WAGNER COLLEGE SUSPENDS THE BILL OF RIGHTS FOR A JOURNALIST (ME) ON CAMPUS.
UP FRONT News June 11, 2008
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UPFRONTNewsdiscussionforum
http://www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com/
WAGNER COLLEGE SUSPENDS THE BILL OF RIGHTS FOR A JOURNALIST (ME) ON CAMPUS. THE DEFAMATORY LEGACY OF NYC PUBLIC ADVOCATE BETSY ("CIA") GOTBAUM AND STATE SENATOR DIANE SAVINO, PROTECTED BY THE STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE. "ARTIST" ALEX HART WIMPS OUT AND OPEN MIC HOST "MISTER MARK DAVIS" LOSES HIS COOL.
By Tom Weiss
Although Wagner College, affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is
named after the son of Rochester, N.Y.-based John G.Wagner, in consideration of how it abuses visiting journalists, e.g. me, the school might more appropriately named after the composer Richard Wagner, who had a strong totalitarian bent. (Wagner, the composer of a bunch of mega-heroic Teutonic operas, was Adolf Hitler's favorite composer.)
A couple of months ago at a well-attended open mic event at the Everything Goes Book-store Cafe (aka ETG) in Staten Island, one of the performers, Alex Hart (a woman, her name notwithstanding) made it known that she is also a painter and that she was having an opening of her exhibit at the Horrmann Library at Wagner College on May 9. I introduced myself as a reporter (UP FRONT News is well known at ETG and environs) and she invited me to attended the opening and, at my request wrote down the location specifics and travel direction along with her e-mail address.
I got to the library at around 5:15 PM or so, before the scheduled 6:00 PM opening. I told the librarian at the front desk that I was a reporter there to see and possibly review the Alex Hart exhibit, which was visible at some distance from the front desk. At the librarian's request I showed her some identification. She then looked at some kind of document, asked me to state my name (maybe she had some reading problem, unusual in a librarian) and then told me I had to leave. She refused to provide an explanation, stating only that my name was on a list. She refused my request as to who may have issued such an order and then called security. A few moments later a short uniformed female security person arrived and ordered me to leave. Her attitude was not unlike what Hillary Clinton's might be were I to enter her mansion in lily-white Chappaqua, N.Y. unexpectedly. When I told her that I had been invited by the "artist" (I am now using that word loosely) Alex Hart to attend her opening, the security person became somewhat abusive and called for backup, which arrived shortly thereafter in the form of two males on some sort of politically correct vehicle. I told them I didn't need to be accompanied to the campus exit.
Indeed, I had once been similarly harassed at Wagner a few years ago when, with an invi- tation, I attended an anti-War event there. While there I noted the presence of some "peace" activists known for their aggressiveness but said and did nothing, since I was there as a journalist. As I was sitting outside, a couple of security people came over and ordered me to leave.
The next day I called Wagner Administration to complain. I recall no e-mail exchanges but I did communicate at the time with an administrator, left my contact information and never heard from Wagner again.
Some days after the harassment at the Alex Hart show, I called the office of Wagner College President Dr, Richard Guarasci. He referred me to his Chief of Staff David Martin.
I spoke to Mr. Martin at some length by phone expressed no awareness of the incident or any reason for banning me from the campus. He said he would investigate and asked me to send him and e-mail. I agreed to do so with the explicit understanding that, upon his receipt of my e-mail, he would send me an immediate e-mailed acknowledgement. I sent my e-mail on May 14 and he reneged on his promise. I sent a second e-mail on May 16 and received his reply, which stated that he was busy with commencement exercizes and that he would be in contact "very soon."
On May 28 I got an e-mail from him stating that I had been "asked to leave" (his first mistake, no one "asked" me) because of a "previous incident on campus" but providing no further specifics.
And then Mr. Martin got Wagner and a bunch of people into big political (and possibly legal) trouble. He made reference to an August 27, 2005 article in the Staten Island Advance about the dispute between NYC Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and me over her having defamed me by making a televised reference to me as a "stalker." Ms. Gotbaum, clearly one of the most paranoid people to ever have held elective office in New York, had once claimed to attorney and Public Advocate Norman Siegel that I was "stalking" her. In fact, via a family member of mine, I have been personally acquainted with Betsy Gotbaum since 1979. Ms. Gotbaum, who has at least one closetful of skeletons (e.g. CIA ties, adultery), some years ago tried to have me arrested at her office when I was there for a scheduled appointment with her Chief of Staff Scott Coccaro to discuss staff abuse of homeless people in drop-in centers and shelters. Fortunately the officer called, Sgt. Al Fiore, is a good deal more stable and competent than the clearly psychologically impaired Gotbaum. After interviewing me for several minutes, Sgt. Fiore realized that Gotbaum's assertion that I had made a "threat" against Linda Gibbs, at the time the Commissioner of the NYC Department of Homeless Services (Gibbs had covered up the staff abuse of homeless people and I had criticized her in UP FRONT News) was nonsense. He told me to go home and leave Gotbaum alone for awhile.
