Weekly Mail Special: COVID-19

My Facebook friends list is diverse. I like that.

I like the fact that I have folks from all over the country, all over the political spectrum.  I'll try not to name drop here, but I have former colleagues from the Post (who believe it or not mostly lean to the left) who are up on the news. I have friends from Rockaway, who can stir the debates as well as any Sunday Morning Talk Show. Not all of them are FB friends, but I read their answers and try to understand where they are coming from, especially the ones I don't agree with.

Here in Oceanside, my friends here are split. I have a few Trumpsters, a few Never Trumpsters and some actually who are down the middle if you can believe that or not.

I welcome every and all opinions. If I don't consider the other side, I won't learn. Won't learn why they think the way they do. Maybe I can change their minds, and maybe they can change mine. One thing I really try not to do is toss the word stupid around. I wouldn't want that done to me. I am by no means a genius, and I really should read more about current events than I do, but I can tell you that I don't put anything on this blog regarding the news until I have consulted multiple sources. I sincerely believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion.

But I also have a line drawn, especially in regards to this pandemic.


If you are a Trump supporter, that's your right. Readers of this blog know that I am not, I think he is an a$$hole. I've never thought of any President that way before. I thought Bill Clinton disgraced the Oval Office with what he did with Monica Lewinsky, I thought George W. Bush mishandled the economy and I thought Barack Obama became a very good President once he realized that it was going to take more than the force of his personality to make changes. But I also never thought they put themselves in front of their country, our country.

I think every move Donald Trump has made as President has been for his own benefit.

That's my opinion. Yours may be different. And that's OK.


I've had my issues with Governor Cuomo. He's pushed an agenda that I feel is too far left for my liking. But since this pandemic has happened,  he's been tough when needed and compassionate when necessary. He doesn't gloat over numbers that show deaths going down because he knows that one death is too many, that's still a family who has lost someone they loved. I agree with his decision to slowly re-open.

I know people are hurting now. I am sincere when I say I know how frustrating it is to be out of work. I have friends who own businesses who are up against it. The Woodhaven House, where I had many nice family moments is closing down. Nobody wants to see that.

I'm the dad of a 6th grader who missed out on a school trip and will have to do his 6th grade graduation remotely. It's breaking my heart, not only for him, but for all the kids who are missing out on milestones this year. Kids graduating from high school are really getting screwed. I don't know how I would have acted if after four years of high school I was denied a proper graduation celebration.

But this virus is serious folks. And it has to be dealt with properly. If you don't like how it's being handled here in NY, I do sympathize, but I respectfully disagree.  We don't need this thing coming back worse than ever. Let's keep our distance, get these numbers down and kick this things ass once and for all.

I can accept different opinions than my own.

Here is what I can't accept.

Here's what I WON'T accept.


All these idiots out there who are saying that this is no worse than the flu.

Anyone who thinks this is a hoax.

A hoax?

This is not a hoax. This is not the seasonal flu. If you think that, you're a f-ck-ng moron.


Both my wife and I work in hospitals. I'm nowhere near any COVID-19 Patients. But because I can do registrations, I am considered essential hospital staff.

But that's nothing compared to where Tara worked for 7 weeks. In the ICU. Overnight.

She would come home in the morning, shaken over what she saw. She's not some rookie fresh out of nursing school either, she's been at this for a long time. She's seen a lot. But nothing like this.

A hoax?

Have you spoken to any families who have lost someone to this virus. I have. I have an old college friend who lost her otherwise healthy father to this virus. She blogs about it daily. I read it everyday, just in case I start to forget how real this is. (which I won't BTW)

At both my jobs I've lost colleagues. I can't talk about the hospital colleagues, but at the Post, sports photographer Anthony Causi, a year older than me, died from Covid-19 complications.

A hoax?

How can you look at these numbers and say that? Almost 30,000 people dead in New York in 3 months. This week, we passed the 100,000 dead mark in America. That's real.

It's not a hoax people. Get that through your heads.




PART II: The Case Against Donald Trump:

There are many out there who blame President Trump solely for this.


Does he bear responsibility? Absolutely. 

All of it?  No. He's not responsible for the virus itself, but he didn't do nearly enough to stop it.



Check this out from Reuters.

The Global Health Security and Biodefense unit — responsible for pandemic preparedness — was established in 2015 by Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice

The unit resided under the National Security Council (NSC) — a forum of White House personnel that advises the president on national security and foreign policy matters.

