Section: Editorial

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Setting the Record Straight About Croton Point

July 23, 2007

Crotonblog is not given to springing to the defense of the Journal News, the local outlet of the Gannett chain, America’s largest newspaper publisher in terms of daily circulation. In their July 19 story about the unfortunate drowning of Gary Roberts at Mayo’s Landing, they published a sidebar map showing the sites of six drownings in Croton since 1994 and listing the names of the victims.

This story led to the posting of comments “correcting” the Journal News for its erroneous statements that the drownings at Teller’s Point (satellite map) took place in Croton. As comments to the Journal News story, two “corrections” appeared on the Journal News web site signed by “Darlat,” pointing out that Croton Point Park was now owned by Westchester County and was therefore no longer part of Croton. A similar “correction” offering essentially the same misinformation and signed with the name “Maria Cudequest,” appeared on the site established by the North County News, which riskily insists that commenters sign their names.

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Adventures in Journalism: The North County News Does it Again

July 10, 2007

The North County News, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Yorktown Heights, claims to serve all the communities of northern Westchester. That’s a tall order for a paper that doesn’t even send reporters to attend the board meetings of the several communities it purports to cover.

In the current issue and on its website, an editorial commentary about the Paramount Center for the Arts by the paper’s pompously titled “Publisher & Editor-in-Chief” Bruce Apar caught our attention. It says, “Then there’s the singular support Paramount Center receives from Entergy, known hereabouts as the owner-operator of the twin plants at Indian Point Energy Center in Montrose.”

Entergy may be known “hereabouts” (which we presume to be The North County News editorial offices) as the owner-operator of the twin plants at Indian Point Energy Center in Montrose. But anybody knowledgeable about this part of northern Westchester knows that Indian Point is in the incorporated village of Buchanan, not in the hamlet of Montrose.

This isn’t the first gaffe in which Mr. Apar has revealed his appalling lack of local knowledge. Earlier, he waxed eloquent about how French Major John André was captured by the British in the Underhill house in Yorktown Heights. The problem, of course, is that Major André, the spy with whom traitorous American General Benedict Arnold had conspired to sell the plans of fortifications at West Point, was British not French, and he was captured not in Yorktown but in Sleepy Hollow. Crotonblog called this mangling of history to Mr. Apar’s attention, but he never acknowledged our correction nor the full extent of his own screw-up.

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How Wrong Can You Be, Mr. Wintermeier?

May 20, 2007

“It was a pleasure to see the volume of folks visiting this blog increasing,” Robert Wintermeier wrote on May 19 on a competing blog.

Increasing? Oh, yeah? You’d better sharpen your pencil, Mr. Wintermeier. A regular fixture at village board meetings who likes to think of himself as the moral and financial conscience of Croton, Robert Wintermeier was writing about the blog established by the North County News for the specific purpose of enabling Cudequest & Co. to have a place to chat among themselves. A statistical analysis of this new blog reveals the facts to be otherwise.

During the Civil War, Gen. Robert E. Lee never referred to opposing generals by name or as “the enemy.” To the gentlemanly general, they were simply “those people.” And Crotonblog will similarly spurn this rabble and their competing so-called blog, and refer to them as “those people.”

Ironically, the competing blog created specifically for those people (and Crotonblog uses the term “competing blog” advisedly) is neither a blog nor is it competition. Those people who are now making use it of are the same people who (1) tried unsuccessfully to get the village of Croton-on-Hudson to shut Crotonblog down; (2) tried to deny Crotonblog access to the filmed record of board meetings; and (3) have persisted to this day in their mistaken characterization of Crotonblog as a “chat room.”

Well, those people have finally gotten their wish. Sensing an opportunity to take advantage of the bitter differences of opinion that often prevail in local and national elections, the North County News has provided those people with a venue in which they can talk to one another. It’s the chat room cum bulletin board they have long desired. At last, they have a place where they can exchange compliments, massage each other’s egos and swap back-fence gossip. Hell, if that’s their bag, they could have achieved the same goal by merely trading e-mails or subscribing to the restricted circulation rag emanating from Cudequest & Co.

