VOL. IV NO. XXXVII
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Westchester’s Most Influential Weekly
PERMIT #3036 WHITE PLAINS NY
w w w. w e s t c h e s t e r g u a r d i a n o n l i n e . c o m
Nitrogen Pollution
Is Choking
Westchester
Where is the DEC?
City Haul - Mt. Vernon’s Brazen Criminal Syndicate
story on page 3
story on page 6
To the Editor:
Your attack on Pope Benedict is just nothing more than the typical Catholic-bashing that is so popular in the media these days. Why do you harp upon a few priests who misbehaved but not ministers of oth-er faiths? The Church is a large institution that has branches in many countries and has thousands of priests. The Pope cannot supervise all of them. Your paper and everyone else piling on should give him a break.
Anonymous [No location given] To the Editor:
I am a Catholic who was born and raised in Westchester. I was edu-cated in Catholic schools, including college, and until recently, I was active in my local church. Your editorial about the international sex scandal in the Catholic Church and the crisis of leadership in the Vati-can upset many people I know, but I believe they are all misguided. Contrary to their view, your editorial was extremely well informed, co-gently written and compelling. Only someone who respects the Church could present such a bold and yet honest critique. My hat is off to you. I cannot include my name because doing so would risk bringing down on my head the wrath of my family members, friends and neighbors. But many Catholics agree with you.
Anonymous Yonkers, New York
To the Editor:
On Sunday, April 4th, 2010, the New York Times carried this obitu-ary: “Alvin Most (Al), artist, teacher, husband to Doris, father to Chet. You will be missed.”
Alvin was a friend of mine and a colleague in the Fine Arts. I met him twenty years ago when I was the Curator at the West Room Gallery in Yonkers. In 1991, I curated and organized an exhibition of four artists at the WRG, known at that time as the Yonkers Education Cultural Arts Center. Alvin Most was an exceptional and unique artist. He had exhibited in New York in the 1950s, and in 1959 he was selected by the four directors of the major New York museums, like the Whitney, MOMA, The Metropolitan and the Brooklyn, as one of the forty most promising American artists under age 35, for a show at the National Arts Club.
Most was born 9/17/1924 in New York City and attended local schools. An athletic scholarship took him to New York University where he played varsity basketball. When an eye injury ended his ball-playing days, he turned to his next love: art. He held a B.S. from NYU and an M.A. from City College of New York.
Opposite Reactions To Our Easter Editorial
continued on next page 18
In Memory of a Beloved Artist
City Haul – How Mt. Vernon Officials Plunder the Public Purse …………... 3From the Editor – “The Eleventh Hour” ………..………..4 Point-Counterpoint – “In Praise of the Tea Party” and “Tea Party Hate Speech” ……….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….…….……. 5, 18 Abady - Reactive Nitrogen Pollution Crisis .………..6-7 Deskovic - Lessons from the Caravella Exoneration – Part I …..………..….. 8-9 Wilson - Getting a Jump Start on College ……… 10-11 The World Traveler – Uptaken …..……….. 12-13 Westchester Blotter ……… 14 West Harrison Pharmacist Charged in Dispensing Scheme …………...….. 14 IBM Executive Pleads Guilty in Massive Insider Trading Case …...…… 14 Rogue Sleepy Hollow Cop Charged with Witness Tampering …………...14 Community Calendar ………...….. 16-17 Classifieds/Legal Notices ………...………… 20 Ackerman – Shimmering Stars ……… 22-23
City Haul
How Mt. Vernon Officials Plunder the Public Purse
By Sam Zherka
In our April 1
stissue, The
Guard-ian exposed Mt. Vernon Mayor,
Clinton Young, who has
surround-ed himself with criminals,
includ-ing his close friend, Craig Jones,
twice accused of raping two young
girls, ages thirteen and fourteen,
and Director of Civil Defense,
An-toine Lowe, previously arrested on
the corner of Vista Place and West
1st Street in Mt. Vernon for
solic-iting an undercover vice cop
pos-ing as a crack-addicted prostitute.
The Guardian just obtained a
re-cording in which Lowe threatened
our newspaper. In a conversation
with Mt. Vernon community
ac-tivist, Samuel Rivers, Lowe said:
“They’re messing with people who
are crazy and don’t give a f___.
Other people got guns, too.”
The Guardian contacted Lowe
for comment. He yelled “Get off
my f__ing phone” and hung up.
Mt. Vernon Commissioner
of Public Works, Terence
Hor-ton, brother of City Councilman,
Steve Horton, is licensed to carry
a handgun despite having once
been convicted of Criminal
Pos-session of a Firearm for which
he was sentenced to three years
probation. Horton is a real estate
developer and operates as QFI,
Inc. He owns several Mr. Vernon
properties, including 434 and 440
Franklin Avenue, 29 Union Lane
and 12 East 3rd Street.
Tax records obtained by The
Guardian reveal that Horton
owes $76,889.35 in tax arrears
dating back to 2007. The
Guard-ian was informed by a
represen-tative of City Comptroller,
Mau-reen Walker, that, unless Terence
Horton pays the arrears, he will
be treated like any other citizen
in default, sued for tax foreclosure
and his properties sold at auction.
“This is the worst I have ever
seen” said John, a local business
man known to The Guardian who
refused to identify himself by last
name for fear of retaliation. “This
administration is shady and
out-right corrupt. This city is falling
apart. If Clinton Young gets
re-elected, I’m closing up my
busi-ness and leaving.”
Horton and Department of
Public Works Supervisor, Rudy
Persaud, were caught red handed
using DPW employees to do
ma-sonry work at their homes.
Per-saud resides at 312 East Lincoln
Avenue. He erected a decorative
wall on the taxpayers’ dime
with-out a permit from the Mt. Vernon
Department of Buildings.
Samuel Rivers was
unequivo-cal in condemning the Young
ad-ministration’s corruption: “This
is a terrible abuse of tax payers’
dollars. It’s criminal, and these
guys should be in jail. This is why
Mt Vernon is the poorest city
in Westchester County and the
highest-taxed city in the state,” he
said.
Meanwhile, The Guardian
ob-tained documentation proving
that Buildings Commissioner,
Ralph Tedesco, former treasurer
of the Mt. Vernon Democratic
Committee, and a personal friend
of the Mayor, engaged in bid
rig-ging for demolition projects
ap-proved by the Mt. Vernon City
Council.
In addition, Tedesco stands
ac-cused by several local
business-men of attempted extortion and
soliciting bribes. John Star,
op-erator of an African catering hall,
claims Tedesco tried to shake him
down for money, and when he
re-fused to pay, Tedesco shut down
his business then located at 46-48
Mt. Vernon Avenue.
Bobby Brown, owner of
demo-lition contractor, Bazooka, Inc.,
did business with Mt. Vernon for
many years. He told The
Guard-ian his experience with Clinton
Young’s administration has been
“a complete nightmare.” Brown
said of Young’s lieutenants: “They
were always losing files and
cut-ting deals behind closed doors.
