A milestone; enough already on Franken

This is my 250th blog post. I wish it were more monumental, but so it goes.

My wife and I attended a talk last night on Iran and its implications for the Jewish community.

The three panelists, an academic who specializes in anti-Semitism, a woman who runs an agency that collects facts on human rights and a woman who arrived from Iran a decade or so ago and has published reportage, poetry and academic writing on the land of her birth.

We left unsatisfied.

The academic really didn't have much to add to what we already knew. He was out of his element and tried bravely to skew his knowledge to the subject at hand.

The information collector told us about what had happened 30 years ago when the Shah fled the country, with Jimmy Carter's help, and created a power vacuum that the religious fundamentalists who have ruled the country ever since took over.

It was instructive, especially when she said the death squads that had operated at the end of the Iran-Iraq war in the late 1980s were being reassembled. But she didn't connect any of this to what is happening today.

The young woman who fled her homeland painted an optimistic picture, saying that the Iranian opposition had a 30-year head start and that the mullahs were on their way out eventually.

Nobody spoke to the subject at hand: how all this relates to Israel and Jews.

OK, here's my take. I'm not an expert, but I have a theory.

We in the U.S. are used to our government riding over the hill, bugles blowing, flags flying, guns blazing.

What if the present administration is trying to subtly influence what is going on over there.

What if the theory is: Iran is the key to the Middle East.

If we can marginalize the Iranian regime, or even get rid of the mullahs and their beard Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (pun intended), then the rest of the dictatorships will fall in line. Syria, Iraq, Hizbollah, Hamas, Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, all of it, could fall apart.

That could not help but aid Israel. One speaker said the Iranians have been told to support the Palestinian cause, but now, they wonder where the Palestinians were when they need help. They are doing what they always do, bit the hand that feeds them. When Iraqi missiles were heading for Tel Aviv, the Palestinians were on the roofs of their government-provided houses, cheering Saddam Hussein. Nothing has changed. It's gimme, gimme but I don't have to do anything in return.

The panel talked about seeking resolutions in the United Nations condemning the Iranian regime for its murderous stomping on the dissidents in Tehran. Right. Fat lot of good that would do, even if we could get one passed.

Iran is the key. I hope President Obama is working way behind the scenes to help the people of Iran to toss out the theocracy that they have said time and again they do not want.

Enough already with Franken

The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that Al Franken should be certified as the winner of last November's election. Tomorrow is July. Enough already.

The Republican candidate, incumbent GOP Sen. Norm Coleman, has fought in one court after the other to upset the close election which Franken won by a few hundred votes. Now the Republican governor, who has said he would sign the certification, which has to bear the governor's signature, if the court makes him. The court didn't order him to sign, but did say Franken deserved to be the senator.

I know people in Minnesota are patent people. A group of us once waited, on purpose, through three traffic-light cycles to see if anyone would toot their horn at us. Nobody did. They just sat there.

But this is becoming a joke. The people of that state deserve to have two senators serving them. The governor needs to sign the certification and Franken has to be seated as soon as the Senate returns from its Independence Day break.

Enough already in Hartford

I don't know what's ailing Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell, but she cannot believe that offering the citizens of the state a huge drop in services in order to keep the wealthiest of our residents from having to pony up more taxes, is a good deal.

There are many programs she wants dropped that bring in a profit for state coffers. There are others that the weakest of our citizens need to keep living.

Remember, the cuts she is proposing are good for two years, not just one. We may be booming out of the recession, hampered by a budget that keeps the state from investing in its programs and citizens.

She needs to rethink her stand.

Until next time...

What is that bright, yellow thing in the sky?

OK, so now it's a monthly. I'm going to try to do better. Really.

For the past couple of days, the sun has come out and it really seems as if summer, or at least late spring, has come.

It's pretty sad when one is walking along and the clouds split for a moment, and one realizes that it's hot and takes a few minutes to realize that it's officially summer. The clouds, rain, dreary mist is not what we signed up for.

They never learn

Last week, my wife and I had the signal honor and pleasure of being in attendance at an event honoring Rabbi Henry Okolica. This man has done it all--held together an Orthodox Jewish congregation in New Britain, where the Jewish community is a shadow of its former self; been a chaplain for state and local police, for the New Britain fire departments, for state and federal veterans' hospitals and homes. He was a television pioneer in the 1960s with a television program that lasted decades on WVIT-Channel 30 and its ancestors.