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We Hate to See You Go, We Hate to See You Go

May 15, 2007

Readers will recognize the time-honored refrain that begins with the words shown above. The occasion that prompts our breaking into song is the launch of a new blog by the North County News. Designed specifically to attract Croton’s malcontents, this so-called blog caps the North County News’s on-again, off-again campaign against Crotonblog. The single issue? Crotonblog’s sin of accepting anonymous contributions or comments from whistle blowers or others who have reason to want to protect their identity—an almost universal practice in the blogging world.

The North County News is a formerly respectable newspaper that unceremoniously dumped its capable staff last year, engaged an experienced Gannett journalist as managing editor, and acquired a pick-up team of amateurs. It has been desperately striving to get a readership foothold in communities outside its home base, Yorktown Heights. As a community newspaper covering distant communities like Cortlandt, Croton, Ossining and Briarcliff, the North County News is as phony as a three-dollar bill when compared to the knowledgeable reporting of a newspaper like The Gazette.

The newest North County News blog bills itself as “the first civilized and sensible blog for the citizens of Croton.” This phrase is strongly reminiscent of Fox News’s description of itself as “fair and balanced.” The ringmaster of the one-ring circus that is the North County News is one Bruce Apar, peripatetic editor of electronics industry trade magazines, who is in over his depth on a weekly community newspaper. He wears two hats, one as Editor-in-Chief and the other as Publisher. In Crotonblog’s humble opinion only people with two heads should wear two hats—and Cousin Brucie Apar doesn’t seem to have two heads—just one big one.

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More Revealing Wisdom from Klaatu. A Traditional Ceremony Has Nazi Party Overtones

May 3, 2007

American school children rendering the Bellamy Salute as they say the Pledge of Allegiance.

Do Croton parents know that the ceremonious Pledge of Allegiance with which school activities are opened each day in Croton has shady beginnings? Do Croton’s village board members who open each public meeting with this same 115-year-old children’s pledge know that the author of that pledge was a spiritual godfather to Hitler’s Nazi party and the straight-arm Nazi salute?

In addition to the eyebrow-raising revelations about Croton’s salary giveaways for management employees by interplanetary space traveler Klaatu, he drew on his encyclopedic knowledge of American mores and morals to raise the above questions. Klaatu’s home, you may recall, is an undiscovered planet 250 million miles away (which would place it somewhere between Jupiter and Saturn). During his brief sojourn here, twice each month he would watch Croton’s village board meetings with great interest and perplexity.

Klaatu wondered why village board members open each meeting with an archaic ceremony in which everybody stands and earnestly proclaims their patriotism by reciting the children’s Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. Until our visitor revealed its history, Crotonblog had not been familiar with the origins of this children’s school pledge. Nor did we know why it was a fixture at Croton’s village board meetings dedicated to the transaction of municipal business. The sight of five male and female officials ceremoniously proclaiming their patriotism was a source of amusement for the space visitor.

“Surely, no one doubts the loyalty, patriotism or Americanism of Croton’s village board members,” Klaatu suggested, “so why do they feel compelled to publicly pledge allegiance to a mere emblem?” He suggested that it would make more sense if village board members were to affirm their intention to respect the Constitution, or at least the Bill of Rights, as well as to obey state and local laws. He said, “I am reminded of the legend of William Tell, a Swiss patriot, who refused to show deference to another symbol—the hat of Austrian tyrant Gessler on a pole—and was forced to shoot an apple atop his son’s head as punishment.”

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Klaatu Returns to Planet Earth. Lands in Croton-on-Hudson Instead of Washington

April 27, 2007

We don’t hear much about UFOs these days, but after a visit from a mysterious interplanetary traveler recently, Crotonblog discovered that they do indeed exist. Visible marks left by his spacecraft can still be seen in the soft earth of the adjoining yard. Having traveled from a planet some 250 million miles away, he gave his name as Klaatu. He wanted to understand life in a small American suburban town, and had chosen Croton as the subject of his study. “I visited your planet once before to bring an anti-war message to the people of the Earth,” he told Crotonblog. “In fact they made a film in 1951 about that visit. It was called The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Tall, soft spoken and gracious, he bore a striking resemblance to British actor Michael Rennie who played the part of Klaatu in that film.

