I was awakened at about 12:30 a.m. Friday by what I thought were coalition forces but which turned out to be the damnedest thunderstorm I'd ever heard. Spooked, the cats sought refuge in bed with me and the dog who lives upstairs ran madly across the hardwood floor. Outside, the casino lights flickered off and on, the streetlights flickered off and on and the freezing rain that had been falling for most of the last 12 hours continued coming down.
Peals of rolling thunder, some lasting 30 seconds or longer, literally shook the house. And it's a big house, made out of brick.
The weather here stinks. That's something I think we can all agree on.
In the world of our city's politics, however, there seems to be little anyone agrees on. Council members Fran Iusi and Paul Dyster, both closely identified with the failed policies of Mayor Irene Elia's administration, have decided not to seek re-election. Iusi is expecting to be laid off from her job at Tops Friendly Markets, and serving on the Council would interfere with her unemployment benefits, while Dyster decided to join the crowded field and run for mayor.
Dyster was ticked last week when the City Democratic Committee endorsed his Council colleague, Vince Anello, for the mayor's job and he likened the endorsement process to the way they do things in Iraq. Anello and Dyster join Elia, County Legislator Sam Granieri and city wastewater employee Glen Choolokian in their quest for the office, and it's anybody's guess how things are going to go.
The Niagara Gazette turned over half its editorial page one day last week to publish a screed by a lady named Louise Yots who thinks the biggest problem facing the city is the existence of this newspaper. She was an organizer of the Main Street Business and Professional Association's gala cocktail party at City Hall two months ago and is still angry that we poked fun at the event.
Oddly, after our article appeared, Yots wrote us a letter, thanking us for having "provided a great service."
"Not only did you help us get the word out about the event, but you gave us free advertising as well," she wrote.
Any publicity is good publicity as far as I'm concerned, but Yots' assertion that we are somehow "anti-business" because of our coverage of her party is just plain goofy.
As it happens, my associates and I own a business. We've created jobs and haven't taken a dime of government money. We don't have our cocktail parties in taxpayer-funded buildings.
For the past three years, we have attempted to produce a provocative, lively product and -- judging by our 100,000 weekly readers and growing advertising base -- we've had some success in that.
"Anti-business" is trying to put someone out of business, which is exactly what Yots did when she advocated that the hundreds of stores, restaurants and public institutions that serve as distribution centers for the Reporter stop carrying the paper.
Speaking of mendacity in the media, the firing last week of Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent Peter Arnett by MSNBC and National Geographic Explorer after he gave an interview to Iraqi television was a disgrace.
The things Arnett said in the interview -- that the war was taking longer than expected and that the Iraqi people themselves have not been as welcoming to coalition forces as our war planners first expected -- were things everyone knew anyway.
The fact that he said them in Baghdad makes no difference in a world where the average Iraqi has access to CNN, Al Jazeera and the Internet.
Contrast Arnett's treatment to that of the nitwit Geraldo Rivera, who drew a map in the sand showing the exact location of the 101st Airborne Division during one of his reports last week.
The last time Rivera made a horse's ass out of himself covering the War on Terror was in Afghanistan, when he sent a report while walking on the "hallowed ground" where some coalition forces were killed in a friendly fire incident. In reality, he was more than 100 miles away from the scene when he filed his story.
Normally, such lapses would be enough to get you thrown out of the war zone and fired from your job, but Rivera works for Fox News, the closest thing we have to state-run TV here in America.
A useful propagandist, Rivera also benefited from Fox News President Roger Ailes' close relationship with the Bush administration.
Our loss was Great Britain's gain, as Arnett, the best reporter over there, was quickly snapped up to cover the war for a Fleet Street newspaper.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | April 8 2003 |