No, it's not free and how 'bout those Huskies

Free credit report isn't free

I do wish Comcast would stop carrying the "Free Credit Score" promos on its main page. It's a lie.

Everybody's getting into the act, including the federal government. Each year, each person is entitled to a free credit report. You need to go to the FTC Web site http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/microsites/freereports/index.shtml and request it. Don't go to one of the sites that say they'll show you how to get to your credit report. If the site has a ".com" in it, don't go there.

So, the government, for a change is telling us the truth but not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. You can get your credit report there, but if you want your credit score, you have to sign up with a commercial service.

Same thing with those tacky ads on television. Free Credit Report Dot Com does NOT give you a free credit score or free anything else. The announcer in the ad mumbles that you get the score with enrollment in their service. There also is baby type on the screen that says that.

I think the service is $14.95 a month. That's about $180 a year. For some people, that's a lot of money.

Some services, like American Express, will give you access to your credit report and one credit score free. That's part of the service. But AmEx only will give you your score in one of three rating services. If you want to see the other two, yes, you get it. Sign up and pay.

I guess you only get to know for sure when you try to take out a loan or buy a car or mortgage a house. Then you can ask the banker or dealer to run your scores. I'm sure they'll be happy to comply as long as you are serious about buying what they have to sell.

How about those Huskies

Yes, it was a dirty game. Who cares. The Connecticut Huskies are the rulers of the men's basketball world.

I love irony. At the start of the season, the women's basketball team was all it. Moore was three-time all everything and compared to Holdsclaw and Taurasi and Bird and Lieberman. The men's team was picked 10th in the Big East and already had a space reserved at the NIT. They weren't supposed to go anywhere. Rebuilding year.

So, here we are in baseball season with the Final Four down to the Final One, and guess who is cutting down the nets. And guess who just couldn't get it done. Irony.

Yes, the UConn men beat a team who would have lost to the Little Sisters of the Poor, but who cares. They had to play some pretty mean teams to get there: five games in five straight days in the Big East, no bye in the Big Dance. They worked for the chance to beat Butler. Kentucky was supposed to bring them back to reality and send them home.

Didn't turn out that way. More irony. Ms. Moore, Ms. everything didn't come back from Indianapolis with the team. She was off picking up yet another award while her teammates were taking what had to seem like the longest plane ride in history. Bad time to have a bad game.

Speaking of irony, Geno Auriemma was very politic when he talked about the officiating in that game. It was played in Indianapolis and not far from where Notre Dame is. When asked about it, Geno said the refs could have called some fouls one way or another, and they called them against the Huskies. A team that seldom was in foul trouble was called for being near another player. Notre Dame players were giving the UConn players whacks that you could to time for. Refs were like Sgt. Schultz: "I see nothing, nothing."

Geno didn't complain. He just had that face. You know, the one that says, "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck" it's bad officiating.

Until next time...

Surprised they fell for it

Happy Monday.

I'm surprised at The New York Times. They fell for yet another Palestinian public relations trick.

Sunday's front page featured a fairly well-researched think piece about how Israel is facing a vote in the United Nations that, the writer concluded, result in the U.N. General Assembly recognizing a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israel may be between a rock and a hard place, the piece concludes.

Fine. It's a legitimate point, if not a terribly realistic one. The United States and some other countries have said that a Palestinian state only can come about through negotiations, not actions by the U.N., which is notoriously anti-Israel.

But the photo that accompanied the story was a complete fabrication. It purported to show Israeli soldiers, armed to the teeth, staring at peace Palestinians praying over a piece of land they said was taken from them illegally by Israel. Arabs praying in the face of armed Israeli soldiers.

The problem is that the shot was obviously taken with a long, long lens. High-powered lenses compress shots. Watch a baseball game. It looks as if the batter is a few feet from the stands when, in fact, he's many yards away. It looks like the on-deck circle is a few feet from home plate when it's not.

Same thing here. The long lens compressed distance in this shot. The Israelis could have been the length of a football field away from the Arabs. And how would the Associated Press photographer know that these people were going out to pray if the Palestinian world-class public relations people hadn't told him and probably told him where to stand.

Now, even if the photographer fell for the PR ploy, I'm surprised the photo desk at the Times did. They know better...or should.

