March 9, 2010 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • Page 23 Now what do we cut? Get rid of any public officials who have shown themselves to be dishonest or vicious while hiding behind federal, state, or local authority. Just last week, the world saw the sentencing of Robert Glenn Ford, the detective who framed the Norfolk Four. Ford got 12.5 years in prison and is appealing. While working as a police detective in Norfolk, Virginia, Ford was confronted with the rape and murder of the 18-year-old wife of a sailor. Acting on a tip, Ford pulled in another young sailor, told him he knew he was guilty, and told him he could only escape the death penalty if he confessed. The young sailor had taken a polygraph test that showed he was telling the truth when he denied the crime. Ford browbeat him into a confession, but didn’t tell the sailor the polygraph had cleared him. The trouble was that the DNA analysis of evidence from the crime scene also cleared the terrified accused sailor. This wouldn’t do. Ford looked around and found another sailor to incriminate…and another…and another. At one point, he had multiple people confess to the crime, even though the forensics indicated a single attacker. None of the seven sailors on the list had the right DNA. Three suspects stonewalled when they were threatened with the death penalty. One proved he was at his birthday party in another state among a dozen witnesses at the time of the crime. The four guys who confessed were in jail when the actual criminal, who was in prison for two other rapes, one with murder, wrote a letter to a woman who had spurned him and said he would deal with her the way he had dealt the sailor’s wife, whom he identified by name. The frightened woman called the police, and Ford re-wrote the whole scenario. Meanwhile, a couple of honest lawyers took up the case and shook it to pieces. One of the framed men had already served his full sentence by the time the other three framed men were released due to completely fictitious evidence sustained by confessions extracted by terror of the death penalty. Ford never served a day in jail for framing four innocent, terrified young servicemen. Be it noted also that the real criminal would have escaped if he hadn’t already been in prison for a similar offense. However, Ford was eventually charged with taking bribes from drug dealers in return for identifying them as cooperative witnesses, and for lying to the FBI when the FBI investigated. A handful of his fellow officers sympathized with him. They should also be fired. In fact, everybody involved in the case should be fired. Think of the money we could save federal and local government – not to mention the disgrace of having criminals on the payroll. Here’s another case. Dr. Thomas Lowry, a 78-year-old retired psychiatrist, a former U.S. Air Force officer and a descendent of Civil War officers, was disturbed at his home in suburban Virginia by two federal officials who claimed he had altered a date in a pardon signed by Abraham Lincoln from April 14, 1864 to April 14, 1865 – the day Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth. Dr. Lowry had originally discovered the dated signature and the National Archives had publicized it – until magnification and check a separate source turned up the fact that the date had been changed with a single stroke. Under a grueling interrogation, Dr. Lowry denied everything, but was finally coerced into signing a confession with the promise that everything would be forgotten if he signed. The next thing he knew, he had been banned from the National Archives, where he and his wife had been collating Civil War court-martial records for 15 years. The National Archives released the story of the “forgery” to the Associated Press and on the Web. Dr. Lowry recanted his confession, paid for a polygraph test that sustained his original statement that he had not forged the date, and is now offering a cash bounty for any document that confirms that the National Archives had been trying to chase him down for a year to demand an explanation – when he was regularly visiting the National Archives in person and hadn’t moved or changed his contact information in more than a decade. Some unpublished “researchers” who had benefited from Dr. Lowry’s generosity turned on him like jackals, while a handful of others wouldn’t believe that he could have been so dishonest – or so stupid. My suggestion is that if nobody turns up a document confirming that the NARA spent a year trying to contact Dr. Lowry, the polygraph and his own solid reputation for integrity would be excellent grounds for clearing him and firing his accusers. If they can’t document a case against Dr. Lowry, they are responsible for framing and defaming a wise and worthy old man, and for letting the forgery happen on their watch. America doesn’t need any stumblebums on the payroll if they’re also dishonorable enough to seek a culprit and find only a scapegoat. Keep in mind that the defendants at various 1930s Stalinist purge trials also confessed, usually after torture or to save their families. America is still America. If these guys are guilty – can them. Any law enforcement officer or prosecutor who uses terror tactics when the defendant is proven not to be guilty should join them at the unemployment office. A group called The Innocence Project found that 266 people who had been convicted of serious crimes could be exonerated by DNA tests after they had served years, sometimes decades, in prison. The people who framed them don’t deserve to work in law enforcement. We may even save the American justice system from turning into a very sour joke. The word is out: We have to cut a lot of dead, and notso-dead, wood to save the ship of state from sinking