Murtagh’s father, a state Supreme Court justice was the judge presiding over the trial of “The Panther 21,” members of the radical Black Panther. His high profile made him a target for the Weather Underground, who fire-bombed his house in upper Manhattan. in February 1970. As I said in the column, Murtagh was nine years old at the time and some quick-thinking neighbors were able to prevent one bomb from going off by dousing it with a snowman the future Yonkers politician built in his backyard.

The Panther 21 trial went on for quite some time before the defendants were acquitted. During the trial, Judge Murtagh received a letter from a Brooklyn doctor, Oliver Fein, who was writing on behalf of a pregnant defendant, Afeni Shakur.

The letter goes as follows:

To Whom it May Concern:

This 23-year-old woman presented (was) to me on November 25, 1970 with he chief complaint of persistent nausea and uncontrolled vomiting.

History: The patient is pregnant in her first trimester. She has had occasional episodes of “morning sickness” with consequent nausea and vomiting. On Novembe 25, 1970 the patient experienced an unusually severe bout of vomiting—which made her feel very tired and generally sick.

Physical Examination” (abnormal findings only)

HEENT: buccal mucosa was dry.

Abdomen: Bowel sounds were hypoactive. Moderate tenderness in he epigastric region. No rigidity.

rectal: no blood.

Diagnosis: Hyperemesis gravidarum (Vomiting, 2 (degrees to pregnancy)

Treatment: Bed rest with morning diet restricted to clear fluids. Compazine 5 mg. in the morning, if necessary.

This patient was sufficiently ill on November 25 to be excused from her obligations.

We can only assume that she was excused from court that day. The baby? When he was born, they named him Tupac…and he grew up to be the famous gangsta and hip-hop artist.

Yorktown is a Democratic bastion and Andy Spano’s home base. The rookie town supervisor, Don Peters, is a Democrat. The local Democratic chairman is Joe Apicella, a  big cheese in the Louis Cappelli development empire.

And another Democratic big wheel in Yorktown is Marc Oxman, a longtime Spano friend and political ally.

Earlier this year, Peters wanted to dismantle the town’s legal department in favor of outsourcing the municipal legal work to a law firm. The idea he said, was to save money and obtain greater legal expertise.

One of the law firms interested in getting in on the business happened to be Oxman’s. Oxman had also donated $1,000 to Peters’s supervisor campaign, a significant amount of money for a local campaign.

I pointed out the Peters-Oxman connection in a column.

The issue was hotly debated on the town board for several weeks. Now, it appears that a compromise decision has been reached: The town will keep both a staff attorney to be paid $95,000 AND retain the services of an outside law firm. Only the firm isn’t Oxman’s firm. It’s another White Plains outfit.

Peters said he had no political motivations in revamping the legal department.  But we were only trying to keep ‘em honest by shining a light on the relationships involved.

In any case, it looks like he did the right thing.

Yonkers City Councilman John Murtagh and Barack Obama have something in common. Both their lives have been touched by the former Weather Underground radical William Ayers—but in very different ways.

As observers of the bitter primary race between Obama and Hillary Clinton know, Obama was asked about his relationship with Ayers in an ABC-TV debate.

All this brought back horrific memories to Murtagh, whose father, a state Supreme Court justice back in the day, was targeted by the Weather Underground. They attempted to blow up the Murtaghs’ New York City home in 1970.

“At the end of the day, they were a bunch of amateurs,” Murtagh told me. “They did a lousy job.

“But for crissakes, they put a gasoline bomb under the tank of my mother’s car. They were trying to kill people.”

For the full story, read my column coming Sunday

When Charlton Heston died April 5 at the age of 83, two themes about his life and work dominated the obituaries.

One theme was how he played larger-than-life characters in florid, cast-of- thousands type movies like “Ben Hur” and “The Greatest Story Ever Told” that were made  in  the waning days of the Hollywood studio system. Those films are hard to watch today. They’re over-long and over-produced—and Heston, who was never a great actor, invariably chewed scenery like a wood-chipper. In the worst of these films, his hammy delivery was an inspiration to night club comedians.

The second theme that drove the obits was his involvement in the National Rifle Association, summed up by the snarky “gotcha” scene in Michal Moore’s pseudo-documentary, “Bowling for Columbine.” At this late stage, Heston was clearly failing and a bit confused. But he was a kind man, and hospitable to Moore whose obvious mission was  to embarrass a larger-than-life figure.

I thought less of Moore after that ambush.

The NRA and Moses—those were the main talking points on Charlton Heston.

