Ted Kennedy is a lightning rod. I knew that last week when I wrote a column about my brief encounter with him and how he mentioned by grandfather who worked for Joe Kennedy, Sr.

I’ve gotten a lot of different responses. One reader complained that I had “praised” Teddy, whom he referred to as a “dirt bag.” Another forum writer sarcastically thanked me for “over sharing” my personal episode of six degrees of separation.

I don’t think I praised Kennedy exactly. And I don’t what the hell that guy meant by over sharing, but  I’ll chalk it up to either misplaced jealousy or to a case of pure Kennedy hatred.

If anything, the column was really about considering the source. And when it came to discussing the life and times of any of the Kennedy brothers, the source was their power-hungry father,  Joe.

In any case, the column appears to have been read far and wide, as the following e-mail attests

Hi Sir,

I’m American living in Paris.  i enjoyed a brief article found on the
internet about Joe Kennedy, A few details about grandfather’s
association with kennedy patriarch.

I would be most appreciative if you could you please recommend further
reading on the Kennedy business and social history.  I am especially
interested in anything about the bootlegging, G. Swanson, anit jewish
sentiments on the part of Joe kennedy and anything else/

Ammon Hall Moore

Bill Emerson, the legendary, larger-than-life former editor of the old Saturday Evening Post, died the other day in Atlanta, Ga. None of the obituaries—as entertaining as they are—mentioned that he lived in Larchmont for many years, and raised his family there. My late father, who was also a writer, loved the man with whom he socialized. I remember him telling me how funny Emerson was.

One of the death notices mentioned that Emerson, a southerner, had an ancestor who died at the Civil War battle of Peachtree Creek in 1864. I find that interesting since my great-great grandfather died at there, too: he was a federal artilleryman and an Irish immigrant.

Here’s a great excerpt from an obituary posted by grandforksherald.com:

“In columns, speeches and conversation, Emerson employed an antic, often salty humor to underscore points. Summing up his career, he once said, ‘When I’m a writer, I hate editors, and when I’m an editor I hate writers, and changing from one to the other is no worse than a sex-change operation.’ ”

That’s a saver.

Much has been written about Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death at 77. Something he once told me inspired today’s column.

Here’s the beginning:

“About 10 years ago, I shook hands with Ted Kennedy.

It was at a New York City fundraiser for his niece Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Bobby’s daughter, who was then lieutenant governor of Maryland. My cousin, a big wheel in the financial world, organized the event, which is why I was granted a brief audience with the senator.

The event was held at the Local 1199 headquarters of the Service Employees International Union, a sizable and politically influential part of Kennedy’s liberal fan base. A tireless advocate for the poor who inarguably did more to advance the cause of health care reform than anyone, Kennedy was nothing if not a hero to the hospital workers.”

Click on column for the rest.

I’m driving my kid up to SUNY Albany this morning. This is significant for two reasons.

1) Finally, after eight years, today officially marks the beginning of the last year I’ll  be paying college tuition. I’m sure all you cash-strapped parents out there can relate to my overwhelming sense of relief.

Hooray.

2) There will be no “High Noon” radio program today. I’d do it by remote, but that would be difficult, not to mention dangerous, since I’m taking the Taconic Parkway, a road that requires undivided attention. The show returns next week, hopefully with my colleague and co-host, Buddy Waller, a great copy editor.

Among the eight people who were arrested in a complex, $1.4 million mortagage scam is a former night managing editor by the name of Phil Hall (left), though it turns out that is actual first name was Hubert. Who knew?

Well, the cat is out of the bag on hat on that one.

Hall, 62, of Tarrytown who was charged in the alleged fraud along with his wife, ran the newspaper’s all-important n night desk back in the late 80s and early 90s.

I only knew him on a “hello” basis. To me, he was mostly a disembodied a voice on the other end of conference calls—strained through a Texas twang. He’d bark questions and comments on news stories that were being prepared for the next day’s paper.

Once in a meeting I remember him saying, “Well, we’re gonna lead with the fall of Communism.” Somehow that struck me as funny, but he pointedly told me he wasn’t joking. That happened to be day when liberated East Germans were taking balpeen hammers to the Berlin Wall.

Phil seemed like an alright guy. He was certainly a good news man.

