WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. From Benjamin Boykin, Chairman of the Westchester County Board of Legislators. July 22, 2020: Westchester County announced it has created a working Group today to Assist Local School Districts with Reopening Transition this Fall. (Editor’s Note: The plans for any school districts reopening are due in Albany August 1 for review by the Governor.) Westchester County government has worked closely with local school districts across the County to provide assistance and public health support to protect our schools, teachers, staff and most importantly our students. The County has established a working group designed to further provide information and support around the areas of public health, emergency preparedness and response. The goal of the task force is to help create a more efficient way to provide feedback for common issues that may arise such as: the bulk purchasing of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), suggesting vendors for Plexiglas dividers and signage, offering assistance with contact tracing, and developing a standardized frequently asked questions document. Westchester County Executive George Latimer said: “No one knows what we will be up against when our school districts start to reopen again. If we do see plans for a return in September, administrators will have a limited amount of time to make crucial decisions about how to provide a quality education for our students, while maintaining their health and safety, which will always be our top priority. It is my hope that this working group will make the transition process smoother, and provide an easy venue for districts to reach out to us for the support they may need.” Last week, the New York State Department of Health and Board of Regents released specific guidance requiring all school districts to develop a re-opening plan, to be reviewed and approved by the State.The first action steps for the County’s school reopening working group are as follows:Create a survey for school districts, to be collected by the superintendents, to identify the quantity and type of PPE gear required for a safe reopening. The County will assist in procuring the equipment through outside vendors.Host webinars centered around specific aspects of returning to school: proper school cleaning, food provisions for kitchen staff, protocols for contact tracing, and attaining PPE gear. Designate points of contact at the Westchester County Department of Health to assist with health care concerns as they arise. Deputy Commissioner of the Westchester County Department of Community Mental Health Joseph Glazer has been named leader of the working group. Joining Glazer will be White Plains School Superintendent Joe Ricca, Susan Spear and Aviva Meyer of the County Executive’s Office, Dr. Dial Hewlett, Peter DeLucia and Marina Yoegel of the Health Department, and Hernane DeAlmeida from the Department of Public Works Glazer said: “Having provided additional linkage between the Westchester County Department of Health and our schools since the beginning of the pandemic, I understand how important it is for all of us to work together. I am humbled to be helping lead an effort with the goal of returning students to schools and classrooms that are safe for everyone.” Ricca said: “Under the strong leadership of County Executive Latimer and our talented County partners, coordination and collaboration between the County and our public school districts has been consistent throughout the complexities of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are grateful for this continued partnership as we all work to continue to support our children and community members throughout Westchester. As we look to the future, with a hopeful eye to welcoming our children and staff members back into our classrooms, we know that this partnership will remain critical in providing for the health and safety of our communities. It remains an honor to work alongside so many committed professionals in support of our children. Together, we will move through these challenges successfully and we will be stronger for the shared effort.”

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This column originally appeared on WPCNR on February 1, 2003, and celebrates the Dreamers, the Achievers, the High and the Mighty:

The Space Blazers:

 The Apollo 11 Crew: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins,  Buzz Aldrin, Jr. Mr. Armstrong set foot on the moon 51 years ago on July 20, 1969 (NASA Photo)

One of the papers I receive at WPCNR White Plains News Headquarters, White Plains, New York, USA did not tell me ALL week this week was the 51st anniversary of the week when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

The exact hour  was  20:11 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time). That was the culmination of the last great American achievement  – the personal computer and the internet were to come as the next great American achievement conquering space — when Apollo 11 with Armstrong in command, with astronauts Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. blasted off to the stars  for real.

They became the real Flash Gordons, Buck Rogerses, Tom Corbetts and Captain Videos for all-time.

The Apollo 11 mission was a success.

But there have been the tragedies associated with striving for the stars and being the best, achieving the best, working for the good. Those are the persons who keep dreams alive by their deaths and personal sacrifice. I wrote the following after the explosion of the Columbia Space Shuttle upon reentry after 19 days in space in January 2003.

Saturday’s fatal Columbia Space Shuttle accident killing all 7 astronauts aboard when the historic spacecraft broke up over East Texas at daybreak Saturday morning begins a period of national mourning. 
The expected media speculations have started, guessing at the cause of the reentry that went bizarrely, awfully wrong.
The truth is the civilized world takes absolute scientific miracles for granted. We do not appreciate the courage and skills of the men and women creating the future.
Those of us with cell phones, internet connections, high-speed trains, satellite communications and entertainment (all products made possible by the space program), do not realize the magnitude of daring achievements that you and I have come to accept to be executed like clockwork.
I first learned of Columbia’s fate late Saturday afternoon when my wife mentioned that instead of sports programming being videotaped on our television, there was coverage of a live NASA event on ABC.
(Incredibly, the radio station I had been listening to on the way from a sports clinic had not reported any hint of the accident. That station was Z-100, the most listened-to station in the New York metropolitan area. America Online also on their first up page did not mention the missing craft as of midday. That kind of communications misjudgment is sad.)
As I watched the close of Mr. Jennings’ coverage at about 3 PM, he signed off with no recap, no names of astronauts, and some parting words about what he thought was the cause of the disaster.
I’ll say what he should have said.
Columbia’s seven astronauts who died — we know their names: they were

Columbus, Magellan, Cook, Lewis, Clark, the Wrights, Lindbergh, De Laroche, Earhart, Markham, Gruber, Chaffee, Grissom, White, Gargarin, Komarov, the Challenger Crew, the crew of Soyuz 11. They are a handful of the hundreds of brave men and women who went into the unknown.

