sisakphoto.com | blog

'Part of Dr. King's Dream is Alive.'

2009-01-18T21:23:00.000-08:00

By Michael R. Sisak/The Citizens' Voice

Rev. Kenneth Burnett saw American history and black history side-by-side on the walls of a classroom at E.L. Meyers High School in Wilkes-Barre.

“They had pictures of all the presidents hanging around the room and they had one picture of Martin Luther King,” Burnett said. “Our history is much bigger than that.”

Rosa Parks and Harriet Tubman are part of that history. Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass are part of that history.

Barack Obama is part of that history.

Arthur Breese, the Director of Diversity for Geisinger Health System and the co-chairman of the Luzerne County Diversity Commission, expects his thoughts to shift to those historic men and women tomorrow as he watches on television Obama’s inauguration as the nation’s first black president.

“They are a silent bunch right now,” Breese said. “But we could never forget them.”

Obama will take the oath of office across the National Mall in Washington D.C. from the spot in front of the Lincoln Memorial where King chanted, “I have a dream,” and preached for equality and justice for all.

“Part of Dr. King’s dream is alive — that we judge someone by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin, which was so integral in his dream,” Breese said. “It's going to impact our children, to be able to see someone of color in that position — especially where our children have very little frame of reference with regard to that.”

Obama’s election will not end racism or eliminate the hate and bigotry that continues to confront blacks across the country and in the region, Ron Felton, the president of the Wilkes-Barre chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said.

"I don't think we should be disillusions or falsely believe that his election is going to end racism,” Felton said. “What it did do was show that racism is become less and less of an issue."

Obama’s inauguration will not add more black teachers to local schools, or to the ranks of the Wilkes-Barre City police and fire departments. Currently, Wilkes-Barre had one black police officer and no black firefighters, Breese said.

“In this area, people talk diversity, they don't really believe in diversity,” Burnett said.

Obama will inherit a nation confronted by a myriad of issues, including the economic meltdown and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His leadership on those fronts can have a major impact on race and the youth who see him as a role model, Felton said.

“The byproduct of this most dire time since the Great Depression, is that he's on stage front and center and I think it will do a lot for race relations, I know it has done a lot for the African-American community,” Felton said. Now when our children say they want to be president, the parents won't say, ‘yeah, sure, o.k.’ 'Yes, we can. I think that slogan will resonate for many years to come.”

Obama’s victory last January in the Iowa caucuses, the first contest of the Democratic primary season, solidified his viability as a candidate and potential nominee, Breese and Felton said.

Felton called it a game changer.

“The best analogy is like when you’re watching a football game and one play can be a momentum changer,” Felton said. “That one play was Iowa. Iowa caused many African-Americans to stop and take another look.”

Black voters needed Iowa to validate Obama’s candidacy, Felton said.

"That caused many of us to stop and take a more serious look at his candidacy,” Felton said. “That's how I followed it, pretty much on."

Obama earned 37.6 percent of the vote in Iowa, beating the establishment Democrats John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who won 24.7 and 29.4 percent of the vote, respectively.

"When he won Iowa, I said, ‘this is going to happen — if Iowa is electing him, he has a chance,’” Breese recalled.

His 77-year-old father, James, remained skeptical.

James had lived through segregation and civil rights and had seen other black candidates falter. He remembers a time in Wilkes-Barre when blacks were confined to one street, one neighborhood, one cemetery; a time when they were forced to enter the Westmoreland Club on South Franklin Street from the rear — just as blacks had been made to do at establishments in the South.

"Nope, don't get too excited,” James told Arthur. “Don't get your hopes up because you're going to get let down. This is as far as it's going to go."

Shirley Chisholm, a schoolteacher and seven-term congresswoman from Brooklyn, N.Y., won 2.7 percent of the vote during the 1972 Democratic primaries and received 152 of the first-ballot votes at the party’s convention in Miami Beach, where George McGovern won the nomination.

Jesse Jackson, the minister and civil rights activist, won 18.2 percent of the overall primary voting in 1984, and earned victories in Louisiana, South Carolina, Virginia, Mississippi and the District of Columbia. He finished third behind former Vice President Walter Mondale and Colorado Sen. Gary Hart.

In 1988, Jackson earned 29.1 percent of the overall primary vote, winning 7 primaries and 4 caucuses. He briefly led the race, with the most overall delegates, but ultimately lost the nomination to Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.

Chisholm earned 1 percent of the vote in Iowa in 1972 and Jackson took 2 percent in 1984. Jackson did not compete in the caucuses in 1988.

Obama followed Iowa with Super Tuesday victories in Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota and Utah.

Obama clinched the nomination by June.

"Just seeing that transformation from then to now and to see a person win a major caucus like that and put together a string of wins, and raising money, the kind of money he raised, it was overwhelming," Felton said.

Angel Jirau, a member of the Wilkes-Barre N.A.A.C.P. and the Luzerne County Diversity Commission, cried last week as he thought back to election night and the tallies — Obama at 365 electoral votes, the Republican nominee Sen. John McCain at 173.

“Even at this time it's very emotional, I was overcome as I am now,” Jirau said. “I just couldn't believe it. I went around from house to house that night when the results came in, I never seen so many grown people crying, holding hands, going to church. It was like a big weight was lifted from all those people who fought for this for so many years.”

Obama’s rise to power and widespread popularity (his approval rating registered at 83 percent days before the inauguration) have drawn comparisons to King, John and Robert Kennedy and even Abraham Lincoln, the iconic leader who is memorialized across the National Mall from where Obama will be sworn in.

King, the Kennedys and Lincoln were all assassinated — King on the balcony of a motel in Memphis in April 1968, John Kennedy in a Dallas motorcade in November 1963, Robert Kennedy in a Los Angeles hotel in June 1968 and Lincoln in the balcony of a Washington theater in April 1865.

"He reminds us so much of Dr. King at a young age, with what he inspired,” Jirau said. “We pray to God history does not repeat itself.”

Jirau, who grew up in New York, said he and his Puerto Rican immigrant parents, Maria and Juan Luis, found inspiration in King’s message, in his dream.

Burnett said he prays for Obama every morning and night. He prays “that the Lord watch over him and his family,” he said. He prays, “that no harm, hurt or danger” comes to them.

“All it takes is one nut,” Burnett said. “We remember not only Martin Luther King, but also Robert Kennedy and John Kennedy and Malcolm X, all those great leaders were assassinated, for what?”

Breese shared a different philosophy.

"I come from the frame of reference that you're not going anywhere until it's your time,” Breese said. “We die by appointment. We have a birth date and a death date. That's just not one of my fears.”

Tomorrow is Obama’s time to make history, to join the line of presidents on the wall of the classroom, to fulfill part of the dream.

Five Witnesses on One of Those Indelible Days

2009-01-18T20:25:00.000-08:00

Pittston attorney Michael Butera, who is attending the inauguration with his wife and son, shows off a sign from President-Elect Barack Obama's campaign. (Michael R. Sisak/The Citizens' Voice)

By Michael R. Sisak/The Citizens' Voice

Tuesday will be one of those indelible days.

One of those one small step for man and I have a dream days. One of those ask not what your country can do for you and the only thing we have to fear is fear itself days.

One of those days that will live forever in history texts and high school classrooms. One of those days when the words I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States can carry the weight of we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

Tens of millions of people are expected to watch Obama’s inauguration on television and the Internet. More then four million are projected to be in Washington, crowding in front of the U.S. Capitol and jamming the National Mall to witness the swearing-in of the nation’s first black president.

Among them: Debra Gildea, of Forty Fort; Robin Field, of Wilkes-Barre; Michael Butera, of West Pittston; Bryan McLaughlin, of Dallas; and John Mavus, of Nanticoke.

Gildea, a staff assistant at the Penn State Wilkes-Barre campus in Lehman Township, will be fulfilling an election-night promise she made to her son, Shaun, a staunch Obama supporter who works in Washington as a film editor.