To be sure, Some attention was also paid to other aspects of his career, i.e. the run of entertaining science fiction films on the order of “Planet of the Apes,” and “Soylent Green.” Film snobs in their “appreciations” after Heston’s death  devoted too much space to “A Touch of Evil,” an overrated film noir mess directed by Orson Welles, the all-time poster boy for film snobs.

But in the end, only passing reference was made to a small 1968 movie that I believe was Heston’s best, and may explain his view world view as well as his advocacy of the Second Amendment. It was a western called “Will Penny,” written and directed by Tom Gries.

In the film, Heston as Will, is an aging itinerant cowboy. He is a large, weather-beaten, inarticulate man resigned to the ways of a cruel, dangerous world. For a change, Heston plays a hero who isn’t standing on a mountain top, but in mud and horse dung.

Evil is represented by a family of outlaw crazies led by Donald Pleasance, a British actor who turns in a tour de force performance as the father, Preacher Quint. One of the Quint sons, Rafe, is played by Bruce Dern, who in those days was so good at doing psycho-cowboy-dirt bags that he became type cast. (See “The Cowboys” and “Hang ‘Em High.”)

Lost in the wilderness, is a young, husbandless mother, Catherine Allen (Joan Hackett) and her son, H.G. who, Will, against his better judgment, allows to stay in his boss’s line cabin. Inevitably, Will and Catherine fall in love. (There’s a great scene in which she gets Will to take a long, overdue bath.)

An inevitably, Will has a showdown with the Quints.

I loved this simple movie, and I suspect Heston loved it, too. In fiction as well is in real life, I imagine Heston saw himself as a protector of the defenseless and that principle was translated into his belief that people should have the right to bear arms in order to defend themselves. Regardless of how one feels about guns, no one should dispute that Heston was a noble, well-meaning man.

I rank “Will Penny” among my favorite westerns.

Here are the others in particular order.

“The Searchers” (John Ford’s greatest film)

“The Culpepper Cattle Company” (Made in the late ’60s with a cast of nobodies.)

“Lonely Are the Brave” (a modern western, starring Kirk Douglas, and based on the Edward Abbey novel, “The Last Cowboy.(

“Outlaw Josey Wales” (Eastwood’s best)

“The Long Riders” (I like this movie in spite of myself. The soundtrack was done by Ry Cooder, and I still have the vinyl record)

“Shane” (Jack Palance’s scenes as the evil regulator steal the movie)

“Tom Horn” (Whatever happened to actors like Steve McQueen?)

“Lonesome Dove” (Made for TV, but still great)

“Wild Bunch” (Opening shot of the little kids burning the scorpion is a classic. A great movie for Warren Oates fans).

Honorable Mentions: “The Professionals,” “Ulzanna’s Raid,” “Little Big Man,” (read the Thomas Berger novel, “The Shootist,” “The Cowboys” and three more Eastwood films, “High Plains Drifter,” “Bronco Billy” (modern) and “Unforgiven.”

Actually, one or two of these could be in the top ten. “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”would definitely be in there, if I counted it as a western. Maybe I should.

We’ve been moving the “High Noon” radio program off its regularly scheduled Thursday noon slot lately, and so I apologize for any confusion that may be causing. I’ve had a number of commitments that have fallen on that day, hence the changes.

Today I participated in a Writer’s Day program at the Mark Twain Middle School in Yonkers and that’s why the radio show was again postponed.

But, we’re on the air tomorrow, Friday, at the normal noon hour. So please tune in for provocative talk. That’s 1460 AM or log onto wvox.com.

Listener calls will be taken 914-636-0110.

Update: Here’s the podcast.

Download:

The besieged Westchester County Board of Legislators is going on an excellent adventure a tomorrow when they journey to Playland Amusement Park in Rye for a personal inspection of the bath house.

No, they’re not going to be snapping towels at each other’s bare posteriors. Darn! But they will be covering their butts, in a manner of speaking.

The purpose of the trip is see just how badly in need of repair the historic bath house is, before they approve the funds “preserve and protect” it.

But take a guess at the proposed cost…Are you sitting down? It’s eight million bucks! That’s equivalent to the most expensive waterfront homes in Rye. Somebody must be running the figures through the Hall of Mirrors to achieve such a distortion.

 For nearly a month now, the Compensation Advisory Board has been holding meetings to determine whether County Board Chairman Bill “Boss” Ryan ought to get a 40 percent, or any sort of raise at all.

Though open to the public, most of the meetings have been held early in the morning in a small room.

But next Thursday, April 17, the committee will meet in an auditorium and at perhaps a more convenient hour of 5 p.m. It’s a public forum, and citizens who are concerned about county government run amok ought to attend.