In the time he spent in Croton, Klaatu became fascinated by our village’s election practices. He was puzzled that each year in early spring its “friendly” citizens divide into two factions and proceed to hurl bitter insults at one other in a contest to govern this little community numbering less than eight thousand souls, most of whose males and many of its females desert the village each weekday to work elsewhere. He became a regular watcher of village board meetings on Channel 78 and on his own impressive portable computer, an advanced device like nothing seen on Earth.

Quite familiar with American culture, politics, history and even financial matters (TV, radio and telephone communications easily travel through outer space), he was surprised that remuneration for the posts board members seek, governance of the village, was a mere pittance. “I find it hard to imagine what kind of talent your village attracts when remuneration is at what elsewhere on your planet would be described as coolie wages,” he remarked. “An annual wage of $5,000 for the mayor and $3,000 for each of four trustees can only attract either dedicated self-sacrificing types, flagellant masochists or power-hungry individuals.”

When he learned that the actual day-to-day operation of the village is left to hired professionals, he pointed out that their super-generous pay and more than ample benefits far exceed any amount they might earn in the sharp-elbowed world of harsh, competitive business. Klaatu found it remarkable that, insulated from the struggle and strife they would have faced in the world outside, these employees are ensconced in their cushy jobs virtually for life, and only death or the most egregious acts of moral turpitude would cause them to be removed.

Klaatu was particularly intrigued by Croton’s 2007-08 budget of almost $16 million and particularly by its salary scale, which he termed “munificent.” He then proceeded to draw facts from his prodigious memory bank and pointed out to Crotonblog some eye-opening statistics. “Under your system of government in Croton, increases in salary and benefits are mandated by contracts with the various classes of employees. But did you know,” he asked, “that this tiny village has just given a 5% raise to the village manager and that he now earns $176,029?” Crotonblog stammered, “Well, no. Few of us in this village know this. It must be buried in the budget that was passed by the Republican majority.”

He continued, “And do you know that at $176,029, your village manager now makes more than the governors of 47 of the 50 states that comprise the United States? Only the governors of California, New York and Michigan make more than your village manager. For example, Eliot Spitzer, the governor of New York, whose salary is $179,000, earns only a measly $2,971 more than your Village Manager. Can you believe it? Mr. Spitzer earns a mere three grand, I believe you call it, more than your village manager for running a state with a population of 19 million and a budget of $120.6 billion. To use another expression that I picked up here, ‘Something’s badly out of whack.’ In the case of the Michigan governor, Jennifer M. Granholm, with a salary of $177,000, she makes only 971 bucks, as you call your dollars, more than your Richard Herbek for running a state with a population of 10 million and a budget of $43.4 billion.

“But, closer to home, the unkindest cut of all is this: For running the business of the tiny village of Croton, with a population of about 7,800 and a budget of under $16 million, Richard Herbek, the village manager, at $176,032 earns a salary larger than the Westchester County executive. Yes, more than Andy Spano, a veritable human dynamo who, for a mere $160,760, manages the entire county of Westchester, with its population edging close to a million and a budget of $1.7 billion.”

Klaatu went on, “Next, let’s look at the salaries of the village engineer and village treasurer, who each received a whopping 8.5% increase. Daniel O’Connor, the village engineer, and Abraham Zambrano, village treasurer, now earn $128,786 and $125,318 respectively. Did you know that they both take home more than the governors of 35 of the 50 states? In other words, these two guys individually earn more than the governors of 70% of the states of the United States. In addition, the village engineer has also been given an assistant engineer at a starting salary of $80,000—a nice bonus. And by the way, wasn’t Mr. Zambrano the architect of the phony water-bill scam that was written about in newspapers all across the United States, the one who angered and upset local residents with his unfeeling stupidity?”

