I was confounded (perhaps even dumbfounded) when the discussion turned to the town’s budget. The selectmen kept talking about “mill rates,” not a term ever mentioned in any of my journalism classes (by the way, my professors also never told us what a selectman was).

It was only when the selectmen excused the reporters present for a short period while they discussed in executive session some personnel matters that I was instructed in the finer points of Connecticut town finances by my kindly competitor from the Ansonia Sentinel. Property taxes on buildings, motor vehicles and other major capital goods such as boats funded town finances. Assessments were based on the value of property. The tax per dollar of assessed value was expressed in the mill rate. One mill was one-tenth of a cent ($0.001). Each governing municipality set its own mill rate every year based on the community’s overall budget needs. If Seymour had a mill rate of 20, for example, a house valued at $200,000 would be taxed at $4,000. If the town had to spend more money the following year for new police cars and other projects, the mill rate might jump to 23, meaning the taxes on that $200,000 home rose to $4,600.

It was all Greek to me that night, but it quickly taught me real-life reporting was much more mundane and complicated than the glorified depictions seen in the movies and on the nightly news.

Sharing Some Values

Two days ago Finley marked his second birthday (we celebrated with him last Sunday). Gilda and I are so proud of the way Allison and Dan are raising him, of the choices they make, of the values they are imparting (for an update on how Finley’s doing, here’s a link to his blog: http://www.findingfinley.blogspot.com/

Values. It’s a word much in the news these days, what with the presidential election and the jousting between Barack Obama, Democrats, Republicans and the Occupy Wall Streeters being daily fare in the media. To me, it seems some of our public servants have forgotten the meaning of, or warped the meaning of, values in our society. Expediency and brazen political pandering have trumped reason, consistency and caring.

I’m forever amazed that even our most conservative politicians do not understand poverty is not a choice people opt for, that living in a state of need is not a life choice, that being unemployed, often despite higher education degrees, is not a consequence of their laziness but rather the result of an economy that has cratered because the 1% of the population that controls the financial system screwed up. Was it wrong for people to want a home, to want to live the American Dream they had been told they were entitled to all their lives, even if they knew in their guts they were getting in over their heads? Probably. But are they more or less culpable than the people, those one-percenters, who advanced them the monies to go deep into debt and who rigged the system to benefit themselves if the poor souls defaulted on their mortgages? Anyone with a decent sense of values would have no trouble answering that question.

How could anyone turn their backs on the hungry? Just come down and observe the needy, as I did today after dropping off our monthly donation to the White Plains Food Pantry. Her budgets have been cut, and more people are applying for relief, said Lorraine, the director of the food bank. As if oblivious to the plight of their fellow Americans, another civic group was spreading tablecloths for a nice luncheon in the same room where dozens of thankful recipients waited for their weekly bags of groceries. They couldn’t wait to move us out of the way, said Lorraine.

In what still might be the richest country on earth, more than one in five young Americans live in poverty, a million more than a year ago, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. How shameful.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has evoked many conflicting responses, but insensitivity to the economic polarization afflicting our society, and that of other countries, is among the most repugnant. Sure there are some who joined the demonstrations because they were looking for a good time. Or they were ”professional” protesters. But the vast majority were down on the luck Americans who either cannot get a job or are underpaid and cannot meet all their obligations.

Congress rightfully criticizes the exorbitant pay handed out to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac public service executives. But nary a word is expressed about the gazillions made on Wall Street. Virtually no one has been held accountable for the banking and mortgage debacles of the last few years.

Rep. Michael G. Grimm (R,C-NY) said Tuesday the OWS “people have overstayed their welcome and it’s time they get the heck out of New York City. Between the filth, the smell, the incessant noise, and threat to public safety, they have done nothing but cause a nuisance to the people who work and live in Lower Manhattan. They’ve cost the city and surrounding businesses millions of dollars, and it’s time these people find a more productive use of their time. New Yorkers have had ENOUGH!...It has been two months and now it’s time for the OWS protesters to pack up their tents, buy a bar of soap, and head home.”

No mistaking Grimm’s grim sentiments about the value of the OWS protest. I just wonder what he would have thought of the colonial protests against British rule. Does he think our forefathers were united from the get-go in their beliefs, that they were organized in their demands, that it was all kumbaya in Valley Forge and Philadelphia?

