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MY PARENTS: CHARLES F. BAILEY AND MILDRED PINNEO BAILEY

WPCNR THE SUNDAY  BAILEY. By John F. Bailey. Republished from The CitizeNetReporter of June 17, 2007:

This week celebrates a great American Father, mine and the other fathers across time who provide an eternal legacy their sons and daughters rely on every day and think about their fathers every day.

Charles F. Bailey.

He is my father. He was born November 17, 1918.

My father gave me four pieces of advice in life: Always drive an air-conditioned car. Always central air-condition your home. Stay out of court.

And, oh yes, don’t sit in traffic. Take the next exit and wing it.

Always take the service road on the Long Island Expressway. (He would have loved a Garmin.)

In retrospect, his advice has served me well.  I am always comfortable. I sit out traffic delays in comfort. I have not made lawyers rich.

He was not an emotional man. He was a banker and always wore suits crisp white shirts with French Cuffs to work. Starched.  To work. I have fond memories of going to meet him in the days of steam engines in Pleasantville – when train tracks were at grade with Manville Road at the old stone station.

I was most impressed as a young child by how he always smelled of coal cinders when he got off the train – like commuter’s cologne.

Sadly on today’s electric trains you do not get that. You always heard those steam engines coming. Chuffing doing serious work.

You could see them coming around the bend but you heard then first. Bell ringing ,chuffing, puffing : Clouds of very busy, inspiring industrious black smoke streaming at the horizon down the line.

He’d get off the train.

My mother would move over and he’d drive the old Hudson Hornet home. He always spoke quietly. Never raised his voice. Drank scotch and soda in the winter. “G & T’s” in the summer, martinis with George and Howard two close friends. He smoked Chesterfield, Philip Morris, Marlboros, Kents with the micronite filter.

He set up a Lionel train set in our basement – perhaps our unspoken connection.

When I was sent in by train for the first time to meet him at the office during Christmas time, he’d have his secretary Margie greet me at Grand Central Terminal which still is a very big and scary place to me .

He would take me to lunch at Jack’s Monte Rosa Restaurant on 49th Street – which I thought was a very great place. Hub bub, tinkling glasses. Sharp-dressed waiters in white jackets black bow ties.

When I first went to it with him, I was a little disappointed that it was not more glamorous but I was really impressed that Jack the owner greeted him by name.

“Hi, Mr. Bailey. Howe are you doing?”

I thought that was great that my Dad was greeted with respect.

When I first started working in Washington, D.C. in 1968 I ate regularly at a restaurant below the television station WMAL-TV where I worked, it was called Marty’s Italian Village.

Marty, the owner (who looked like Humphrey Bogart, the only thing missing was the white sport coat) started calling me when I came in around 7 PM, ‘Hi John, how are you?” People would look at me. They thought I was big.  I liked that. Feeling big in my small world at $90 a week.)

When my father came to visit me in Washington where I worked. I took him around town. I told him when he got off the plane. “Hi, Dad, welcome to my town.” I wanted to impress him. We’re always trying to impress our fathers. At least I was.

Another Father time was when my Dad came out for Dad’s Day at college.

I mean this was a big thing to me. He watched me do play-by-play of a football game from atop the press box in 15 degree weather. It was cold. But he watched. Acted impressed. He hated cold weather. No watching from the warm press box for him.

Another time he impressed was when I lost a job where I was working at the television station that I was being considered for. I told him how unfair it was, he put things in perspective:

“Puggy, he said,  “The film manager wasn’t going to put you in as his Assistant if you were going to be bucking him all the time.”

It put things in perspective. No false sentiment. No making me feel better, he was tough enough to teach by being realistic while telling me not to feel sorry for myself. It was one of my first lessons in how telling the truth puts situations in perspective. You know the truth, should we recognize it when it is told to us is a way to stop feeling sorry for yourself, that whatever event happened to you it happened not because you handled it wrong, but because others were weak.

Then later in my career, I was fired out of a job completely blindsided. He again intervened, saying to me he thought what the agency head had done was a terrible thing. I needed that at the time.

It taught me then, when bad things are done to you, the person doing them was a coward and took the easy way out.

He also, in a very supportive move, told me if I could make $1,000 a night writing a free lance direct mail package, I should keep trying to do that.

I really needed that. It started my career, working for myself. If I did not like a client or they treated me badly or they stiffed me (common behavior in the advertising business). I did not take a job with them again, and with new clients I took half the fee upfront. When I asked for upfront money, the possible clients simpered “don’t you trust me?” I would simply answer “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s my policy.”