“As for Ken Kraft, the superintendent of public works, who received a 5.5% increase, at a salary of $110,169, he now makes more than the governors of almost half of the 50 states—24 states, to be exact. What’s so incomprehensible about the increase given to Mr. Kraft,” Klaatu continued, “is that at the April 16th village board meeting at which the Democratic trustees declined to vote for the unreasonable increases in the fees charged for parking at the village’s parking lot, your Mayor Schmidt publicly berated Mr. Kraft. Mr. Schmidt unmercifully ripped him up one side and down the other for his failure to maintain the station parking lot, and placed the blame on him for the many complaints about deterioration of services voiced by parking lot users at the April 9th budget meeting.”

Klaatu put down the pencil he had been using to make his calculations and leaned back in his chair. “Frankly speaking,” he said, “in my estimation, the residents of Croton are paying too much for what they get. I do not understand how you people can survive fiscally with such largesse and why you put up with it.” He added, “Or how long you can survive without causing village citizens hard pressed by taxes to move elsewhere. Somebody has not been paying attention and has been ‘giving away the store,’ as one of your expressions has it.”

Klaatu suggested, “Perhaps the people are diverted by the meetings that are a sop to the people to give them the impression that this is democracy at work.” He himself had been fascinated by the spectacle of the semi-monthly meetings at which the five members govern the destinies of this little village. He noted that such meetings were usually poorly attended by village residents, although members of pressure groups with their own agendas could be counted upon to be in attendance and to be very vocal. He liked our description of them as “the usual suspects.”

“What you have in your village is the paradox of five people earning a total of $17,000 a year for their services directing the activities of four persons earning a total of well over a half million dollars annually, and whose salaries are augmented handsomely whether they performed well or not and whose jobs have turned into sinecures. It’s like a cozy little club of insiders looking out for one another. Funny thing, I thought Republicans were supposed to be in favor of reducing taxes.”

With that, he announced, “I regret that I must say goodbye and return to my own planet now. Heed well my warning about village finances.” We shook hands and said our farewells. Exhibiting surprising grace, he walked with long strides across the yard to the gleaming metallic spaceship. As he mounted the sloping ramp, Klaatu turned and winked at Crotonblog knowingly. He called out, with an attempt at an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent, “I’ll be back.” Then the ramp was drawn up and closed behind him. With a giant whoosh, his spacecraft lifted upwards and was gone.

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Fate Sealed, Croton Parkers Don’t Have to Take It Anymore

April 22, 2007

Is Croton’s fee-setting policy based on the philosophy that we will sock train station parkers with all that the traffic can bear? It seems that way. But the inept Schmidt administration may be forgetting Aesop’s fable about the couple who, in search of immediate reward, killed the goose that laid a golden egg. Croton’s shortsighted actions to increase revenue from its down-at-the-heels station parking lot are proving to be downright disastrous.

Whenever parking lot users complain about deteriorating conditions at the lot and the unjustified rate increases, Mayor Schmidt’s insensitive response is the tired old promise to do better, followed by his self-serving, imperious rationalization. “These are the rates we charge,” he intones repeatedly, almost as a mantra. He also is not above mouthing a blatant lie, “We run the parking lot like a business.” What a laugh! Mr. Mayor, do you know any successful business that cuts services and simultaneously raises prices, as Croton does? Mr. Mayor, do you know of any mindful business that ignores the pricing structure used by its competitors, as Croton does? Mr. Mayor, do you know any business that damages or destroys its customers’ property and then denies responsibility, as Croton does?

Pricing any service or commodity can be a ticklish operation in which many factors are at work. Fail to take them into consideration, and one risks killing the goose that lays the golden egg. On an annual basis, residents will now pay $600 a year and nonresidents $1,032 a year. Add these numbers to M.T.A. commuting fares, and residents are paying $3,156 annually to get to work and nonresidents are paying $3,588. As discontent rises, for every discouraged nonresident who no longer parks at Croton’s station parking lot and whose space is then given to a resident, the village stands to lose $432 annually.