You have to give the Palestinians credit for good PR.

A few things about the story, if you please. First, everyone, including Ethan Bonner, the story's author, mentions the Palestinian position that they will not negotiate with Israel while Israeli building goes on in the West Bank. Bonner knows better about the peace negotiations. The Israelis had agreed to a 10-month moratorium on building in the West Bank to get negotiations going. The Arabs never came to the table for nine months. They showed up for the 10th month and stalled, then called for a continuation of the moratorium.

Never mind the obvious cynicism. Who got hurt by that? The Palestinians who worked on the projects. I know a guy who was one of the builders who had to stop working during the moratorium. He tried to keep his work force, mostly Palestinians, employed but had to let some of them go. The workers were the ones hurt.

Again, half truths and innuendos from Palestinians. And photographers who fall for them.

Until next time...

Len's Laws -- a Friday feature

It's late and there is little time, but you all can look for a Friday feature called Len's Laws. The idea is stolen from New Rules by that other guy on HBO.

This week, we'll pick on television.

Len's Law: Television news people are forbidden to use the word, "actually." They seem unable to give a report without that word. Using the word "actually" signifies that the reporter or anchor is surprised by things like crooks being dumb, druggies robbing donut shops (where the cops are) and mayors trying to curry favor with their bases (in New Haven's case, super liberal bike-riders.)

Len's Law: Television weather people are only allowed to promo their forecasts once. After that, they must give the whole forecast, not ask if there will be a foot of snow and say the answer comes at the bottom of the program. This comes after they promoted the forecast at the top of the news show. One promo per news show.

Len's Law: Stop using Chickenman as a promotion. "He's everywhere, he's everywhere" belongs to Chickenman. Channel 3 is not everywhere.

Len's Law: Television channels and cable providers cannot promo themselves during their shows. I'm watching Law & Order; you don't have to tell me to watch Law & Order. If you can't get legitimate advertising spots, then run public service announcements. You're supposed to run them anyway.

Finally, Len's Law. Jon Stewart has to stop saying he's Jewish. He's not. Maybe he was born Jewish, but he has relinquished his right to tell anybody about this Jewish roots because of his backstabbing of Israel and anything really Jewish. He criticizes Israel for what's going on in the West Bank and Gaza, but says nothing about what's going on in Sudan, Chad, a half-dozen former Soviet republics, just about every Arab country in the Middle East and North Africa (Egypt and Morocco excepted). Jon carps at the United Nations, but acts just like the U.N. Israel is held to a higher standard, the one U.N. member forbidden to join the Security Council, but expected to live by its rules.

Have a great weekend and for those in the Tribe: a great Shabbat.

Until next time...

When will they ever learn

It's like meeting an old friend, getting back to writing in this blog.
They tell me blogging is old-fashioned, that Facebook, Twitter and the like are the in things, now.
Good. I like blogging.
In future blogs, I'll record what happened in the past year. For those who, for reasons passing understanding, am interested in why I am no longer with the New Haven Independent and why I am no longer aloof from political commentary, all will be revealed. Suffice it to say one thing has everything to do with another.

Why start again now?

I've been sitting down for days now, trying to think of what a good return post would be. I didn't want to start on April Fool's Day. And a subject came up that needed my touch.

They'll never learn

We are coming out of a recession that cost many, many people dearly. Mc, too. We are recovering. Our life's savings, pension, and the rest are recovering, but we'll never get it all back.

So, may I ask, why do we want to start it all over again? Here's what I'm talking about.

Proposed mortgage regulations bring back former, and sensible, rules on mortgage underwriting. These are in essence what the rules were before the folks at Fannie Mac and Freddy Mac started sniffing glue or whatever addled their brains.

Under these rules, the proposed borrower would have to put down 20 percent, provide proof that he or she can make the payments required and do other things that make giving them the loan a good bet.

At the same time, banks that didn't want to adhere to these rules would have to keep a percentage of those loans in their portfolios, to have, as it is said, "some skin in the game." Mortgage brokers and bankers would no longer be able to do mortgage deals that were doomed to fail, walk away with their origination fees and let the market worry about the consequences. They would stand to lose if those mortgages went south, so they would be more careful about to whom they made loans. There would not be the "I don't have to outrun the bear; I just have to outrun you" atmosphere that permeated the mortgage game.

