Say goodbye to Greg and Eliot, two opposites

I took the day off from blogging yesterday to celebrate Sue and my 36th wedding anniversary. We spent the day working, her on a number of free-lance writing and editing projects, me covering the Development Commission for the New Haven Independent and attending a meeting of the Jewish Historical Society. Whoever said retirement is boring is nuts.

It's also March Madness, college basketball's playoff season. Mazel Tov to the top-ranked Connecticut women Huskies, who took the Big East regular season and playoff championships. UConn men, ranked in the top 20 nationally, are seeded fourth in the men's Big East, which started today (March 12, 2008) with Villanova tromping Syracuse. Tomorrow, the UConn men play. Then it's on to the NCAA championships, with both the men and women having a chance to win it all. The women are ranked first in the nation, and will probably be a top seed, while the men will be seeded lower, depending on how they do this weekend.

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The New Haven Register laid off its last Hartford reporter, Greg Hladky, yesterday and then had the chutzpah to feature a weekend story by him on its Web site. I guess they thought they could sneak it in before the word got around that their Capitol Bureau chief, who was, truth be told, the only Capitol Bureau reporter for the Reg and the other Journal Register Corp. dailies in the state, had been given his walking papers.

So now readers of the Register, the Bristol Press, the New Britain Herald and the Torrington-Winsted paper will have to get their Hartford news from the wires.

Greg Hladky had been around the Capitol Bureau for decades, covering the news and representing the Register on public television panel shows, as well as other radio and television panels. He knew where the bodies were buried, had the trust of the movers and shakers and printed the truth.

His steady hand will be missed in a paper that has not lived up to its traditions in the past couple of decades. I remember times when the Register and the Journal-Courier were the best of the best, covering stories like the tornados that wrecked the area around Bradley International Airport and smashed parts of Hamden a decade or so later.

The best of luck to Greg. As I told him in my comment on the Independent story about his layoff, he'll look back on this as the best thing that every happened to him professionally. Now he can go to work for a newspaper that doesn't think that it is scooping itself by putting stories on its Web site before they appear in the paper. That's what sent the smart city editor, David McClendon, fleeing to Michigan to work for Mickey Hirten, a guy who knows how to run a paper and keep good talent.

Greg, there are many really good papers out there. I know one of them will snatch a talent such as yours quickly. In the meantime, take a vacation and count your blessings.

Page 2

Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York finally packed it in today, less than a week after The New York Times ratted him out for patronizing a high-priced call girl to the tune of $80,000 over a period of time. His wife looked as if she had aged a decade in the few days since he fessed up.

Politicians in New York pay hardball, and he could not have lasted a month if he tried to keep his office. The good folks in New York will put up with crooks, dummies and wackos, but they suffer hypocrites badly and Spitzer put himself in the lead of that hit parade by preaching clean and acting dirty.

Page 3

I wish I had the good sense to keep out of this one, but Geraldine Ferraro, who was the first woman to run for vice president and who is now in the middle of a race war, has put her foot squarely in Hillary Rodham Clinton's mouth.

She said that Barack Obama would not be where he is if he were not black. She's got it ass backwards.

Barack Obama is where he is because black people can smell victory. They can see the first African-American who has a real chance to be elected president and, no matter their politics, they are proud of that. Who can blame them?

Talk about you've come a long way, baby. I remember being in fifth grade and my teacher, Helen Sheehan, who I am sure is gone to her reward, explaining that the one black girl in the class was as clean as smart and as good a person as the rest of us.

Skip forward about 50 years and here we have a black guy running for president and the main rap on him is that he may be too smart, too intellectual and too much of an idealist.

People whose presidential aspirations have been represented by the late Shirley Chisholm and the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, people who didn't really have a chance, are now seeing a man who really, really has a chance to make it.

Of course, they take pride in that, no matter whether they agree with his politics and views or not. How can they not? Yes, a black television commentator will smile a bit with pride when mentioning his name.

If that's what Geraldine Ferraro meant, well then, she's not wrong and she needed to say it better.

If not, then she needs to shut up.