In fact I have never stalked anyone in my life. My response to the suggestion that I might stalk Betsy Gotbaum is always the same. I refer to a great country song by Dwight Yoakum titled "I Ain't That Lonely Yet." I have written that if Gotbaum were the only woman on earth and I were desperate, I would revert to celibacy. In fact, by suggesting that anyone other than the most carnally desperate would stalk the narcissistic Betsy Gotbaum is flattering herself. Indeed she is also flattering herself with her announced interest in becoming the mayor of NYC. And, considering her close ties to the surveillance community, she is about as qualified to be mayor of New York City as is J. Edgar Hoover.
The Staten Island Advance article referred to, written by Tom ("Wrongleski") Wrobleski, one of the most dishonest journalists I've ever encountered, is riddled with factual errors and also
contains defamatory comments about me by State Senator Diane Savino and Keith Para-scandola, then the Chief of Staff to Assemblyman Joh Lavelle's. After Lavelle died, Para-
Parascandola became Chief of Staff to Assemblyman Matthew Titone, the man who may be the worst legislator in what has been properly rated as "the worst state legislature in the country."
Tom ("Wrongleski") Wrobleski is the political editor for what has to be the most politically censored daily paper in New York. That however should be no surprise in a paper that is owned by Donald Newhouse, a reactionary and First Amendment-ignoring multibillionaire. The Staten Island A Advance is corporate media at its worst.
In fact Wrobleski suppressed the story of my Democratic write-in candidacy for the U.S. Senate against Hillary Clinton for months and then, thanks to Betsy Gotbaum's destructive stupidity, got scooped by Dan Janison in NYC Newsday.
In fact the obviously journalistically limited David Martin didn't bother to read the Gotbaum
vs. Weiss articles in Newsday (August 26, 2005), the Daily News and The New York Times (both August 27), all of which were far more objective than Wrobleski's garbage.
In fact after I wrote an article on my U.S. Senate campaign blog accusing Wrobleski of censorship, he was essentially ordered to write an article about my campaign. That artiicle appeared on the front page of the Staten Island Advance on August 21, 2006. As I have written, the article would probably get a C+ from an easy grader in journalism school. Wrobleski spent about 85-90% of the article on the technicalities of running as a write-in and devoted scant attention to my very heavy issues with Clinton, such as her direct involvement, and that of her wandering husband, in the coverup of the Chinese Communist Genocide in Tibet.
Since then the Advance has been made fully aware of the negligence and corruption of for example Titone and Savino. Savino's Chief of Staff, Robert Cataldo is a de facto wacko who once nearly assaulted me when I was there for an appointment in connection with a serious
emergency when I was homeless. Diane Savino, who is clearly a very, very poor judge of character, still has Cataldo on staff. She has also lied to me with regard to a promised meeting with her to discuss some very serious matters, including the mishandling by New York County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau of the prosecution of Wan Yun, who on April 7, 2005 violently assaulted me. Involved in the de facto criminal conspiracy is the Wan Yun acquaintance the terrorsm and Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.-linked extremist Geoffrey Blank, who lives in Rockaway Park, Queens but has ties to some hotheads in the Staten Island "peace" movement.
Back to Wagner. Mr. Martin, in his e-mail to me, directs me to contact Wagner's Director of public safety Tony Martinesi when I plan to visit again. My reply reminds him of the U.S. Constitution and, in very diplomatic language, tells him what he can do with that suggestion.
Because Wagner in fact violated my human rights, I am asking law enforcement to investigate. And since my lawyer, Jacob J. Goodman, passed away some months ago, I contacted civil rights attorney and (again) NYC Public Advocate candidate Norman Siegel (who is helping me find a new lawyer) and told him about Wagner College's apparent Declaration of Exemption from the requirements of the U.S. Constitution.
I have also asked, with two e-mails, Alex Hart to make things easier for me (and for her) by sending me an e-mail confirming the invitation to her show. She has refused to respond.