Dads are there to say the right things to you at the right time. Sometimes it is not always the right thing, but they try. Often, if you’re lucky, as I was, they say the right thing. Always — when you really really really need it. Not the wrong thing.

With my father, who was not really my father, since I was an adopted child, it was never all about him, it was all about you. Making me better, even when it hurt him to say things that were the truth.

When I bought my first house in White Plains. He never criticized the house. But when I sold it, he complimented me, “I think it’s great how you came out of it (the crummy first house).” He was a personal trainer.

The good ones  train you to run a race. If you stumble, no one hurts more than they do. When you succeed, no one is prouder. The good ones push you in front of the cameras, they say interview her or him. They did it.

They know what you should do, but they can’t tell you, because you won’t do it if you’re a kid.

But the more subtler of them tell you anyway in hopes it will sink into the rebellious offspring mind. My dad was subtle.

Another fond memory: My father took me camping once at a friend’s cabin in Pennsylvania. Funny thing was there was such a great comic collection we wound up sleeping in sleeping bags on the porch of the cabin. That was funny.

Another time when I was being threatened in college over a position at the radio station, I asked him if I should just abdicate and assign a play-by-play position to the person who was being forced on me. He advised me to “stick to your guns,” so I reported the threat to the Dean.

The position was compromised, but I was never threatened again.  He never shared my love for baseball and sports.

In fact he never played catch with me all that well or that often.

I mean I could have made the big leagues (pipe dream) if he played catch with me more. But that’s a small criticism.  I wish I had more of his financial acumen. But I do not. I married that.

As you grow into your 30s and 40s, little things they say to you you begin to understand.

My father never struck me.

He always disciplined me with quiet words. I have not always been that way as a parent myself, being somewhat volatile. I wish I had his even temperament. He always asked me to take care of my mother. And the only time he really got mad at me was when I had made my mother upset with me.

He was a little like Humphrey Bogart in movie roles in the way he disciplined, I remember he would say admonitions quietly. Such as when I got an F in an English course at college.

He told me, that was the last F I would get at Ohio Wesleyan, because the next one he would stop paying my tuition.

That had an effect. And that was when tuition was only $3,000 a year.

I have taken to, after my children have grown, telling them always “Be careful,” “Don’t do anything stupid because someone suggests it,” “Do not go anywhere alone without telling people where you are going,” “Don’t lose your temper,” “Don’t tailgate,” “Don’t stand close to the edge  of a sever drop.” In hopes that when I am not with them, they will remember it when they need it.

I think of him every day of my life. I become more like him every day. He is always lingering in the background of my thoughts. I do not know what he would think of what I am doing now.  But, he’d say — “If that’s what you want to do. Do it.” He also would say,

“You have to make yourself happy.”

I also think, even today of what advice (laconic as always) he’d give me in a situation.

I wish I could discuss property taxes with him. Banking today and how it has become a predator system.

I especially have to salute him, because I am an adopted child.

That alone makes me appreciate his love and acceptance with a sense of awe to this day. He loved me like his own son. Because in his mind, I was.

He took responsibility. He did what had to be done.

You never outgrow your need for Dad.

The good ones are immortal, alive and with you in your head when you need them.

They are the  ghosts that comfort always. Haunt you in memory. You’re always  glad when they drop in on you.

You feel them warmly when you do good.

You feel their sympathy when you have done wrong. They are your conscience. They are the God of Judgement in your head. Your trusted advisor.

Immortality is leaving a good memory of you with the ones who knew you.

Because what you give them, lives on for generations.

Your children will talk of you because of the good things and behaviors you gave them when you needed them and you never lose those tools Dad gave you.

I miss my Dad and Mom. They probably have discussions over me to this day.

Charles Bailey. He died in 1986.

His legacy and my mother’s to me keeps me going every day.

I also remember my wife’s parents who welcomed me into their family when I married and who raised an extraordinary woman.

I think their should be another holiday.

Parents’ Day.

Don’t you?

 

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ADEEL MIRZA MAILINGS  FOUND IN VIOLATION OF TWO ETHICS LAWS BY COMMITEE ON ETHICS

COUNTY LEGISLATORS PROPOSE INCREASING THEIR TERMS FROM 2 TO 4 YEARS

NEW YORKERS AGAINST CONGESTION PRICING HELP LEGISLATURE OUT WITH HOW TO FUND THE MTA WITHOUT CONGESTION PRICING

HOSPITALS ASK CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL TO END REPORTING OF COVID CASES IN HOSPITALS

THE ROWDY FORUMS.