The absence of those rules is what started the mortgage mess. People who realistically could not afford to live in anything north of a refrigerator crate were getting mortgages on houses costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Or people were getting loans on houses that they could afford, but then taking out second mortgages and equity loans to buy cars, take vacations or what have you. Then, when they got sick or lost their jobs, they lost their houses.

In any case, the Wild West atmosphere of the mortgage market was one of the main causes of the recession. Millions of people lost jobs, lost homes, lost hope. It will take years to recover, if we ever do.

You would think the new rules would be welcomed. But no! There are those, do-gooders who say the rules would keep people with limited incomes from buying homes.

They're right. It's supposed to. Not everybody can afford a home. It's too bad, but in a non-Socialist society, that's the way it is. People who had no business buying homes bought them, lost them and took millions down with them. Seniors lost a lifetime's worth of savings. People starting families lost jobs.

Now, these do-gooders want to take us down the same path.

When will they ever learn?

One of the things I want to do this time around is to keep these shorter, and on one subject.

Until next time...

Helen Thomas was a great reporter, but now it's over

One of my most cherished possessions is a set of two original photographs: one of Richard Nixon standing at the door of the helicopter as he leaves the White House for the last time as president, the other of Nixon sparring with a young Dan Rather.

They are both autographed by Helen Thomas.

I acquired them at a Society of Professional Journalists auction in 1986, and bid on them with the proviso that Helen sign them. She agreed and I bought them. They are original prints that were used in the Baltimore Sun. They are framed so Helen's signature is visible.

I loved Helen Thomas because she was Helen Thomas, a feisty, no-nonsense reporter who asked the questions that so many would not ask.

She also kept her personal life and opinions out of her work. I didn't know she was Lebanese, and didn't care. When I think of Lebanese, I think of Danny Thomas, the beloved comedian who started the St. Jude Cancer Research Hospital that treats all children, Israeli, Lebanese, whatever.

Recently, however, Helen began to let her opinions about the Middle East come out in a nasty, biased way. As a Lebanese, she might be more upset that Syria has used that nation as cannon fodder. The actions of Hezbollah have brought death and destruction to that nation. Years ago, the actions of Yasser Arafat brought war to the Paris of the East, Beirut.

Christians and Muslims fought bitterly for years and the U.S. got involved, much to its regret.

But I don't remember Helen Thomas spewing venom at that time. When she asked a question, it was straight, with no adjectives or hyperbole.

Now, however, it is different and in the past few years, since leaving United Press International (or did UPI leave her?), she has let her personal opinions gush forth with bile. The end was inevitable.

To say Jews should go back to Germany, back to Poland, and then laugh. That doesn't make sense.

I think Helen Thomas has lost the ability to think clearly. She certainly has lost the ability to speak responsibly.

It was time to go and certainly Hearst encouraged her to resign. Whether they demanded her resignation or not I don't know or care. She is out of the spotlight and she can spew her bile wherever she ends up.

I won't speculate about why Ms. Thomas' brains seem scrambled lately.

But as for the pictures on my wall, they will stay there. They were signed by the Helen Thomas of 25 years ago, not the one who did not have the good sense of her old nemesis, Nixon, who knew when to quit.

Helen did not and so much the shame. I hope history is kind to her because for most of her career, she was a courageous and talented reporter, not a crone who didn't know the value of silence.

Until next time...

Good health to Clinton; WCBS blows it

A chill ran down my back as I read a CNN bulletin that former President Bill Clinton was hospitalized with chest pains. I then read the comments on the CNN page.

UPDATE: It turns out he had two stents placed into an artery and he is in good spirits and looking forward to getting back to work. Whew!

The guy will rank as one of our best presidents for any number of reasons. He took the Reagan-Bush deficits and turned them into surpluses. He kept us from going into a stupid war, for a few years at least, until his successor...well, let's not get into that.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, the secretary of state, also is pretty bright, knows how to get things done. I keep hearing second thoughts from people who backed our current president, saying Hillary would have the same bright ideas as Obama, but would not wimp out when it came to pushing them through the Congress.