New Rochelle’s famed radio maven, Bill O’Shaughnessy of WVOXAM and WVIP-FM never shies away from coming to the defense of misanthropic microphone jockeys- no matter how offensive they may be to some listeners and critics. If memory serves, he rallied behind Howard Stern some years ago when the potty-mouthed shock-jock got into trouble with the FCC

Now the suave, silver-haired “O Man” has come to the aid and comfort of legendary right-wing talk-show host Bob Grant, whose pending return to WABC was lambasted by New York Daily News columnist Errol Louis.

Louis’ Sunday column carried the headline: “Tune Out the Voice of Hate: The Awful Bob Grant is Back on the City’s Airwaves”
Then he wrote It this opening salvo: “News recently broke about the unfortunate return to the airwaves of Bob Grant, a radio talk show host whose stock in trade, racially charged hate speech, seems to be enjoying a resurgence.”

Click on column.

O’Shaughnessey replied by firing off a letter to the editor. He said he felt compelled to defend Grant even though the cranky talk-meister once called him a “stooge.”

Wrote O’Shaughnessy:

“Bob Grant’s discomforting and unsettling words aside, the right of the social commentator to be heard and the right of the people to decide should prevail in this contretemps between two outstanding broadcasters.

“Grant is a performer, a talk show host, a humorist and a provocateur with a rapier sharp wit. Throughout his brilliant career, Grant has been an equal opportunity offender … poking fun at the high and mighty as well as the rest of us for our foibles and pomposity.”

Thanks to O’Shaughnessy’s missive The New York radio message board has lighting up like crazy. Grant will be back on Sept. 13.

“Mad Men” is the only thing on television that I watch with regularity.

The show is set in the early 60s but the series hero—advertising agency mystic Don Draper—transcends time. He’s cool in any era.

Beatniks, hippies and hipsters can’t compete with this chain-smoking, booze-guzzling womanizer—which is an amazing trick of character development since he is married with two kids, lives in Ossining and has to commute to work.

“Satirizing the rich, or nearly rich, is as easy as shooting a decoy duck off a marble mantelpiece.

“So I will resist that easy temptation when it comes to the case of Laura Steins, a single, 47-year-old mother of three from the exclusive Harrison-Rye ZIP code whose unfortunate lamentation of “squeaking by” on $300,000 a year seems to have raised class warfare in America to another level.”

See the rest of the column by clicking here.

My Aug. 23 post on the 10 Best Movie Westerns elicited this respond—
bob cypher August 24th, 2009 at 10:39 am e

I’m surprised you ommitted the John Ford movies: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Fort Apache, and of course, The Searchers.

I’ll repeat the gist of my response. I didn’t forget  John Ford’s cavalry trilogy—  left out in Bob’s  post  was “Rio Grande”  (1950).  I loved those movies as a kid, watching them on  television.  But they were a bit too sentimental for my tastes  and  surprisingly  were lacking in action.  Victor  McLaglin , the big  Irish actor,  was  in all  of  those movies and was a  Ford  favorite.  I confess I forgot about “The Searchers,” a sprawling Ford epic. I’ll wedge it into the top 10, maybe in a tie with one of the others.

Frederic Remington (1861-1909) “knew the horse.” Indeed, that fact was placed on his tombstone.

For much of his life as an artist, Remington lived in New Rochelle as did so many artists who at the turn of the 20th century provided colorful illustrations for the publishing houses in New York City.

That was the golden age of popular magazines.

Of course, Remington was much more than a mere illustrator. He was a painter of the disappearing west and a great sculptor and much of his depictions of frontier Indian fighters and U.S. cavalry troopers were an inspiration to filmmaker John Ford. (“She Wore A Yellow Ribbon” and Fort Apache.”)

Remington loved the army, and was a frequent visitor to Fort Slocum on Davids Island where he was hosted at officers’ parties. The long-abandoned fort is a haunting ruin today.

The painting above is “Friends or Foes?” The mounted Indian, alone on a barren, snow-covered landscape is gazing into the distance at a camp site barely illuminated by fires. Make of it what you wish, but I look at this painting as a perfect metaphor for our uncertain times.

It’s cold. We’re alone. Who’s out there?

Remington died in Ogdensburg, New York where there is a terrific  Remington museum.