I still think Clinton will made a better president, but I won't go into mourning if he wins. I'd vote for him before McCain, who seems to be channeling George Bush (both) and promises to continue economic policies that has all our savings going down the rat hole so that oil speculators can enrich themselves at our expense.

Page 4

I see the Israeli movie "The Band's Visit" is playing at the Criterion Theater in New Haven and is probably available in other places across the nation. If you haven't seen this wonderful flick, which was mentioned as possible best foreign firm but lost out because it had too much English in it, see it.

Until next time...

Spitzer hoisted by his own, er, petard

This will be the 150th edition of Len's Lens. Since this blog began in December, 2006, we have talked about everything from politics and religion to airport parking fees. When I first started, I had a lot of time on my hands and last year, 125 editions of the Lens were published. I have not been so productive this year, mostly because of other demands on my time.

This doesn't mean I have given up or that the (hopefully) reasoned rantings have fallen to an also-ran status. It's just that there are people counting on me to do other things. I love doing the Lens and will continue to do so, albeit perhaps at a slightly slower pace. Please continue to peek in from time to time.

To those who have made the Lens part of their daily routine, thank you. I cannot promise that the quantity will be as it was last year, but I will do my damnest to be sure that the quality is at least as good.

Again, thanks and here's to another 150 Len's Lenses.

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Crocodile tears have been drenching corporate boardrooms in New York and around the nation today (March 10, 2008) as another protector of the public morality falls off his pedestal after apparently being led by his penis.

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who made life miserable for thousands of corporate officials in insurance, banking and what have you in his previous job as attorney general of New York state begged for forgiveness after being linked to a high-priced prostitution ring. He has apologized to his family and his constituency and at least one television station says he'll quit by the end of the day.

The New York Times, apparently in later editions (not the one home-delivered in Connecticut) connected him with Emperor's Club VIP, a prostitution ring in Washington, D.C. that rates call girls with diamonds (just like AAA rates hotels and restaurants) and where well-heeled and horny men might pay as much as $5,500 an hour for a 7-diamond-rated hooker. That's $31,000 a day (dawn to dawn, as it says on the club's Web site). A five-diamond young woman is described as having a master's degree in public (and one suspects, private) relations. For the $15,000 that a day with this person would cost, I would hope so.

Anyway, enough of that. Spitzer, who was sheriff of Wall Street and drove many corporate lawyers to the Blue Label, should have known that a high-priced sex service such as Emperor's Club must draw the attention of the watchers of others' morals who rule Washington. But, like many men in his position, he is led around by his testosterone. As Will Smith said in the move "Men in Black", "Don't start nothin', won't be nothin'." So another promising political career goes down the toilet.

According to the Huffington Post, there was cheering at the New York Stock Exchange when the news went around.

If Spitzer quits, the new governor will be Lt. Gov. David Paterson, who is African-American and would be the Empire State's first black lieutenant governor. He also is legally blind, literally, not figuratively as is Spitzer.

I'm sorry for Spitzer's wife and three teenage daughters, who in the last day have seen their world come crashing down. Spitzer must now spend his time trying to salvage his marriage, family life and what remains of his career.

Spitzer must quit. A man who made his reputation chasing those who would bend and break the law cannot function after he did the same. He would be the butt of jokes.

Spitzer, although he has not been charged with a crime and probably would not be under the usual federal guidelines for this sort of thing, joins other disgraced governors, such as John Rowland, who did time for public corruption, and Bridgeport mayor Joe Ganum, who did the same.

It's a shame that a man with that kind of potential is brought down not by his instincts for justice but by his need to prove his manhood to himself. It doesn't take a prophet to see that this behavior has to end badly.

Until next time...

Could the worm be turning?

Let me say a few words about the primaries that are still going on at midnight Wednesday (March 5, 2008).
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton may have snatched the momentum from Sen. Barack Obama by winning Ohio and Rhode Island and it looks as if Texas may also go for her. Texas politics reminds me of the way Connecticut used to be: Politicians can do anything they want because nobody could figure out what's going on because it is so complicated.

Texas has primaries, caucuses and complicated rules. It's wild and woolly.

In the past weeks, Clinton and the reporters who cover the election have finally begun looking for that man behind the curtain. That, of course, is a reference to the Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy is told not to look for the man behind the curtain because the Great and Mighty Oz is just a guy with a megaphone.