How is it that a man can have a huge plurality in both houses of Congress but we stalled by a few naysayers. Dear Barack: You need to use that bully pulpit to hit some people over the head. Chinless Mitch McConnell just says no. I guess he's channeling Nancy Reagan.

What is WCBS thinking?

News radio out of New York, WCBS (the only news radio we have in New Haven is WELI, which promos news but delivers none) is offering coupons to reduce the cost of parking one's car in Midtown and the Theater District.

What are they thinking?

The ad has two people talking about coming into New York from the burbs. One says, "Let's take the train." It's cheaper than driving. Not so, says the other person. We can get a break with a coupon from WCBS.

There you go. There aren't enough cars in Manhattan. I thought the whole idea was to promote mass transit so there are fewer cars blocking the streets in Manhattan and getting into stupid accidents because of bad driving or just plain selfishness.

It's bad enough that WCBS spends two minutes of every eight on traffic reports to help people who may well have alternate, cheaper, certainly less polluting sources of transportation into the city. Now, these nitwits are making it easier and cheaper to bring more cars into the city.

Sign!!

Where's all the snow?

I gotta do this. My brother-in-law and his family lived for close to 30 years in Niskayuna, N.Y. Where is that, you may ask. It's near Albany. Near the snow belt.

So, when his wife got a job hundreds of miles south, he sold his house and moved partly to get away from the snow. To Bethesda, Md. Where they have welcomed three feet of snow in the past week.

Sometimes, it just doesn't pay. Anyway, he lives in an apartment and soon will live in a condo, so at least he won't have to shovel.

It happens. My friend Carole Miller, she of the Oregon Ducks, decided she'd had enough of New York winters and moved to North Carolina about 10 years ago. She brought the snow and ice. Or so it seems.

In any case, how about those weather forecasters on television?Brutal Weather Headed Our Way. Not. Schools were canceled. Meetings called off. I originally had two meetings Wednesday: Both were canceled.

So, what happened? The foot of snow turned into three, maybe four inches. With the mid-February sun, all the shoveled sidewalks now are dry. I guess it could be worse; They could have forecasted four inches and we could have gotten the foot. But the way the weather yakkers were carrying on, all the models were converging on us getting whacked this time.

I'm rooting for the jet stream to stay just where it is. Let is snow in Washington. They're used to snowing each other.

Until next time...

Warm memories of the Blizzard of '78

Happy Monday.

I see that at least one TV outlet, local public television, is planning a retrospective on the Blizzard of 1978. I don't know why now. It's not an even anniversary, but the storm started 32 years ago on Feb. 5. Channel 3 insists on calling it Storm Larry, because they name storms. Easier to remember, I guess.

I was there, in the middle of it. Remembering it is pleasant for me...it was a positive experience. It also reflected a bygone era when newspapers gave a damn about covering news and their employees.

My poor wife, pregnant with our second child and stuck home in Moodus with a 2 1/2 year-old doesn't remember it fondly at all.

It was funny afterward but not then...she was out shoveling snow because she thought I was coming home that first night. I was trying to call to tell her I was not coming home for at least two days and probably three. She couldn't hear the phone because she was shoveling. This, remember is before cell phones.

As for me, it was an adventure. Pete Zanardi, a talented sports writer and editor who lived in Chester, used to carpool to work with me. That day, his editor had told him he could stay home, but he drove in anyway with me so I wouldn't have to drive the 50 miles alone. That's a friend! He kept up a steady stream of conversation so I wouldn't think about the disaster that was occurring all around us. He even brought along a pint of brandy just in case we became stuck. More about that later.

So off we drove from Chester picking up Route 9, a four-lane limited access road that would lead us to the Connecticut Turnpike (Route I-95) and New Haven, where we both worked for the late, lamented Journal-Courier morning newspaper.

There was a cleared lane -- that is one that had only a few inches of snow in it, and we soon caught up with the plow that had cleared it and followed it down entrance ramps and up exit ramps. The radio, WELI which, at the time, actually covered news, was saying I-95 was a mess with cars littering the road. Not true. I'm glad we didn't listen. We lost the plow in Old Saybrook, but by then, we were almost at I-95.

So, we drove slowly along the turnpike, stopping to pay the tolls in Madison and Branford. We drove down an entrance ramp to I-91, up a few one-way streets the wrong way and into the newspaper's parking lot. We had made it.