DR. KATELYN JETELINA ON THE FAUCI CONGRESSIONAL HEARING 

JUST-INS: SUSTAINABLE WESTCHESTER/WESTCHESTER POWER GREEN ENERGY RATES, FOSSIL RATES LOWER NEXT YEAR

NEW EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF ARTS WESTCHESTER INTRODUCED. NEW SOLAR WIND STATION  INTRODUCED

NOTE: AFTER TONIGHT’S PROGRAM WAS PRODUCED. ADEEL MIRJA CANDIDATE FOR DISTRICT ATTORNEY WITHDREW FROM THE RACE

JOHN BAILEY AND THE NEWS

THIS WEEK EVERY WEEK

ON WHITE PLAINS WEEK

FOR 23 YEARS

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JOHN BAILEY INTERVIEWS COREY BEARAK OF NEW YORKERS AGAINST CONGESTION PRICING

WHY IT IS WRONG FOR NEW YORK

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

UNCONSIDERED ISSUES

ALL YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT CONGESTION PRICING

AND WHAT WE STILL DO NOT KNOW AFTER YEAR

THIS INTERVIEW WAS RECORDED BEFORE GOVERNOR HOCHUL

STOPPED IMPLEMENTATION OF CONGESTION PRICING LAST WEEK

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6-foot rule, Fauci, and the bigger picture

Pandemic revisionism at its finest

KATELYN JETELINA

JUN 11, 2024

(Reprinted with permission)

Last week, Fauci testified before a special House subcommittee.

While the subcommittee’s main focus was Covid-19 origins, other topics snuck in, including the 6-foot social distancing policy during the pandemic. This was a key measure taken to slow down spread, including at schools, businesses, and places of worship.

A level-headed evaluation of decisions and policies made during the pandemic is helpful and needed, but that’s not at all what happened here. Instead, there were empty, unhelpful questions lacking nuance and depth, and at worst, unhinged harassment of public servants.

The result? A dangerous wave of “pandemic revisionism”—headlines and viral social media accounts taking soundbites of the hearing and concluding that pandemic policies were worthless or that public health officials just made stuff up.

Americans deserve (and need) so much better.

6-foot rule: Where did it come from?

Last week, the subcommittee blamed Fauci for the 6-foot policy. Fauci responded saying he was unaware of studies supporting the 6-foot social distancing guidelines. He then clarified that it wasn’t based on randomized control trials.

There are a few problems with this exchange:

1. This wasn’t a Fauci decision. The 6-foot guideline was decided by CDC.
2. This policy wasn’t pulled out of thin air. During the Bush administration, this key strategy was put into the pandemic playbook in 2007 and again in 2017. It was based on our knowledge of flu at the time, which showed droplets as a main form of transmission (rather than aerosols). Given that Covid-19 was a novel virus, pulling from a pandemic playbook was the right decision.
3. Even though 6 feet was not the “perfect distance,” it still helped prevent transmission.

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4. The mistake was not updating the policy quickly enough. It turns out Covid-19 has droplets, but its main mode of transmission is aerosols (i.e., airborne). In the summer of 2020, more than 200 scientists sent a letter to the WHO urging them to recognize this, as it would impact policy decisions. However, it took over a year for the CDC and WHO to officially recognize it. Why? And why did the U.S. go with 6 feet while the WHO went with 1 meter? Now, these are questions that would be useful to answer.
5. You won’t get a randomized control trial in times of an emergency. We were losing thousands of people per day. We have to move quickly and with suboptimal information. This is why preparedness is so important. Even so, some questions we ethically can’t answer with an RCT.
6. It ignores what we learned. When the world works on one thing, we learn leaps and bounds. One example is how much we learned about the power of air ventilation and filtration.

But these points are coming far too late.

Millions this week received the wrong and dangerous message that the 6-foot rule was based on no science thanks to this botched exchange, erroneous headlines and viral tweets. Clawing back the narrative for the next response—such as bird flu where droplets may be an important driver of a disease — will be incredibly difficult. (!–Editor’s Note)

Attacking scientists is also not the answer.

It’s reasonable to ask Fauci why he made certain decisions, what conversations he was a part of, or what his thinking was at the time. After all, he was one of the key decision-makers.

However, vilifying, attacking, and ripping apart public servants is unacceptable, undeserved, and certainly unhelpful in propelling us forward. Some tweets, like the one below by Elon Musk, was viewed more than 44 million times.

Public health leaders stepped up during a time of great uncertainty using systems too old to succeed while losing, at its peak, 3,500 people a day.

They had to make incredibly difficult decisions, often with incomplete information, many of which were valid decisions based on the data at the time.

Yes, they made mistakes, but their service was heroic and patriotic, too.

We can live with these two truths.

If not, we risk losing public health leaders — why would someone step up when this is how they’re treated?