from administrative excesses. What do we cut, and what do we not cut? Let’s start with what we shouldn’t cut. WNET is now facing a complete cut-back of federal funding in the U.S. Senate. The House of Representatives has already approved zero federal funding for public broadcasting. The House of Representatives must want Americans who can’t afford home tutors or private day schools to stay dumb. We can only hope the Senate doesn’t agree with them. Two generations of American children have learned the alphabet from “Sesame Street” and simple spelling from “The Electric Company” on PBS. When my daughter entered school able to read at about the fourth-grade level, she was treated like a freak and told she would have to forget how to read so the schools could teach her. Cutting funding for PBS is subsidizing stupidity at the expense of who-knows-what. It must be added that as more and more people consider cutting cable TV because they can’t afford the fees or don’t have the time due to working extra jobs to pay their school taxes, they could use the one network that provides Shakespeare, opera, symphonic music, ballet, nature shows, history shows, and science shows without mandatory out-of-pocket contributions from people who are really strapped. This is a bad place to cut. The same can be said of WQXR, the last classical music radio station in the area. Public broadcasting may survive because people at the top of the fiscal and IQ spectrum actually appreciate documentaries and music inappropriate for prison riots, but let’s not take a chance. Another bad place to cut is any national park or national monument. These sites are national treasures and are assets to the national treasury. Imagine how important tourism is to countries like Britain, France, and Italy and then remember that our manufacturing base is gradually going the way of their manufacturing bases. Where would Egypt be without the pyramids and the Cairo Museum? How much money do Christian tourists bring to Israel each year as they visit the scenes of the Old Testament and the New Testament? America still has a stronger base in agricultural and in natural resources than Europe does, but our ability to dominate the world of commerce and industry is slipping through our fingers. We can’t produce goods as economically as the Chinese or the Asian Indians, and there is no use crying about it, though we should buy American whenever possible. We need to bring money into the country in every honest way possible, not for the federal coffers, but for the people who run and work for restaurants, hotels, and car rental agencies. Tourist attractions do this in a way that is less wasteful of resources and less harmful to the environment than any other industry – and preserve the nation’s history and heritage at the same time. Don’t cut a dime from the national parks or from the historic landmarks that intelligent foreigners enjoy and respect as much as Americans do or should. To cut and not to cut Wyckoff Wanderings Program on Jewish identity offered Teen to Teen Listening Tour, a Jewish identity forum for teens of interfaith families, will be offered on Wednesday, March 16 from 7 to 9 p.m. with a follow up program planned for March 23 at Temple Beth Rishon, 585 Russell Avenue in Wyckoff. Jewish Family Service of North Jersey, in partnership with Temple Beth Rishon, Temple Beth Haverim Shir Shalom, and Thresholds, will offer an innovative, interactive program that addresses the nurturing of a Jewish identity within the interfaith family. This program, set within the framework of those individual family dynamics, will provide a supportive environment to explore and strengthen a teen’s personal connection to Judaism. Teen to Teen Listening Tour was conceived by Dr. Michael Goldberg while participating in a Mechon Hadar Program funded by a Berrie Foundation grant. The program will be facilitated by Rabbi Leana Moritt, director of Thresholds, and Karen Brand, LCSW, community outreach coordinator at Jewish Family Service of North Jersey. Membership with a sponsoring organization is not required. Refreshments will be served. To register for the program, contact Karen Brand at kbrand@jfsnorthjersey.org or (973) 595-0111. Ladies Night Out announced The Wyckoff Newcomers and Neighbors will host Ladies Night Out at Brady’s at the Station in Ramsey on Thursday, March 10 at 7:30 p.m. Members and prospective members are invited. This event, sponsored by the Recruitment Committee, encourages members to bring a friend or two. Get to know some new people and catch up with old friends. RSVP to Jen at jyurt@juno.com. Summer camp registration begins Registration for the Wyckoff Recreation and Park Department’s summer camp program, will be held March 25 from 6 to 8 p.m. and on March 26 from 9 a.m. to noon at the recreation office at the end of Woodland Avenue. The Wyckoff Summer Day Camp will be held at the Wyckoff Memorial Field from June 27 through July 29 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. There will be no camp held on Monday, July 4. The camp is for children entering kindergarten through grade five in September. Camp activities include sports and games, arts and crafts, theme days, costume days, contests and tournaments, parties, field trips, and entertainment by several professional performers. The cost of the camp is $80 per week and is for Wyckoff residents only. Registration materials, including a signed health and immunization record signed and dated by a physician, must be completed ahead of time and handed in during the above registration times. Registration materials will be distributed through all Wyckoff public and private schools and available at the recreation office. Contact the recreation office at (201) 8913350 for more information.