Appollo 11′s Crew turned the dreams of the 1950s visualized in television shows like Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (above, Astro, Roger and Tom) and Captain Video, “The Master of Science” below  into reality.

America’s Spacemen and Spacewomen and the explorers before them are the people who trust in their ability and their vessel to expand the world’s horizons, to know the unknown, whose legacies build a better world. Whose deeds inspire and achievements are the catalysts for achievement to come. Their failures ever reminders of the uniqueness of their courage and resolve.

From Captain Cook’s fragile vessel which sailed the Pacific, to the marvel that was the Columbia, the captains courageous who sailed the Roaring 40s, blazed the Oregon Trail, discovered how to fly, and flew the oceans, journeyed to the stars, knew the risks they were taking. 

The media  trivializes their courage, their skills, and the difficulty of what they did and wanted to do, to concentrate on the causes of their failure, as if knowing the cause will make their loss acceptable.

The Magnificent Seven

I do not know Columbia’s Magnificent Seven. I just see their smiling faces in their photograph, and I regret the loss of every one. They had achievement on their faces, pride in their demeanor. Their eyes shown with the glow of being alive and striving to do the great things they set out to do.

Civilization has been created because of people like the crew of the Columbia’s Magnificent Seven, not the incompetence we see demonstrated daily today where technology is concerned.

The Columbia itself had flown 26 missions since launching in 1981. It was guided and outfitted with the best 2003 communications and equipment had to offer.

Not like Captain James Cook’s bark, Endeavour, a 100-foot ship powered by sail that conquered the “space” of his time, the Pacific Ocean. It was the Columbia’s Magnificent Seven’s “Endeavour.” They were tracked, they were backed up, but they perhaps more than anyone here on the ground knew the high dangers of the shuttle mission.

Liftoff, as their predecessors, The Challenger crew fell victim to, is fraught with risk.

Reentry, which needs to be negotiated at precisely the right angle of attack, is equally risky.

Soyuz 11’s spacecrew of Dobrovolskiy, Volkov, and Patsayev died in 1971 on reentry, when the Russian cosmonauts took too long to descend.

No guarantees in real life. Machines sometimes run out of miracles.

The magnificence of the explorers’ sacrifice and dedication, is that they accept the risk of “the endeavor.”

They accept the challenge, bear it alone, seizing challenge with an indomitable spirit and confidence, facing death when it comes with the satisfaction that they made the effort, and I suspect analyzing, coping, trying to fix it until the end, the very end.

They never give up.

Columbia’s Magnificent Seven, after 16 days in space, are gone now. My sorrow is with their families who will miss these Magnificent Seven, and who know in their hearts that they died trying to reach the pinnacle of their aspirations.

They are only human.

They tried their best, achieved their best, and experienced what they longed to experience. They dared to live the great adventure.

Not all of us have the courage to follow our longed-for adventures and make them real. You can watch movies that attempt to give that experience by transference. That’s why, I believe, you and I take it so personally when we lose heroic personalities of our time. We wonder what they are like. We glorify them, rightly so.

Follow Me! They Say.

I wonder how those Magnificent Seven felt, how satisfying it must have been, to be at your best, doing what you love, coping with the risks.I envy them that.

The Columbia Crew is the Miracle.

In reality it is not machines that conquer, it is the intrepid personalities, each unique, each contributing, who perform the miracles with God’s help. That they fall short is an example to us, not to take ourselves, our fates, or our existences for granted.

This is true of the everyday people we take for granted: the firefighter, the policeman, the train engineer, the airline pilot, the construction worker, the doctor fighting COVID, the nurse, the leader trying to do what must be done despite opposition. All are highly trained disciplined workers, executing precise tasks for which the non-expert has no feel or understanding .

What makes for the desire to achieve? What is out there or up there that leads them on?

The Feel of the Unknown

I took Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s biographical adventure diary, Listen! The Wind down from the aviation bookshelf.

She was the young bride of the aviator-pioneer, Charles Lindbergh. She navigated for him in his aircraft, and ran his radio communications on his many exploratory flights around the world.

In a passage she describes a night flight over the ocean, in which she was operating the radio for her husband Charles, who was at the controls. Mrs. Lindbergh is describing the feelings she has as she tries to tune in the South American coast at sea in the dark of night in 1933, 87 years ago.