He so inspired students at the yeshiva in Waterbury that they drive twice a week to attend morning services at his synagogue, Cong. Tephereth Israel, located in the inner city of New Britain, to assure there is a minyan, a necessary quorum of 10 men needed to read the Torah.

It was at a fund-raiser for that yeshiva, held at a banquet hall in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, that Rabbi Okolica was honored. Rabbi Judah Harris and his wife, Rona, rode down with us and Rabbi David Avigdor and his wife, Suzanne, and son Yakov, to honor the memory of the Harris' son, Mitchell Elliott, who passed away years ago at a teen-ager, as well as Rabbi Okolica.

Rabbi Okolica was my rabbi in New Britain so many years ago. I told him about my six grandchildren. He told me about his 104 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

I guess when you live into your 90s, you get to have a lot of grandchildren.

But to paraphrase Arlo Guthrie, I didn't come to talk to you about dinners, I can to talk to you about health care.

One of the people who showed up at this event was Nancy Johnson, who represented Connecticut's sixth and then fifth district in Congress from 1983 to 2007, when she was defeated by Democrat Chris Murphy.

She's now a lobbyist trying to keep President Obama's health-care reform from being any kind of meaningful.

We talked for quite a long time about the subject, and it became clear that her focus was to keep the playing field level, or, if I may extrapolate, to keep any kind of government-run or even government-sponsored element from coming into the health-care plan.

She was worried that insurance companies would be at a disadvantage because they would not keep up their level of profit if they had to compete against the government.

Disclaimer: I am the beneficiary of a government-run, single-payer health care plan, the same as Ms. Johnson when she was in Congress and perhaps even now. Not the same plan, but the same idea. You go to your doctor, Blue Cross does the work and the government sets the guidelines. I love it.

Anyway, it was an interesting conversation. Nancy was a good pothole congresswoman, you know, you have a problem, you go to Nancy and she solves it as best she could. But I don't think she gets it as far as health-care is concerned. Too much money goes into corporate coffers.

Another problem is the high cost of delivery of medical care.

I had a conversation with a friend who happens to be a doctor. I won't identify him more than that.

I told him about my primary-care physician, and an infected cyst I had. My doc drained it, and gave me some antibiotic and sent me on my way.

My friend was shocked. My doctor should have sent me to a surgeon, who should have done an ultra-sound to make sure this was all it was and the rest. I should have been in pain for a couple of extra days before a specialist could see me.

At the same time, my friend was complaining about how insurance companies repay doctors. He gave a for-instance: Let's say a patient has a hurt arm. The patient goes to his doctor, who takes an x-ray and determines the injury is out of his area of expertise and sends the patient to a specialist. The specialist wants his own x-ray, being that a couple of days have probably past before the specialist could fit in the patient.

The rub for doctors is that insurance only will pay for one x-ray, so the specialist must eat the cost of the second x-ray and a radiologist to read it. Nobody should have to work for nothing, my friend says.

He right. But at the same time, you can't have it both ways.

There may be, in I hope there is, a sea change coming in the way medical service is delivered and paid for in this nation. I think Obama is on the right track, as long as he keeps on it. Lobbyists like Johnson are working overtime to be sure their clients' interests are protected.

Johnson said that's the way the system works and it's a good thing. If we keep the same system, she's right. But I don't think we should be keeping the same system.

One think on which Johnson and I are agreed: We have to develop a patient-advocate system. Too often, a patent is confused by dueling diagnoses. The heart specialist says this, the lung specialist says that and the patient, who in most cases does not have an MD, is left to figure things out. That's all kinds of wrong.

A couple of things to end. We don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. We have a pretty good health-care system here. It's too bloated, too profit-centered, too costly.

But it works most of the time. We know some wealthy Canadians who talk with pride about their health-care system but keep a residence in Florida just in case they need health care.

I remember a bus trip through the Jordanian desert with the guide going on and on about how great their health care is. At the same time, the former king would check into the Mayo Clinic every time he had a hangnail.