Obama's gaffe in allowing a highly placed adviser to talk to the Canadians, telling the Ottawa officials that Obama really doesn't mean what he was saying about NAFTA. In the last debate, he said he was always against NAFTA, but is that really the case? As Paul Balaga, admittedly a Clinton supporter, said on CNN last night, if this adviser was operating without his boss' approval, that adviser has to be fired. Does Obama not know about how to deal with international relations?

I think we are finding that the rhetoric only gets us so far. Bringing people together is the method, not the end in itself. It is far different to bring people together for a good purpose than just to bring them together.

I'm still for Hillary for the stated reasons: She's much better prepared. She's not an empty shirt, a great talker who can't cut it when the chips are down. She's been there, done that.

Tonight, when Obama was speaking to his supporters, he started to look less like Clarence Darrow in the Scopes monkey trial, and more like William Jennings Bryan, more like a man spouting his words, but the words are starting to sound hollow.

Maybe, just maybe, the worm might be turning.

Until next time...

It's not raindrops falling on their heads

I hope all had a wonderful, restful weekend, despite the snow.

A message to Kerekes: Thanks for your note. I will be calling you in a few days and would love to sit down with you and pick your brain about what's going on in New Haven.

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Imagine you lived in a small country. Starting at the sea coast, you could walk across this country in a few hours. You could drive from north to south in four hours, except for the traffic. The country is as far from north to south as New Jersey, and the traffic situation would make a New Jersey commuter shake a head in sympathy.

The people in this country had neighbor problems - the neighbors didn't want them there. The people in this country took a land that had been fertile thousands of years ago, but no more. The people, who had had to leave their old neighborhood because they weren't wanted there, had fixed up their new home: They drained the swamps and made the desert bloom.

Their neighbors had come from others parts of the region a few score years ago, had rented homes and farms from absentee landlords hundreds and thousands of miles away. The people who returned to their ancient homeland bought that land and had allowed many of the renters, but had evicted many as well because they needed room for their friends and relatives.

These neighbors saw what the people had done with the place and wanted to take it over. The neighbors had lived under the rule of people who looked and thought a lot more like them and were happy to do so. But when the people took over, they decided they wanted to be independent.

The people were sick of fighting against neighbors who wanted them dead or gone or both. They were willing to give up parts of their small homeland, but the neighbors wanted it all. The people had finally had it. When the neighbors started lobbing rockets into their towns and now into their cities, that was the last straw. As Popeye used to say: "That's all I can stands, I can't stands no more."

The people were stronger than their neighbors and had tried not to hurt the neighbors too much. But the neighbors didn't value life as the people did. Their pride was stronger than their love for their children and they used their children as human shields.

When the children started suffering, the whole world said the people weren't fighting fair. The neighbors were fighting as hard as they could, lobbing rockets from the land they had foolishly been given. The world told the people they weren't fighting fair because they were stronger than the neighbors and could hurt them more.

That's what the neighbors were counting on. A few kids killed in exchange for a favorable headline in The New York Times was a good trade, it seemed. In the pages of that newspaper and hundreds of others, these neighbors are militants, not killers or terrorists. The United Nations said the people weren't fighting fair because many people were being punished for the actions of their rulers and that's not good in this neighborhood, although it seems to be just fine in other neighborhoods.

The fact that these neighbors had elected their leaders and were perfectly capable of telling the leaders to stop lobbing rockets at the people seemed irrelevant. The fact that these neighbors were being armed and led by Iran seemed irrelevant to the Europeans.

The people went in and cleaned up some of the neighbors' rocket sites and then left, while the neighbors called them cowardly for not killing more people.

The Israelis have been living like this since their nation was voted into existence by the world 60 years ago. Their Arab neighbors don't want them there. I ask you: How do you deal with people who want you dead or gone or, preferably, both, and take every opportunity to bring that about?

Israel is strong enough to wipe out these neighbors, to kill everybody found with a gun or a knife or a rocket-propelled grenade or a rocket and sweep their weeping survivors to the borders, where Egypt and Jordan and Lebanon and Syria would be invited to care for them, to take them into their nations as they should have done 60 years ago, or watch them die of neglect. That was Rabbi Meyer Kahane's solution, one declared officially anathema by the Israeli government and its proponents declared as terrorists.