In May 2018, the team was disbanded and its head Timothy Ziemer, top White House official in the NSC for leading U.S. response against a pandemic, left the Trump administration, the Washington Post reported. 

Trump apologists have tried to say that the President simply streamlined a bloated NSC, but that's just more psycho-babble. The bottom line is Obama had the foresight to create a program to fight a possible pandemic and Trump disbanded it.

But even with that, he could have still saved thousands of lives. 

Here is a timeline I put together



Here are the highlights, I have cross checked all of these quotes to make sure the dates and information are accurate..


1/22- We have it totally under control. It's one person coming from China. We have it under control. It's going to be just fine." -interview with CNBC.

2/2 "We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”

2/10 "Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. I hope that’s true. But we’re doing great in our country. China, I spoke with President Xi, and they’re working very, very hard. And I think it’s going to all work out fine."

2/24 "The Corona-virus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”

2/26 "I want you to understand something that shocked me when I saw it that — and I spoke with Dr. Fauci on this, and I was really amazed, and I think most people are amazed to hear it: The flu, in our country, kills from 25,000 people to 69,000 people a year. That was shocking to me. And, so far, if you look at what we have with the 15 people and their recovery, one is — one is pretty sick but hopefully will recover, but the others are in great shape. But think of that: 25,000 to 69,000. , when you have... "And again 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done.” 

2/28- At a rally in Des Moines, calls it a Democratic hoax

3/4 "It's safe to fly"

3/6 "Anybody who wants a test can get one. And the tests are perfect."

3/9 "It's no worse than the flu"

3/10 "This was unexpected  And it will go away"

3/25: Nobody could have seen this coming

ummmm


Finally on 3/31, even Trump acknowledged that this wasn't just the flu. Even though some of his most moronic supporters still insist that it is. Still the cat was out of the bag on February 28, when he called it the Democrats New Hoax. If that's not enough for you to see how incompetent he is, I don't know what to tell you.


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And look, as much as I've given props to Governor Cuomo, he hasn't been perfect either.

I never thought something like 9/11 could happen. I never thought Hurricane Katrina could wipe out New Orleans. I didn't think anything like Super Storm Sandy could hurt us as much as it did.

But they all did. At this point in my life, if they say it can happen, I believe them.

So why wasn't our hospitals stocked with PPE?  Why weren't our schools set up for the chance they would have to be taught remotely?

The fact of the matter was we weren't prepared for this. And I'm not laying that all on Trump. The bad guys still want to take us out, that didn't end with Osama Bin-Laden's death. I didn't think nearly 20 years after 9/11 that I would still feel like a sitting duck.

But I do. Let's say it wasn't a pandemic, let's say it was more planes into buildings, or another super storm. Shit, at this point, I'm convinced the plot of Armageddon or The Day After Tomorrow is on the table here. Not to mention Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin and their respective red buttons.

Are we ready for that?

Not if our nurses are wearing garbage bags instead of scrubs.

Not if we are making masks out of old tee shirts.

We needed to be better prepared. There is no excuse now. We can't assume it can't happen. If it can happen it will.

And his directive to discharge COVID-19 patients to nursing homes was a huge blunder, one I really wish he would take more responsibility for. He's tried to pin that on Trump as well, but the reality is he has to own this. Knowing that older people are the most vulnerable to this virus, sending positive patients to nursing homes rather than keeping them in the hospital was mind boggling.

Again, I feel Cuomo did more good than bad, but he blew it here.



WHO ELSE TO BLAME


A couple of weeks ago, a friend of a friend, posted an NPR article stating that the chances that COVID-19 was either manufactured in a Chinese Lab or was accidentally released from said lab were slim to none.

I'm not saying my friend, or the article he posted was wrong.

But I'm not ruling it out.

The article, interestingly enough lent some credence to the "someone ate a raw bat" theory. While they didn't say that right out, they did suggest that it most likely came from some sort of bat to human transmission.

I'm not ruling that out either.

I'm also not ruling out that it originated in an illegal Chinese wet market.

Many of the so-called wet markets in China according to some articles I've read, are no more dangerous than your average Farmer's market. You can get fresh fruits and veggies, as well as fish and chicken.

It's the illegal wet markets where they slaughter live animals right then and there that to me would be a likely source for this. I just get the creeps thinking about that. I don't know if I'd enjoy my Donovan's cheeseburger as much if I knew the cow it came from was slaughtered right there on Roosevelt Avenue. Those illegal unregulated markets are probably rife with diseases. Whose to say that this virus didn't come from that?