We can fix this. We should fix this. It's more important that just about everything.

This passing didn't make the headlines.

This is a tough week for celebrities. The deaths of Billy Mays and Farah Fawcett were eclipsed by Michael Jackson's demise.

But there was a passing that didn't make the headlines. Rebecca Lazarson passed away last Tuesday.

She was a woman in her 80s, 82 to be precise.

Here's what the obit said: devoted wife of nearly 61 years to Eli Lazarson died at Yale-New Haven Hosp. on June 23 2009. Born in New Haven June 2 1927 she was a daughter of the late Nathan & Ida M. Kaplan. Beloved mother of Norman (Audrea) Lazarson of Stevens Pa. Paula (Jose) Pagan-Rosas of Smithtown N.Y. & Loretta (Julius) Rubin of Middletown Ct. Dear sister of Ruth Polek of West Haven Saul Kaplan of Fl. Goldie Cohen of Holbrook N.Y. the late Ned Kaplan & Rose Cohen. Cherished grandmother of Elise Joshua Jason & Eric.

What the obit didn't say was that she was one of the bravest women anyone could ever know.

She suffered badly from the ravages of diabetes, lost a leg to it. She had an artificial leg but didn't allow her disability to keep her from going around. She complained little if at all about the hand she was dealt medically.

She was a synagogue board member who brooked no baloney. You didn't try to put something over on Rebecca.

You knew where you stood with her. No question. She had a lovely laugh that she exercised every time she could. She raised a lovely family, was a pillar of her secular and religious communities.

I guess you can't ask for more than that.

A wish for Bernie

Bernie Madoff got 150 years. The judge threw the book at him.

I have a wish for Bernie, who ruined the lives of millions directly or indirectly.

May you be taken to an old, rotten prison where the heat doesn't work in winter but works in summer.

May your roommate be a man with liberal halitosis and body odor who snores loudly and brooks no interference with his perverted habits. May he be big and brutish enough to make every waking hour, all 23 a day, a living hell.

Until next time...

GQ, you gotta be kidding

This has been a week of moments. The president delivered a major address to the Muslim world, known as the Arab Street.

I know when I show up in synagogue tomorrow, all the right-wingers will be waiting for me, screaming "I told you so's" at me about Obama's talk. He's throwing Israel under the bus to cozy up to the sheiks. He's siding with dictators against a democracy. 

He's soft on Iran, just because he's allowing Iranian diplomats to attend July 4 parties. Actually, I'd like to attend (can't--it's a Saturday) an Embassy bash, just to watch the Iranian diplomats dive under the table the first time someone sets off a firecracker. 

I'll have to discuss all this with the "Obama's an Arab" set. By the way, the Arabs who called him "Abu Hussein" were dead wrong, unless he has a love child named Hussein salted away somewhere. 

But I don't want to talk about that now. 

I want to talk about pizza. I'm neutral about the subject of really great pizza because I can't eat any. Really great pizza isn't kosher. The Edge of the Woods in New Haven makes a pretty good kosher pizza (Sunday and Thursday, call first, no slices, a few toppings.)

But really great pizza isn't kosher. So, here comes the confession. I haven't always eaten kosher. I have eaten really great pizza right here in New Haven many years ago. 

But now I can stand on the sidelines and watch the next version of the pizza wars. 

GQ has come out with its list of 25 best pizzas in the nation. 

They say a place in Chicago has the best pizza in the nation. You know, that thick stuff, I think they call it deep dish. This place doesn't have deep dish, as a reader pointed out, but Chicago is famous for its deep-dish pizza. 

The bad news for New Haven is that the city, which calls itself the place where pizza was invented or at least begun in America, didn't even make the top five.

The best we could do is sixth. Sally's was named fifth runner up, sixth best. 

Frank Pepe's didn't even make the top 10. It was voted 12th, beaten out by a joint in Port Chester, N.Y., for cripes' sake.

And the Port Chester (a pit if there ever was one--the village, not the pizza joint) place was cited for its clam pizza, something on which Pepe's hangs its apron, so to speak.

