January 2007

Your Jan. 3 item about the Monticello gym being closed because of violent intergang rivalries there did an injustice to the organizer of the free community basketball league whose players have lost out as a result of a few criminals.

I have known Jesse York for 19 years and feel that to say he "gets his street credibility by showing off his motorcycle and decked-out Nissan Armada and talking of his stint in prison for drug dealing" is shallow, inadequate, and plays to stereotypes.

This afternoon I took Blaze for a six-mile walk. It was shirt-sleeve weather (long sleeves, that is), a record-setting 65 degrees and cloudy. During any other year, today's cloud formations and humidity would have suggested the likelihood of a snowstorm. Not this year. Local media report that normal temperatures for the day are generally in the high 30s.

At first glance, the prominent

Editor
The Times Herald-Record
Middletown, New York
By e-mail: letters@th-record.com

Editor:

Your 1/3 item about the Monticello gym being closed due to violent inter-gang rivalries there did an injustice to the organizer of the free community basketball league whose players have lost out as a result of a few criminals.

Much improved since surgery on November 17th, I return to work this morning. Six weeks ago, the weather was warm enough to go sleeveless and occasionally even wear short pants. Now, as the wheel of the year turns on, the air is bitter and the ground white with frost. Six weeks seems like a long time. Actually, quite a lot has happened.

A Mormon friend living in southern California, David Shaw, reminded me this morning, in the vein of "this date in history", that 40 years ago today on January 1, 1966 the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 went into effect. The new law required cigarette manufacturers to label their product with, "Caution: Cigarette Smoking May be Hazardous to Your Health."