I used to think this scenario was horrible, Nazi-like and unthinkable. I still say it's horrible and unthinkable, but maybe not quite as much as I used to.

Give me an alternative.

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This is about the state trooper lawsuit, as seen on television news last week. It is also reported here:
www.ctnewsjunkie.com/legal/black_state_troopers_file_laws.php

A couple of comments, if you will.

First, there was no lawsuit when these reports were aired and written, only somebody saying they were going to file one.

That's called the media being used to run an idea up the flagpole and see who would salute it - a trial balloon as it were.

Under the rules of good journalism, you don't write about a lawsuit until it is filed. You didn't have to wait until the defendant is served with papers, as long as the suit is filed with the clerk of whatever court is to have jurisdiction.

Secondly, in my opinion, these people are suing the wrong group.

Look, the Connecticut State Police is an organization with a wonderful reputation. This is the cadre that comes in when the locals can't cut it. These are the cops who patrol our superhighways and serve as the local police force if a town is too small to afford one. These are supposed to be the best and the brightest.

That's the way I want it if I need to call a state trooper or a trooper needs to call me.

I want the cop who sees me to be bright enough to pull me over if I'm weaving at 2 in the morning because I'm falling asleep. I want him or her to be bright enough to pull me over in a way that won't cause me to have an accident. I want him or her to be bright enough to figure out that I wasn't drunk or stoned, and had just suffered a temporary bout of road hypnotism, that my exit was only a few hundred yards up the road and no further action was needed. That happened to me a few years ago and I'll be forever grateful to that trooper for what he did and didn't do. I didn't need a ticket, or a lecture on what could have happened, I just needed a friendly wake-up call - literally.

If anyone needs to be sued, it's the school system that allows people who want to be state troopers to only score 65 on a test. That's a D. There were enough people who scored 85 or better to fill up the recruit class, I applaud those who got a B on the test. If only two blacks were able to score a B on the test, I congratulate them and invite those who want to sue someone to sue the educators, the parents, the system, not the cops.

To those African-Americans who scored 65, I invite them to join local police forces, or go to John Jay College or similar programs. Study for the test. Get tutoring. Get the 85 on the test and then I'd be proud to say to you: Welcome to one of the best state police forces in the nation.

Until next time...

The law of diminishing returns

This is to the folks on the Kerekes committee who came out with the list of money saving ideas for the New Haven city budget.
Read the story in today's New Haven Independent here.

First, I think it's a grand idea for citizens to keep an eye on government overspending. Giving money to a politician is like giving candy to a kid. The kid will eat the candy, whether it's good for him or her or not. The politician will spend the money, whether it's good for the municipality or not.

But, I think these folks may have gone out a little far. There is a point where the law of diminishing returns cuts in.

First of all, I'm basically living on a fixed income, plus what little I can get from working here or there, such as covering things for the New Haven Independent. This is known as the disclaimer.

I spent the lion's share of the last two decades in Westchester County, New York, working for The Journal News, the daily newspaper that covers the area from the Bronx to Dutchess County on one side of the Hudson River and from the New Jersey border to Orange County on the other. That's a lot of territory, but one of the issues in common was cell phone towers. Nobody wanted them in their town. Either they ruined the view, or there was fear of radiation or whatever.

I remember a reporter coming back from a meeting at which this woman was ranting and raving about how cell phones and cell towers were ruining civilization as we knew it. She had to stop in mid rant, however, to answer her cell phone.

These Kerekes folks remind me a little of that woman. They want to make sure there's as little overtime as possible for the police, yet I'm sure would be the first to complain if a cop wasn't there to answer their call.

I guess I'm wondering about the kind of city we'd have if we sold the skating rink, didn't spend money on cultural places like the Shubert Theatre, left Tweed-New Haven Airport for general aviation only, much like Meriden Markham Airport or the strip out in Oxford.