You have to fight through five-plus pages of rationale and complaining by correspondent Alan Richman before you get to the list. First is Chicago, then Brooklyn (of course, New York, not Brooklyn, Nova Scotia. Yes, that exists...nice place). San Francisco, Phoenix and Providence (that hurts) are mentioned until we get to New Haven.  Then comes Los Angeles, Manhattan, Philadelphia and then the aforementioned Port Chester before we come back to New Haven. I guess there is solace in the fact we get two onto the list, but then again, just about everyone else does, too. Not Port Chester, thank heaven. 

Anyway, I must confess I've eaten both Sally's and Pepe's pies (many years ago) and I agree with Richman about Sally's being better. The service at Sally's was better, too, all those years ago. From what people tell me, that hasn't changed, but I'd have to sustain a hearsay objection to that last statement. 

But Chicago having the best pizza?Puhhleeze. Many years ago, while attending a Society of Professional Journalists convention in Chicago, I went great-pizza-joint hunting with my convention traveling companion Richard Peck, who has gone on to that great newsroom in the sky where every desk's bottom drawer has a bottle of Blue Label and you can smoke and cuss as much as you want, never get beaten on  a story and they always save you a spot above the fold. Never mind, those not in the business. That's newspaper talk.

But we had to get Chicago pizza. I don't remember were he ended up, somewhere where the pizza was supposed to be great and typical Chicago. Fahgettaboutit. 

So, Mr. Richman, thanks for starting the next pizza war. But if you ever want to start a fight about hamburgers, see Louie. Not that I've eaten there, either. 

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It's raining as I write this, but tomorrow and Sunday are supposed to be nice, spring days. Enjoy, have a great weekend and, for those in the Tribe, a great shabbos.

Until next time...

It takes more than a few signs

This blog is following the lead of many publications these days, going from a daily to a weekly to a twice-monthly to....well, whenever I can. Thanks to you who look in from time to time to time.

And now, the complaint of the day. Well, it's not really a complaint. It's a suggestion.

It has to do with street crosswalks.

My daughter lives in Western Massachusetts, where failure to stop for pedestrians at crosswalks is likely to get you hard looks (if you're lucky), a ticket (if you're caught, which is quite likely) or pulled out of your car, beaten, hanged and drawn and quartered (an exaggeration, but not as much as you might think.)

There are raised, lighted crosswalks in downtown Amherst and Northampton, crosswalks every few feet on Route 116 in South Hadley, the home of Mount Holyoke College and a serious, serious mindset about obeying the rule: When a pedestrian presents himself or herself at a crosswalk, traffic stops. That's all she wrote.

Now, this isn't a new phenomenon. In Britain, it's been going on for decades. Some Americans just don't cotton to those things. My friend Harold Snyder used to stick out the white cane he carried (yes, he's blind) at crosswalks in Oxford, England, when he heard a car approaching close to the crosswalk, just to hear the screeching of tires (or tyres, as they spell over there.) 

He was talked to more than once by the constabulary, but, being an American, he continued to play the game, saying he had no idea the chaos he was causing. Right.

But, I digress. (If you're new to this blog, I do that a lot. It's part of the charm.)

Back to New Haven. The city fathers are starting to take stopping for pedestrians at crosswalks seriously. Or at least, they are spending money on signs, both those on stands that picture a crosswalk coming up, and the white plastic-looking signs by the crosswalks themselves.

Last week, there was a guy acting like a crossing guard at Fountain and West Prospect streets in Westville, standing in the crosswalk with his arms out, staring at cars that approached the crosswalk too quickly (not me!!!).

Fine. The law says people in the crosswalk have the right of way, unless the crossing is protected by a WALK light. Well, really, even then. Pedestrians have the right of way at crosswalks.

So far, so good. 

Sorry, but it's not going to work. Just isn't. Take this to the bank. 

The last statement is not an absolute. It has a big IF...

So, let's take that again. This is not going to work...

IF people don't stop crossing everywhere they darn well please -- everywhere except the crosswalk. 

That means they need to walk to a crosswalk.  You can't have people crossing in the middle of a block, a few yards from a crosswalk, a couple of feet from a crosswalk.

People have to stop being so darn lazy and move to a crosswalk. 