"We were kind of antsy on election night, with the returns coming in, and Shaun was kind of confident,” Gildea said. “I said, 'I tell you what, if Obama wins, I'm going to come down to the inauguration whether we have tickets or not.'"

Obama won in a landslide, defeating the Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, 365 electoral votes to 173.

The next day, Gildea’s husband, John, called the office of U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, D-Dimock Township, and requested tickets to the inauguration.

“I kind of had given up on it,” Gildea said, last week. “I was very surprised when somebody from Carney’s office called and said they had two tickets for us.”

Gildea’s two other sons, Brian, 25, and Kyle, 23, plan to be among the millions watching the Inauguration from a standing room section on the National Mall, she said.

“I’ve never been to an inauguration,” Gildea said. “Being there, for me, I think it will be part of the change that is overdue for this country. Being there will just bring it home for me.”

Field, an Obama supporter since his campaign for the Senate in 2004, had doubted Tuesday — this historic Tuesday — would come.

"It almost felt like I never really imagined it could get to this point," Field said. "I was always willing to work hard and put 100 percent into it, but there was always the cynicism factor that it wasn't going to happen, that we weren't going to elect someone this good."

Field, 32, an English professor and the Director of Women’s Studies at King’s College, learned last week, in an e-mail message from the office of U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke, that she too would experience Obama’s inauguration in person.

Field began volunteering for Obama’s campaign last January — soliciting signatures for the petitions that placed him on the primary ballot in April, making telephone calls, hanging fliers and providing housing for a campaign worker who came from out of the area.

She also served as the advisor to the campus group King’s College Students for Obama and checked tickets when Obama spoke last April at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre.

Field, a native of Peoria, Ill., started supporting Obama for president around the time he announced his candidacy on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Ill. in February 2007.

A few weeks later, Field started wearing the “Obama in 2008” t-shirt she ordered from a campaign website. Obama trailed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton by 13 points in national polls and by 19 points in Pennsylvania.

“That was really when he was the dark horse candidate,” Field said. “Nobody thought he had a chance.”

Twenty-two months later, Obama is on the precipice of history.

Field will bear witness hand-in-hand with childhood friend Emily Harter Hershenson, a social worker at the National Institutes of Health in Washington whose husband, Tom, coordinated events for the Obama campaign and has been working on the transition.

"To see him sworn in, it's going to be a surreal experience," Field said. "I fully expect to be crying the whole time. The two girls from Peoria, holding hands and bawling over our senator as he's sworn in to be president."

Butera, an attorney who is active in local Democratic politics, attended both inaugurations of Obama’s Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton.

He attended the Democratic National Convention in Denver last August as a delegate and watched with his wife, Mary, and 10-year-old son, Peter, at Invesco Field as Obama accepted the Democratic nomination.

“We witnessed history that night and we’re going to witness history when he takes the oath of office,” Butera said.

The Buteras have tickets in a seating area in front of the U.S. Capitol, but the projected crowds — more than five times the 800,000 people who attended Clinton’s 1993 inauguration — could force them to watch from a distance, Butera said.

“We will be in the general vicinity, one way or another, for the swearing in,” Butera said. “It’s going to be an unprecedented crowd, the biggest crowd they’ve ever seen in Washington, D.C. It’s going to be very hard to move around. Once you land, you’re going to be stuck where you are.”

Butera, 57, said he plans to attend two pre-inaugural events tomorrow night: the Italian American Democratic Leadership Council’s cocktail party at Darlington House and the Pennsylvania Democratic Committee’s “Yes We Did! Celebration” at the Washington Plaza Hotel.

Field said she and Hershenson would attend a pre-inauguration concert and the Youth Inaugural Ball at the Washington Hilton, Tuesday night.

Field promised her students she would bring back “lots of pictures.”

McLaughlin, an engineering student at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, will see the inauguration from a different perspective: marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in the inaugural parade as a member of The Cadets, a drum and bugle corps based in Allentown.

“We’re there to do a job basically, and that’s to play, to represent this group,” McLaughlin said. “I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to play for the president or how that’s going to work out. It’s going to be really great knowing that he’s around there, knowing that our president is in the same parade that I’m in.”

McLaughlin, 20, plays the baritone horn. He auditioned for The Cadets in November and December.

After the December tryout, McLaughlin was told he would likely receive one of 75 slots in the corps’ summer roster. He was also invited to perform with the group at the inaugural parade.

“This weekend is really the final audition process for the summer,” McLaughlin said.

Mavus, a junior at Nanticoke High School, began planning his trip to the inauguration a month before Obama accepted the Democratic nomination.

Mavus, who is a member of the wrestling and baseball teams at Nanticoke, participated on two trips to Australia as a “student ambassador” and a “sports ambassador” through People to People — a not-for-profit group founded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to promote cross-cultural communication.

Last summer, the group invited Mavus to join its inauguration program.

“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Mavus said. “I couldn’t pass it up.”

Mavus will spend five days in Washington with the group — his first time in the capital city — and is scheduled to include visits to the Smithsonian American History Museum and the International Spy Museum with stops at Arlington National Cemetery and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Mavus’ teachers consider the inauguration trip an excused absence.

“It’s considered an educational field trip,” Mavus said.

Mavus, an Obama supporter despite being too young to vote, said he expects to watch the inaugural ceremony from the Lincoln Memorial, near where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963.

That connection with history will make Tuesday even more special, Butera said.

"That makes it so much nicer," Butera said. "The fact that it is the day after Martin Luther King Day, the fact that it is occurring where so many civil rights events occurred, it is presently ironic. Everything is falling into place for a wonderfully historic event."

History Here and Everywhere

2008-11-06T00:46:00.000-08:00

By Michael R. Sisak / The Citizens’ Voice

WILKES-BARRE — Luzerne County voted for history, Tuesday night.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, defeated the Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, in the county by nearly 10 percentage points, en route to a victory in Pennsylvania and election as the country’s first African-American president.

“It’s a great day for America,” Mark Bufalino, the Luzerne County Democratic Chairman, said as he watched election returns in the rotunda of the Luzerne County Courthouse.

Obama, D-Ill. received 67,446 votes, or 54.13 percent of the county’s vote, with all but two of the 189 precincts reporting as of 11:15 p.m., Tuesday. McCain, R-Ariz., won 55,713 votes, or 44.17 percent, and other candidates received 1,448 votes, or 1.16 percent.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., defeated Obama in the state’s Democratic primary on April 22 by a 3-to-1 margin in Luzerne County and McCain’s campaign actively pursued disenfranchised Clinton supporters — inviting them to the opening of the county Republican Party’s headquarters and stocking them with signs that said, “Democrats for McCain.”

The McCain strategy failed, Bufalino said.

“This shows that all of the talk about the Hillary defections didn’t come to fruition and that Luzerne County like the rest of America was committed to the type of change that Barack Obama and Joe Biden were talking about, which is the change for real people, particularly the middle class.”

Luzerne County Director of Elections Leonard Piazza expected voter turnout to eclipse the record of 70.7 percent set in 2004, when Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass. challenged President George W. Bush's bid for re-election.

At least 70 percent of registered voters in Luzerne County went to the polls on Tuesday, with an additional 8,500 casting absentee ballots.

Participation since 2004 had not been nearly as strong, with 29 percent of the electorate casting ballots in 2005, 49.9 percent in the mid-term elections in 2006 and 38 percent in the municipal and county elections in 2007.

Piazza said the "historic" nature of this year's election, with the possibility of electing Obama as the first African-American president, and the Obama campaign's frenetic get out the vote campaign — with door hangers and e-mails reminding voters where to cast their ballots and how to get to their polling places — contributed to the high turnout.

"That's something we have been hearing about all year long, from the primary season with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton all the way to this election," Piazza said. "It's a very historic election, not just for our county, but for the country.”

