(John) McCain likes to illustrate his moral fiber by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year- old former U.S. Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children. But there is another Mrs. McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator's presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain's three eldest children.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam's infamous 'Hanoi Hilton' prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news. But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969.

Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries.

When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter. Today, she stands at just
5 feet, 4-inches and still walks awkwardly, with a pronounced limp. Her body is held together by screws and metal plates and, at 70, her face is worn by wrinkles that speak of decades of silent suffering.

For nearly 30 years, Carol has maintained a dignified silence about the accident, McCain and their divorce. But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.

My marriage ended because John McCain didn't want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.'

In 1979 - while still married to Carol - he met Cindy at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage. Some of McCain's acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centered womanizer who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to 'play the field'. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

Ted Sampley, who fought with U.S. Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans' rights, said, "I have been following John McCain's career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is - deceit."

When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it. Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better."

McCain is the classic opportunist. He's always reaching for attention and glory,' he said. After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.'

Ross Perot, a billionaire Texas businessman, and a former presidential candidate, who paid her medical bills all those years ago, now believes that both Carol McCain and the American people have been taken in by a man who is unusually slick and cruel - even by the standards of modern politics.

Ken Dalton

Clifton

Crime on the rise

I have lived in Clifton for more than six years on South Parkway. Every year the speeding gets worse and the crime rate gets higher. My neighborhood has gone from a peaceful tree-lined street with a nice park to an all out drag strip with a park used as a hang out for undesirables and drugs being sold right in front of me.

I have personally called the mayor who promised to take action.

No Action.

I have called the police who promised to take action.

No Action.

I cannot blame the Clifton Police Department considering they have their hands full with all the new shopping centers our City Council continually approves and builds.

This past Saturday my car was once again broken into in my driveway. This makes five different break-ins in the last four years.

What is most surprising to me is that I am a former resident of Newark who in 10 years had a car broken into once.

I think it’s time for all Clifton residents to stand up for our property and take back our neighborhoods. Maybe a good start would be ousting the current Council including the mayor. For the safety of our children our homes and our properties we should all take a stand against the current Council and start making a difference before it’s too late and we all become victims of fat-cat-out-of-touch politicians and become prisoners in our own homes.

Anthony Lazaro

Clifton

 

Too little, too late?

 I believe if was September 1993 when I sat through the first executive session I attended as a school board member. There was one agenda item, the architect’s estimates for the additions to the high school and to Woodrow Wilson Middle School. The estimates were in excess of $20 million, perhaps 10 percent more. While board members, concerned the public would not support so large a referendum, debated options, I reworked the numbers.

I came up with an estimate of $17,500,000. Board President Frank Pecci looked at the bottom line and asked me if it was a good number. I told him it was. I suspect he had doubts, but he accepted my numbers, added $500,000 for wiggle room; and the Board put forward an $18,000,000 referendum, which passed. When the contractors came in with their bids, the lowest bid was somewhere between $15-16,000,000. The surplus was later applied to reduce the cost of placing computers in our schools.

Today, the only Board Members clearly qualified to undertake such an analysis are John Traier and Michael Paitchell. Yet this Board, still ineffectual under the carryover effects of past leadership and the voters’ propensity to reduce their selection of candidates to the lowest common denominator, has largely dismissed many of Paitchell’s suggestions.

I suspect he will not run for a second term. Traier does not appear to have such a problem. We might concede that he is more politic than Paitchell, politic being the most apt modifier.

As a taxpayer, I am concerned about our schools and the needs of the educators who do their best with every student. Some, of course, bring more and therefore are able to achieve more. Everything begins in the classroom, and that’s where we need the best and the brightest. The Board understands this as does the leadership. So it is across the entire United States, yet we continue to run our schools pretty much as they were run decades ago. There have been highs and lows. Our schools have shown the capacity to meet historical challenges, although not all schools and not all challenges. In a general sense, our schools have done well enough.

From a global perspective, well enough is no longer good enough. When we do not do well, we do not find the basis in the NJ State testing results which Frederick Rembis is so quick to cite. They are NOT a measure of teacher performance. They are NOT a measure of the quality of the Clifton Schools. Rembis is fighting the right fight, but like many who draw confidence from what Benjamin Disraeli characterized as "…lies, damn lies and statistics," he too easily takes comfort from numbers, numbers that we cannot ignore but numbers that DO NOT measure performance of the Board, the leadership or the teachers. So hats off to Mr. Rembis, but let’s look at, in as few words as possible, the real problem.

Some months ago Commissioner Tahan, one of the last to opine openly on Mr. Rembis’s criticism said, "It’s the parents."  Most experts would say the same thing. It is simple enough, and it is the scourge of our society. The problem, however, is so complex that it almost defies analysis. Our schools do not have the resources, the time, and the intelligence to address the multiplicity of problems that interfere with learning and result in poor performance.