I've been on this jag for a few weeks (Yalies and people who are on Whalley Avenue seem to be the biggest offenders), so I've been keeping watch. 

Folks on Whalley, particularly in the area between Park and West Park (that's about three-quarters of Whalley between Broadway and Westville Village, cross in the middle of the street. They will cross a few feet from the crosswalk. 

Yalies, and other people downtown, are really cute. They'll cross 10 feet from the crosswalk, darting out from behind a car or a bus.  Oh, did I say darting. I meant walking with all the get up and go of a frozen sloth across the street in the middle of the block.

You get what I mean. 

Look, I'm hardly the crossing police. But I don't want to hit anyone. I don't want to hurt anyone. I certainly don't want to listen to some idiot's mother screaming that I hit her kid, and deprived the world of the next Jonas Salk. (Look it up)

So, city fathers, when you trot out this campaign, please trot out the education package with it. Cross at the crosswalk. Every time. Walk the half block or 20 feet, or 2 feet to the crosswalk. 

Believe me, I'll be the first guy to stop and let you saunter across the avenue.

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This afternoon (May 31, 2009), the Jewish Historical Society had a gala lunch or brunch, launching Volume IX of Jews in New Haven. Please read the piece in the New Haven Independent. 

Dr. David Fischer, an oncology professor at Yale School of Medicine, writer of medical textbooks, teacher of doctors, healer and nice guy, was the editor and wrote many of the articles. OK, I wrote one, too, but still, buy the book. 

It's a wonderful peek into many New Haven institutions and people whose names you will recognize whether you're Jewish or not. It's $25, but mention my name and I'll bet they'll let you have it for $25. 

Page 3

Nobody asked me, but some of you know I do some reporting and writing for the New Haven Independent. 

I've covered some controversial things, some fun things and some BBI things (that's boring but important). 

Don't look for my opinion on those things here. I won't do that. 

I'm from the old school where you didn't mix news and opinion. I guess Fox News won't come looking for me, because I really think people are smart enough to decide what they think on any issue for themselves -- without my help.  Hear that, Limbaugh?

Until next time...

A pleasant surprise, a sad goodbye and some thoughts

Happy Monday. It's been a while. 

Let's start out with some good stuff. 

Congratulations to Jennifer Weber, my niece, daughter of my sister, Paula, and her husband Joe Weber, of Marlborough, Conn., on her graduation from the School of Visual Arts, a prestigious, well respected college in New York. She's a cartoonist, quite a good one, and looking for a job. (hint, hint)

Those running her school, bless their little hearts, decided to have the graduation on a Friday afternoon. No biggie, unless you're an observant Jew. There are a few of those in New York. So, we weren't able to take her out afterwards, or help her move from her dorm to summer quarters in the city. 

This is going to be like Arlo's "Alice's Restaurant"...I didn't come to talk about graduations, I came to talk (not about the draft) but about honesty and wanting to do a good job.

There wasn't time to drive back to New Haven after the graduation, so we spent the Sabbath with daughter Malka (many in New Haven know her as Melanie) and family in Washington Heights, Manhattan. 

As we emerged from the subway, we meet son-in-law Josh and two grandchildren heading for the park. That's unusual for a Friday afternoon. The first words out of Josh's mouth were, "There is nothing to worry about, he'll be OK, but..."

There are few phrases as heart-freezing as those. Turns out Raphi, 4, had fallen and opened a small gash on the back of his head, and was bleeding a lot. Head wounds do that, but he had his his head hard, so Malka had taken him to the nearest hospital, Columbia Presbyterian, on 168th Street, and was not expected back before the start of the Sabbath. 

Suffice it to say Raphi was fine after treatment and Malka showed up about 10 p.m., after having walked back from the hospital. Observant Jews don't ride on the Sabbath, unless it was an emergency. This wasn't, at least not anymore. They don't carry, either. So, a bag holding their cell phone, insurance card, some $40 in cash, hospital checkout forms, identifications, and the like, had to be left behind. Malka had tried to get the emergency room guard and others to take possession of her bag, and finally, in disgust and with a few choice words, she left the bag there and walked home.

Fast-forward to Saturday night. Malka and Josh were about ready to start canceling the cell phone, applying for new IDs and the like when grandpa (me), always the optimist or at least the proponent of never assuming the worst (or anything else for that matter), urged them to call the hospital to see if the bag was recovered. 