We need a far better approach.

A proper diagnosis with the breadth, depth, and fairness the Covid-19 emergency deserves, driven by critical thinking and diverse perspectives:

• Why weren’t we prepared?
• What decisions were made, when, why, and by whom?
• What mistakes were unavoidable and avoidable?
• What could have saved more lives?
• How could we have a better balanced, holistic view of health?
• What tangible steps will be taken to do better in the future?

There is precedent for such an approach: the 9/11 Commission. However, a united, national diagnosis seems less likely as the months pass.

Thankfully, some groups have taken it upon themselves to start patching together answers:

• State-level diagnoses, like New Jersey
• Books like Lessons from the Covid-19 War: An investigative report
• Reports from independent organizations, like American Democracy & Health Security: Lighting a Path Forward Amid Pandemic Polarization

Will this be enough for the future? Especially with no funding to make the changes needed?

Time will tell, but this is a gamble given that health threats are coming faster.

Bottom line

The United States lost more than 1 million lives—worse per capita than any other developed nation. We deserve to know why and what steps are needed to ensure this doesn’t happen again. However, resorting to unhinged attacks and disingenuous waves of pandemic revisionism will only hurt us in the end.

Love, YLE

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WPCNR THE LETTER TICKER. From The People’s CDC. www.peoplescdc@substack.com JUNE 11, 2024:

 