It is easy enough to blame parents. It is they who are responsible for ensuring their children have values, respect truth, meet commitments, grow and learn, show respect, have vision, and understand authority. Unfortunately, many parents do not have these qualities themselves or are so busy trying to meet their financial obligations that they are not present long enough in their children’s lives to teach anything or impose their will upon anyone. Even worse, too many children from an early age acquire their world view through the media and their peers. They expect to be entertained, not taught. They expect rewards through happenstance rather than through learning and achieving. The implications are limitless, and the cost to society is staggering.

Much is being written about this problem, that is, low student achievement and inadequate performance. Educators understand the problems, but they do not have the resources to address them. In our society we spend more of our capital resources on wars and prisons than we do on schools. No one would ask an interior designer to achieve maximum results at minimal cost with time allotted incrementally and periodically. Yet this is what we ask our educators to do everyday. The leadership, coming as they do through the ranks and thereby limited in their capacity to understand, cannot make much difference or at least we suspect they cannot. Yet, if they had the resources we most likely would be amazed at what they could achieve.

In Clifton, we do all right, test scores not withstanding. We could do much better. There is the belief that we need more classroom space. That may be true, but there is so much doubt flying about that we may not get it. There are other answers, but we should not expect them to come from this Board of Education. If the leadership comes up with the answers, we can hope the Board has the wisdom and understanding to support them.

We are facing financial crises, moral crises and the unraveling of the greatest nation in the world. I would like to blame Madeleine Murray, but that is simplistic. I would like to blame George W. Bush. Yet he did not create the problems; he has simply failed to address them. I cannot blame the schools. They are a symptom, not a cause. There are more reasons than we can count, and there is more blame than we can spread. What we must do is stop looking backward and look forward to the society that we want. That society is not in the Middle East. It is not in Asia or the other Americas. We can "walk quietly and carry a big stick," but we cannot realign the rest of the world. It is time to elect leaders who understand this. Our priority has to be the United States of America, but we are one among many. We must recapture the skill, the will and the drive that made our nation great while embracing our global economy.

This will start with our lawmakers, build through our schools and succeed only if we are willing to develop and compete on an equal footing with the rest of the world. Fortunately, the people here in Passaic County we have sent to Washington understand this and listen. We remain the leader of the pack in most categories, education, on one sense, being one of them but in another sense, not. The developing nations, a term now become an oxymoron, are catching up. India and China are running ahead in some categories. We have 15, maybe 20 years to rebuild our strength, or we could build more prisons and asylums.

Most reading this letter understand this. It is those in business, those in public office, and those in our schools who do not accept it that must be reached. Perhaps Wall Street has sounded the alarm. If we do nothing, our children will live with the results and we will need more prisons and asylums.

Bertil C. Nelson, Ph.D.

Clifton

Love and a bulletproof vest

There is a Paul McCartney concert happening today. This would be a rather insignificant event considering that McCartney has been giving concerts for over 40 years. However this concert is probably one of his most memorable and ground-breaking shows that the Beatles has ever done. Don’t expect McCartney to be trying out any new tunes at this show, just a lot of the old tunes that we never tire of. He will be doing more than singing and performing, however, today he will living out the meaning of the message of peace and love that he has been spreading for decades.

Today McCartney plays Tel Aviv and despite death threats he decides to sing out loud. I am proud of "Sir" Paul and the heroic stance that he has taken. I am, however, disappointed at the muted response of the entertainment industry. Where is the outrage? Whenever there is a discussion in this country of the slightest possible censorship of the arts everyone seems to come out of the woodwork and voice their disapproval. Yet when an Islamic leader makes death threats against McCartney, which is the ultimate censorship, there is a silence, silence from artists and political leaders as well. How can we ever hope to win the war on terror if we don’t show a massive humane response to inhumanity?

When Omar Bakiri chose to make McCartney a target he was taking aim at all of us and our way of life. His threat was not meant to intimidate him, but freedom itself. Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if, because of the threat, dozens and dozens of artists flocked to Israel to perform? Not because they loved Israel, but because they wanted to take a stance against terrorism and inhumanity. If we are ever to have peace in the world the voices of terrorists like Bakiri need to be drowned out with the music of brotherhood and humanity. But those voices all were hushed, perhaps it’s because (ironically) many of them were too busy telling us who to vote for than to take a stand against inhumanity.

Think of the lunacy that this week at the United Nations Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks and it is McCartney who gets death threats? Where were the world leaders denouncing this mockery? Come to think of it where were our political leaders? If we send our soldiers to Iraq to fight terror why couldn’t they attend a McCartney show in Israel and do the same?