Registered Democrats eligible to vote in the presidential election in Luzerne County outnumbered Republicans by a nearly 3-to-2 margin — 111,317 to 61,085.

Obama’s campaign targeted those voters with advertisements on local television and radio stations that touted the candidate’s proposed tax cuts for middle-class workers making under $200,000, his plans to end the economic crisis and his support for a form of universal health care.

Other advertisements tied McCain to President George W. Bush, claiming they shared many of the same conservative policies and that McCain voted with Bush in the Senate 90 percent of the time.

Luzerne County Commissioner Stephen A. Urban, a Republican, objected to the Democrats’ broad-brushed treatment of McCain and other Republican candidates, like 11th District Congressional contender Lou Barletta.

“I think that’s a sad state of affairs to stereotype individual candidates as George W. Bush,” Urban said. “I was under the assumption that race relations were better in this country, but for the Democratic Party to stereotype people, I think they need t take a look in the mirror.”

Obama’s vice presidential nominee, Scranton native Sen. Joe Biden, campaigned in Wilkes-Barre in September, and a series of surrogates pushed Obama’s message of hope and change in the final days before the election — including Caroline Kennedy and Gov. Ed Rendell, who originally supported Clinton.

“The people of this area readily identify with not only the policies, the promises and the hope of Obama/Biden, but they have also been the people who were most victimized by the last eight years and the economic fallout that has affected all of them,” Bufalino said.

“The loyal Democrats and the Hillary supporters responded to the call as well, I don’t think they would have had nearly the support without the combined efforts of both camps,” Bufalino said.

Television networks, including ABC and MSNBC, projected Pennsylvania and its 21 electoral votes for Obama just after 8 p.m., despite no votes having been counted in the state.

“All right, we'll shut all of this off and go home," Piazza said, after hearing the networks’ projections.

The first precinct counted in Luzerne County, Ward 2 in Edwardsville, was also the first reported in the state, Piazza said.

Those results were a good early sign for the dozen Obama supporters gathered in the courthouse rotunda — 309 to 189 over McCain.

The rest was history.

msisak@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2061

The Battlegrounds

2008-11-03T16:02:00.000-08:00

Sen. Barack Obama waits to be introduced at his final campaign event in Scranton before the state's April 22 Democratic primary. (Michael R. Sisak/The Citizens' Voice)

Ohio, Pennsylvania and the people and issues that could decide the presidential election

By Michael R. Sisak / The Citizens' Voice

LANCASTER, Ohio — Sen. John McCain peered out from a stage built against the disparate pastiche of a quaint, covered bridge and a fresh, bold “Victory in Ohio” banner, and reminded his thousands of sign-waving supporters here of the potential weight of their vote and their state.

"Friends, I know my political history and it’s been a long time since somebody didn’t win Ohio and became president of the United States,” McCain said last Sunday in this Republican stronghold, 30 miles southeast of Columbus. “I’m going to win Ohio and become president of the United States.”

McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, shared a similar sentiment about Pennsylvania last Monday at Martz Hall in Pottsville.

“Let's start out with a message tonight: We need to win Pennsylvania,” McCain said. “I need your votes so we can bring real change to Washington, D.C.”

If state-by-state polling and electoral map projections are accurate, McCain will need to win Pennsylvania and Ohio.

The neighboring states — battlegrounds in the parlance of political pundits — account for 41 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election and are home to a dichotomy of voters in an mélange of environs — from the urban and educational centers of Philadelphia and Columbus and the post-industrial cities of Pittsburgh and Cleveland, to the more conservative-minded small communities of Ithaca in Western Ohio and Plains Township in Northeastern Pennsylvania, where economic concerns and religious values transcend party affiliation.

McCain, and his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama — and their wives, running mates and surrogates — have campaigned heavily in both states in the days before election, courting undecided voters and reminding those already decided that they must vote no matter the weather conditions, long lines or lopsided polling projections.

“It has been 22 months, four days to go, the polls look good, you can almost reach out and touch it,” Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, an Obama supporter, told a crowd of about 100 at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre last Friday. “The only thing that can kill us in Pennsylvania is if we’re complacent, if we’re lazy, if we don’t work, if we let up on the reigns, if we slow down with the finish line in sight.”

Ohio has voted for the winner of every presidential election since 1960, when Republican Richard Nixon won the state by a margin of more than six percent but John F. Kennedy, won the White House.

Pennsylvania has sided with the Democratic loser in the last two elections, choosing Sen. John F. Kerry over President George W. Bush in 2004 and former Vice President Al Gore over Bush in 2000.

A Republican has not won in Pennsylvania since 1988, when Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, edged former Mass. Gov. Michael Dukakis by 100,000 votes.

Economic indicators

McCain, 72, started the final full week of the campaign with rallies last Sunday in Zanesville, Ohio, 55 miles east of Columbus, and here in Lancaster, where a crowd of more than 4,500 partisans waited nearly four hours for 17 minutes with the candidate, his wife, Cindy, and best friend, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Jack Barnes, a 67-year-old retired telephone technician from rural Hocking County, Ohio, already had his choice made and his ballot cast as he listened to McCain’s frenetic pep talk on the Ohio University satellite campus here.

Barnes, a Republican and pro-life Catholic, said he voted for McCain during the early voting period that began in Ohio on Sept. 30, in part because he believes McCain has the experience and wherewithal to lead the nation through crisis, including the current economic downturn that has diminished Barnes’ 401(k) by 40 percent.

“I’m not in a position to wait until that comes back up,” Barnes said. “If I were 30 years old, you might not have a worry, but when you’re 67 and your portfolio goes down that far, that’s a big hit.”

Jack Matchko, a 54-year-old union laborer from Plains Township, said the economic crisis has slowed construction in the region, leaving him out of a steady job and his retirement in limbo.

“This election is serious stuff, it’s very serious,” Matchko said. “The market has crashed, I want to retire in a few years, what am I going to do? I’ve been out of work for a few months now, the best years I had in construction were in the Clinton years. For eight years the work was prevalent.”

Matchko has been a member of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Laborers Local 130 for 36 years, was raised a Democrat and will vote Tuesday for Obama.

“I’ve always voted Democrat because I was raised with my dad saying, ‘the Democrats will always put meat and potatoes on the table,’” Matchko said. “The Democrats always had the entitlement programs and the Republicans are cutting the entitlements.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, signed Social Security into law in 1935 and Lyndon B. Johnson, also a Democrat, enacted Medicare, the government insurance program for persons 65 and older, in 1965, Matchko said. Under the current system, retirees born between 1943 and 1955 must be 66 to be eligible to collect full Social Security benefits and 67 if born after 1960.

“McCain is talking about a later retirement age,” Matchko said. “What I do for a living, it’s not getting any easier. You don’t want to do this work in the snow and heat and cold when you’re 62 years old.”

Mike Prueter, a 33-year-old construction worker from Lancaster, Ohio who attended the McCain event, said he has survived the economic crisis thus far, but fears a lay off from his job at McKnight Development — a Grove City, Ohio company that designs and builds churches.

“The economy overrides everything right now,” Prueter said. “A lot of my friends, who are not where I am, they’re still in the construction industry, they’re losing their jobs left and right. I’ve been told it’s in the future for me to be laid off. I blame the economy.”

Prueter said his support of McCain grew out of a belief in the historical success of Republicans in handling the economy and a rejection of Obama policies that he defined as “socialist,” including a plan to tax people who make more than $250,000 per year at a higher rate while providing tax cuts and credits to those who make less than $200,000 or do not pay taxes.

As he spoke, Prueter’s wife, Mandi, christened him “Mike the Construction Worker,” a reference to the Samuel J. Wurzelbacher, the Toledo, Ohio man who gained fame as “Joe the Plumber,” after he confronted Obama last month about taxation on small businesses.

“People that have earned their way and made their mark on society, striking it rich so to speak, they’ve earned the right to keep it as far as I’m concerned,” Prueter said. “I just haven’t gotten there yet.”