It turns out that not only was the bag found and turned in, but the security department of the hospital had conducted a thorough inventory of the bag's contents and sealed them in a plastic bag with a copy of the inventory. Nothing was missing, not a cent and the cell phone had not been used.  Although the guard on Friday night had seemed uncaring, obviously he either had a change of heart or someone else decided to take charge of the situation.

Let's hear it for Columbia Pres' security staff and a hearty thanks to all concerned.

Page 2

Yesterday, there was a memorial gathering for Rev. Sidney Krauser, who has been a stalwart at Cong. Bikur Cholim Sheveth Achim in Westville. Mr. Krauser had touched many lives in the Jewish and general community for nearly 60 years before moving to Maryland three years ago. He died last month.

His daughter and many leaders of the Orthodox Jewish community talked about Mr. Krauser, but the essence of the many was best captured by a piece in the New Haven Independent by Paul Bass.  Mr. Krauser had run the synagogue, making sure there was the minyan, the quorum of 10 men necessary to say certain prayers, especially the Kaddush for the departed that ties one generation to the other, and to read from the Torah. 

He also took care of more mundane duties, making sure there was oil for the furnace, that the place was cleaned. During the days when the New Haven Orthodox community was thriving, he was principal of the Hebrew school. He oversaw the cemeteries and knew the location of every grave in the synagogue's cemeteries. 

Sue and I met him in 2002, when we joined Bikur Cholim. He so much reminded me of the men in my father's synagogue in New Britain, men with Yiddish accents who followed Jewish law to the letter and had hearts that could melt gold. Usually, they had names like "old Mr. Cohen" or "old Mr. Lifshutz." 

Nobody called Mr. Krauser old. Some people called him Sidney. I couldn't. He would stand on the Bimah, the stage from which services were conducted on Sabbaths and holidays and say things like, "Dis veek, ve got a good kiddish (post-services refreshments), no like last veek. Dis veek, it's a good kiddish,." 

It seemed to lack tact, until you found out that last week's kiddish was his. This man read from the Torah, but he had it memorized. He also knew the Prophets and writings, from Joshua to Malachi, by heart. He wasn't a rabbi, but he easily could have been. 

I'm sorry I didn't know Mr. Krauser a the height of his powers, but maybe it's better that we knew him when he could let down his guard and be himself.  I remember sitting transfixed for hours as he told me his story. 

They're mostly all gone now.  Mr. Krauser and Norman Rubin in New Haven, Max Prager in New Britain. Those who were not rabbis but held their synagogues together.

Now, I guess, it's up to us.

Page 3

And another one bites the dust. The Tucson Citizen, which had been publishing for 22 years when the gunfight at the OK Corral occurred in 1881, is printing no more. It's now web-only.

The usual...no idea how many of its 60 employees will be affected, but most probably will lose their jobs. 

Of course, one usually knows someone who works or had worked at that paper. Jon Ainsworth, still riding the desk at the Connecticut Post (at least I hope he still is...you never know these days), labored for that publication. It's a Gannett paper, and Gannett has announced that its paper publications, even its star USA Today, will take a back seat to the Web. 

Page 4

A couple of quickies....I did a piece in the Independent about the upcoming hearings on the Journal-Register's bankruptcy and its plan to pay $1.7 million to executives, either for closing newspapers and firing people, or just for not leaving the company in its bankruptcy. That's the company that publishes the main print newspaper in the city and the second-largest in the state.

It seems the response was underwhelming. Only two people commented. One said, basically, why would anyone be surprised that people are being paid to destroy something? 

That's pretty sad.

Also pretty sad was the fact that the mayor of New Haven (choose one) pitched a fit, threw a nutty, started screaming in public at the electric company for leaving the city. 

Nobody has a quibble with his message. The mayor should be upset with the power company. That's his job: to keep business in the city, and the electric company could have cut a deal with the city on parking for its employees. That's the excuse it's using for moving to the site of a former movie theater in Orange. 