Run like a business? Mayor Schmidt has got to be kidding. In Croton, the Mayor and his two newly elected hand puppets named Tom and Sue have a complicated scientific formula: They decide how much will be needed to cover this litigious village’s anticipated legal expenses and adjust parking rates accordingly. On the other hand, at the Cortlandt station (map), parking lot prices are sensibly set on a sliding scale. Pay your Cortlandt parking fee annually instead of quarterly, and you get a 10% discount.

The prospect that a user of the Croton lot could go elsewhere and save money is indeed real. The Mayor has simply neglected to do his homework, so Crotonblog has done it for him. Croton nonresident parkers can switch to Cortlandt and, despite the fact that their monthly commutation train fare will go up $38 because of the change, at the end of a year, those who switched from Croton to Cortlandt will have saved as much as $235.62. And this despite the fact that at Cortlandt parkers also have to pay a sales tax on fees because the lot is run by a private entity! In addition to the dollar savings, parkers at the Cortlandt station lot, which is about to be enlarged, will find it more easily accessible, safer (it adjoins the State Police barracks), and is not flood-prone but dry as a bone.

Nor is the Mayor above telling bald-faced lies to justify Croton’s exorbitant prices. When a lot user compared Croton’s excessive charges with the low prices at other lots along Metro North lines, an ill-informed Mayor countered by saying dismissively, “Oh, those are lots owned by the M.T.A.” The lot user immediately shot down that lie by reading the names of the owners of the lots. They were all municipalities just like Croton. The most telling remark was made by Maria Cudequest to justify Croton’s disastrous pricing policy of punitive setting of nonresident rates: “”I don’t intend to subsidize residents who live in communities whose taxes are significantly less than ours.”” The irony is that the Mayor apparently does not recognize how damning of his tax policies is that revealing remark——but vigilant Croton voters have taken note of it.

Despite emotional but valid objections from residents and nonresidents alike, Croton’s ham-handed Mayor is about to raise parking rates unconscionably again. Between 1999 and 2007, the residential parking fee went up 37% and the nonresidential fee rose 59%. Both increases are astronomical, especially in the face of declining services. They also reveal a disturbing willingness to consider all parking lot users as cash cows waiting to be milked, not to mention a strong bias against nonresidents that may prove to be disastrous in the end. Unlike Metro North, Croton does not have a monopoly on parking facilities. Mayor Schmidt should therefore not be surprised to discover that many unhappy Croton station parkers have taken their business elsewhere. Emulating the character played by Peter Finch in Paddy Chayefsky’s 1976 award-winning movie “Network,” they will all roll down their car windows and shout as they depart, “I’m fed up and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

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Mr. Moore's Mirthless Musings Mostly Malarkey

April 5, 2007

In a letter in last week’s Gazette, James R. Moore took an undeserved swipe at Crotonblog for posting and allowing anonymous commentaries whose tone does not please some who read them.

Not so fast, Mr. Moore; anonymous speech is protected. The Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed the constitutional right to speak anonymously. In MacIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, the Court wisely wrote, “Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority.” Further, in Talley v. California, the court said that “an identification requirement would tend to restrict freedom to distribute information and thereby freedom of expression.”

At Crotonblog, we tend to think it’s the transparency of blogging that has gotten Mr. Moore’s goat. Unlike letters in newspapers, blog readers can immediately interact with an article, letter or comment for the world to read and respond to in kind—a far cry from a “chat room.”

Two lies appeared in Mr. Moore’s letter that demand correction: First, Mr. Moore made it appear that the anti-Regus Industries letters from Massachusetts and Ohio were official communications from each state. Hardly. Each was written in form-letter style by a Maria Cudequest out-of-state cohort.

Second, Mr. Moore, a Republican, counseled readers not to trust anyone in politics. That’s not surprising. His hero, George W. Bush, has been called this country’s worst president for reasons that become increasingly apparent with each passing day. What Mr. Moore really means is don’t trust anyone except the Schmidt-Brennan-Konig team.

But that, too, is not surprising, although it’s closer to belly-laughable. Greg Schmidt and his team were totally dishonest in the run up to the recent village election. For example, they created a number plucked out of thin air and said baselessly that 30,000 trucks would rumble through the village if the “cash for trash trio” of Gallelli, Kane and Wiegman succeeded in re-opening what they insist on calling “the dump.” How about the lower-than-a-snake’s belly tone of that attack?