Buildings Commissioner, Ralph
Tedesco, is a criminal. The city has
been looking the other way and
covering for him for a long time. I
want the entire world to know.”
The Guardian spoke to several
sources inside the Department of
Public Works who refused to be
named for fear of losing their jobs.
One source said he visited
Hor-ton’s home and saw a white
crys-talline substance he believed was
cocaine.
In addition, Horton stands
ac-cused of stealing $60,000 of paint
purchased by Mt. Vernon from
Wakefield Paint Supplies in the
Bronx. The Commissioner has
150 employees. Yet, for
unex-plained reasons, Horton
person-ally picked up some 5,000-6,000
gallon cans in a Mt. Vernon truck.
The whereabouts of these cans of
paint is presently unknown.
Mayor Young and his
adminis-tration act like members of
disor-ganized crime. One wonders why
D.A. Janet Difiore and U.S.
Attor-ney Preet Bharara have not taken
action against this Mt. Vernon
ca-bal of criminals.
Terrence Horton - DPW Commissioner
DPW Worker at Rudy Persaud’s house Antoine Lowe - Civil Defense Director
In 1982, Cummins warned Ratzinger that allowing Kiesle to
re-main a priest would foment more scandal than defrocking him:
“It is my conviction that there would be no scandal if this
peti-tion were granted and … there might be greater scandal to the
community if Father Kiesle were allowed to return to the active
ministry.” The pope ignored him. Rev. George Mockel wrote to
Cummins about Ratzinger’s missive: “My own reading of this
let-ter is that basically they are going to sit on it ....”
As Kiesle’s fate was being weighed in Rome, the priest
volun-teered as a youth minister at a California church where he had
been associate pastor from 1972-75.
Finally, Ratzinger responded to Cummins in 1985. He directed
that Kiesle not be expelled, but instead, given “as much paternal
care as possible.” Kiesle was not stripped of his priestly powers
until 1987. By then, it was too late.
Kiesle was arrested in 2002 and charged with thirteen counts of
child molestation. In 2004, he pled to a felony charge for
molest-ing a child in his home and was sentenced to six years in prison.
He is now a registered sex offender.
Lewis Van Blois, an attorney for six Kiesle victims, interviewed
the former priest in prison: “When asked how many children he
had molested over the years, he said ‘tons,’ and bragged he was the
Pied Piper and tried to molest every child that sat on his lap.”
The AP obtained documents last week which revealed the
Vati-can stalled action in cases involving two predator priests in
Arizo-na. The pope did nothing about Michael Teta in Tucson, despite
repeated pleas from an Arizona bishop that Rome defrock the
man. Likewise, the bishop alerted Ratzinger about Msgr. Robert
Trupia characterized as “a major risk factor” for sex crimes.
According to Irwin Zalkin, an attorney representing other
Kiesle victims: “Cardinal Ratzinger was more concerned about
the avoidance of scandal than he was about protecting children.”
Catholic liturgy refers to the “body” of the Church. Like a
hu-man body, the Church can suffer from disease before it succumbs.
For those who recognize the value of the Church and the good
it does for millions around in the world, the urgent question is
whether, at this eleventh hour, the pope cares more about saving
the Church than himself.
The Vatican’s response provides a clue. It called the AP reports
“absolutely groundless.”
Sam Abady
Public reaction to the Easter editorial came as a surprise.
Neph-rologist, Julio Cavalo, M.D., head of Westchester’s Independence
Party, said he “didn’t like it” because the editorial could be read
as “an attack on the Church.” It was unfair, he said, to single out
priests who sexually assaulted children when perversions are
found among clergymen of all faiths.
One anonymous reader agreed. Another anonymous reader
vehemently disagreed. He was so fearful of being discovered he
extracted a promise his letter would be destroyed and no attempt
made to discover his identity, lest he be ostracized by friends and
family. (See “Our Readers Respond” on page 2.)
There are 400,000 priests in the world. Clearly, the majority
minister faithfully and remain celibate without harming children
in their congregations.
Yet, the reality is that thousands of Catholic children were
vio-lated – not by a neighborhood thug, but by a priest, the one
per-son they were entitled to admire and embrace with unconditional
trust. These children were violated again when the Vatican
pro-tected not them, but the deviants who molested and sodomized
them.
Vatican leaders are not ignorant. They are intellectually
sophisti-cated men well aware of the psychological makeup of pedophiles.
The sad truth is that, even after being discovered, prosecuted and
punished, the majority will offend again. Pedophilia cannot be
cured. Studies reveal that, in a twenty-five year period, pedophiles
re-offend more often than rapists. The stubborn recidivism of
pe-dophiles led to enactment of sex offender registration laws.
Predatory priests cause their victims incalculable pain. But that
pain was magnified exponentially when Rome essentially did
nothing about it.
All week long, the Vatican insisted the pope played no role in the
cover-up. However, on April 9th, the Associate Press published a
1985 letter written in Latin to Oakland Bishop, John Cummins.
The letter was signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. At the
time, the pope was head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, the Church’s doctrinal watchdog. The letter
concerned a California priest named Stephen Kiesle.
In 1978, Kiesle pled guilty to sex crimes after tying up and
mo-lesting two boys in a San Francisco church rectory. By 1981, the
Oakland diocese submitted a petition to have Kiesle defrocked.
At the time, Ratzinger was head of the Church office in charge of
disciplining errant priests. Ratzinger would have none of it.
Point-Counterpoint
In Praise Of The Tea Party
Tea Party Hate Speech
continued on the page 18
By Sam Zherka
Over the years, both Democrats and Repub-licans have shown the American people that, as far as these politicians are concerned, run-ning our nation is just big business -- a busi-ness larded with corrupt, back-room deals to benefit special interests, favored contributors, well-heeled lobbyists, and large corporations. The hard working men and women paying the freight are left behind.
The TEA Party (acronym for “Taxed Enough Already”) is a grass-roots campaign by Ameri-cans of all cultures, nationalities, creeds, races, religions and political persuasions. They are Democrats and Republicans, Independents and Conservatives. They are hard-working Americans who rise every morning and go to real American jobs to earn real American money to pay their real American bills and rear real American kids in pursuit of the American dream they once knew. They are white, black, brown and yellow, once happy-go-lucky
citi-zens until they woke up and realized their fami-lies’ future is in dire jeopardy.
Critics say they are reactionary racists. Noth-ing could be further from the truth. TEA Party activists are soccer moms, waiters, firefighters, teachers, bartenders, bank tellers, construction workers, laborers, factory workers and small business owners. They are the every-day Joes who are the backbone of this country, the men and woman who put their lives in harm’s way as soldiers and police officers, folks who take their kids to school, ball games and the movies. They love America for its most precious asset and their sacred birthright: Freedom and Liberty.