Alex Collett, a 20-year-old freshman at Wilkes University, said she would be buried in student loans and other debt before ever getting a chance to strike it rich, let alone comfortably middle-class, as an adolescent psychologist.

Collett, of Plains Township, attends classes full-time, works 40 hours a week at Walmart, lives on her own and pays for rent, tuition, and other expenses with no help from her parents.

She voted for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. in the April 22 Democratic primary and said she will choose Obama on Tuesday, looking to him for solutions to the issues that hit her hardest — the economic crisis, the high cost of higher education and health insurance.

Obama has proposed a hybrid system of universal healthcare that would allow the uninsured to receive the same type of coverage as members of Congress. McCain plans reforms to reduce the cost of health insurance and has said he would provide a $2,500 tax credit for individuals and $5,000 for families to offset the cost of insurance.

“If I get sick, it’s Nyquil here I come,” Collett said, echoing the fret of more than 45 million uninsured Americans. “I’m 20 years old and I don’t get any healthcare. So what happens if I get sick? I could get hit by a car walking across the street, then what?”

Numbers crunch

Obama is projected to win at least 238 electoral votes from 20 states that have polled heavily in his favor, including California (54 electoral votes), New York (31) and his home state, Illinois (21), according to RealClearPolitics, an online aggregator of polling data.

McCain is projected to receive at least 127 electoral votes from 16 states where polls have shown him with a substantial lead, according to the Web site.

Eight states, with a combined 95 electoral votes — including McCain’s home state of Arizona (10), Republican-leaning North Carolina (15) and Florida (27), which decided the 2000 election — are considered by the website as tossups.

Four states — Nevada (5), Colorado (9), New Mexico (5) and the traditionally Republican-leaning Virginia (13) are listed by RealClearPolitics as leaning for Obama, along with Ohio (20) and Pennsylvania (21) — but polling in those states has shown the race tightening in the final full week before the election.

A win for Obama in either Ohio or Pennsylvania, added to the states where he is leading in the polls, would solidify his victory, Dr. David Sosar, a political science professor at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, said.

A win for McCain in both states and all the projected toss-ups would increase his electoral vote total to 268, closing the gap but still requiring a win in another state where Obama is projected to prevail.

“If you put them together, they’re critical,” Sosar said. “By themselves, watching the maps, Obama could lose one of them and still win the election.”

Polls released Sunday by The Columbus Dispatch and The Morning Call in Allentown showed Obama leading McCain by six points in Ohio and by seven points in Pennsylvania. Other polls have varied in the final week, with a Fox News/Rasmussen survey showing Obama ahead by as many as nine points in Ohio and four points in Pennsylvania and a Marist College poll indicating a 14-point lead for Obama in the Keystone State.

Polls released last Tuesday by NBC News and the polling firm Mason-Dixon indicated a two-point McCain edge in Ohio and a four-point Obama margin in Pennsylvania, with nine percent undecided.

“Here’s John McCain’s one saving grace, and this is not the Bradley Effect, I’m not talking about race, but there are a number of independents who, when they walk into the voting booth and are still hung up on ‘am I going to vote for John McCain or Barack Obama,’ they’re going to say, ‘John McCain is the one I know,’” Sosar said. “I don’t know if that’s going to be enough.”

The Bradley Effect, a term named after Tom Bradley, the first and only black mayor of Los Angeles, is used by political observers to describe campaigns where one candidate holds a lead in the polls but ultimately loses on election day, due to racism or social desirability bias. Bradley lost the 1982 California gubernatorial race to state Attorney General George Deukmejian, who was white, despite holding a lead in the pre-election polls.

Other factors could change the outlook for Obama and McCain, Sosar said, including foul weather, an underwhelming turnout by the youth and college-aged contingent that strongly favors Obama and the weight of single-issue voters, such as those passionate about gun rights or abortion.

Religious influence

The Most Rev. Joseph F. Martino, the Bishop of Scranton, resurrected abortion as an unavoidable issue for Northeastern Pennsylvania Catholic voters last month, when he authored a letter imploring parishioners to vote only for candidates who oppose abortion rights.

“Health care, education, economic security, immigration, and taxes are very important concerns. Neglect of any one of them has dire consequences as the recent financial crisis demonstrates,” Martino said in the letter, which priests read in place of a homily at Masses on Oct. 5, the day deemed “Respect Life Sunday” by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“ However, the solutions to problems in these areas do not usually involve a rejection of the sanctity of human life in the way that abortion does,” Martino said. “Being ‘right’ on taxes, education, health care, immigration, and the economy fails to make up for the error of disregarding the value of a human life.”

In September, Martino said he strongly supported refusing Holy Communion for politicians who campaigned or voted in favor of abortion rights, including Obama’s running mate Sen. Joe Biden, a Catholic and native of Scranton.

Under U.S. tax code, religious organizations are not permitted to endorse candidates, but they can offer guidance on issues through the prism of Biblical interpretation and church policy. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops established a program called Faithful Citizenship, which includes prayers and homilies for a nine-day cycle before the election and summaries of the church’s position on issues like abortion, euthanasia, racism, torture and genocide.

The Ohio Christian Alliance in Akron published a voter guide listing McCain’s and Obama’s positions on issues ranging from the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (McCain supports, Obama opposes) and “overturning Roe v. Wade” (McCain supports, Obama opposes) to the “taxpayer funding of abortion” (Obama supports, McCain opposes) and the “adoption of children by homosexuals” (Obama supports, McCain opposes).

The Pennsylvania Catholic Conference produced a similar guide, with paragraphs detailing the candidates’ positions on immigration, international justice, marriage and stem cell research.

Three Sundays before the election, Rev. Edward P. Burke’s sermon at the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia pointedly criticized the liberal “laws of Caesar” that have promoted abortion, prostitution, homosexuality and gay unions.

“We as Catholics have great respect for the holiness and dignity of every human life from natural conception to natural death,” Burke said. “This is only going to take place when we as a nation are as religious as our founding fathers were. God was at the center of their lives and at the center of the principles they established.”

Ron Pizzuti, a 68-year-old pro-life Catholic from Columbus, said he put concerns about the economic and leadership ahead of personal and religious beliefs.

“I am definitely pro-life, but I could never vote for Sarah Palin,” Pizzuti said, referring to the Alaska governor who is McCain’s vice presidential running mate. “It’s scares the willies out of me to think she could be a heartbeat away from being the most powerful person in the world.”

Pizzuti, a commercial real estate executive, cast his early ballot for Obama.

“The biggest issue is not abortion, I don’t think it should be a political issue,” Pizzuti said, as he stood outside St. Joseph Cathedral in Columbus after Mass last Sunday. “The biggest issue is the economy, there’s no question. We’ve got ourselves in a terrible mess and we’ve caused the rest of the world to join us.”

Barnes, the retired telephone technician who embraced McCain’s economic plan, said he also agreed with the Republican candidate’s pro-life stance — more from a personal perspective than a religious ideology.

Barnes has seven children and twenty-four grandchildren.

“I don’t feel being pro-life is a religious thing,” Barnes said. “Even if a person was an atheist, aborting a child is getting rid of a human life. A lot of people say it’s a religious thing, it’s a humane thing.”

Demographic divide

McCain continued campaigning in Ohio last Thursday, embarking on a two-day, 10-city bus tour that ended Friday with a rally in Columbus, the state capital and home to the main campus of The Ohio State University.

Obama’s wife, Michelle, visited Columbus on Oct. 24, the day before the No. 3-ranked Penn State football team defeated No. 9 Ohio State there, 13-6.

The city is located near the geographic center of the state in Franklin County, where Democratic registrations outnumber Republicans by 12 percent, 101,322 to 80,291, according to the Ohio Secretary of State.

Obama visited Canton, Ohio, 60 miles south of Cleveland in heavily Democratic Stark County, before going to Pittsburgh, last Monday, and Chester, outside Philadelphia, last Tuesday.