For ultimately the war on terror will more than likely not be won on a battle field but on stages and in arenas where people speak out and sing out and stand up and show that they will not allow themselves to be intimidated. On the contrary the threats should energize them. For we have learned from the past that only thing evil needs to succeed is for good people to do nothing. If we are to "give peace a chance" we have to give it a voice and unfortunately aside from McCartney everyone seemed to have a bad case of laryngitis this week. Well I am thankful that McCartney is doing something and proving that yes "All You Need Is Love" but pack a bulletproof vest just in case.

Steve Goldberg

Clifton

 

Nauseating letter

Robert Dalton, who thinks he’s living in a private club called the United States, writes a nauseating letter about Joe Biden being unfit to be the vice president. This after supporting for the last eight years a slime who wasn’t fit to be president, vice president, or any other public office and has proved it time and time again.

He writes about Biden’s wife and daughter being killed in an automobile accident as if he was a witness to the accident.

What did Dalton do – go down to Delaware to get an accident report? What’s the difference how they were killed?

He mentions Biden’s low standing in college and law school. (John) McCain finished fifth from the bottom in his graduating class at Annapolis. Does that disqualify him from being president? Fred Thompson, the keynote speaker at the Republican convention said he broke the record for demerits while at the academy.

Sarah Palin is a right wing religious fanatic with no international experience, less than two years as governor of a small population state, advocate of criminalizing abortion even for rape or incest and was picked as a gift to evangelical extremists and women who were upset over (Barack) Obama not picking Hillary Clinton for his running mate.

Biden was picked for being the most respected foreign policy member of Congress.

Dalton says Biden got five deferments for asthma. Sounds like (Dick) Cheney to me, who like (George) Bush evaded having to go to Vietnam, but doesn’t hesitate in lying the country into a war that has cost over 4,000 U.S. military their lives and physically and mentally ruined thousands of other lives.

It was Biden’s idea to separate Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds into three enclaves to stop them from killing each other. That’s what they ended up doing on their own.

Paul Furlong

Clifton

Alone in the wilderness

Now comes the patriot, John McCain, repeating over and over how he would rather lose a political campaign than a war. I only wish he thought as much about his country as he does about (George) Bush’s dirty little war in Iraq. Here is a man who is 72 years old and has a type of cancer that can return and can kill him.

So who does he choose as his running mate; as the person who will be one heartbeat away from pushing the nuclear button? He chooses Sarah Palin, who believes and recently said on her Katie Couric interview that the fact that you can see Russia from her Alaskan backyard, is proof of her foreign policy experience. It was pitiful to listen to her speak; but more so, it was frightening.

Nine vice-presidents have taken office after either the death or resignation of a president. What was John McSlime thinking? He has said often that he would never lie to the American people or put his political interests before the country’s interest. Yet here comes Palin, who prior to being named vice presidential nominee for the Republican Party, was the subject of a de-witching ceremony by a visiting pastor of the church she attended. Under the 8-year watch of Bush and his Republicans, our great nation has gone into free-fall on all fronts.

Middle-class; worry about your small savings; worry about your pensions and retirement; worry about your Social Security and Medicare and if it will be there for your children and grandchildren; worry about another war being started by these crazies in the Bush administration. Both parties may claim to care about us, but we are really all alone in the wilderness.

Beverly Wardell

Clifton

A bunch of bull

Once again I feel the need to respond to the idiots club (or the "I hate Bush club"). If we take Walt Jankowski's advice, we should disband our Army, Navy and Air Force, and our industrial military complex  then we can be at piece with the world. What do you see wrong with this idea.

1. We would cause thousands of more jobs lost in the defense industry, 2. None of the idiots club seems to have noticed the Russian fleet steaming into the Caribbean, Russian bombers in Venezuela, Russia rearming Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba. 3. China drilling for oil in the Caribbean. But I guess Jankowski, (Phil) Patti and (Beverly) Wardell will greet them all with bouquets.

Once and forever Mr. Patti, whom I shall henceforth address as Mr. Feces, as that’s what I think of this atheistic, unpatriotic coward along with Dame Beverly Wardell, think Sarah Palin is one of those God-fearing, bible toting, gun bearing lunatics - a hypocrite because she had the misfortune to have a daughter who had a baby out of wedlock. Gee, I wonder how many of you hypocrites out there ran out to buy a copy of People magazine with Brad and Angelina's bastard children on the cover. Palin lives in Alaska a state where people as a rule hunt and fish for necessity. Many people up there don't live around the corner from the ShopRite and most are not vegetarians or tofu eaters. A moose can feed a family of four through a harsh and bitter winter, I know, I've been there. As for wolf hunting, we who live here in the city do not have to worry about wolves, bobcats or bears making a meal out of our pets, in Alaska, they do.

So know a little about what you are talking about before you opine. Palin is a frontier woman, part of the same group that founded this country, she is more woman than any of the so-called feminists that parade around with placards. If this offends the tender heart of Mr. Feces, too bad I would love to see him come in contact with a 150-pound Alaskan wolf - no feces, no more.

James Raymond

Clifton