I've met some really strange people who were heads of government. Probably the strangest was Abe Grossman, mayor of Meriden in the 1970s. He was known to take out his dentures and lay them on the lectern before speaking.  He stormed out of meetings, but I never heard of him losing it on the public sidewalk.

Mario Cuomo was famous for screaming at enemies and even at staffers who didn't measure up to his standards. The late Gov. Ella T. Grasso could verbally peel wallpaper off the walls when angered and could teach a sailor to cuss. 

But never in public. Not in this country. And certainly not in front of the cameras. 

Until next time...

Some good news, a little bad news on newspaper front

Happy Monday. Rainy days and Mondays...You know. 

Some good news on the newspaper front: It looks as if The Boston Globe will live to fight another day. 

According to Newspaper&Technology: The Globe's owners, otherwise known as The New York Times Co., announced that it had reached deals with six out of seven unions and would not be issuing a 60-day shutdown notice. It looks as if the six unions gave the paper enough of the the $20 million in cuts and givebacks it said it needed to forestall the shutdown. The Times had threatened to shut down the paper, the largest in New England, unless the concessions were reached.

The Newspaper Guild, which represents 700 editorial, advertising and business office employees, did not reach an agreement with the paper.

"We are very pleased to have reached agreements with six of the seven unions that were involved in recent negotiations," The Globe said in a statement. "As a result of these agreements, which are subject to ratification by union members, we expect to achieve both the workplace flexibility and the financial savings that we sought from these unions."

But all might not be well in Globedom. The Globe said it will now pursue other options with the Guild "to achieve as quickly as possible the workplace flexibility and remaining cost-savings we need to put The Globe on sound financial footing." 

Maybe that's a good thing for the workers, or maybe it just puts the sword of Damocles over their heads a little longer. Pursuing other options could mean more layoffs or it could mean finding a way to make money from Web ads. Time will tell.

Now for the bad news. Two other newspaper groups have filed for protection under the Bankruptcy Act. 

American Community Newspapers, which publishes more than 80 papers, mostly community weeklies,  in Texas, Minnesota, Ohio and Northern Virginia, owes $273,000 to Gannett for printing. That's walking around money for Gannett, which is listed as ACN's largest creditor. 

The other company, Vancouver, Wash.-based Columbian Publishing Co., owes $17 million to Bank of America. Columbian borrowed the money to for a building in downtown Vancouver and BofA wants its money. The company filed in order to address credit issues with BofA, it said.

That makes seven newspaper groups, some large, some small, that so far have sought protection under the Bankruptcy Act. Let's see: The other five are Tribune, Tribune Co., Philadelphia Newspapers LLC, the (Minneapolis) Star-Tribune, Journal Register Co. and the Sun-Times Media Group.

Page 2

Here's something you don't see too often: a newspaper announcing that it had filed for bankruptcy protection.

Columbian Editor Lou Broncoccio wrote a column detailing the bankruptcy and what led up to it and his hopes for the future. 

That takes guts. Looking at your future hopes and dreams is one thing. Sharing the possible tearing asunder of those hopes and dreams is another. 

The Columbian is a paper that covers Clark County, Washington. There were a lot of fires yesterday there: a longtime bowling alley caught fire, a man who had been burned died and another who somehow burned will survive, the paper said.

But the burning issue for Lou and his staff is survival. He said his group was tough and the tough survive.

I hope so, Lou.

Page 3

Hey, weathermen. Get your act together. No, not the most radical members of the Students for a Democratic Society, made famous by Bob Dylan (you don't need a Weatherman to tell you how the wind blows).

I'm talking about Geoff Fox and Brad Field (there's a real name for you) and whoever took over for Hilton at Channel 3. You know, weathermen. Those people who promo the weather at the top of the news show, then give the statistics and show the map halfway through the show, then promo the forecast, and who finally give the forecast five minutes from the end of the show. Those people.

Hey, don't you know it's May. Showers are for April. This is May. Knock it off.

Until next time...

Tribune Baltimore layoffs provide a clue to strategy

There is bad news from Baltimore that may have repercussions closer to home.

The Baltimore Sun, owned by Tribune, is laying off fully a third of its newsroom staff. Closer to home, Tribune owns the soon-to-be-combined Hartford Courant and Channel 61, as well as the New Haven Advocate. More about the connection later.