McCain stopped in Wallingford, near Philadelphia, and Scranton, on Sunday, and was scheduled to speak in Moon Township, near Pittsburgh, today.

Democrats outnumber Republicans in Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, by a more than two-to-one margin, and by an eight-to-one spread in Philadelphia. In Luzerne County, Democrats account for 60 percent of the total registered voters and in Lackawanna County, they total 65 percent.

Luzerne and Lackawanna counties both went for Clinton by a three-to-one margin in the primary, and McCain supporters have attempted to steer those voters away from Obama.

Sosar projects the central and northern sections of the state will go for McCain, with the urban and suburban zones of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia going for Obama and the northeastern region, from Allentown and Easton to Wilkes-Barre and Scranton as a potential wildcard.

“That’s why McCain has spent as much time in this area as he has,” Sosar said. “He’s trying to court those voters as much as he can.”

An Ohio Newspaper Poll released last Sunday showed Obama leading in the northwest and northeast regions of the state — where Toledo and Cleveland are located — and McCain ahead in central, southwest and southeast Ohio.

Megan Morrice, a 26-year-old financial advisor from Columbus, said she fears Republican operatives are attempting to steer younger voters and minority voters in that city and other urban areas away from voting, as they did in 2004.

Morrice moved back to Columbus months before the 2004 election, between President George W. Bush and his Democratic challenger, Sen. John F. Kerry, and saw first-hand as lines at polling places stretched for blocks, the hours of waiting pressing would-be voters to decide between exercising democracy and returning to their minimum-wage jobs or picking their children up from childcare.

“It was pretty heart wrenching to drive around to areas with heavy youth populations or heavy minority populations waiting five-plus hours in line to vote,” Morrice, an Obama supporter, said. “A lot of younger voters and minority voters, they just couldn’t vote. There has been a lot of election disenfranchisement.”

A mailer sent to minorities in Columbus during the Ohio early voting period said voting would expose them to arrest for unpaid parking tickets or criminal warrants. Similar fliers were posted on college campuses in Philadelphia.

Dana Clark, a 45-year-old mother of two grown children, experienced a milder form of voter intimidation last month, the day after the final presidential debate between Obama and McCain at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y.

Clark lives in Ithaca, in the Western Ohio county of Darke, where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by 10 percent.

“You see a lot of Republican signs in people’s yards and you think, ‘what has a Republican actually ever done for them?’” Clark said.

“The older people are just diehard Republicans no matter what,” Clark, a Democrat who will vote for Obama, said. “I think they’re narrow-minded, they don’t ever really get out. If they ever went into the city, a bunch of them would think it was the sin city of America.”

Clark has been the only person in her village — population 102 — with Obama’s campaign signs in her yard.

After the debate, they disappeared.

The next day, Clark picked up a set of new signs from a local Democratic Party office, restoring democracy to her yard and saving her from another option.

“I would have just gotten my big piece of plywood out of the garage, put it up and put Obama on there,” Clark said.

End game

Bush won Darke County over Kerry by 28 percentage points in 2004 and 30 percentage points over Gore in 2004.

Republican candidates have won Muskingum County, Ohio, where McCain campaigned in Zanesville last Sunday, in the last 10 elections by an average of 16 percentage points and Fairfield County, Ohio, where Lancaster is located, by an average of 29 percentage points in the same span.

"In case you haven't noticed, the pundits have declared this race over and Obama's measuring the drapes,” McCain said as he spoke in this community of sprawling farms, white-washed homes and a quaint, brick-faced downtown — where his placards outnumber Obama's by a 5-to-1 margin.

“They forgot one thing: they forgot to let you decide. You're going to decide and we're going to win,” McCain said.

“America is worth fighting for, never give up. God bless you, God Bless America. We need Ohio.”

msisak@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2061

How they voted

Ohio has voted for the winner 23 times in the 25 presidential elections held over the last 100 years, only choosing the Republican Richard Nixon instead of the Democrat John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Republican Thomas E. Dewey over Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. In the same timeframe, Pennsylvania has sided with the winner 19 times. Here are the races and the century of results from both states.

Year  Pa.             Ohio            Winner
2004  Kerry, D        G.W. Bush, R    G.W. Bush
2000  Gore, D         G.W. Bush, R    G.W. Bush
1996  Clinton, D      Clinton, D      Clinton
1992  Clinton, D      Clinton, D      Clinton
1988  Bush, R         Bush, R         Bush
1984  Reagan, R       Reagan, R       Reagan
1980  Reagan, R       Reagan, R       Reagan
1976  Carter, D       Carter, D       Carter
1972  Nixon, R        Nixon, R        Nixon
1968  Humphrey, D     Nixon, R        Nixon
1964  Johnson, D      Johnson, D      Johnson
1960  Kennedy, D      Nixon, R        Kennedy
1956  Eisenhower, R   Eisenhower, R   Eisenhower
1952  Eisenhower, R   Eisenhower, R   Eisenhower
1948  Dewey, R        Truman, D       Truman
1944  Roosevelt, D    Dewey, R        Roosevelt
1940  Roosevelt, D    Roosevelt, D    Roosevelt
1936  Roosevelt, D    Roosevelt, D    Roosevelt
1932  Hoover, R       Roosevelt, D    Roosevelt
1928  Hoover, R       Hoover, R       Hoover
1924  Coolidge, R     Coolidge, R     Coolidge
1920  Harding, R      Harding, R      Harding
1916  Hughes, R       Wilson, D       Wilson
1912  Wilson, D       Wilson, D       Wilson
1908  Taft, R         Taft, R         Taft

Sources: The Columbus Dispatch; Ohio Secretary of State; Prof. Harold Cox, Wilkes University

9/11 + 7 = ?

2008-09-12T01:08:00.000-07:00

There are not many who remember
They say a handful still survive,
To tell the world about
The way the lights went out,
And keep the memory alive.
— Billy Joel, Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)

Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama pledged to suspend their campaign advertising for one-day Thursday — a moratorium for mourning on the seventh anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks — but neither stayed out of the way entirely.

McCain, R-Ariz., the Republican presidential nominee, and Obama, D-Ill., the Democratic nominee, visited the site in Lower Manhattan — forever referred to as Ground Zero — where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center stood, and both participated in a forum on public service at Columbia University in New York, Thursday night.

The lingering effects of Sept. 11 — the war on terror, the quasi-related war in Iraq, the color-coded system of national security, immigration reform, revised foreign policy, et. al. — will undoubtedly follow either McCain or Obama into the White House.

Three days after the attacks, President George W. Bush stood among the ruins of the World Trade Center, with a bullhorn in hand and rescue workers by his side, and famously declared: “I can here you! I can here you! The rest of the world hears you! And the people -- and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!”

Two thousand, five hundred and fifty eight days later, the wars continue and the questions remain — burning longer than the superheated rubble, casting a shadow darker than the pall of soot that billowed from Manhattan and stretched to the suburbs.

Will the people responsible for the attacks, namely Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, ever be brought to justice?

What will become of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, the penitentiary for unindicted terror suspects, operated on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba?

And, will we ever, in our lifetime or in that of our great grandchildren, be able to return to the pre-9/11 world of peace and prosperity — or is that, too, gone forever?

There are questions too about what role the federal government might have in the preservation of Sept. 11 — the incorporation of the attack into the history curriculum of public schools; use of Congressional or Presidential prodding to jumpstart the interminably delayed construction of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum; and the eventual declaration of 9/11 as a national day of mourning — a day off from work, school and all other obligation to reflect.

Seven years later, Sept. 11 straddles between international significance and everyday irrelevance. Beyond the flickering candles and the apolitical gestures, and with the incorporation of new events that adulterate the meaning of the day, such as the Belgian-born Interdependence Day (the acknowledgment of the interconnectedness of the world), Sept. 11 is threatened to go the way of June 6 and Dec. 7 — D-Day and the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

“How long before 9/11 isn’t the lede story on 9/11?” a colleague asked Thursday.