I have also discussed the matter with ETG open mic host "Mister Mark Davis" (that is how he insists upon being called), who describes himself as a friend of Ms. Hart. He told me that she is of course aware of the incident that took place before she arrived at her exhibit on May 9. He said she felt sorry about it but that she "preferred" not to put anything into writing. I politely suggested that he try again and offered him my business card. Stating that he would "lose" my card, he refused it and asked me to write him. Witnessing the conversation between Mister Mark Davis and me that took place in front of the ETG bookstore on May 31 was singer Frank Giallombardo. He and I later commented on the evasiveness of a guy who uses a business card to promote himself and refuses mine.
In any event, after not receiving a reply from Ms. Hart to my very first polite e-mail I called
"Mister." He again said that Ms. Hart "prefers" not to put anything into writing. He suggested that she might be concerned about some punitive action by Wagner. I told him that I was mainly trying to obviate the necessity of her being contacted by law enforcement. At that point "Mister" became somewhat hysterical and said, "My friend [Alex] is not a criminal." I replied that I had no recollection of having made any suggestion that she is. I again asked him to bring the matter up with Ms. Hart again. "Mister's" response was silence and so I hung up. The next day I got a somewhat hysterical e-mail from "Mister" complaining that I had awakened him (my call was after 10 AM on a weekday) and stating he did not want to assist me further, an absurd statement since he hadn't helped me yet.
Betsy Gotbaum needs to make very public the apology for her defamation of me that she had an aide phone to my UP FRONT News associate Willard Whittingham.
Tom Wrobleski should be removed as the political editor of the Staten Island Advance, appropriately characterized by my pastor civil rights leader Rev. Demetrius Carolina of the First Central Baptist Church in Stapleton, Staten Island as a "controlled" newspaper (another S.I. African-American activist labels the paper "racist").
"Artist" Alex Hart needs to be less fearful and to be less of an ingrate. (In fact, at the very least she owed me an e-mailed "thank you" for trying to attend her show.)
"Mister" Mark Davis needs to be more helpful to others and, at least with respect to me, to chill. And as far as his open mics are concerned, it will be interesting to see if he respects the First Amendment there.
Machine politician Diane Savino needs to get rid of Robert Cataldo and to start telling the truth.
And machine politician Matthew Titone should hope that no independent-minded activist, Republican or Democrat challenges him for the Assembly seat he is disgracing.
And (Richard?) Wagner College needs to clean up its act.
* * * * * * *
Published by Tom Weiss
Editorial Advisor: Willard Whittingham
"The paper that can't be bought and can't be sold."http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UPFRONTNewsdiscussionforum
http://www.tomsupfrontnews.blogspot.com/
WAGNER COLLEGE SUSPENDS THE BILL OF RIGHTS FOR A JOURNALIST (ME) ON CAMPUS. THE DEFAMATORY LEGACY OF NYC PUBLIC ADVOCATE BETSY ("CIA") GOTBAUM AND STATE SENATOR DIANE SAVINO, PROTECTED BY THE STATEN ISLAND ADVANCE. "ARTIST" ALEX HART WIMPS OUT AND OPEN MIC HOST "MISTER MARK DAVIS" LOSES HIS COOL.
By Tom Weiss
Although Wagner College, affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is
named after the son of Rochester, N.Y.-based John G.Wagner, in consideration of how it abuses visiting journalists, e.g. me, the school might more appropriately named after the composer Richard Wagner, who had a strong totalitarian bent. (Wagner, the composer of a bunch of mega-heroic Teutonic operas, was Adolf Hitler's favorite composer.)
A couple of months ago at a well-attended open mic event at the Everything Goes Book-store Cafe (aka ETG) in Staten Island, one of the performers, Alex Hart (a woman, her name notwithstanding) made it known that she is also a painter and that she was having an opening of her exhibit at the Horrmann Library at Wagner College on May 9. I introduced myself as a reporter (UP FRONT News is well known at ETG and environs) and she invited me to attended the opening and, at my request wrote down the location specifics and travel direction along with her e-mail address.
I got to the library at around 5:15 PM or so, before the scheduled 6:00 PM opening. I told the librarian at the front desk that I was a reporter there to see and possibly review the Alex Hart exhibit, which was visible at some distance from the front desk. At the librarian's request I showed her some identification. She then looked at some kind of document, asked me to state my name (maybe she had some reading problem, unusual in a librarian) and then told me I had to leave. She refused to provide an explanation, stating only that my name was on a list. She refused my request as to who may have issued such an order and then called security. A few moments later a short uniformed female security person arrived and ordered me to leave. Her attitude was not unlike what Hillary Clinton's might be were I to enter her mansion in lily-white Chappaqua, N.Y. unexpectedly. When I told her that I had been invited by the "artist" (I am now using that word loosely) Alex Hart to attend her opening, the security person became somewhat abusive and called for backup, which arrived shortly thereafter in the form of two males on some sort of politically correct vehicle. I told them I didn't need to be accompanied to the campus exit.