And I know they say the chances are slim, but I'm sorry, I'm also not ruling out bio terrorism either. We've obviously have not had anything like this in out lifetimes, but we have had other disasters, and like those, we've had our share of heroes. Nurses, doctors, first responders, grocers, restaurants who are losing lots of cash, but still come in and cook for take out, we've seen the best of the best.

We've seen the best. But we know the worst if out there too. I'm sorry folks, with this many people dead, I can't rule out that someone with evil intentions was behind this. It may come out that it was animal to human transmission, I'm not a scientist, but I'll always wonder.

And I've also considered the possibility that this whole thing was environmental. Again, not a scientist here, and I'll be the first to say I climbed on the climate change bandwagon late, but I on it now, and I can't help but wonder if the fact that we had 70 degree days in February and snow flurries on May 9th here in NY have something to do with people getting sick, or not being able to fight it off.

Who I'm NOT going to blame is Bill Gates, who according to some people, makes Hitler look like Mr. Rogers. I didn't think Bill Gates intentionally put viruses in Windows 95 and I don't think he created COVID-19 so that he could create a vaccine to inject us all with micro-chips. I'm sorry folks, if you believe that, it's time to get fitted for a tin-foil hat.


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When this whole thing started, several people either said or posted on line that we should give the President our support as we fought through the pandemic. I thought back to 9/11, when I did that for President Bush. I hadn't voted for him the previous November, and I didn't like the shenanigans that took placed in Florida, but I put that behind me and hoped he would do the right thing.

I honestly tried to do the same thing here. I tried to write about other things, and when I did write about the virus, tried to avoid lashing out. I hoped upon hope that when push came to shove, the President would do the right thing. He did do somethings right, sending us the USNS Comfort and restricting travel.

But the bottom line to me was that he cared more about the health of the economy than the health of his citizens. And I see far too many people who agree with him.

And these are the people who are saying that this is just the flu.

Just a hoax.

If you can look at 100,000 dead Americans, thousands of families who can't even properly bury their loved ones, and still call this a hoax, then shame on you.


Shame on you.

Weekly Mail May 24,2020

Hi Folks:

OK, so it's looking more and more like I'm gonna have to change the name of this to bi-Weekly Mail, the truth is I have been working on our corona-virus special that I really didn't want to write, but have felt compelled to. I'm just about done with it, so sometime in the next few days we'll publish and post, and you can all have at it.

For now, lets see what's going on.



Well for starters, I did something this week I vowed I wouldn't do, and I honestly tried to avoid for as long as I could....... I joined Twitter.


I spend waaaay too much time on social media, I know that. Most of it is spent on Facebook, where I post this blog. I have Instagram, which I have yet to post a single photo, but also is like getting the SI Swimsuit issue every day of the week (didisaythatoutloud?) All kidding aside, I spend maybe two or three minutes a day on the Gram. A quick scroll through some pics and that's about it.

Twitter's got the potential to be an issue. I mean the dude who supposed to be running the country spends most of his time on it.  The hosts on WFAN are always referring to their Twitter accounts. I can easily see myself surfing Twitter for hours at a time. It's going to take a tremendous amount of self discipline to make sure that doesn't happen.

I joined up because with this being Timmy's last year in grammar school, his school put profiles of the 6th grade class on twitter. One of my old friends from high school whose son goes to school with Tim, put their son's profile on FB. I saw it was on Twitter, so I bit the bullet and signed up so I could see his profile and those of his classmates.


Here's Timmy's profile if you haven't seen it yet:

Nice right?  They did a nice job under tough circumstances.

FYI: My twitter handle is @WBillGallagher1. Don't be offended if I don't follow you, I'm being a bit of a commitment-phobe on this.






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April 1986. 7th Grade.

I had decided not to play CYO baseball in 6th Grade. I had a hard time hitting in 5th grade, and my best friend at the time wasn't going to be on my team anymore. So I didn't join.

But in 7th grade the coach was Ivan Cohill and he talked me into playing and promised me he get me hitting.  Our team was awful. In 6th grade I'm not sure how many games they won, but it couldn't have been more than 1 or 2. This team of misfits I was on would lose all but one of our games. The biggest problem we had was that our best player that year was a ringer we only had for our first game.

Now, when most teams sneak a good player on the team, it's because they are older (Hey, check that kid's birth certificate!)  But our ringer was two years younger than us. A 5th grader amongst us 7th graders, and wouldn't you know it, he got three hits that day. A few of us got one each. We got our doors blown off.