They do not hate immigrants, but they resent illegal entrants stealing public resources. They are fair and forgiving, but tired of casting their votes year after year to support politicians who lie to them. They worked hard to purchase their cars, homes, furniture and to put food on the table. They struggle to pay their rent and mort-gages and worry about losing what they have
worked so hard to attain.
Most importantly, they are fed up with high taxes soaring ever higher with no end in sight. They are Americans being stripped of the American dream which is slowly becoming the American nightmare.
TEA Party supporters are average folks who are afraid -- afraid for their families, their children, their jobs, and their homes. They are angry and demand to be heard.
The TEA Party supporter is me and you. Participate in your local Tea Party Rally on Tax Day, Thursday April 15th. The White Plains TEA party will convene at the County Center on Central Avenue in White Plains be-tween 4-7 P.M.
Bring signs and show our elected officials America belongs to Americans, not the poli-ticians.
By Fred Polvere
Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff, is a new leader in the TEA (Taxed Enough Al-ready) Party movement. Mack is a proponent of unlimited gun rights and has a following among militia and libertarian groups. He was hired by Friends of Liberty to forge a coalition of right-wing groups.
Mack has been speaking at “liberty confer-ences” across the country in an attempt to rally and unite the disparate factions of TEA Party supporters. At a Spokane, Washington, rally attended by John Birchers, Oath Keep-ers, supporters of Glen Beck’s “9/12 Project,” and a variety of militant militia groups, Mack felt constrained to proclaim to the sea of white faces: “This meeting is not racist.”
Mack explained they all had a common en-emy: The Federal Government. In his illogical rant, Mack actually blamed Washington for mucking up desegregation in the South. He
opined that a county sheriff could have done a much better job. Referring to the day Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger, he said: “Imagine the local sheriff, rather than arresting Ms. Parks, escorting her home, stopping to buy her a meal at an all-white diner.”
Now, one can imagine anything from flying pigs to free drive-in beer-stops on highways, but imagination is no substitute for fact. The reality of the segregated, Jim Crow South is not in dispute. In many counties, blacks were the majority and yet, not a single black was reg-istered to vote – and not for a lack of trying. When blacks showed up to register, the regis-trar’s office would close. Blacks who attempted to register were intimidated with job dismiss-als or violence. No local sheriffs came to their defense. No local sheriffs threatened to arrest election registrars who refused to allow black citizens the right to vote.
These same local sheriffs, however, were quick
to arrest anyone suspected of miscegenation, a felony in southern states until 1967 when the Supreme Court outlawed these offensive race-mixing laws in Loving v. Virginia.
The idea that some imaginary, “ideal” sheriff would come to Rosa Parks’ aid is an outright fantasy. Many southern sheriffs were mem-bers of the Ku Klux Klan or Klan sympathiz-ers.
Richard Mack’s claim the Spokane rally was not racist just as falsely imagined. The John Birch Society and many of the militia groups in attendance at TEA Party rallies have his-tories steeped in racism, an ugly side of the movement which showed itself in our na-tion’s capital the day before the House vote on health care reform.
On March 20, 2010, as Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), a true hero of the civil rights movement, and Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN) were leaving
By Sam Abady
Former Vice President, Al Gore, made Acar-bon footprint@ a household phrase. Gore won a Nobel Prize for his film, AAn Inconvenient Truth@ about anthropogenic (human-gener-ated) global warming caused by burning fos-sil fuels to heat homes and propel cars and trucks.
Meanwhile, a more immediate and urgent problem has escaped public concern: nitrogen pollution. State environmental officials appear asleep at the switch.
Nitrogen gas constitutes roughly 78% of the atmosphere. It is present in all protein mol-ecules, DNA, RNA and chlorophyll. Soil ni-trogen is vital for plant growth and frequently used in fertilizers.
Nitrogen Pollution -- More Urgent than Global Warming
According to two new studies just published in Science magazine, ATransformation of the Nitrogen Cycle: Recent Trends, Questions and Potential Solutions,@ and AImpacts of Atmo-spheric Anthropogenic Nitrogen on the Open Ocean,@ human output of so-called reactive nitrogen is rapidly polluting our lakes, rivers, streams and reservoirs, and killing the world=s oceans.
Increasingly, the planet’s nitrogen exists as reactive nitrogen or in activated compounds such as ammonia, rather than as non-reactive N2, an inert gas. Scientists raised a red flag about reactive nitrogen decades ago but policy makers turned a deaf ear. Apparently, state of-ficials are likewise hard of hearing.
Peter Liss, biochemist at England=s Univer-sity of East Anglia, a world leader in pollution and climate science studies, concludes the Anatural nitrogen cycle has been very heavily influenced by human activity over the last cen-tury.@ Liss believes humans have impacted the nitrogen cycle even more than the carbon cy-cle at the heart of the global warming contro-versy. Whereas global warming is contested by a small but vocal and increasingly influential minority of scientific skeptics, there is genuine consensus about the global threat from
reac-tive nitrogen.
The “nitrogen cycle” is the natural process by which atmospheric nitrogen is “fixed” by bacteria and incorporated into soil. It is then chemically altered by other bacteria and used by plants to grow and returned to soil as plants decay. A small amount is released back into the atmosphere. This cycle has persisted un-changed for millions of years. Now, however, it is being radically altered by human interven-tion.
Liss=s study tracked the dramatic growth in human-produced reactive nitrogen: fifteen metric tons emitted in 1860, 156 tons in 1995, and 185 tons by 2005.
Although these quantities pale in compari-son to global CO2 emissions B some twenty-seven billion tons each year B the impact of reactive nitrogen is magnified by what Uni-versity of Virginia biogeochemist, James Gal-loway, calls Athe nitrogen cascade@ caused by two primary culprits: crop fertilizers and cars. By mass, nitrous oxide, as a greenhouse gas, is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide in destroying the ozone layer. Unlike CO2, NO2 stays in the atmosphere for a hundred years.
Nitrogen Fertilizers -- A Devil’s Bargain
On the one hand, nitrogen fertilizers are es-sential to modern agriculture and helped bring about the Green Revolution, a phrase coined in the 1960s to describe the transfer of agricul-tural knowledge and technology to the Third World. This transfer increased crop yields and reduced hunger for millions worldwide, espe-cially in India and African nations deficient in soil nitrogen.
A 2007 U.N. Environmental Programme re-port tellingly titled “Too Much or Too Little of a Good Thing,” http://www.whrc.org/policy/ PDF/Reactive_Nitrogen_sml.pdf, analyzed the problem. Activated nitrogen fertilizers are synthesized by mixing nitrogen and hydrogen with iron sulfate as a catalyst to make ammo-nia from which nitrogen fertilizer is derived. Without these fertilizers, much of the world=s poor populations would starve. Yet, ever in-creasing Third World populations consume
the activated nitrogen and convert it into hu-man waste which drains into land, rivers and eventually, the world’s oceans.