The comment portal is still open until 11:59 pm EDT! Tell the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) that hospitals must report COVID infections and they should give us care, not COVID. Although the text indicates an earlier deadline of 5pm “to be assured consideration,” the comment portal is still open for submissions. If you haven’t already commented, submit one now! CMS is one of the primary funders of US hospitals. 94% of hospitals have at least half of their admissions paid for by Medicare or Medicaid. The CDC recently stopped mandating that healthcare systems report COVID hospitalizations. Since the end of the public health emergency in May 2023, COVID hospitalizations have remained one of the few remaining data indicators. Without this information, the public health and general community will not understand the severity of COVID infections in the US. To address this, CMS has proposed mandatory reporting of COVID infections among hospitalizations beginning October 1, 2024. They need to hear overwhelming public support for this measure. SEE OUR GUIDE BELOW ⬇️ for submitting a public comment, with a sample template to help make your voice heard on this vital patient safety issue. Please submit your comment directly on the Federal Register. In your comment, we recommend telling CMS to allocate financial resources to create capacity for collecting and reporting COVID infections among hospitalized patients. While we remain concerned with the gap in the current reporting period between now and October 1, this is a necessary proposed change to our public health system. We also are advocating for data reporting on demographic, socioeconomic, and disability status to better understand differences in population outcomes. Further, we continue to urge CMS to adopt an approach that deters healthcare-acquired COVID infections. Currently, CMS penalizes hospitals that fail to keep patients safe from other hospital-acquired infections through the Hospital Acquired Condition Reduction (HAC) program. But COVID is not on the list of infections that CMS tries to get hospitals to prevent, unlike, for example, surgical site infections and MRSA blood infections. Hospital-acquired COVID-19 has a mortality rate of 5 to 10% — between a 1-in-10 and 1-in-20 chance of dying if you catch COVID in the hospital! Healthcare systems and other healthcare settings can and should prevent COVID. Join us in also telling CMS to add COVID to the list of infections in the Hospital Acquired Condition Reduction (HAC) program. When the CDC stopped requiring hospitals to maintain crucial COVID-infection control measures like COVID testing upon hospital admission and before elective procedures, we saw hospital outbreaks as a result. Without COVID-19 infection control, hospitals have become high-risk zones for COVID transmission, where people getting care for COVID-19 are very likely to encounter vulnerable patients who could be harmed by COVID. You have nearly a 40% chance of catching COVID-19 if your hospital roommate has it. Who wants to go to the hospital for a heart attack, giving birth, or routine surgery and end up catching COVID? It is especially concerning that hospitals are incentivized to ignore positive COVID cases—which would reduce income from carrying out elective procedures—especially during a “crushing” financial crisis. CMS thus must make the hospitals put patient safety first.  Preventing hospital-acquired COVID is an equity issue. CMS says they want to hear from multiple stakeholders and they are concerned about equity.  Over the course of the pandemic, we have seen marginalized communities. like low-income communities, disabled people, and people of color continue to be disproportionately harmed. These harms continue to persist and are further compounded by the fact that these groups are less likely to have access to boosters and treatment.” Together we can urge CMS to mandate reporting of COVID infections and protect us while making our hospitals safer! SUBMIT YOUR COMMENT How to Comment:  Unique comments in your own words have the greatest impact and are counted with more weight. Select “Healthcare industry” in the “What is your comment about?” dropdown menu. Begin your letter with something personal, stating a fact that informs your interest such as: “I am concerned about this issue because I have lost family members to COVID” or “I am at high risk for severe illness,” or “I am concerned about Long COVID.” If you have a health condition or disability and you feel comfortable sharing, or if you’re a health worker or public health researcher, mention those. Feel free to use and include our sample letter text, references, edited, in part or full, with your public comment, as you see fit. If you prefer you can upload your comment as a PDF. If you have the time and energy, please, upload any supporting references as PDFs. They are required to  read every document uploaded! Here are a few suggestions. Below is a sample template letter you can copy-paste all or in parts for your public comment (but please customize for achieving higher impact).    SUBMIT YOUR COMMENT   Sample template letter: (The hyperlinks below will not transfer to the plain-text box. If you prefer to upload a fully cited version, please save everything below as a PDF and submit as an attachment). To the Leadership of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid: To reduce the spread of COVID inside healthcare settings, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) must 1) mandate hospitals report COVID infections and 2) include healthcare-acquired COVID infections as part of the Hospital Acquired Condition Reduction Program, CMS-1808-P. The following proposals and changes should be implemented: Hospitals must separately report total COVID, Flu, and RSV infections in healthcare settings on a weekly basis as part of this proposal as part of routine reporting of “respiratory illnesses.” Financial support should be provided to healthcare systems to ensure robust reporting capability. I support the reporting of demographics including additional characteristics such as socioeconomics and disability data. These data should be reported separately by facility name and aggregated at the state level with public access through HealthData.gov. CMS must include COVID in its Hospital-Acquired Condition (HAC) HAC Reduction Program and/or its Value-Based Purchasing Program, to create financial incentives for COVID prevention in inpatient care. CMS should require hospitals to report and decrease hospital-onset COVID, using layered protections, such as universal mask wearing, universal screening testing, and improved air quality to promote patient and staff safety and health equity.  Hospitals should be required to report all hospital-onset COVID cases to CMS and the CDC. These data should be made available through HealthData.gov. Hospital-onset COVID should be defined as infections diagnosed after 5+ days of admission. The CDC currently defines hospital-onset COVID as only those cases diagnosed in people who are still in the hospital after 14 days of hospitalization. This vastly underestimates hospital-acquired COVID, as current variants of COVID only take 2-3 days from exposure to developing symptoms.1,2 Since the average hospital stay is 5.4 days,3 the current criteria of 14-day hospitalization miscount most people. Additional Information and References for the Comment Letter: During the first three months of 2023, US hospitals reported an average of 1231 patients per week that had caught COVID during their stay, with a high of 2287 patients with hospital-acquired COVID in the first week of January 2023 (using the current CDC 14-day definition).4  The UK has documented even higher rates,5 but the UK defines hospital-onset COVID as cases diagnosed after 7 days of hospitalization. The Biden administration never released data showing how prevalent COVID spread has been inside individual hospitals,6 and the CDC stopped requiring hospitals to report hospital-onset COVID in April 2023.7  COVID remains a major cause of death in the US since 2020,8,9 and many of those deaths were likely due to hospital-acquired COVID, which has a 5-10% mortality rate. 10,11 This is significantly higher than several of the other infections CMS includes in its HAC Reduction Program. Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infection has a mortality rate of 2.3%,12 Surgical Site Infections for Abdominal Hysterectomy and Colon Procedures have a mortality rate of 3%,13 and Clostridium-difficile infection has a mortality rate of 7.9%.14 Thus, hospital-onset COVID requires more preventive effort. Nearly half of all US residents are concerned about COVID outbreaks.15 Preventing COVID in the hospital is an equity issue. People of color continue to suffer high rates of COVID deaths.16 Amid huge health worker shortages, half of health workers go to work with COVID symptoms.17 CMS needs to protect both patients and health workers. Even when community transmission is low, healthcare settings are the most likely place where people receiving COVID care could encounter vulnerable patients who could be harmed by COVID. COVID outbreaks are already happening in hospitals that stopped requiring masks.18 If your hospital roommate has COVID, you have a 4 in 10 chance of catching it from them.19 No one should be endangered for going to the hospital for a heart attack, elective surgery, or delivering a baby.    Hospitals should be protecting patients under their care from COVID. But since hospitals previously faced a financial crisis23 and positive COVID cases mean loss of income from elective procedures, we are concerned that hospitals are placing priority over profits over patient safety.  Please protect vulnerable patients, prevent health worker shortages, and promote health equity by requiring hospitals to report COVID infections and protect patients from hospital-acquired COVID.