Here’s the location:  Pace University auditorium, 1 Martine Ave., White Plains

Westchester County Executive Andy Spano must be feeling the pressure from all the talk about abolishing county government. Or was it just indigestion? Perhaps a bad hair day?

Well, it must have been something that got his goat.

Word has it he stormed off the set of a public access cable-TV show in Yorktown Wednesday morning because he didn’t like the questions the show’s host was preparing to ask him.

Spano was to be the featured guest on the half-hour “Senior Forum Show,” which is hosted by Catherine McLaughlin and Nick DiTomasso. The pre-taped program airs  5;30 p.m. Fridays on Channel 74. But you won’t see Spano on it tomorrow because he removed his microphone and walked off before the taping began.

McLaughlin said today that she was stunned and outraged by the executive hissy fit. The odd thing about it was that the topic dejour was a totally innocent exploration of possible funding for a new Yorktown senior center.

McLaughlin said as a courtesy she showed Spano three questions she was preparing to ask him. “He got up like a two-year-old in a tantrum” she said.

Holding a piece of paper, Spano shouted, “These were the questions that I was supposed to answer! I’m not answering any of those questions.”

Spano added, “We were supposed to talk about health issues.”

Neither McLaughlin nor DiTomasso knew where he got a separate list of topic issues. McLaughlin couldn’t placate him when she tired explaining that the show wasn’t about health care, but the year-long effort to get the senior center set up.

“I soft-balled him,” she said. “I didn’t want to hard-ball him because naturally, I want him as an ally to help the seniors.”

The hosts tried to get to come back to the set, but he refused. He left with his body guard.

“He was nasty, he was abrupt, he was rude,” McLaughlin said. “He got so red in the face I thought he was going to have a heart attack or something.”

The three questions they wanted to ask were as follows:

1) What funds are available for the seniors in Yorktown from the federal, county and state as comparative to the other Westchester municipalities and why do we not have the funding?

2). Is there a criteria and/or a formula established that provides equitable distribution for funds among the Westchester municipalities for senior centers?

3). As a long term resident elected official and senior citizen how will you assist in helping us achieve the goal of having a senior center here in Yorktown.

The show went on without him. McLaughlin went on the air and demanded that Spano issue an apology “not only as a constituent taxpayer but as a woman. He was rude and not a gentleman.”

Too bad none of this was caught on tape. It would have been a YouTube classic.

Sue Tolchin, Spano’s chief adviser, chuckled when I asked her about the alleged tantrum. Asked if her boss was going to apologize, she said, “No, no. I think they should apologize to him.”

Tolchin said DiTomasso set up the interview and the plan was to talk about county programs for seniors and medical issues.

“So we got the stuff ready for Andy to go on this program, and he gets on the program and that’s not at all what they want to discuss,” she said. “You just don’t do that.”

I asked Tolchin if Spano could have winged it. She said, “I guess he didn’t want to wing it, Phil.”

Readers of the Journal News and lohud.com know about the Westchester County Board of Legislators and their use of “cellular devices,” which amounted to a cost to the taxpayers of $11,578 last year.

Well now, when County Executive Andy Spano delivers his state of the county address tonight,  he ought to take a page out of the playbook of Erie County Executive Chris Collins who, according to the Buffalo News,  recently declared  that he will save his constituents $142,964 a year by taking back 271 of the cell phones, BlackBerrys and air cards that were issued to departmental employees. The News reported that that constituted roughly one-third of the communication equipment distributed to staff who work under the control of  the county exec’s office.

Part of the savings will come from  stopping a $35-a-week stipend, called “beeper pay” given to some employees who carry a pager. Collins said those employees will get cell phones which cost less than $30.

News staff writer Mathew Spina said Collins is getting union resistance on this point “but his confident he will win.”

The newly elected county executive has promised to run government more like a business. We’ve heard that one before.

Former Mount Vernon mayor Ernie Davis was interviewed by Don Debar on WBAI radio yesterday, giving what amounts to a farewell valedictory.

Davis talks about his campaign to win a fourth term was torpedoed by an FBI investigation into City Hall corruption and a pernicious whispering campaign that he was about to be arrested. He said he still wonders “who were the instigators for this whole thing.”

His mild manner during the interview belies a bitterness he feels for disloyal people who no longer give him the time of day. He reserves a special distaste for the current mayor Clinton Young, who defeated him in a hotly contested Democratic with a “nasty, untruthful” strategy.

Davis also talks about his legacy as mayor. He said he never had time for anything else but his mayoral duties.

“That’s what I’m suffering from now,” he said. “I’ve got more free time.”