Developed nations are still the major reac-tive nitrogen polluters by their extensive use of fertilizers and fossil fuels to heat homes and power the transportation sector of industrial-ized economies. Nitric oxide is expelled from automobile tail pipes into the air, settles in soil, runs off into water which then flows into coastal systems and oceans, and is evaporated back into the atmosphere where it falls to earth as acid rain.
The worst damage is caused by algae blooms which starve the oceans of oxygen and de-stroy fisheries and other aquatic life. Reactive nitrogen has already killed entire swaths of ocean. To date, scientists have identified over four hundred dead zones worldwide, and there may be many more. The Gulf of Mexico dead zone now stretches 5,800 square miles. The Long Island Sound dead zone has persisted for the last twenty years.
Dead zones develop by eutrophication, i.e., too much nitrogen or phosphorus is deposited in water where they act as hyper-nutrients for surface plankton, most of which is algae, and cause it to multiply rapidly leading to “algal blooms” sometime called “brown tide” or “red tide.” These vast numbers of algae starve the oceans of oxygen, a condition called “hypoxia,” i.e., insufficient oxygen, and create dead zones in seas which normally support the greatest amount of aquatic life, as there is relatively little ocean life distant from coastal regions.
Oceanic nitrogen also pollutes the air be-cause it is converted to nitrous oxide, a green-house gas.
Mohegan Lake
In Westchester, nitrogen pollution is all around us. For example, Mohegan Lake near Peekskill was once a clear and clean recre-ational lake stocked with fish. Zoning changes permitted rapid residential development above the lake in an area previously set aside as
wet-continued on next page
lands. As a result, nitrogen and phosphorous from sewage and lawn fertilizers flowed down-hill and choked the lake with oxygen-depleting algae, turning it into a dark slimy mess. The algae killed off the fish and underwater plants. Mohegan Lake is now regularly dredged, and air pumps were installed to re-oxygenate it, all at great cost.
The Nuclear Alternative -- Indian Point
There are presently more than 100 nuclear reactors in the United States. Nuclear power enthusiasts promote reactors because they do not produce much nitrogen to harm wa-terways. The argument is specious, however, because nuclear reactors inflict enormous thermal damage on waterways and deplete fish larvae by sucking up river water into plant cooling systems. Just last week, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation refused to grant Entergy, the utility that runs the Indian Point reactor in upper Westchester, a clean water permit. Indian Point draws 2.5 billion gallons of Hudson River water into its reactor cooling systems every day -- twice the daily water consumption of New York City -- and expels it back into the Hudson as hot water. This heated water causes massive death to fish, plankton and fish larvae. Research re-vealed Entergy has destroyed up to 60% of some species that would otherwise thrive in the Hudson.
Also, the threat of radioactive leakage is ever present. Over the last twenty years, Indian Point has leaked small quantities of
radioac-tive water into the Hudson, and was cited sev-eral times by the fedsev-eral Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Westchester -- Are DEC Officials Asleep at the Switch?
The Federal Clean Water Act mandates all states periodically test water quality and iden-tify “Impaired Waters” in reports to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. States must develop a “Total Maximum Daily Load” of spe-cific pollutants restricting waterbody uses.
This editor spent over an hour and twenty minutes speaking with five different repre-sentatives of the Department of Environmen-tal Conservation. No one at the agency could identify a single chemist or other DEC official tasked with measuring and reporting nitrogen pollution in bodies of water in Westchester, or even someone knowledgeable about the issue. No data specifically about nitrogen pollution of Westchester’s reservoirs, lakes, rivers, streams or coastal areas is found on DEC’s website. Indeed, nitrogen pollution as an independent environmental issue is not listed anywhere on the agency’s comprehensive website.
In its current draft report to the EPA, the DEC does report that Moriches Bay in Suffolk County, for example, is impaired by “extensive algal blooms (Brown Tide)” caused by “elevat-ed nitrogen levels,” and identifies other bays throughout Long Island with excess nitrogen. The report is silent about nitrogen pollution in Westchester bodies of water. Jeff Myers, an environmental engineer in DEC’s Bureau
of Watershed Assessment and Management, acknowledged that DEC does not collect data specifically about nitrogen pollution in Westchester, and that DEC’s limited focus on nitrogen concerns marine bodies of water like the Long Island Sound.
Similarly, Dr. Gopal Sistla, DEC’s Director of the Bureau of Air Quality and Research, and staff scientist, Dr. Kevin Civerolo, confirmed that DEC has no air chemistry testing for ni-trogen pollution in Westchester. At present, DEC performs NO2 testing only in New York City and Buffalo.
Prof. Galloway, a member of The Interna-tional Nitrogen Initiative, http://www.initro-gen.org/, believes reactive nitrogen pollution can be reduced by fifty-three tons per year or 28%. Yet, state officials are paying scant atten-tion to the problem.
When the environment is healthy, nitrogen is inert and the government reactive. Tragically, these days, things are the other way around.
Concerned Westchester residents should contact Governor Patterson’s office, their state representatives in Albany, DEC’s Tier III offices at (845) 256-3000 or Thomas Rudolph, DEC’s Regional Water Engineer in White Plains at (914) 428-2505, and demand that DEC col-lect data on reactive nitrogen pollution in Westchester, and develop plans to abate the problem here, lest more Westchester waters end up like Mohegan Lake.
On March 25, 2010, DNA tests proved
Anthony Caravella did not commit a
mur-der or sexual battery for which he spent
twenty-six years in a Florida prison.
Pros-ecutors secured his conviction based on a
coerced, false confession extracted from
him when he was but fifteen years old.
Caravella is mildly retarded with an IQ of
67.
According to his defense attorney, Diane
Cuddihy, police
repeat-edly hit Caravella
dur-ing a lengthy
interroga-tion. The majority of his
statements contradicted
facts police knew from
their investigation.
Like-wise, his later statement
contradicted five other
statements the then teen
made over the course of
an interrogation lasting
seven days.
For example: Caravella
said the victim, a
wom-an of fifty-eight, was “a
girl”; that she was taller
than he, which was not true; the murder
weapon was a butcher knife, when in fact,
it was a steak knife; three other juveniles
participated in the stabbing, but later, that
he acted alone; he never choked the victim
who, in fact, had been strangled; there was
no chair at the crime scene in an
elemen-tary school, when, in fact, a chair was at the
scene. Cuddihy noted police fed her client
other details about the crime by the time
he made his fifth “confession.”
Prosecutors sought the death penalty.
Fortunately, the jury voted 11-1 for life
imprisonment. Caravella was released in
September following a negative DNA test,
but required to wear an ankle bracelet and
keep an 11:00 P.M. curfew pending further
confirmatory tests. These were done, and
on March 25
th, all charges against him were
dropped. The judge declared Caravella was
actually innocent and apologized on behalf
of the State of Florida and its criminal
jus-tice system.
The tragedy of this case is that DNA
test-ing was not necessary to understand a
mis-carriage of justice had occurred based on the
false confession of a retarded boy. Courts
are traditionally concerned only with the
constitutional requirement that
confes-sions be voluntary, not physically coerced.