Perhaps Grimm would do well to study this quote from Thomas Jefferson: “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

A most interesting comment was aired during Wednesday’s Brian Lehrer show on NPR. “In 1998, capitalism defeated communism. In 2008, capitalism defeated democracy.”


On a Lighter Note: Am I the only person in America who never watched Regis Philbin with either Kathie Lee Gifford or Kelly Ripa? ... I’m not proud of it, but I admit to some schadenfreude after watching the NY Jets lose to the Denver Broncos last night. I really don’t like the Jets. Never have. Go Giants. ... I was never happier to gain 2-1/2 lbs. than I was this morning. When I first stepped on the scale I was lighter than a week ago, cause of alarm as I had not dieted and could think of no reason except unknown illness for the sudden loss of weight. After shifting the scale to a different spot on our tiled bathroom floor, my true weight reappeared. Phew.

Radio Daze

One of the news items on the radio this morning made my head swivel. AIG, the massive financial services company that a few years ago earned the tag as the worst company in America is now selling reputation insurance.

Talk about chutzpah!

In 2008, AIG received $68 billion from the federal bailout program. Now it is pushing ReputationGuard, designed, according to the Associated Press, to “help companies protect their reputation in the event of major corporate crises such as executive scandals, product recalls, data breaches and other ‘reputational threats.’"

The idea of reputation insurance is catching on, what with viral Internet campaigns maligning companies and individuals, often without their immediate knowledge. But the thought of AIG benefiting from this form of insurance is truly hard to swallow.


WFAN sports radio hosts Evan Roberts and Joe Benigno were talking football quarterbacks in the midday hour, mostly criticizing NY Jets QB Mark Sanchez. They bemoaned that most young quarterbacks don’t get the opportunity to spend a few years backing up a star, learning from him, as Aaron Rodgers did for the Green Bay Packers, understudying Brett Favre for four years.

Yeah, said Roberts, he learned not to throw the “killer pick” or take the “killer pic,” references to Favre’s tendency to kill offensive drives by throwing an interception (a “pick” for those not familiar with football parlance) and also for Favre’s infamous offensive picture texting of his body parts.


Though I’m not a Jets fan I couldn’t help but be amused by one listener’s call-in to WFAN about the fortunes of the team. Instead of the team’s slogan being “ground and pound,” he said, a more apt description would be “grunt and punt.”


Online gambling was reported the other day by WCBS 880 News to be under consideration by the U.S. House of Representatives as a revenue-generating scheme. Now, I’m not against legalized gambling, but it seems peculiar to me that the Republican-controlled House would favor such a move as many of its core constituents are Christian conservatives who oppose such activity.

Still, illegal gambling is estimated to be a $6 billion industry, and Uncle Sam would love to get a piece of the action. It’s impossible to control gambling, much the same way Prohibition was impossible to police effectively. At least when Prohibition was repealed the government started collecting excise taxes again on the liquid refreshment. It’s the same argument the gambling advocates push, as do those who want to legalize marijuana and other drugs.

A revenue source or a source of deprivation? You choose.


Last week the NY Times ran a picture of Sandy Amoros catching Yogi Berra’s curling fly ball in the last game of the 1955 World Series, a catch credited with helping secure the first and only championship for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Here’s a link to the picture: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/10/06/sports/Y-JP-VECSEY.html?scp=2&sq=sandy%20amoros&st=cse

Several interesting points about the picture and what it says about baseball 56 years ago, and I’m not referring to the fact that it was a day game: Well, it was a day game, and left field was the sun field at the old Yankee Stadium. Yet few fans wore sunglasses. Amoros was playing in short sleeves; most of the fans were men wearing suits and ties. A sizable number wore hats, not baseball caps, but real old men’s hats, fedoras. Though I’m sure most in the picture were younger than my 62 years, they sure look older than I am. Few women and almost no child can be seen. The fans in the front row mostly stayed in their seats; almost none ventured to catch a Yankee souvenir before Amoros could reach it.

Parental Reflections

Millions of Africans and Southeast Asians believe the Buffalo Bills are one of the most successful National Football League teams in history. How could they not think so, when they are clothed in T-shirts from 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994 proclaiming the Bills Super Bowl champions of those respective years?