Indeed, I had once been similarly harassed at Wagner a few years ago when, with an invi- tation, I attended an anti-War event there. While there I noted the presence of some "peace" activists known for their aggressiveness but said and did nothing, since I was there as a journalist. As I was sitting outside, a couple of security people came over and ordered me to leave.
The next day I called Wagner Administration to complain. I recall no e-mail exchanges but I did communicate at the time with an administrator, left my contact information and never heard from Wagner again.
Some days after the harassment at the Alex Hart show, I called the office of Wagner College President Dr, Richard Guarasci. He referred me to his Chief of Staff David Martin.
I spoke to Mr. Martin at some length by phone expressed no awareness of the incident or any reason for banning me from the campus. He said he would investigate and asked me to send him and e-mail. I agreed to do so with the explicit understanding that, upon his receipt of my e-mail, he would send me an immediate e-mailed acknowledgement. I sent my e-mail on May 14 and he reneged on his promise. I sent a second e-mail on May 16 and received his reply, which stated that he was busy with commencement exercizes and that he would be in contact "very soon."
On May 28 I got an e-mail from him stating that I had been "asked to leave" (his first mistake, no one "asked" me) because of a "previous incident on campus" but providing no further specifics.
And then Mr. Martin got Wagner and a bunch of people into big political (and possibly legal) trouble. He made reference to an August 27, 2005 article in the Staten Island Advance about the dispute between NYC Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and me over her having defamed me by making a televised reference to me as a "stalker." Ms. Gotbaum, clearly one of the most paranoid people to ever have held elective office in New York, had once claimed to attorney and Public Advocate Norman Siegel that I was "stalking" her. In fact, via a family member of mine, I have been personally acquainted with Betsy Gotbaum since 1979. Ms. Gotbaum, who has at least one closetful of skeletons (e.g. CIA ties, adultery), some years ago tried to have me arrested at her office when I was there for a scheduled appointment with her Chief of Staff Scott Coccaro to discuss staff abuse of homeless people in drop-in centers and shelters. Fortunately the officer called, Sgt. Al Fiore, is a good deal more stable and competent than the clearly psychologically impaired Gotbaum. After interviewing me for several minutes, Sgt. Fiore realized that Gotbaum's assertion that I had made a "threat" against Linda Gibbs, at the time the Commissioner of the NYC Department of Homeless Services (Gibbs had covered up the staff abuse of homeless people and I had criticized her in UP FRONT News) was nonsense. He told me to go home and leave Gotbaum alone for awhile.
In fact I have never stalked anyone in my life. My response to the suggestion that I might stalk Betsy Gotbaum is always the same. I refer to a great country song by Dwight Yoakum titled "I Ain't That Lonely Yet." I have written that if Gotbaum were the only woman on earth and I were desperate, I would revert to celibacy. In fact, by suggesting that anyone other than the most carnally desperate would stalk the narcissistic Betsy Gotbaum is flattering herself. Indeed she is also flattering herself with her announced interest in becoming the mayor of NYC. And, considering her close ties to the surveillance community, she is about as qualified to be mayor of New York City as is J. Edgar Hoover.
The Staten Island Advance article referred to, written by Tom ("Wrongleski") Wrobleski, one of the most dishonest journalists I've ever encountered, is riddled with factual errors and also
contains defamatory comments about me by State Senator Diane Savino and Keith Para-scandola, then the Chief of Staff to Assemblyman Joh Lavelle's. After Lavelle died, Para-
Parascandola became Chief of Staff to Assemblyman Matthew Titone, the man who may be the worst legislator in what has been properly rated as "the worst state legislature in the country."
Tom ("Wrongleski") Wrobleski is the political editor for what has to be the most politically censored daily paper in New York. That however should be no surprise in a paper that is owned by Donald Newhouse, a reactionary and First Amendment-ignoring multibillionaire. The Staten Island A Advance is corporate media at its worst.
In fact Wrobleski suppressed the story of my Democratic write-in candidacy for the U.S. Senate against Hillary Clinton for months and then, thanks to Betsy Gotbaum's destructive stupidity, got scooped by Dan Janison in NYC Newsday.
In fact the obviously journalistically limited David Martin didn't bother to read the Gotbaum
vs. Weiss articles in Newsday (August 26, 2005), the Daily News and The New York Times (both August 27), all of which were far more objective than Wrobleski's garbage.