The feeling, the courage of the adventurer, the explorer has not changed. This is great:

“Night was the hardest. It would be all right once it was day. I kept saying…We began to hit clouds. I could tell without looking up, for the plane bumped slightly from time to time, first one wing down and then the other. And the moon blackened out for short periods.

Then for longer periods. I could not see to write my messages. I stiffened, dimly sensing fear – the old fear of bad weather – and looked out. We were flying under clouds. I could still find a kind of horizon, a difference in shading where the water met the clouds. That was all. But it seemed to be getting darker.

Storms? Were those clouds or was it the sky? We had lost the water. We were flying blind. I turned off the light quickly (to give my husband a little more vision), and sat waiting, tense, peering through the night. Now we were out again. There were holes through which one could see the dark sky. It was all right, I felt, as long as there were holes.

More blind flying. This is it, I thought is what people forget. This is what it means to fly across the ocean, blind and at night. But day is coming. It ought to be day before long… Daybreak! What a miracle. I didn’t see any sign of day and yet it must be lighter. The clouds were distinguishing themselves more and more from water and sea.
Daybreak—thank God—as if we had been living in eternal night—as if this were the first sun that ever rose out of the sea.

Note: This column originally appeared February 1, 2003 on WPCNR.

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WPCNR CORONAVIRUS REPORT. From the Governor’s Press Office. July 19, 2020:

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo Sunday updated New Yorkers on the state’s progress during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The number of new cases, percentage of tests that were positive and many other helpful data points are always available at forward.ny.gov.

“We’re continuing to progress forward through the COVID-19 pandemic in the face of a continued explosion of cases throughout the United States, and that’s reflected in today’s hospitalizations—the lowest number since March 18—and rate of positive cases,” Governor Cuomo said. “During these confining and frustrating times, I know it’s tempting to be tired of the many rules and guidelines the state has issued, but I reiterate that this pandemic is far from over, and the incredible compliance and fortitude of New Yorkers are key parts of our ability to fight COVID-19. Socially distance, wear a mask, wash your hands and stay New York Smart.”

Today’s data is summarized briefly below:

• Patient Hospitalization – 722 (-21)
• Patients Newly Admitted – 79 (+14)
• Hospital Counties – 30
• Number ICU – 160 (-12)
• Number ICU with Intubation – 96 (-4)
• Total Discharges – 72,161 (+97)
• Deaths – 13
• Total Deaths – 25,048

Of the 46,204 tests conducted in New York State yesterday, 502, or 1.08 percent, were positive. Each region’s percentage of positive tests over the last three days is as follows:

REGION	THURSDAY	FRIDAY	SATURDAY
Capital Region	1.1%	0.7%	0.8%
Central New York	0.6%	0.9%	1.1%
Finger Lakes	0.9%	0.9%	0.8%
Long Island	0.9%	1.0%	0.9%
Mid-Hudson	0.8%	0.9%	0.6%
Mohawk Valley	1.8%	1.4%	1.5%
New York City	1.0%	1.3%	1.3%
North Country	0.3%	0.4%	0.4%
Southern Tier	0.7%	0.7%	1.2%
Western New York	1.2%	1.3%	1.0%

The Governor also confirmed 502 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 406,807 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 406,807 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:

County	Total Positive	New Positive
Albany	2,318	3
Allegany	71	0
Broome	883	6
Cattaraugus	145	0
Cayuga	129	0
Chautauqua	194	0
Chemung	154	1
Chenango	182	0
Clinton	113	2
Columbia	492	1
Cortland	69	1
Delaware	93	0
Dutchess	4,376	3
Erie	8,035	19
Essex	51	0
Franklin	40	0
Fulton	267	1
Genesee	257	1
Greene	272	1
Hamilton	6	0
Herkimer	206	2
Jefferson	105	1
Lewis	33	1
Livingston	158	1
Madison	383	1
Monroe	4,401	18
Montgomery	143	0
Nassau	42,622	28
Niagara	1,382	7
NYC	221,419	298
Oneida	1,940	3
Onondaga	3,278	16
Ontario	324	0
Orange	10,931	10
Orleans	288	0
Oswego	229	0
Otsego	98	4
Putnam	1,391	1
Rensselaer	651	1
Rockland	13,793	9
Saratoga	637	2
Schenectady	915	5
Schoharie	62	0
Schuyler	16	0
Seneca	80	2
St. Lawrence	242	0
Steuben	281	1
Suffolk	42,466	26
Sullivan	1,473	0
Tioga	170	1
Tompkins	208	9
Ulster	1,901	1
Warren	287	1
Washington	250	0
Wayne	227	2
Westchester	35,515	12
Wyoming	104	0
Yates	51	0

Yesterday, there were 13 deaths due to COVID-19 in New York State, bringing the total to 25,048. A geographic breakdown is as follows, by county of residence:

Deaths by County of Residence
County	New Deaths
Bronx	1
Kings	1
Manhattan	1
Monroe	1
Nassau	1
Queens	2
Rensselaer	1
Suffolk	1
Sullivan	1
Westchester	3

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