Of course, Buffalo lost the penultimate game in each of those years, but by a long-standing practice of the novelty souvenir business, manufacturers produce “winning” merchandise for both teams prior to each championship game. To the victors go the spoils, the saying goes, meaning merchandise with the winning team’s logos sells like hotcakes. Meanwhile, merchandise proclaiming the losing team as champion quickly is bundled up and shipped overseas for distribution by charity and relief organizations.

I bring this to your attention because of the dominance of news reports these last few days about the sell-through of NY Jets merchandise at New York area sporting goods shops. It seems retailers couldn’t get enough green and white jerseys in the run-up to this evening’s American Football Conference title game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Thirty years ago my father got caught up in the frenzy of sports memorabilia. Football was never part of his Americanization. He could barely master the intricacies of baseball. But, as my brother Bernie recalled, in late December 1979, Dad, an independent apparel manufacturer, surprised him by saying he was rooting for Philadelphia to win its next game. Bernie asked if he knew whether the team was playing football, basketball or hockey. “I don’t know, or care,” he replied. “I only know that if Philadelphia wins and plays next week, then I have an order for 10,000 green T-shirts with white sleeves!”

It was the Philadelphia Eagles football team. They played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a divisional playoff game. Philadelphia lost, 24-17. More importantly for Jets fans, the eventual winner of the Super Bowl that season was the Pittsburgh Steelers!


Zsa Zsa Gabor is back home after having her right leg amputated on January 14. For those not familiar with the 93-year-old Hungarian-born celebrity, Zsa Zsa and her sisters Magda and Eva, along with her mother Jolie, were the Kardashians of the post-World War II era. Zsa Zsa was an actress of questionable talent, but she and the other Gabors were always in the gossip pages—Zsa Zsa, alone, has had nine husbands. Eva wound up outshining her in front of the cameras when she starred with Eddie Albert in the CBS situation comedy Green Acres in the late 1960s.

Zsa Zsa Gabor makes me think of my mother. Like Zsa Zsa, she was born in Easter Europe in 1917. Like Zsa Zsa, my mother had her lower leg amputated. Already frail from smoking too much and diabetic, Mom’s life became even more sedentary. My parents had to give up their homes in Brooklyn and Miami Beach as they weren’t wheelchair compatible. They moved into an independent care facility near Bernie, in Rockville, MD.

As her blood circulation deteriorated even more, she was scheduled for an operation to amputate her other leg when she died of a heart attack. One week from tonight I’ll light a memorial candle to commemorate her passing in 1996.

Taking Credit

How upset should I be? How upset should I be that twice now The New York Times has dissed my role in preventing Allianz from securing naming rights to the new Giants and Jets football stadium?

Saturday’s Times carried an article by Richard Sandomir on prospects for the sale of the naming rights. Here’s the third paragraph from that story:

“In 2008, the German insurance company Allianz nearly put its name on the stadium for at least $25 million a year, but a revelation by The New York Times of the connections the insurer had with the Nazi Third Reich killed the deal.” (Here’s a link to the full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/sports/football/29sandomir.html)

It sounds like The Times did some nifty original reporting back in 2008. But for those who don’t remember, or didn’t see, my blog of last January 31, it wasn’t “a revelation by The Times” that killed the deal. It was a letter to the editor by yours truly that revealed Allianz’s Nazi connection and started the public backlash that killed the deal (here's my letter to the editor: http://query.nytimes.co/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E4DE1E3FF934A3575AC0A96E9C8B63&scp=1&sq=forseter&st=nyt).

Sandomir’s short, initial story on negotiations for naming rights merely identified Allianz as a German financial services company. I was the one who pointed out that Allianz insured the Nazi death camps. Only after seeing my letter did Sandomir write a longer article detailing Allianz’s relationship with the Third Reich, with no mention, I might add, of my letter. Sandomir and The Times played crucial roles, but hardly could be considered first responders to this story (here's my blog of last Jan. 31: http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/01/chain-of-one-person-events.html).

When scooped, The Times has a policy of identifying the media that first broke the story. I really don’t need my name bandied about, but I do take offense to the wording used in Saturday's article. It was not “a revelation by The Times.” Rather, it should have said, “it was revealed in The Times” (through my letter).

I’m generally a decently humble guy. But I’m not going to sit idly by and let someone else take credit for one of my proudest achievements.