In fact after I wrote an article on my U.S. Senate campaign blog accusing Wrobleski of censorship, he was essentially ordered to write an article about my campaign. That artiicle appeared on the front page of the Staten Island Advance on August 21, 2006. As I have written, the article would probably get a C+ from an easy grader in journalism school. Wrobleski spent about 85-90% of the article on the technicalities of running as a write-in and devoted scant attention to my very heavy issues with Clinton, such as her direct involvement, and that of her wandering husband, in the coverup of the Chinese Communist Genocide in Tibet.
Since then the Advance has been made fully aware of the negligence and corruption of for example Titone and Savino. Savino's Chief of Staff, Robert Cataldo is a de facto wacko who once nearly assaulted me when I was there for an appointment in connection with a serious
emergency when I was homeless. Diane Savino, who is clearly a very, very poor judge of character, still has Cataldo on staff. She has also lied to me with regard to a promised meeting with her to discuss some very serious matters, including the mishandling by New York County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau of the prosecution of Wan Yun, who on April 7, 2005 violently assaulted me. Involved in the de facto criminal conspiracy is the Wan Yun acquaintance the terrorsm and Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.-linked extremist Geoffrey Blank, who lives in Rockaway Park, Queens but has ties to some hotheads in the Staten Island "peace" movement.
Back to Wagner. Mr. Martin, in his e-mail to me, directs me to contact Wagner's Director of public safety Tony Martinesi when I plan to visit again. My reply reminds him of the U.S. Constitution and, in very diplomatic language, tells him what he can do with that suggestion.
Because Wagner in fact violated my human rights, I am asking law enforcement to investigate. And since my lawyer, Jacob J. Goodman, passed away some months ago, I contacted civil rights attorney and (again) NYC Public Advocate candidate Norman Siegel (who is helping me find a new lawyer) and told him about Wagner College's apparent Declaration of Exemption from the requirements of the U.S. Constitution.
I have also asked, with two e-mails, Alex Hart to make things easier for me (and for her) by sending me an e-mail confirming the invitation to her show. She has refused to respond.
I have also discussed the matter with ETG open mic host "Mister Mark Davis" (that is how he insists upon being called), who describes himself as a friend of Ms. Hart. He told me that she is of course aware of the incident that took place before she arrived at her exhibit on May 9. He said she felt sorry about it but that she "preferred" not to put anything into writing. I politely suggested that he try again and offered him my business card. Stating that he would "lose" my card, he refused it and asked me to write him. Witnessing the conversation between Mister Mark Davis and me that took place in front of the ETG bookstore on May 31 was singer Frank Giallombardo. He and I later commented on the evasiveness of a guy who uses a business card to promote himself and refuses mine.
In any event, after not receiving a reply from Ms. Hart to my very first polite e-mail I called
"Mister." He again said that Ms. Hart "prefers" not to put anything into writing. He suggested that she might be concerned about some punitive action by Wagner. I told him that I was mainly trying to obviate the necessity of her being contacted by law enforcement. At that point "Mister" became somewhat hysterical and said, "My friend [Alex] is not a criminal." I replied that I had no recollection of having made any suggestion that she is. I again asked him to bring the matter up with Ms. Hart again. "Mister's" response was silence and so I hung up. The next day I got a somewhat hysterical e-mail from "Mister" complaining that I had awakened him (my call was after 10 AM on a weekday) and stating he did not want to assist me further, an absurd statement since he hadn't helped me yet.
Betsy Gotbaum needs to make very public the apology for her defamation of me that she had an aide phone to my UP FRONT News associate Willard Whittingham.
Tom Wrobleski should be removed as the political editor of the Staten Island Advance, appropriately characterized by my pastor civil rights leader Rev. Demetrius Carolina of the First Central Baptist Church in Stapleton, Staten Island as a "controlled" newspaper (another S.I. African-American activist labels the paper "racist").
"Artist" Alex Hart needs to be less fearful and to be less of an ingrate. (In fact, at the very least she owed me an e-mailed "thank you" for trying to attend her show.)
"Mister" Mark Davis needs to be more helpful to others and, at least with respect to me, to chill. And as far as his open mics are concerned, it will be interesting to see if he respects the First Amendment there.
Machine politician Diane Savino needs to get rid of Robert Cataldo and to start telling the truth.
And machine politician Matthew Titone should hope that no independent-minded activist, Republican or Democrat challenges him for the Assembly seat he is disgracing.
And (Richard?) Wagner College needs to clean up its act.
* * * * * * *
posted by Tom Weiss at 1:49 PM
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