Seven years later, it wasn’t the lede story on ABC’s World News with Charles Gibson. The anchor’s exclusive interview with McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, took precedent.

So much for the apolitical tone established by McCain and Obama earlier in the day. (Obama granted an interview to Bill O’Reilly on Fox News Channel last Thursday to take some attention away from McCain, who was accepting the Republican nomination at the party’s convention in St. Paul, Minn. Was Palin trying to take some attention away from the seven-year anniversary of the worst day in American history, from the two-thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-eight people who died on Sept. 11?)

The future of Sept. 11 lies with President McCain or President Obama and how they handle Sept. 11 eight, nine and ten years later. Will they revere it as a day of reverence — a more solemn Independence Day — or a political tool? A means to memoriam or a means to an end?

The Bush administration has cited Sept. 11 as justification for the war in Iraq, the infringement of civil liberties through the U.S.A. Patriot Act and the use of warrant-less wiretapping by government intelligence groups.

Last October, Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., criticized former Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani, the mayor of New York at the time of the attacks, for relying too much on Sept. 11 in his campaign speeches and debate appearances.

“There's only three things he mentions in a sentence,” Biden said. “A noun, a verb, and 9/11.”

How will the Obama administration cite Sept. 11? How will the McCain administration cite Sept. 11? How will the Obama administration preserve it? How will McCain’s?

The future of Sept. 11 is in their hands.

For Willie, It's Win and Go Home

2008-06-17T15:53:00.000-07:00

Willie Randolph had been on the brink for more than a month.

A week of more losses than wins pushed him closer to dismissal as manager of the Mets.

A string of victories, coupled with blanket reassurances from the team's front-office management, pulled him away from the clubhouse exit – at least for a few days.

This past weekend was supposedly it. If the Mets didn't win, Willie was gone.

The Mets did win – three of their last four, in fact – and Willie is gone.

Did he deserve to go? Mets fans can and will debate the merits of the firing until October.

Was he too laid back? Maybe.

Did he have too much faith in "his guys," the mix of flashy young stars and injury and slump-prone veterans he so relied upon? Perhaps.

But, did he deserve the way he went? Absolutely not.

Not after taking two of three from the Texas Rangers at home, including the split of a straight doubleheader.

Not after flying 3,000 miles for the first game of a six-game West Coast swing.

Not after a resilient 8-6 win Monday night over one of the best teams in baseball, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Not after giving a ritual post-game press conference, in which the theme seemed to be "Willie lives for another day."

The Mets' decision to dismiss Willie came in a press release after 3 a.m. Eastern time, well after all but the die hard, overnight radio caller-type fans had gone to bed; after the newspaper deadlines and the last cycle of Sports Center and Baseball Tonight.

The Mets sneaked Willie's firing into the news cycle the way an unfaithful husband slinks into the house, smelling of booze and another woman's perfume, in the early morning. They seemed confident to do what they did, but not enough to let anybody know about it.

Players learned of their manager's firing through text messages from the reporters that cover the team. Randolph, in that post-win press conference, was a lamer duck than he knew.

Classless.

The end of the Willie Randolph era as the 18th manager in the 46-year history of the Mets had been in the works in some fashion since the team's epic collapse that caused it to miss the playoffs last season, after getting to within a run of the World Series in 2006.

A slow start this season did not help.

Neither did injuries and poor play by some of the steely veterans brought in by the general manager Omar Minaya, who at last check of the late-night e-mails, faxes and Shea Stadium smoke signals, still has his job. Moises Alou, disabled list. Carlos Delgado, underachieving. Luis Castillo, hardly the speedy second baseman who lit up the diamond in Florida.

Too many fading stars eclipsing the young talents – David Wright, Jose Reyes and Ryan Church, who played the unsung hero in right field before concussions forced him out of the lineup.

The starting pitching, save for Johan Santana, has been hit or miss. The bullpen has been mostly miss.

But not Monday night. Monday night, the star center fielder Carlos Beltran showed his worth with two home runs. Mike Pelfrey pitched well enough to win and the relievers held on. Billy Wagner, the closer who blew three straight saves last week, appeared back on track.

The whole team did. Then came 3 a.m.

Hockey Smash!

2007-12-05T09:01:00.001-08:00

3 December 2007: New York Islanders Jeff Tambellini smashes Boston Bruins Dennis Wideman into the boards as they battle for a loose puck during the Bruins’ 3-1 win at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum. © Michael R. Sisak/Visionlink/EQ Images

Details on Going Away Gathering: Dec. 7, 8/7c

2007-12-05T08:24:00.000-08:00

Folks,

I trust you've all penciled Dec. 7 in on your Blackberries, now here are the details:

As you know, I'm leaving Long Island to pursue a dream of journalistic joy and frozen fingertips in the mountains of Northeast Pennsylvania, particularly Wilkes-Barre.

Before I go, we're planning a get together for some drinks and laughs and other fun stuff. There have been lots of great suggestions on where this gathering should be held (the cheesy working title of which is, "Eat, Drink and Be Barre"). There were thoughts of a trek to the city (convenient for those who live there), or a neighborhood bar (until we heard Friday's can be tortously loud there) or even renting out the greatest ball park in the world for a night — RFK Stadium in D.C. (until we realized it's a dump).

So... We've settled on CHARLIE BROWN'S IN COMMACK (directions and link to Google Map below), with kickoff scheduled for 8:07 p.m. Eastern/7:07 p.m. Central. This locale might be a crushing blow for all the city dwellers and Nassau folks, but Commack is a great place to get together. Commack, the hometown of Bob Costas and Rosie O'Donnell, the confluence of Jericho Turnpike and Vets Highway, of Huntington and Smithtown, famed for its Motor Inn and its Multiplex; the first home of professional hockey on Long Island and a former home of the New York/New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets.

It's also the place I've called home for the last 23 years. Unlike the beloved Mr. Costas, I won't turn my back on Commack when I'm gone (no thank you, St. Louis). Unlike Ms. O'Donnell, I won't turn into a lesbian either.

That said, please join us on Friday, 8 p.m. Eastern at Charlie Browns in Commack!

DIRECTIONS:

FROM LONG ISLAND EXPRESSWAY:

1 - Exit 53 to Sunken Meadow State Parkway (North)
2 - Proceed on Sunken Meadow to Exit exit SM2 Harned Road
3 - Left onto Harned Road, follow signs for RT-454 Veterans Memorial Highway
4 - At intersection, turn left onto Veterans Memorial Highway
5 - Charlie Brown's is located in shopping center on left, less than
1/4 mile ahead (be sure to move into turn lane quickly).

Other stores in shopping center: King Kullen, Ulta, Borders Books, Babies R Us, Linens and Things.

FROM NORTHERN PARKWAY:

1 - Exit 45 to merge onto Sunken Meadow Parkway
(follow steps 2-5 from above)

FROM POINTS NORTH AND EAST:

1 - Call me and we'll figure something out.

Google Map and Generic Directions from Hempstead, N.Y.

Hope to see y'all there.

Sincerely,
Mike Sisak

Announcement

2007-11-21T08:21:00.000-08:00

November 21, 2007

Folks,

A Happy Thanksgiving Eve to all and a sizable announcement from your faithful correspondent: I'm out of here.

For all 23 years and 9 months of my life, save for those few days spent as a freshman at Penn State, I have lived on Long Island. For the last two-and-a-half years, my day job has been as a graphic/web designer for a Patchogue-based public relations and marketing firm aptly named the Public Relations and Marketing Group.

Next month, I am leaving both. Heeding the long ago words of Horace Greeley, I am going west, young man. But not too far west — only about three hours.