To date, courts have paid little emphasis to
interrogation techniques employed by
po-lice to extract false confessions. Likewise,
courts do not measure confessions against
physical evidence to determine if the two
are consistent. Instead, courts typically say
inconsistencies go to the “weight” of
evi-dence, not its admissibility at trial, and leave
it to juries to sort out the contradictions.
In Caravella’s case, however, the stark
in-consistencies between his false confession
and physical evidence in the case was a
red flag which should have alerted the trial
judge to exclude the confession from
evi-dence at trial.
All police should be
re-quired to videotape
sta-tionhouse interrogations
from beginning to end
with clear views of both
the suspect and his
inter-rogators. Had that
hap-pened in Caravella’s case,
cameras would have
cap-tured police coercion and
made it clear police were
feeding him the
informa-tion about which he then
“confessed.” Likewise,
the presence of cameras
would have prevented
police from hitting the boy, a fact they
con-veniently omitted from their trial testimony
which persuaded the jury to convict.
Studies by psychologists about false
con-fessions reveal that suspects with mental
illness or other mental deficiencies try to
compensate for their limitations by being
cooperative with their interrogators.
Cor-rective legislation is needed to insure such
people are provided with an attorney prior
to questioning. Waiver of the right to have
an attorney present during questioning is
Lessons from the Caravella Exoneration -
Part 1
not meaningful if the person
be-ing questioned lacks the mental
resources to understand the
sig-nificance of the right he or she is
waiving.
Likewise, special care must to
be taken when police interrogate
juveniles, as they are particularly
vulnerable to making false
con-fessions. It should be mandatory
that juveniles have an attorney
present during questioning, not
just a parent, as the law in most
places currently requires.
Sadly, the failure of the trial
judge in Caravella’s case is by
no means rare. The bench and
bar must inaugurate programs
to educate judges about the
variables which recur in
wrong-ful conviction causes, including
false confessions, to put a stop
to this terrible injustice.
Prosecutors must remember
their duty is to seek justice, not
merely win convictions. Surely,
the Florida prosecutors who
se-cured Caravella’s conviction had
to know his confession was
bo-gus. Yet, in their zeal to convict,
they put an innocent boy away
for twenty-six years and ruined
his life. He can never get those
years back again.
Police officers who strike
suspects should be prosecuted.
Although beating suspects is
illegal, and can be prosecuted
under state and federal law,
these laws are rarely enforced.
Lastly, and most
impor-tantly, Caravella’s case
illus-trates the unacceptable risk
the death penalty poses to
our criminal justice system.
Had the jury voted to
ex-ecute, Caravella would have
been put to death as an
inno-cent man. He was lucky that
the jury voted to spare him
and put him in prison for
life instead. Had they voted
for death, he would not have
lived long enough to have
been cleared, and the state’s
fatal mistake in convicting
an innocent man would have
been buried forever along
with his dead body.
This week, high school seniors
anxiously await acceptance
no-tices from colleges and
univer-sities. For many applicants,
get-ting in is a long shot. Popular
public colleges like SUNY
Bing-hamton accept but one in twelve
applicants. For New York’s most
elite colleges, acceptance is
even more difficult. Last year,
for example, Colgate
Univer-sity received 7,814 applications
from fifty states, D.C. and 123
countries, and admitted 2,461
or 31.5% with an average GPA
of 3.73 and average combined
SAT scores of 1397. Moreover,
applicants must stand out
be-yond high grades and top
stan-dardized test scores. Colgate
rejected several hundred
vale-dictorians and students with
perfect test scores.
In the college admissions
sweepstakes, local students face
competition from their peers
nationwide, international
stu-dents and displaced workers
hoping to bolster their
academ-ic credentials and
employabil-ity. As a result, an entire cottage
industry of college admissions
consulting has sprung up to
help students get into the
col-lege of their choice.
While results are never
guar-anteed, college summer
pro-grams represent an increasingly
popular strategy to catch an
admission director’s eye.
Tradi-tionally, summer sessions were
offered only to college students
who took courses unavailable
during winter and spring
semes-ters, or those intent on
graduat-ing early, or those who needed
to fulfill additional course
re-quirements for programs like
pre-med.
In recent years, however, a
growing number of colleges
here and abroad now offer
pro-grams to high school kids
hop-ing to improve their chances for
admission. Faced with
increas-ing cutbacks, fewer grants, and
lower alumni donation rates,
many colleges opened their
campuses in summer to
gener-ate new revenues, and buildings
and resources that otherwise
laid fallow in years past now
hum with high school students.
Programs vary by college. For
high academic achievers, one
popular option is summers
ses-sions at elite British universities
like Oxford and Cambridge. This
adds international experience
and a prestigious label to their
applications. Oxford’s “Summer
Academy” is open to students
aged 16-19. Each morning,
students take elective courses
ranging from drama to public
speaking, and in the afternoons,
participate in sports like
row-ing or cricket. Students also
have access to private tutoring,
SAT preparation, and cultural
activities like excursions to the
Cotswolds and London on
eve-nings and weekends. The
two-week program costs
approxi-mately $5,000 for tuition, room,
board and round-trip airfare.
For many, however,
atten-dance at elite schools abroad is
cost-prohibitive. For these
stu-dents, there are many options at
U.S. colleges. For example, the
University of Maryland offers
a three-week “Young Scholars”
program with college-credit
courses in things like
“Land-scape Architecture,”
“Interna-tional Politics” and
“Contro-versies in Archaeology,” plus
activities, workshops, and
semi-nars. Students live on campus
and formally register with the
college. They experience all
as-pects of collegiate life, from
living in traditional-style
resi-dential halls to eating meals in
campus dining halls. Program
mentors supervise students to
insure their security, and
ac-company kids on weekend field
trips, social activities, seminars,
and other events. The
three-week program costs $3,000 for
tuition, room, board, and all
ac-tivities. The University offers up
to $800 in financial aid to
quali-fied students to offset program
costs.
Some summer programs, like
Summer Institute for the
Gift-ed, are run by organizations
not affiliated with any college.
They simply rent campus
facili-ties. Students considering these
programs should investigate
them to determine if
interest-ing classes are offered, whether
courses qualify for college
cred-it, and the credentials of those
teaching the courses.
Some colleges do not offer
programs specifically geared
to high school students, but do
allow high school kids to sign
up for normal, college summer
classes. This enables the student
to get to know faculty and
ad-ministrators, giving them a leg
up when applying for admission
to that college a semester or two
later.
Many New York colleges fall
into this category. For example,
Skidmore College in Saratoga
Springs allows high school kids
to enroll as full-time students
for the summer. Skidmore
ad-vises applicants to “study what
they want to study, not so much
what they think they ought
to study” in order to explore
“an area where you feel your
strengths lie” or to “delve into an
unexplored subject to challenge
your perceptions and discover
new fields of knowledge.”