Yet, pseudo-faithful candidate Susan Konig told the biggest whopper of all. While campaigning, she publicly slandered Ann Gallelli by saying she had her driveway plowed by the village. So deceitful was his running mate’s behavior, Mayor-elect Schmidt apologized at the village board meeting on election day eve for his part in “election season craziness.”

So, Mr. Moore, if that’s the kind of integrity that floats your boat, we wish you well on your journey.

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North County News Attacks Crotonblog. We Raise the Rattlesnake Flag and Correct Their Errors.

April 3, 2007

Crotonblog has been on the receiving end of repeated attacks by Bruce Apar, the pompously titled Editor-in-Chief & Publisher of the North County News and his staff. These attacks were a desperate attempt at circulation building for a sick newspaper. Last year this once respected and formerly professionally edited newspaper abruptly dumped its award-winning staff. Now, using a pick-up team, it attempts to cover the broad area of the northern tier of Westchester towns with little success. Its readership in Croton would hardly fill the lobby of the Croton post office.

We offer two lessons to Mr. Apar and the North County News:

Lesson 1 (Civics): The issue chosen by the North County News to attack Crotonblog on was protected anonymous speech. Like blogs everywhere, Crotonblog’s contributors and commenters are invited to sign their names or to use a nom de plume, if they so desire. Anonymous speech has a long tradition dating back to this country’s founding. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and Westchester’s own John Jay wrote the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym of Publius. An often-cited 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre vs. Ohio Election Committee held that “protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical minority views….Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority….It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation….at the hands of an intolerant society.”

Anonymity gives protection to those concerned about economic or political retribution or even threats to property—the latter already a reality in Croton. The misguided attack of the North County News on Crotonblog received only one complimentary comment: an email from one Maria Cudequest praising the “campaign” against anonymity.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! It is to laugh. Ms. Cudequest has the distinction of being the first and only person to be banished from access to Crotonblog. Her offense was that she created multiple counterfeit fictitious names appended to comments all originating from the same I.P. address. This fraud gave the false impression that a great many individuals supported her point of view. In such comments, she would often misspell her own name to give the impression that the nonexistent writer was unfamiliar with the proper spelling. Not infrequently, one of her phony individuals would compliment another of her phony individuals on a point well taken. The following are some of the pseudonymous names she employed in her brazen scam: Culliganman, Deepsix50, Hopeful, Maria, Puppuluv, William Rooney.

Lesson 2 (History): In a piece entitled “Talking Points,” (incidentally, the name is borrowed from the popular Josh Marshall Internet site), Bruce Apar bemoaned the fact that he had not met three persons associated with Yorktown Heights. In addition to John W. Chase, the paper’s founder, and Charlie Murphy, “father of Yorktown lacrosse,” he regretted not meeting Isaac Underhill. In the latter case, he managed to get everything laughably wrong. Here’s what he wrote:

“Neither did I meet Isaac Underhill in whose house on Hanover Street 225 years ago French Major John André was captured by the British in the Revolutionary War.”

Crotonblog is no expert on the details of the Benedict Arnold treachery, but this statement did not sound right. We consulted a local history society. Here’s what we found:

1. Editor-in-Chief & Publisher Apar got only one fact right: the Underhill house (which still stands, by the way) is indeed on Hanover Street (it’s at the intersection with California Road).

2. Messrs. Chase and Murphy both died in August of 2006. But for Mr. Apar to meet Isaac Underhill would have been quite a feat. He died in 1814.

3. Despite his name, Major John André was not “a French major,” but a major in the British Army. The son of a Swiss merchant who settled in London, he was commissioned in 1771. At the time described, André was serving as aide-de-camp to Sir Henry Clinton, whose troops were then occupying New York City. Having crossed the Hudson carrying maps and documents obtained from Gen. Benedict Arnold and hoping to reach British lines in southern Westchester, he traveled from King’s Ferry in Montrose by a circuitous route posing as “John Anderson.”