I have accepted an offer to become the Mountain Top correspondent for the Citizens' Voice, a daily newspaper in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. (That's real close to Dunder-Mifflin's Scranton branch!) It is a good opportunity at a strong newspaper and a chance to get back into the reporting world I knew as a youngster and as a student at Hofstra.

Rest assured, I will be back on weekends and holidays (and even some observances), and whenever a good freelance opportunity presents itself here on Long Island or anywhere in the metropolitan area (note to editors and university relations officials!)

A friend of mine quoted the oft-uttered, "you have to start somewhere," when we discussed this opportunity the other day. After much thought, The Citizens' Voice and Wilkes-Barre seem like a good start to me.

BEFORE I go, there is word of some sort of a "good bye" gathering. I figure, in any event, it's a great excuse to eat and drink. Details on time and location will be along shortly, but Friday, Dec. 7 seems like a winner. Pencil it in your Blackberry!

Thanks for indulging my long-winded bulletin.

Sincerely, Mike Sisak

Update

2007-11-20T08:17:00.000-08:00

21 November 2007: Montreal Canadiens left wing Christopher Higgins, a native of Smithtown, N.Y., scores on New York Islanders goaltender Rick DiPietro to put the Canadiens ahead 2-0 in the second period. The Islanders' Bryan Berard looks on. The Canadiens won 4-1 at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y.

Wow, I haven't been on this thing in months. In the meantime, I've been working and shooting. Here's some recent work, if you'll indulge me:

Penn State Media Day

2007-08-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

Greetings from Happy Valley. Here's some photos from yesterday's Penn State football media day. Not much doing other than Terrell Golden playing reporter and Joe Pa getting into a vigorous debate with P-N columnist Dave Jones over the scheduling of Coastal Carolina. Enjoy.

- Photo Gallery: Penn State Players and Coaches

- Photo Gallery: Joe Paterno Press Conference

State of Independence

2007-08-10T21:35:00.000-07:00

It is August and that means the annual trek to Central Pennsylvania for Penn State football media day! For the Sisaks that means part-work, part-getaway. We made the trip up to State College on Thursday night, but made several miscalculations along the way. Among them: detouring to Queens Boulevard to avoid Grand Central Parkway construction, but not knowing how that would get us to the L.I.E. (it did, eventually) and exiting the New Jersey Turnpike in the wrong part of Newark (good for a connection to I-78, but not the desired I-80). I rode shotgun and snapped some photos, including an eerie scene when fog meets the lighting at a highway rest stop, Chase Utley at a Wawa, dad pumping gas and a moth on the windshield. Yum.

400!

2007-08-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

After years of talking, dreaming and drooling, I recently pulled the trigger on a major acquisition. Like the Braves' trade for Mark Teixeira, my purchase of a super-duper new lens -- the Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM -- will hopefully put me (and my long-distance photographs) over the top! Here are some photos of me, acting like a goofball, and opening my new toy. Since I'm too young, too single and too poor to have a son or a daughter, this will have to do for now...

Slippery When Wet

2007-08-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

New York City is slippery when wet. A severe rainstorm Wednesday morning shorted subway service, slowed vehicular traffic and caused hours of delays for hundreds of thousands of commuters. After a few inches of rain, the city that never sleeps lapsed into a coma. After the July steam-pipe explosion explosion on 41st Street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan and the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, a wholesale examination of the nation's infrastructure must be a top priority. If rain can cripple a great city, then precipitation should be added to the terrorism watch list.

Welcome

2007-08-10T21:04:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the new and improved "A Day In The Life," a blog of photos, thoughts and other things and stuff. The goal is to present to you, my loyal reader, a photo (or series of photos) every day. There will be some writing along the way, and when I travel (like now), these pages will be used to chronicle some of the journey. So, in honor of the late talk-show host Tom Snyder, sit back, relax, fire up a Colortini and watch the pictures as we fly them through the air. This is "A Day In The Life" on sisakphoto.com.

Visit the Archives

2007-07-15T11:22:00.000-07:00

Previous "A Day In The Lfe" entries can be found here.

What's Going On Down the Block?

2007-06-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

FORT PIERCE, Fla., June 8, 2007 - Dennis and Paula Graves watch the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis from their driveway at the Grove retirement community in Fort Pierce, Fla., 89 miles south of the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Paris Hilton, If Anybody Cares

2007-05-13T07:45:00.001-07:00

Life caught up with the girl who gained fame for being born rich, last week. The queen of the talentless, the clueless and the careless new generation of Hollywood starlets (though I’m not exactly sure why anyone cares) is heading to prison. The Graybar Hotel for the girl whose great grand dad founded the Hilton Hotel. Forty-five days for driving drunk. Good. At least she isn’t dead. At least she didn’t kill anyone else. At least she isn’t diseased — or so we can hope. At least maybe now she won’t get a free pass from her fans (though, I thought to have fans you actually had to do something that they could be fans of — but I digress). So much has been made of the steroids that Barry Bonds may or may not be using, of the gunshots that Pacman Jones may or may not have fired, of what Don Imus may or may not have meant when he said what he said. But not much has been made of Paris Hilton, who apparently is a role model to young girls and teens and even alcoholic college kids. Folks feel sorry for Paris. She, like the city for which she was named, can’t win, they say. Forget Paris.

The Orange-Maroon Game

2007-04-23T12:03:00.000-07:00

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Orange and maroon replaced the traditional shades of blue and the white in the stands at Penn State’s spring football game, Saturday. Somberness overtook the usual festive feel of the annual intra-squad scrimmage, as the Nittany Lions remembered the victims of the horrific shootings at Virginia Tech, last week. (More)

Fans wore the Virginia Tech colors. Members of the marching band, which is called the Blue Band, wore orange t-shirts and played the Virginia Tech fight song and a stirring rendition of “Amazing Grace,” the Southern spiritual that is so often sounded in times of tragedy and remembrance. The coaches pinned ribbons of orange and maroon to their shirts. And the players inscribed messages of support on the towels that hung from their waistbands.

Derrick Williams, a junior wide receiver from Greenbelt, Md., placed orange tape across part of his cloth and wrote on it in maroon marker, “We Are… VT.” Terrell Golden, a junior receiver from Norfolk, Va., wrote the letters “VT” on his. In the stands, the threads of Butler’s tribute took human form as the hundreds of students who normally sit together wearing t-shirts to form a solid block S against a white background, donned maroon and orange shirts to form the VT logo of Virginia Tech.

It is remarkable how a college community can unite in a time of tragedy, especially when that tragedy has taken place on another campus, in another state, some 360 miles away.

“It could have happened here, so it’s bringing everybody together,” Jamie Stahl, a Penn State freshman from Pittsburgh, told the Centre Daily Times, the newspaper here. “Plus a lot of people have friends at Virginia Tech.”

Stahl’s friend, Nicole Andres, told the paper: “It’s great to see all this maroon and orange. It could have been us.”

Most current Penn State students were in grade school when it did happen here, when Jillian Robbins opened fire on the lawn outside the student center at the Hetzel Union Building in 1996, killing Melanie Spalla, 19, of Altoona, Pa., and wounding Nicholas Mensah, 27, of Philadelphia.

“Crazy Jill,” as she was called, had purple-dyed hair, a background in hunting and training from the Army Reserves, and worked as a waitress at the Ye Olde College Diner, a College Avenue landmark known for its grilled sticky buns. She fired five shots from a rifle with a telescopic sight before aerospace engineering student Brendon Malovrh wrestled her down.

“I often think about the ‘Crazy Jill’ shooting when I’m walking past the H.U.B. lawn,” Joe Rokita, a 1999 Penn State graduate said. “I think to myself about what happened there, and how so many of the people walking around me have no idea what happened there 10 years before.”

Joe Paterno, the Penn State head coach, spoke at length at both a fan luncheon and a pre-game press conference about the Virginia Tech shootings and his university’s solemn reaction to them.