Look, I know the city spends too much money. I never thought I would say these things, but I think the mayor is starting to get it. At a meeting I covered earlier this month, he said the city had enough subsidized housing, was spending millions sheltering people, including those who are dropped off on New Haven streets by other towns or dropped off by the state after being in prison or jail.

We can save money by getting the towns to do their fair share. The citizens of suburban towns benefit by being able to attend cultural events for example, at the same rate of payment for tickets and parking as New Haven citizens. They don't pay any more at restaurants or bars than New Haven residents.

If those two examples seem silly to you, dear New Haven resident, try parking your can by the West Haven beach during the summer. Yes, we New Haveners get into Lighthouse Point Park free, while others have to pay, but you can't park by the beach in West Haven, for example, for any price.

We need the towns to start paying their fair share, maybe by kicking in for the Shubert subsidy, for example. If the subsidy is $410,000 for the Shubert, why not let East, North, West Haven, the Branfords, Madison, Milford, Hamden get together and kick in $300,000 of that. Let Yale charge a little more to out of town residents for concerts and events. Sell parking cards to New Haven residents at a bit of a discount. Everybody pays the same parking rate if they pay cash, but New Haveners get a little off the top if they use a card.

If we think creatively, we can save money without selling off the skating rink or the golf courses. We can't make the city a sterile place by unwise funding cuts. Absent the high taxes, New Haven is a great place to live. Let's keep it that way.

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I've always known by friend Pio is a great guy, a giving guy, and a smart guy. I just didn't know until yesterday (Feb. 27, 2008) that he was an astute political kingmaker.

I was sitting in the barber chair at Pio's shop, Pio of Italy on Whalley Avenue in New Haven. As usual, we were talking politics. Both Pio and I were concerned about the presidential election.

Those who have read these rantings know I'm for Hillary Rodham Clinton because I don't think Barack Obama gets it. He's great at giving speeches and rallying hope, but hope doesn't get it done on the world stage.

Pio was saying his thinking went along the same lines, but he didn't know what to do about it. We started throwing out running-mate combinations. He started with John McCain and Joe Lieberman. I said I didn't think the Republicans were ready for Joe and he's burned his bridges to the Democrats.

We briefly talked about an Obama-Clinton ticket, with Obama doing the talking and Clinton with her hand at the back of his head, like Edgar Bergen to Charlie McCarthy. We dismissed that -- Americans certainly won't go for a strong woman and a scholarly African-American on the same ticket. Too much newness.

So, we tried to figure out a combo with McCain. Then Pio hit it: John McCain and Mike Bloomberg.

I started to laugh. "That could go," I kept saying. "That could go."

Think about it. Bloomberg is relatively young, seriously rich, a proven vote-getter, a man who runs the toughest city in the world and will be out of a job soon because of term limits.

The ticket balances geographically, an Arizona guy with a New Yorker. It balances politically: Bloomberg is pretty liberal and McCain is pretty conservative. The right-wing crazies won't like it, but they'll like Obama less. Bloomberg has more money than Croesus and flies his own plane. We could sell the C-17 that serves as Air Force 2 and could rent Bloomberg's plane for $1 a year and let him buy his own gas.

They are both friends of Israel. Bloomberg is Jewish, at least on paper, and that gets a "first" on the ticket. Joe Lieberman was really the first Jew elected vice-president, but because of Ralph Nadir (spelling on purpose), he couldn't serve. So it could be the first Jew as vice president against the first African-American as president.

Of course, if by some miracle Clinton wins the Democratic primary, then we can bid a Emily Latella-ish "never mind" to the whole thing.

Viva Pio.

Until next time...

Shame on you, Barack Obama

Yeah, it's me again, beating what appears more and more to be a dead horse.

I watched the 20th and hopefully last presidential debate last night (Feb. 26, 2008), I say shame! to Sen. Barack Obama.

It's not that he was any less sincere in his "some of my best friends and supporters are Jewish" speech than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, but he seemed to be a lot too blase about the support he received from Minister Louis Farrakhan. Farrakhan has made pointed and horrible anti-Semitic statements for years, calling Judaism a "gutter religion" and worse.

Farrakhan has, however, had nice, very nice things to say about Obama. The Nation of Islam figure called Obama "the hope of the entire world" and said it has captured "black and brown and red and yellow" audiences.