4. Major André stopped briefly at the Underhill house, but it was not “225 years ago.” Do the arithmetic, Mr. Apar: it was well over 226 years ago. He purchased breakfast there on Saturday, September 23, 1780. Because of recent depredations by foragers, Mrs. Underhill could only offer him “supawn,” a humble porridge of corn meal and milk.

5. Major André was not “captured by the British” in the Underhill house, a statement that makes no sense at all since he was British.

6. Later that same day, Major André was stopped and searched by American militiamen on the Albany Post Road (today’s Route 9) at Tarrytown, just below a brook called Clark’s Kill. Because he wore civilian clothes and the incriminating documents were found hidden in his stockings, he was arrested as a spy and later hanged.

To help Mr. Apar get his paper back on track factually, Crotonblog has rewritten his erroneous item. It is offered to him here for use as his printed correction:

CORRECTION: I need to brush up my knowledge of local history. Last week I wrote about Isaac Underhill and the Underhill house on Hanover Street. Contrary to what I wrote, British Major (not French Major) John André was in the house briefly more than 226 years ago (not 225 years ago). He was not “captured” by the British there, but merely stopped for breakfast on September 24, 1780. Disguised as “John Anderson,” a civilian, Major André carried documents provided by traitorous American General Benedict Arnold. Later that day, as he was making his way south on the Albany Post Road toward the British lines at Dobbs Ferry, André was stopped and searched by American militiamen in Tarrytown. When incriminating papers were found in his stockings, he was arrested as a spy, tried and convicted. Despite his plea to George Washington to be shot as a soldier, he was hanged at Tappan, N.Y., on Oct. 2.

For managing to get every verifiable historical fact wrong in a 28-word sentence, Crotonblog hereby ceremoniously awards Bruce Apar, Editor-in-Chief & Publisher of the North County News, a dunce cap of large and handsome design. If this abysmal performance represents Mr. Apar’s standard of journalistic accuracy, what conclusions can we draw about the rest of his newspaper? We suggest that Mr. Apar, who has no background as a newspaper journalist, would be wise to abandon his futile efforts to build his paper’s circulation by attacking what he considers to be competing media and turn his attention to quality control. After exhibiting such gross factual errors, the North County News can hardly be considered to be an authoritative newspaper of record.

The Gasden flag was first dislpayed by American colonists to warn the British about their harsh repressive measures.

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Mark Aarons Attacks Crotonblog. We Run Up the "Don't Tread on Me" Rattlesnake Flag

March 29, 2007

Mark Aarons, eminence grise of the self-disenfranchised Croton Republican Party, wasn’t content with printing scurrilous lies to discredit Crotonblog in The Gazette’s issue of March 15. He wasted space by repeating the identical canards in the March 22 issue. Crotonblog wonders whether Mr. Aarons, a local attorney, missed some lectures at law school when rules of evidence were discussed.

The object of his false accusations was our occasional feature, “The Nathan Bedford Forrest Awards,” in which we point out the frequent instances when Crotonblog has beat the Journal News to a story. Our choice of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest was calculated. He was the Civil War’s most successful general and created tactics of mobile warfare still studied in military staff schools. Our reason for choosing him? His philosophy was to get to the battlefield first. A quick study in military science and tactics, Forrest had enlisted as a private and, without formal military training, rose to the rank of lieutenant general. It is interesting to note that Gen. Forrest’s personal bodyguard consisted of eight black former slaves who accompanied him into the army of the Confederate States. The Union Army was a segregated army—in fact, unlike the Confederate Army, segregation continued in the U.S. Army until President Harry Truman abolished it in 1945.

So, here’s our response to Mr. Aarons: He twice claimed that Nathan Bedford Forrest was one of the founders of the Ku Klux Klan. Forrest was not. He was never even a member of that organization. Although he supported the Klan’s resistance to Republican carpetbaggers who poured into the South to profit from reconstruction, he quickly condemned acts of violence in a South that had descended into lawlessness and advised the organization to disband.

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