It's not the number of layoffs, although I have ex-colleagues who work there and am worried about them. It's the jobs that will be eliminated that concerns me about where they are going. 

For once, they're keeping the reporters. But they are laying off top editors, news photographers, columnists, sports reporters, copy editors, page designers and graphic artists. (The Sun's designers and artists once were at the top of their field. Other papers sent their designers to learn from them.)

The story says the newsroom was being restructured to fit in all media. It seems as if it is being structured to fit in all media except physical newspapers. 

Here's Len'sLens' instant analysis. Let's see how close I come.

Top editors: You want editors who don't have a strong connection to newsprint and you want to get rid of those who believe a good number of readers and the few advertisers who are left want something the reader can hold in his or her hand. 

News photographers: Who needs them? Just give your reporters cameras that can shoot still photos and videos. That's what Gannett is doing. Keep a couple of pros around just in case.

Columnists: Who needs them? Just let your reporters opine about their beats. Saves a lot of money. Who needs fair, impartial reportage? 

Sports reporters: Keep a few around to follow the major-league and really big college teams. For the rest, get the small-college and high school coaches and members of recreational teams to send in reports and statistics. Besides, most people get their sports from their BlackBerries anyway.

Page designers and graphic artists: Don't need them if there's no page to design and no graphics to create for a newspaper. The artists you want are video designers and Web designers, not people used to working with a physical, 21-inch-long page. See ya!

Copy editors: You'll notice this is out of sequence, keeping the best for last, as it were. It's because this one concerns me. I almost said puzzles me, but it would only puzzle me if I thought the folks running the Sun cared about content. 

Copy editors are the unsung heroes of newspapering. Yes, I was one at various times during my career, and still do some editing. That's called the disclaimer. 

Cutting out copy editors is like a hockey or soccer team taking away the goalie. The copy editor is the last barrier to libel court, to embarrassment, to, for example, the ever-growing numbers of dumb mistakes that require corrections in the New York Times. 

The copy editor should be able to think about the top story, to run it through in his or her head, and then say that this fight in Congress happened in 1858, not 1958.

No matter what format you are using -- paper page, Web page, video, Tweet, you need to have your facts straight. That's why I'm concerned about the copy editors. And the folks who are burning down the Sun should be, too, if they care at all about quality and the peace of mind of their remaining staff.

Believe me, you don't want to pick up a newsroom phone after your publication left out an ingredient in a recipe, or got an important fact wrong in some big shot's obit, or left the "s" out of Johns Hopkins. You get the idea. 

Look, I know that editors who used to handle three stories a night now handle 30. But if you are going to blow the whistle on the governor, you damn well had better have it bullet-proof right. That's when you get your best copy editor on the story and give that person all night to parse it. Can't do it if you laid off all or most of your copy editors.

So, what's all this got to do with us? Watch what's going on at the Courant and Channel 61. See if it follows the pattern. See if that piece of paper, even if it looks dumb with the name running down the side, still rules the roost in a year or so.

Or see if Hartford gets a publication that tries to be all things to all people, and ends up being not much to not many.

I hope I'm wrong. Believe me I hope I'm wrong.

Trading in misery

Did you know there was a secondary market in bankruptcy claims? 

A secondary market is like the secondary market in mortgages. You get a mortgage and the person who originated it sells it to somebody else. Here, you can sell your bankruptcy claims to someone else. Then they trade them, like pork bellies.

Talk about making money on somebody's else's misery. But then again, didn't thousands upon thousands of mortgage brokers make money on somebody's potential (or damn sure to be) misery? Enough said. Just remember, if you are tempted to make money that way, it really does come around to bite you. 

Rant of the day

The word "after." It's used wrong in news reports all the time, and in television talking heads' advice on how to prevent the spread of the swine flu. 

"He was injured after his car hit a tree." What happened: Did he come through the accident OK, but then get beaten up by witnesses? No. He was injured when his car hit a tree.

The latest: Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue after you cough and sneeze. So, you sneeze out into the open air, get your snot all over everyone, then cover your mouth and nose. Yes, most people know what they mean, but they need to get it right. They need (drumroll) a good copy editor.

Until next time...