When Obama was questioned last night about Farrakhan's praise, he gave a "so what" type of answer.

When NBC chief Obama backer Tim Russert asked whether Obama rejected Farrakhan's endorsement, Obama could have said yes or said he distances himself from Farrakhan and all he stands for, but he didn't. He played a semantics game. When Clinton lectured Obama about the power of words and the difference between rejecting praise and distancing himself from a known anti-Semite, Obama conceded the debating point, but never said he rejected Farrakhan, didn't want any money or support from Farrakhan or anyone who thought like him.

The words of the president of the United States are parsed closely, not only by diplomats but by ordinary people worldwide. The difference between one word and the other has started arguments that have led to wars, such as, for example, whether Iraq has or had weapons of mass destruction. We all know Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction because he used them on the Kurds.

The Bush administration took Saddam's word that he still had those weapons. It just so happened that the message was meant to scare Iran so the Tehran mullahs wouldn't attack Baghdad, but it got intercepted and misinterpreted by the geniuses of the Bush administration and before you could say wrong number, we were off to war.

Words are important. I'm now more sure than ever that Obama isn't ready to be president of anything, not to say the United States.

The Farrakhan gaffe is not considered a major one by analysts. It should be. Obama is starting to remind me of Ronald Reagan, in that they both did very well with scripted speeches before adoring audiences, but didn't do so well in debates or answering questions one-on-one. You need to be able to do better than look bored and condescending and pick up your finger to be recognized and give your debating point.

As president, one has to think clearly in the clutches, consider all sizes of a question quickly and give a response that will stand up to analyses from all sides.

Obama just hasn't shown me he can do that.

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Let me have my say about Tweed-New Haven Airport.

The anti-Tweed folks remind me of Cinderella's step-mother and step-sisters. They rip up Cinderella's dress, pull out all her hairdressing, smash her shoes and then tell her she may go to the ball if she pleases.

These residents, with the backing of the late Mayor Biagio DiLieto, whose political base was the East Shore of New Haven and the anti-airport contingent who lived there, took a going concern and turned it into a joke. The word "jet" scared them. East Haveners were just as bad.

Bruce Lawson, who was airport general manager when I covered the airport authority back in the late 1980s, took me on a tour of the facilities one bleak day. Back then, USAir and Continental offered services to hubs in New York (JFK), Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. The tiny Boeing 1900's and Twin Otters were replaced by ATR 42s and similar propjets that flew to National in Arlington, Va., in a couple of hours.

Air Wisconsin's attempt to fly small four-engine jets was defeated by a strict noise ordinance. United offered jet service to Chicago, but the large consumers of air service refused to back the service and United soon pulled out.

Today, USAirways offers service to Philadelphia. Private and charter planes use the airport now.

I can see how jet service with screamers like DC-9s and Boeing 727s would frighten people. But today's MD-80s, Boeing 737s and smaller Boeing 717s, a 100-seat aircraft that AirTran flies out of Westchester and other places nonstop to Florida, are really quiet.

During our tour of the airport, Lawson said the runway at Tweed could support aircraft as large as Boeing 757s, a jet that can fly nonstop to California, with just a few inches of material to increase the depth of the runways.

In a public meeting about the mayor's redevelopment plans, New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. said he hasn't been happy with the work of the airport panel he helped appoint. Neighbors and officials are supposed to be meeting about the extension of the safety zones at the end of the airport.

In the late 1980s, I did a story for the New Haven Register comparing Tweed to Westchester and Worcester airports. Westchester is still a going concern despite the kind of county-backed interference from airport neighbors in Harrison and Rye, N.Y. and Greenwich, Conn. That's because there are flights going where people want to go. Last year, I took AirTran from Westchester to Orlando. Except for having to mortgage my house to pay parking fees, it was a great experience.

Look, how's about this for an idea. Why don't we give the airport a real chance. We've spent money renovating the place a few years ago. That cash shouldn't be wasted. If Yale, AT&T and other consumers of air service were to pledge to use the service and give it a real chance, maybe that could be used to persuade some airlines to come back.