Likewise, SUNY schools now
offer summer programs to high
school students. For example,
Alfred University has a
spe-Getting A Jump Start On College
cialized program in astronomy
designed for kids interested in
pursuing college education in
the physical sciences or math.
The program is staffed by Alfred
Physics Department faculty and
covers topics like variable star
photometry, asteroid
astrome-try, imaging of nebulae, clusters
and galaxies, solar activity,
lu-nar and planetary science, solar
flares, stellar evolution, galactic
structure, cosmology and
spec-troscopy, etc.
Like their Maryland and
Ox-ford counterparts, the SUNY
Alfred program is not all work
and no play. Alfred assures
students that, when they are
not in classes, “students enjoy
planned recreational activities
which may include indoor and
outdoor games, movies, a visit
to nearby Foster Lake for
pic-nics and campfires, swimming,
hiking, social gatherings at the
Terra Cotta Coffee House, and a
farewell party on the last night.”
The week-long program is
avail-able to students in grades 10 –
12 and costs $895 for tuition,
materials, room, board, and all
activities. For some parents,
that’s less than the home costs
to feed and entertain their
teen-ager for a week.
Likewise, Syracuse University,
SUNY Geneseo, Ithaca College,
and Sarah Lawrence in
Bronx-ville all have high school
sum-mer programs. Westchester
Community College offers an
art portfolio development
pro-gram for teens sixteen and up
who plan to apply to art schools.
Some colleges, like SUNY
Bing-hamton and Brooklyn College,
even offer summer courses to
middle school students.
Applying to these summer
programs is often more costly
than applying to colleges. Many
summer programs charge a
non-refundable $100-250
ap-plication fee, and often, the fee
is not applicable to the cost of
the program. In addition, some
colleges do not guarantee an
ap-plicant will be able to take his or
her preferred courses. Students
should select summer programs
with care as these programs are
relatively new, not regulated by
the state Department of
Edu-cation, and many high school
counselors are unfamiliar with
them.
For some kids, a taste of real
college life is often enough to
in-spire them to study harder
dur-ing the school year. Others may
defer college for a year or two
un-til they feel they are truly ready.
Some may decide a particular
college is not for them after all.
For more information, parents
and students should log onto
www.summeroncampus.com
which provides links to many of
the summer programs,
includ-ing sports camps and
non-col-lege-affiliated programs in New
York.
Uptaken
I looked back over past columns to review
the numerous websites I utilized when
pre-paring for travel. Next time, I’ll share the
results of this review regarding my plans for
France at the end of this coming May.
* * *
Last year, I wrote exclusively one week
about one of my favorite websites, www.
yelp.com, and referred to it at least once or
twice thereafter. It is not a travel website
per se, but is very useful when
research-ing thresearch-ings to do about any destination you
have in mind. For example, look up “The
Museum of Natural History,” and you will
find user reviews and related links to other
area things to do under the Google map on
each page.
The site www.uptake.com (“your first
step to a great trip”) may have taken a page
from www.yelp.com because it has a
simi-lar feel and functionality, including
em-bedded maps. Uptake.com is meant to be
a travel site, and partly, a meta-website. As
stated on its home page, it “searches 5000
travel websites and 20 million opinions at
once.” Not surprisingly, many of the
opin-ions are those of Yelpers. Travelers must
keep in mind the site features U.S.
destina-tions only, but covers all fifty states.
The user is greeted with a clear, simple
homepage. First, you are prompted to type
in a “what” and “where” in separate
box-es, though the “what” is not necessary to
yield search results. The site prompts you
with lots of ideas: try options like “family
things to do” in “the Adirondacks.” After
you choose a place, whether it be an exact
location, a county, state, region, and the
like, Uptake.com will suggest ideas on
but-tons below. There are thoughtfully
practi-cal ideas, like “just get away” (my personal
favorite), “family vacation,” “romantic
get-away,” “pet friendly,” “feelin’ broke,”
“his-torical,” and “girls getaway”.
With tongue firmly in cheek, I tried
“fee-lin’ broke” in Mt. Kisco to put it to the
test. Like Google, it will search and
sug-gest on the fly. The familiar and unfamiliar
came up. The familiar included Lyndhurst
(house), the John Jay Homestead, Van
Cor-tlandt Manor, Rockefeller State Park, and
Katonah Art Center, with links to their
re-spective websites.
What I did not expect were Cedar Lane
Dog Park and Pace University Aquatics.
This last one does not belong there. As
one reviewer pointed out, “It’s definitely
not cheap.... e.g. $245 for an 8-week
ses-sion of 30-minute classes.”
Uptake.com has useful blogs on many
subjects such as vacations, beaches,
res-taurants, hotels, lodging, attractions, as
well as the travel industry generally.
With tongue removed from cheek, I can
highly recommend this site for finding
what you seek, and perhaps what you’re
not seeking that may provide an
unexpect-ed, refreshing experience. Often, it’s not
the tried-and-true destinations, but
in-stead, the never-considered idea that truly
makes me admire creators of sites like this.
For example, thanks to this website, I
de-cided to reserve a camping spot at a New
York State Park on Long Island this
sum-mer, and not too soon, indeed. I had not
realized how much the park had to offer
or its beauty, and plans to vacation there
simply faded from my bucket list. Sound
familiar?
As the reader can discern, I’ve been
tak-en in by www.uptake.com, a superb source
of information about many travel options.
wheelsportcenter.net newrocyamaha.com
.
It has gone international
since I last visited it. The site
has a surfeit of ideas. You can
always find something to fit
your travel budget and
han-kerings. I suggest using it in
conjunction with www.kayak.
com which is great for finding
and booking transportation.
* * *
Travel Quotation of the Week
I travel in so many different
ways; I travel high, I rough it... it
all depends on who I travel with.
~Diane von Furstenberg
West Harrison, New York, pharmacist, Scott Burko, age
forty-seven, was charged this week in White Plains federal court in a
bizarre, three-year conspiracy to dispense Prednisone, a
non-an-abolic steroid used to reduce inflamation in bronchial tissues to
treat asthma and interstitial tissues to treat arthritis and other joint
disorders.
Prosecutors allege that Burko dispensed the drug – which is not a
drug of abuse – eighty-one times in ten milligram doses to fictional
patients from April, 2005 to the end of March, 2008.
The conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of five years
in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000. Eighty-one individual
counts of fraudulently dispensing the Prednisone carry a maximum
sentence of three years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
IBM Executive Pleads Guilty In Massive Insider Trading Case
Last week, Robert Moffat, Jr., a former senior executive at Armonk-based, International Business Machines Corp., pled guilty to securities fraud involving the largest hedge fund insider trading case in history.
Moffat passed inside information to a Danielle Chiesi about a forth-coming business deal in involving Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., a com-puter chip maker and one of Intel’s main competitor. Moffat was IBM’s Senior Vice President and Group Executive in its Systems and Technol-ogy Group, and learned that AMD planned to spin off its manufacturing business into a separate entity because AMD needed a license from IBM to do the deal which involved certain IBM technology.