And Kevin (Buck) Ludwig went back to his 5th grade team. Leaving us to fend for ourselves.

Several years later, Kev's brother, my best bud and partner in crime Karl (the Ace) Ludwig, was coaching a team that Kevin was on. I was the assistant though that was more an honorary title than an official one. I watched Kev, who was catching that day, throw out every single runner who tried to steal. He practically threw from his knees. The man was a natural.

He could do it all.... He beat me in a foot race on the boardwalk in Rockaway (and never let me forget it) he could shoot like a two guard in basketball though he was built like a power forward. If Woodside had had a football team around, he could have been like Jerome Bettis, big, strong and fast.

But as I write about my friend tonight, as I mourn another friend lost to cancer way too young, it's the biting one liners and the funny stories that are coming to the fore.

Like the time Karl and I picked him up from work at Blockbuster and he kept saying "Lets go get some beers", but he was pronouncing it more like bearce. Every time he said it I cracked up, but Karl finally asked him "Why are you saying it like that?"

Kev shook his head,  "You two idiots never saw Dumb and Dumber?"

Or the time we went to the basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA in 1992, and he bought a $0.10 key chain with a $50.00 bill. The look that the cashier shot him as she was handing him his $49.90 should have it’s own plaque up there between Russell and Chamberlain.

When you played him in basketball, he wouldn't tell you committed a traveling violation. He'd say "Hey, why don't you take the bus?" Every shot he took was “Money in the bank”


The night the Yankees lost to Seattle in the 1995 ALDS, I was on my way to Donovan's and I stopped into Blockbuster to see how he was doing. He must have thought I was in there to break his chops (I wasn't-I was rooting for them too) because he shot me daggers when I walked in. But I told him I'd buy him a consolation beer when his shift was over. A year later when they won it all, I went to see him a Shelley's. I reminded him of the year before and said "I wanted to be one of the first to congratulate you."  He gave me a hug and as much as he could bust your chops, he said something that I'm sure he said to make me feel better.

"This is awesome. But 94 was better. "

That's right. The one team we had in common. The Rangers.

The last time I saw him was last year at Brendan DePuy's high school graduation party. I had just written my Father's Day special.  "That was really awesome Wild Bill,: Buck Ludwig said that day, "You should keep practicing that writing. One of these days, you might be good at it."

I don't know about that. What I do know is that with this pandemic going on, there's never a good time to say goodbye. This just seems particularly cruel. Karl and Ray are my brothers. So Kevin Ludwig was more than a good friend. He's family.

RIP.
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On this Memorial Day: We remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Stay Safe.

Weekly Mail May 10, 2020

Happy Mother's Day Everyone!


Sorry we didn't post last week, to be honest, I just didn't have the motivation.

Being that this is Mother's Day, we'll try to keep this one light and somewhat entertaining. But either next week or the week after, depending on how long it takes me, I am going to do another pandemic special. I've held off on criticism mainly because I feel like in times like these, we need to come together. I still do. But I've seen too much gone wrong here, that I feel like I can no longer don the rose colored glasses. The gloves need to come off (and I don't mean the ones I use to protect myself from COVID-19 either)

But that will be for the near future. For now, lets see what else we can discuss.




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So we left off our last blog post saying that I wasn't going to watch the ESPN 10 part documentary The Last Dance. Well, I went down and popped on the TV and some show called Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist was on. I watched about 2 minutes of that and cried Uncle. I mean the whining and carrying on was just too much for a Sunday night. So guess what I put on?

                              DAAA Bulls Da Bulls Da Bulls Da Bulls Da Bulls Da Bulls


TV REVIEW: The Last Dance

In his Sunday Shooting From the Lip Column, Mike Lupica said "Look at the ratings for this documentary. Michael (Jordan) is still selling tickets."

No the ratings for this are through the roof because the alternative is "Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist." If this was up against a NBA or NHL playoff game, we wouldn't be talking about monster ratings.

That having been said, This has been a very entertaining. I still can't stand those Bulls, but the documentary has answered some questions I had about them..

When Jordan came out of retirement for the 2nd time as player/owner of the Wizards, he hired Doug Collins as the coach. I had always thought Jordan had run Collins out of Chicago, so I found his hiring of Collins strange. Turns out it wasn't Jordan who didn't like Collins, it was the other 11 guys on the Bulls who didn't like every play being run for Michael. Enter Phil Jackson and his triangle offense, and the rest as they say is history.