Imagine being able to step on a 100-passenger jet and be in Orlando in a few hours. Imagine being able to fly to places like Toronto, Chicago, Charlotte, N.C., or Atlanta. Imagine not having to drive for more than an hour to get to Bradley International, or God knows how long to get to JFK, Newark and La Guardia. Westchester Airport in Harrison is 45 minutes away and charges $21 a day to park, if you can find a space.

We have a real gem here. Let's give it a real chance.

Until next time...

Ralphie's on his ego trip again

Hi there. You must have thought I'd finally gone away.

Well, I almost did. I was never so sick in my life as I was a couple of weeks ago. The week after that, my step-mother took sick in Maryland and the trip with three grandchildren, one daughter and my wife turned into a hospital visit instead of the planned show-ma-the-great-grandkids visit.

Anyway, Ralph Nader, the man who shows us that a life can have both very good and very nutty in it, is off on his quadrennial ego trip again.

Eight years ago, the votes he collected in Florida made the race tight enough so Bush could steal it. Of course, Ralphie said there was no difference between Bush and Al Gore. He may believe that. The difference, however, between himself and the other four dozen people in the nation who believe that is that he isn't confined to an asylum for the mentally challenged.

As you all no doubt know, Ralph Nader started out life as a real consumer advocate. His seminal work, "Unsafe at Any Speed," no doubt saved lives by drawing our attention to rattle-traps that exploded on impact and caused untold misery.

A decade or so ago, I was saddened to note that Ralph's ego had taken over and he was now shilling for ambulance-chasers. I ran into him at an insurance convention and was able to tell him of my disappointment in a career that started out so wonderfully. Tears ran down my cheeks as I lambasted him.

After his performance in 2000 and also in 2004, when he didn't send the election to Bush, he has chutzpah to run again. He takes no responsibility for the mess this nation is in now. Ralphie is just living in his own head. Fortunately, the poor misguided souls who backed him in 2000 aren't around to help him today.

One hopes that nobody will send him money and he will just go quietly back inside his head.

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Speaking of living in his own head, Barack Obama is upset because Matt Drudge has trotted out a 2006 Associated Press photo of him in native Kenyan dress. Maybe it's the headdress that might look like one that a Muslim might wear.

Mr. Obama, sir, you of the consummate ego and haughty expression, let me direct your attention to the hundreds, even thousands of photos extant of presidential candidates in all kinds of costumes. Start with Silent Cal Coolidge in a full-feathered American Indian headdress. You seem to pattern yourself after John F. Kennedy -- I seem to remember him in cowboy hat and other headgear.

Candidates have to kiss babies, eat strange foods and wear weird costumes. What are you going to do if you win and have to make a trip to Kazakhstan and some little kid presents you with some kind of headgear?

It's not a put-on. Be proud of your heritage. Your dad was Kenyan? Embrace it.

By the way, Obama's people accused the Clinton camp of leaking the photo to Drudge and said it was a nasty thing to do. I hope the Clintons weren't part of any Obama's-a-Muslim campaign. But that's mild compared to what the GOP rat-f**kers are cooking up for the Democratic nominee. Get used to it or get out. No, it's not the way the game should be played, but in the political big leagues, it's the way it is played.

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Here's another Len's Lens unsolicited endorsement. I received no consideration for the following.

During our trip last week to see my step-mother, we stayed at the Summerfield Suites in Gaithersburg, Md. We took a two-bedroom suite and there was plenty of room for my wife and I, my daughter and her three children, ranging in age from 6 years to 7 months old.

We had a full-sized fridge, three televisions, two bathrooms, two king-sized beds and a studio couch. The place served a hot buffet breakfast, put a newspaper in front of your door each morning and the service was possibly the best ever.

Hear this: With kids, you need to take a break from hospital visits, so we headed for Washington, D.C. Since people have spent their entire adult lives looking for a parking space in D.C., we took the metro. The hotel provided a free shuttle service, complete with installing three child seats in their van, took us to the Metro station and picked us up later with the child seats reinstalled in the van. All we had to do was call from a couple of Metro stations away and the van was waiting when we arrived.

Bravo, Summerfield Suites.

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To those who are reading this, thank you for keeping watch. I will try to be more consistent in the future.