Chiesi worked for New Castle Partners, an equity hedge fund group affiliated with JPMorgan Chase. The pair were overheard on federal wire-taps. Moffat assured Chiesi the deal was going down, giving her a chance to make a killing on trades of IBM and AMD stock. Ironically, New Castle never realized a profit due to turmoil in the markets caused by the 2008 fiscal crisis.
Moffat, who lives in Ridgefield, Connecticut, faces up to twenty years in prison and a $5 million fine. He will be sentenced on July 26, 2010. His guilty plea marks the 11th conviction in the feds’ ongoing insider trading investigation.
Rouge Sleepy Hollow Cop Charged With Witness Tampering
Sleepy Hollow police detective, Jose Quinoy, previously charged with federal civil rights violations based on the savage beating of two hand-cuffed suspects in police custody, was charged last week with witness tampering after he tried to induce a witness to lie about the beating inci-dents on October 17th and December 17th, 2006.
Quinoy faces a maximum sentence of twenty years in prison on the new charge, and ten years on each count based on the beatings.
PAGE 15 The Westchester Guardian Thursday, April 15, 2010
A
T
aste of
P
uerto
R
ico
I
n
T
he
H
eart
o
f
N
ew
Y
ork!
400 East 57th St., New York, NY 10022 • T 212.754.5999 F 212.754.5959
sofritony.com
Dinner 7 Days a Week I Bar I Catering I Entertainment
Sofrito
has a hot little sister and her name is
Sazon!
Now Open at 105 Reade St., Tribeca
I
com Attn Francesca
Adi 718.607.5899
COMMUNTIY CALENDAR: FREE Listing for events that are free and open to all. Page Editor & Designer: Marike
Ecology: Moss and Lichen Lab
Slide Show & Lecture highlights the beauty of mosses and lichens and their amazing lifestyles. Free. 7:00pm Westchester County Parks Dept. Cranberry Lake Preserve, Old Orchard Street, North White Plains, NY 10603. 914.428.1005 (F/U hike on Sat., April 17 @ 1p.m.) Co-sponsor:Central Westchester Audubon Society.
westchester-gov.com/parks/naturecenters
Support Group meets once,
monthly: Support Connec-tion, Inc., an NFP org. offer-ing free support services to people affected by breast and ovarian cancer. Facilitated by a trained peer counselor who has experienced breast can-cer. Topics pertaining to living with breast cancer through all stages of diagnosis, treatment and post-treatment. 7:00 – 8:00 PM FREE - Pre-Registration is Req.Putnam Hospital, 670 Stoneleigh Avenue, Carmel, NY, 914-962-6402. [email protected]
supportconnection.org _____________________ Neuberger Museum of Art, SUNY Purchase offers a
program for individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease and their family members or care part-ners. Specially trained docents guide visitors through exhibi-tions for a shared, positive so-cial experience. FREE. Limited space; reservations are req.: 914.251.6110.
neuberger.org
Wii Fun Friday Kids
Compe-tition takes place on the big screen in The Trove’s Galaxy Hall. For boys and girls in grades 1 to 5. Additional Infor-mation: Limited Seating/Arrive early: tickets are given out on a first-come, first-served basis 30 min. before the start of the program. FREE/Hrs: 4:30 pm White Plains Public Library 100 Martine Ave.,White Plains. Info: Reference Desk 914-422-1480
whiteplainslibrary.org
________________________
River Lovers Pot Luck Dinner & Meeting. 6:30pm Join River
Lovers and learn what’s hap-pening on our natural heritage river. 6:30 p.m. Free; West-chester County Parks Dept. Croton Point Nature Center, Croton Point Park, Croton Point Avenue,Croton-on-Hudson, NY, 914.862.5297
riverlovers.org
________________________ Gardening: Lyndhurst Car-riage House April 16-17,The
Gilded Cage; 10am – 4pm. Presented by the Garden Club of Irvington-on-Hudson. Show honors Victorian era & Lynd-hurst: flower arrangements, Victorian horticultural specimen favorites, terrariums, topiar-ies, landscape and horticultural photography; conservation ex-hibit. One exhibition class will includes a display of hats from the Lyndhurst costume collec-tion. Maintenance of the Rose Garden at Lyndhurst has been the principal project of The Gar-den Club of Irvington, a GCA affiliated Garden Club, for more than 40 yrs. Show open to the public at no charge. Reg Charg-es apply to tours of mansion:
lyndurst.org
The Fourth Annual Autism Information Fair: Interventions,
Services & Supports avail. for all ages. Visit over 75 information stations and participate in all new programs. Sunday 11am-3:30pm. FREE. Westchester County Center 198 Central Ave., White Plains, NY 10606
navigatingthespectrum.org
Earth Day Celebration
Ken-sico Dam Plaza, Valhalla.10a. m-4p.m. Greener, sustainable living ideas; live music; local farmers market; Free adm. & parking. Annie and the Natural Wonder Band; Jeff Boyer: “The Attainable, Sustainable energy Show,”- fun experiments and visual effects show young au-diences how wind and solar energy are transformed into us-able “green” power. The Solar Punch band will use solar en-ergy exclusively. 914.813.5425 or westchestergov.com.______________________
Ecology:Mushrooms & Lichen
Often overlooked, fungi and li-chen are legion; their importance incalculable. Walk with natural-ist Taro Letaka and change the way you walk through the forest. Bring a notebook. Sun. 2 p.m. FREE. Marshlands Conservan-cy, Rte. 1, Rye
westchester-gov.com/parks/naturecenters. ______________________ Family Farm Fun at Muscoot Farm: 1-3p.m. Katonah. Join
farm staff in playing old fash-ioned games & having fun.
muscootfarm.org
Support Group 10:15 - 11:15am meets once monthly.