I have always maintained that the Bulls wouldn't have had their second threepeat without the services of Dennis Rodman. I always found the idea that Jordan and Scottie Pippen alone would have carried the Bulls laughable. Rodman did the grunt work. And he served other purposes as well.

I remember reading in SI, that when Steve Kerr was having an unusally bad stretch of games, Jackson called him into his office and told him "Dennis is heading to AC tonight after the game. Why don't you go with him? Kerr thought he was hearing things, but Phil insisted that a night out with Rodman might do Kerr some good. So off to Atlantic City they went, and sure as hell, Kerr next few games were good. He just needed to blow off some steam.

Incidentally, when Jordan pulled the same stunt during that 1993 playoff series with the Knicks, they showed a clip of Mike Francesa on WFAN questioning Jordan's commitment to his team. Mike Francesa folks, the gift that keeps on giving.

I also decided to torture myself further and watch the infamous Charles Smith play at the end of Game 5 of the above referenced ECF. I had always maintained that Smith was fouled at least twice on that play and nothing was called. So I used my DVR and went frame by frame as if I was reviewing the Zapruder film of the Kennedy Assassination.

Here are my findings..

The first shot- I always maintained that Horace Grant hacked Smith on that play. Looking at in in sol-mo, it's hard to say. Grant may have gotten all ball, or he got a piece of Smith's arm, but it's not as flagrant as I had thought back in the day.

The second shot- Jordan slapped the ball out of Smith's hands, and THAT looked like it could have been called. Jordan got him on the wrist. I'm not so naive to think that a ref would call a foul on Michael Jordan in that situation. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

The third shot- Somehow Smith managed to get the ball back himself a third time. This time he was clearly pushed from behind by Pippen. That foul not getting called is bullspit.

I don't know where Patrick Ewing was at that point, or Charles Oakley to oh I don't know maybe BOX someone out? My tush ended up on many a CYO bench for not boxing out.

Back to Rodman for a second..The beginning of episode 4 where Jordan literally dragged Rodman out of bed to come to practice after Rodman spent two days during the season partying in Vegas was hysterical.

One thing I will give Jordan credit for, he was, at least in that last season with the Bulls great with the press. He was asked every which way if that was his last season and he never blew his stack. Maybe that is creative license by the director, I don't know.

I'd like to see if they go into his first retirement/gambling issues/death of his father. If they do, it will be tonight. I'd like to see how that gets covered.



BASEBALL: The 1969 World Series

SNY replayed the 1969 World Series. All 5 games, even their Game 1 loss in Baltimore.

Game 3, the one with Tommie Agee's incredible catches, had several celebrity sightings.. amongst them.....

        Roy Campanella-who threw out the first pitch.

       Joe DiMaggio and Commissioner Bowie Khun.

Jackie O and JFK Jr.   In front of John-John is Pearl Bailey and holding the camera is Jerry Lewis

And of course the biggest celebrity in the park that day, my father.







Dad was there with the other injured vets. I wrote about that last Father's Day. Before Game 3, Joe D and the Commish came out and shook hands with the vets. Meeting the Yankee Clipper is one of Dad's fondest memories.

Some other thoughts.... The first two games from Baltimore were shown in black and white. That made it hard to watch. Also didn't like the camera angle from behind the plate.

The announcers were great. NBC of course broadcast the World Series in 1969. The legendary Curt Gowdy worked all 5 games. Orioles announcer Bill O'Donnell worked with Gowdy in Games 1 and 2, Mets announcer Lindsay Nelson worked the last three games at Shea with Gowdy. You guys know I don't hate Joe Buck as much as most of my fellow New Yorkers do, but shoot they don't make announcer like Curt Gowdy anymore (Or Lindsay Nelson for that matter)

I watched Game 5 Friday night while having my editorial meeting for WM, and when they won, watching the fans storm the field was something else. Someone lit off a cherry bomb and a bunch of dudes were fighting over home plate. It was insane. That's one of those things that it's probably good that they don't do that

Big Bill watching the final out of the World Series 1969



Speaking of the Mets, it was reported this week that J-Rod is out of the running for purchasing the Mets. I guess the only drawback to that is the sportswriters around here will have one less thing to write about during the pandemic.

Little Richard died Saturday. One of Rock and Rolls last living pioneers. My high school music teacher spent a good part of the class telling us that Little Richard and not Elvis Presley was the true king of rock and roll. He made a damn good case for him too.

OK that’s it. I hope all the Moms had a great day.

The rest of you Have a Great Week