“To see all of those kids come across campus, you realize that there’s something about intercollegiate athletics that’s special,” Paterno said. “You’re almost fascinated by it. I’m so proud of this campus and the way that they’ve responded to the Virginia Tech situation.”

Paterno, 80, has long been a witness to both tragedy and triumph. As a child living in Brooklyn he would often visit the Lower Manhattan neighborhood where the World Trade Center would eventually rise. On Sept. 11, 2001, hours after the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 and left New York and the nation forever shaken, Paterno called for the postponement of Penn State’s game, scheduled for two days later, against Virginia. The rest of college football followed his lead and the entire schedule of games was cancelled for the week.

Paterno, who has been a coach at Penn State for 57 years, and the head coach since 1966, watched from the campus — in a place called Happy Valley — as the nation and the university community came together to grieve again and again: assassinations, wars and terrorist attacks. He has seen the passage of mentors and coaching colleagues, of former players, and his own brother, George, the former Kings Point coach and Penn State radio commentator. He watched in 2000 as freshman safety Adam Taliaferro was paralyzed while making a tackle late in a game at Ohio State. He watched a year later as Taliaferro walked again, leading the Penn State onto the field for the season opener against Miami, the last game before the world changed.

In a conversation in the elevator at the arena when the luncheon was held, Paterno recalled how he had watched Jackie Robinson play for the Brooklyn Dodgers, shortly after breaking baseball’s color barrier, while working as an usher at Ebbets Field. Minutes later, he appeared on the stage and told the thousands of fans about his connection to the more recent history — to the people of Virginia Tech and the tragedy there.

Jim Weaver, the athletic director, served as an assistant coach on Paterno’s staff in the 1960s. He and wife Sue are friends with the Virginia Tech coach, Frank Beamer, and his wife, Cheryl. And, James I. Robertson, Jr., a history professor at Virginia Tech who wrote the authoritative biography on Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, sent the book to Paterno along with a poem that struck the coach with a link to the shooting tragedy. Paterno read from the poem, “In a Land Where We Were Dreaming,” by Daniel Berlinger Lucas, at both the luncheon and the pre-game press conference:

“A figure came among us as we slept —
At first he knelt, then slowly rose and wept;
Then gathering up a thousand spears,
He swept across the field of Mars,
Then bowed farewell and walked behind the stars,
From the land where we were dreaming!”

As he finished reading the verse to the media, Paterno clutched a maroon Virginia Tech cap presented to him by Mike Herbstritt, an employee of Pen State’s Office of Physical Plant who lives in nearby Bellefonte. Herbstritt’s son, Jeremy, was one of the 32 students who died at Virginia Tech.

“I think about the kids going to college with their spears to conquer the world,” Paterno said. “And then all of a sudden they’re shot down.”

Outside, in the warm sun, the Penn State kids put away their spears for the day and put on the orange and maroon of Virginia Tech. Some painted themselves with a mixture of orange and blue, maroon and white, bridging the colors and the emotions of the two universities. Others held up signs, like: “We are Penn State, but today we are all Hokies,” a reference to the nickname for the Virginia Tech sports teams.

“[The students and fans] love this place and yet their love is deep enough that it carries across two states,” Paterno said. “I think it’s a great thing and I’m proud to be a part of it.”

College students have gotten a bad reputation for being out of touch with society and reality. They have been painted as narrowcast and narcissistic, the beneficiaries of prosperity and technology, the generation that uses Facebook and YouTube to insulate themselves from the real world.

It is an unfair assessment, a gross characterization and an exaggeration of a negative stereotype.

The reaction of the students at Penn State, and the wave of support for the Virginia Tech community from students here and on hundreds of other college campuses, has shown that young men and women are connected and that they do care.

It takes a tragedy for preconceptions to fade, for society to realize just how sensitive a student body can be, much like how the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 brought attention to the kindness and compassion of New Yorkers.

Thousands of Penn State students were out on College Avenue, the main street that separates the campus from downtown State College, Saturday night. They poured out of buses and moved in mass packs along the sidewalks. They overflowed into the street en route to restaurants, bars and dance clubs. A typical Saturday night in College Town, U.S.A., but amid the low-cut shirts and shimmering skirts, the skin-tight Abercrombie shirts and stonewashed jeans, there were still the shades of orange and maroon.

You Can’t Come Back All the Way

2007-04-18T09:45:00.001-07:00

Collin Finnerty, Reade Seligmann and David Evans might never recover from this. For the last 13 months, the three former Duke University lacrosse players were death row inmates, convicted and sentenced by a jury of cable news pundits, civil rights activists and overzealous administrators — a feckless district attorney and a gutless university president.

They were guilty before ever going to trial: three white boys from privileged northern backgrounds accused of kidnapping and raping a stripper hired to entertain at a campus party — a black, single mother of two with another already a few weeks into development.

“This D.A. is probably not one that is crazy,” Al Sharpton told Bill O’Reilly, shortly after the players were charged, last April. “He would not have proceeded if he did not feel that he could convict.”

The case was a slam-dunk, or in lacrosse terms, an open-net goal. Or, so the vulturine executioners thought.

In the months after the alleged rape, after the boys had been expelled from school, the lacrosse season cancelled and the coach forced to resign, the case began to unravel. And, although Finnerty, Seligmann and Evans had already had their lives cross-examined by the media and their reputations publicly shredded, there never really was much of a case in the first place. The alleged victim showed signs of instability, and a ray of ultraviolet incredulity revealed flaws in her story. Witnesses disputed the supposed facts of the case and its chronology. And the forensic evidence came back weak, with no DNA to link Finnerty, Seligmann, Evans or any of their teammates to the alleged crime.

Clemency came last week, when the North Carolina Attorney General, Roy Cooper, dropped all of the charges against Finnerty, Seligmann and Evans and chided the prosecutor, Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, for proceeding with such blind ferocity.

“We believe these individuals are innocent,” Cooper said. “We believe that these cases were the result of a tragic rush to accuse and a failure to verify serious allegations.”

Finnerty, Seligmann and Evans might never shake the suspicion of those serious, specious allegations, though. Not with journalists and commentators still believing that a rape occurred, still hanging a noose of arrogance and privilege around their white-collar necks, and still contending that the three lacrosse players are guilty.

In a blog entry entitled “Don’t Feel Too Sorry for the Dukies,” posted last week on abcnews.com, Nightline correspondent Terry Moran wrote, “The young men were able to retain a battery of top-flight attorneys, investigators and media strategists.

“As students of Duke University or other elite institutions, these young men will get on with their privileged lives. There is a very large cushion under them — the one that softens the blow of life for most of those who go to Duke or similar places, and have connections through family, friends and school to all kinds of prospects for success.”

Privilege can only carry so far. The names Finnerty, Seligmann and Evans will forever be associated with this sorry episode, forever linked to a woman whose fiction lingered for so long on the sympathies of Nifong, the media and the public, forever sullied, snickered and suspected.

Without privilege, Finnerty, Seligmann and Evans might still be charged, might still be on trial and might still be headed toward an ill-conceived conviction. During a press conference held after the charges were dropped, Seligmann noted the incongruity between people of well means, like his teammates, who were able to afford sufficient legal representation, and those prohibited by cost from adequately defending themselves.

“This entire experience has opened my eyes up to a tragic world of injustice I never knew existed,” Seligmann said. “If police officers and a district attorney can systematically railroad us with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, I can’t imagine what they’d do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves. So rather than relying on disparaging stereotypes and creating political and racial conflicts, all of us need to take a step back from this case and learn from it.”

Fortunately, the long national nightmare lived by Finnerty, Seligmann and Evans ended before a trial and the potential for a conviction. But so many others, of lesser means and legal resources, who are charged on false accusations, do not fare near as well. The Duke case showed that anyone could be accused of anything by anybody, even if it isn’t true. It is a hard lesson for a young person, raised in the cloistered environs of family, high school, university and team. Fantasy and delusion can ruin reputations and a tragic rush to accuse can alter lives forever.