Support Connection, Inc., an NFP org. Free support services to people affected by breast and ovarian cancer. Facilitated by a trained peer counselor who has experienced breast can-cer. Topics pertaining to living with breast cancer through all stages of diagnosis, treatment and post-treatment. 3rd Monday of each month-10:15 – 11:15 AM Free - Pre-Registration is Required Mahopac Public Li-brary, 668 Route 6, Mahopac, NY 914-962-6402 [email protected] support-connection.org
_________________________ Child Enrichment: White Plains Public Library. 4:00
- 6:30 PM. Spend 15 minutes with a reading coach. Learn to read better and improve your school work. First through fifth grade with parent. Register beginning the previous week. Registration Ends: 4/19/2010 at 4:00 PM Rosemary Rasmussen 914-422-1476.
whiteplainslibrary.org
Thurs. April 15
Fri. April 16
Sat. April 17
Sun. April 18
Mon. April 19
Tues. April 20
3rd Annual Wheelchair Bas-ketball Tournament: Hosted
by the Barrier Breakers from Ce-rebral Palsy of Westchester. Ex-hibition Game at 7:00 p.m. The NY Rollin Knicks vs. the Bulova Nets. 6pm Free Westchester County Center 198 Central Ave, White Plains , NY 10606. Joan Colangelo 914-937-3800 X 215 Westchester County Center. E-mail:
Gardening: Wave Hill FREE
admission every Tuesday and Saturday morning from 9AM to Noon year round. Sponsored by Target to providie public access to the arts in our com-munity. Ongoing gallery exhibi-tions, Family Art Project listings and more on Target Free Days. West 249th Street and Indepen-dence Avenue (front gate) 675 West 252nd Street (mailing) Bronx, NY 10471-2899. Free all day Tues. during off-peak months (November–April, July & August); Free 9am - noon during peak months (May, June, September, October); Sat.: Free 9am - noon year-round. Parking (effective May 1, 2008) Onsite: $8 per vehicle. Nearby offsite parking is free with continuous, comp van service. wavehill.org
Gardening: Lyndhurst. April
16-17, The Gilded Cage – Flow-er Show held in the Carriage House. Show open to the public at no charge; Reg Charges ap-ply to tours of mansion.
lyndurst.org
________________________ Jazz Singer: ‘Michelle LeBlanc’
1:30 pm - 3:30 pm @ Mt. Kisco Public Library, 100 Main St. Mt. Kisco. Presented by Friends of the Mount Kisco Library. Free
mountkiscolibrary.org
_______________________
Bird Watching: 9:00am. Learn
binocular and field guide use, tips on field marks, shape and behavior that will help you start on a lifelong hobby. Bring your own binoculars and field guides if you have them. West-chester County Parks Dept. Marshlands Conservancy, Rte.1, Rye, NY. 914.835.4466
westchestergov.com/parks/ naturecenters
Gardening: Wave Hill FREE
adm. every Tues. and Sat. morn. 9AM to Noon year round. Spon-sored by Target, providing public access to the arts in our com-munity. Ongoing gallery exhibi-tions, Family Art Project listings and more on Target Free Days. West 249th Street and Inde-pendence Ave. (front gate) 675 West 252nd St. (mailing) Bronx, NY 10471-2899. Sat.: Free 9am - noon year-round. Parking (ef-fective May 1, 2008) Onsite: $8 per vehicle. Free offsite parking nearby w continuous, comp. shuttle van. wavehill.org
Email Submissions for County Calendar to [email protected] Attn: Marike
Thurs. April 22
Fri. April 23
Sat. April 24
great stuff on the web:
Downtown Music @ Grace Church, White Plains 1:00pm.
Take the A Train: The Earl Brown Quartet with flutist Pa-mela Sklar. Classic Jazz. Free. Mamaroneck & Main.
gracewhiteplains.com
Music at St. Paul’s Church, Mt. Vernon:1pm. Series of solo
and ensemble performances featuring a variety of instru-ments, styles and sounds of music. Programs run about 50 minutes, and include brief talks on the history of St. Paul’s N.H.S. Bronx Opera, selections, accompanied by organ. FREE. National Historic Site, 897 S. Columbus Avenue, Mt. Vernon, New York 914-667-4116
nps.gov/sapa
Birding: Marshlands Conser-vancy. First Spring Migration
Bird Walk: Series; early morn-ing bird walks on alt. Saturdays and Sundays during spring migration. Birds tend to arrive in an area on almost the same date each yr., depending upon their species. Bring binoculars Sat. 7:30am. Free. Rte 1 Rye. 914.835.4466 westchester-gov.com/parks/naturecenters
________________________
How To Think Like a Tracker Edith G. Read Sanctuary, Playland Park, Rye. Learn to
see animal tracks and clues as we investigate nearby fields and forests. Discover how the land-scape influences animals and how animals impact the land. An intermediate level program, for ages 12 and up. Saturday 1 p.m. Free: 914.967.8720.
westchestergov.com/parks/ naturecenters
_______________________
Tilly Foster Farm: Spring Fling April 24-25 10:00 am
– 3:00 pm. Hudson Valley Draft Horse Assoc., plowing demon-stration, sheep sheering, an-tique tractors and machinery, rare American farm animals, student show and more!
tilly-fosterfarm.org Star-Gazing & Public Lecture:
8:00-8:30 PM Telescope Ob-servation: 8:30-10:00PM, Co-lumbia University, Pupin 301 David Helfand: The Universal Timekeepers:Reconstruct-ing Pre-History Atom by Atom Astrophotography Slideshow: 8:30-10:00 PM
outreach.astro.columbia.edu
Star-Gazing: Hudson River Museum Free Friday Nights @ 6:30 pm, New Star Show Departure. Space journey half
a century into the future: il-lustrations, graphics, & video, produced at the Museum’s plan-etarium. Learn the realities of space travel befor departing via orbital shuttle. What challenges do humans face as we step be-yond Earth? What dangers must be overcome? Are there places we will never see in person? Your destination is a secret until takeoff and may surprise you! Ages 8 +; 511 Warburton Ave., Yonkers 914.963.4550 hrm.org
garrisonartcenter.org: Virtual Gallery
Worth the trip from Westchester; if you don’t have time, take a culture break and visit their online gallery.
pelham library.org Learning Express Auralog This website rocks as an online
resource! Create online account to access courses for adults and children. Courses in-clude Algebra, GED; Occupational practice tests; Workplace skill improvements, class-es for students:elementary though college and resources for Spanish speakers.Can’t sleep? Use your library card to dowload a li-brary book online!
portchesterlibrary.org
Directory of
im-migrant services. Download E-books.
wowwwellness.org Women’s Health Spread
the Word! The WOW coalition seeks to ed-ucate, empower, and advocate to improve health outcomes and eliminate health dis-parities among women of color in Northern Westchester County.
History Lecture: 7:30 p.m., Lincoln and his connections to New York, Bruce Museum
Life-Size Lecture Series Harold Holzer, Senior Vice President for External Affairs, Metropoli-tan Museum of Art, and Curator of Lincoln and New York at the New-York Historical Society, Free to Museum members; $5 at the door for non-members. Reservations are strongly rec-ommended: 203.869.0376. One Museum Point, Greenwich.
brucemuseum.org_____________________ Medicare 101 County Office Building 9 S. First Ave., 8th floor, Mount Vernon 10 a.m.
to noon. Learn the basics of Medicare (Parts A, B, C and D), Medigap insurance and more. Programs are free but reserva-tions are requested. To sign up, call the Medicare Information Line at 914.813.6100.
senior-citizens.westchestergov.com ______________________ Traumatic Brain Injury Sup-port Group: 6:30-8PM Burke Hospital White Plains for
sur-vivors of traumatic brain injury & caregivers. Wood Pavilion, Bldg. 7 Rm G-41 785 Mam Ave. Janet Goodman 914.587.2237