At the time, the New Haven Register and Journal-Courier were at Orange and Audubon streets, now a parking lot.

Inside, it was barely managed chaos. We, who drive 50 miles, were assigned hotel rooms at the Park Plaza and listened to phoned excuses from people who lived 20 blocks away how they didn't dare try to get to work. We all had assignments...mine was signing off on pages as they made their way to the composing room. I was to be the last one out, but everyone waited for me. Nobody from the newsroom was left to their own devices. A few production people had to sleep in a convent that shared the block with the paper. They didn't have a good time.

We put out the paper. There were stories, some the usual stuff, some really bizarre. The funniest was from a photographer -- I can't remember who. Gov. Ella T. Grasso had closed the state highways. It was illegal to drive on them, unless you were piloting an emergency vehicle, but reporters and photographers were out there anyway.

One camera jockey came back laughing so hard he could hardly breathe. He was driving in on the closed I-95 when he approached the Branford tolls. As he slowed, a hand came out of the toll booth. The road was closed but the state still was collecting the quarter tolls.

We put the paper to bed. In the left hand column was a ruler as tall as the news hole -- about 18 inches, with a headline that said "It Snowed This Much." That was the brainchild of Bob Granger, the news editor, a man so beloved because, in spite of a Draconian management style, he never told a lie. Can you imagine: a boss who, if he tried to lie, his tongue would fall out of his head?

Reporters and photographers went out and got remarkable stories and photos. They told the story of the blizzard from macro and close-up perspectives. These people were the best.

Granger was famous for another headline. He had been ordered to juice up the headlines, so, when a man shot five people to death in a West Coast Chinese restaurant, the headline wrote "Chinese Diners Served Hot Lead." The bosses left him alone after that.

Another great head from the J-C. When Felix Frankfurter had to replaced on the Supreme Court, Connecticut Gov. Abraham Ribicoff let it be known he was interested. The headline was "Abe Relishes Frankfurter Role." Those were the days!

Back to the storm.

In order to collect for ads, the paper had to be published, which meant printed and distributed somewhere. We rode the six or seven long blocks to the Park Plaza hotel in delivery trucks, about 10 to a truck. The bottle of brandy rode with us for the two blocks that it lasted.

Speaking of booze, there was a copy boy, it was said, who was given the following order from Managing Editor Bill Guthrie. "Here's $200 cash. Go to the liquor store. If you come back with change, you're fired." Remember, this is 1978 money.

The paper had bought up every hotel room it could. The bosses cared about the reporters, editors, photographers, and the rest. In other papers, people had to sleep on their desks. Not New Haven, Not then anyway.

The delivery truck drivers told us they couldn't stop for fear of becoming stuck in the snow, which was still coming down too fast for plows to keep up. So we lined up, paratrooper style, stand up, stand in the door. We tossed out our bags, tossed out a few packages of papers, and jumped into the snow. No casualties.

On the way through the hotel lobby, we were accosted by businessmen offering obscene amounts of money for our rooms. Nobody even thought twice. Forget it.

We shared rooms, but the party was in the boss' room. One hell of a party. It spilled over into the hallways on the 17th floor. There were stories....if you know Mary O'Leary of the Register, ask her about her night. She was just trying to get some sleep -- she was quite pregnant -- but her roommate had other ideas.

The next day, we slogged our way back to the paper on foot along Church, Elm and Orange streets. We were kicked out of the Park Plaza because the Ice Capades show, which had reserved the second night, showed up. They had driven in from Canada and wondered what all the fuss way about. A foot and a half of snow is a spring day up there.

Anyway, we all transferred to the Howard Johnson's on Long Wharf. The booze, or what was left of it, made it, too. More drinking. Then, on the third day, our cars were plowed out and we drove home, tired.

My wife, by the way, wasn't interested in hearing the stories. She was too tired from shoveling a space in a driveway and keeping it clear so, if I could get home, I would have a place to park.

So, there's the inside scoop about newspapering and the Blizzard of 78. It was good training, because about 15 years later, there was another blizzard in another state and I had to run the paper and make sure the staff was housed properly, which I did. But that's another story.

Until next time...