Will It Be Gold Fusion?

Is cold as good as gold? If (if. . .if. . .if. . .) the science defined in last Sunday's "60 Minutes" (CBS-TV) program holds true, cold fusion is real and endowed with immense potential for "free" energy. Unfortunately, the two scientists originally credited with a successful cold fusion experiment years ago were vilified by fellow scientists who found the chore unreproducible, but renewed laboratory conquests accomplished by others may transform them into heroes for our time -- and their detractors into irrelevant wisps of hypocrisy and huffy pomposity.

There also might be a lesson in all of this for members of the scientific community who continue to deny the UFO phenomenon and either condemn or obstruct further research by their fellows. In the meantime, may I suggest:

Cold infusion: The process by which numerous scientific minds coagulate into an icy aggregate of doubt following the introduction of an unwelcome thought.

Hypothesopreposterous: The description of a theory held beneath contempt by the proper scientific community because. . .um. . .because, after all, they are the proper scientific community and they can't be bothered to explore things that simply cannot or must not be.

Bonehead: Bonehead.

Whale of a Tale in Walesville?

Was a UFO directly or indirectly responsible for the crash of an F-94 fighter jet in Walesville, NY in July of 1954 -- a crash resulting in the deaths of several people? Did the pilot and his radar observer bail out just prior to the ditching because a UFO somehow caused intense heat in the cockpit? Could another UFO have been present, but uninvolved with the main incident?

Maybe the details aren't quite what UFO literature has echoed and reaffirmed for the last 55 years, at least according to the evidence as outlined by researcher Kevin Randle. As a New York resident, I've often quoted the Walesville incident recorded in books by Donald Keyhoe and others in the past myself, but Randle's fresh look at the evidence and time line reminds us that one can never be too cautious, particularly when older cases are involved.

Still, Randle does encounter disagreement on his blog, as questions are raised by at least one reader. Whatever one's opinion, Kevin Randle's blog entry entitled, "Walesville UFO Jet Chase" is worth your time (see the link to his site in the margin).

Return to Newfield

The Newfield and Ithaca, NY areas played a major role in one of my earliest blog entries. You may recall that, as a teenage UFO researcher in the mid-sixties, I not only became aware of alleged UFO activity in those areas, but was also contacted by and remained in touch with an Air Force intelligence officer who came to town and maintained (in my opinion) a peculiar interest in both the sightings and some apparently dishonest civilian "investigators." Things became even stranger when representatives of the Colorado University UFO study apparently snuck into town, hoping, unsuccessfully it seems, to stay out of the publicity spotlight. When all was said and done, I was left with few answers and enduring confusion.

In the years since, from time to time I learned of other Newfield/Ithaca mid-sixties UFO activity, and I know there are other stories out there yet to be told, though most will never surface merely because of time's passage. I don't know what to think, previously or now.

A few days ago, however, I received a very interesting personal account of some unusual occurrences involving a man named Mark, who was then a teenager in 1960s/1970s Newfield, and he kindly allows me now to share his experiences with you below. If UFO events are involved here, the experiences seem almost peripheral to everything else -- nevertheless, as we have seen time and again, the literature is not unfamiliar with accounts of UFO sightings which seem related to other phenomena. What does it all mean? Again, I don't know. As the title of a song by The Moody Blues suggested years ago, "Isn't Life Strange?" Mark's account (I seem to hear from a lot of people named Mark. . .), intact except for a minor edit I made here and there, is as follows, and I thank him profoundly for sharing a little more of Newfield's strange history with us than we previously knew:

"I was born in 1963 in Ithaca, NY. My father was VP for a large national insurance company, and was a retired restaurateur who operated several Home Dairy Co Cafeterias in Rochester and Olean, NY in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. My mother was a cook and bookkeeper for the family restaurant during those years and was a homemaker when I was born. We lived on Ridgecrest Road in Ithaca when I was born. At six months of age my parents, my sister Pam and sister Susan and my brother Bob moved into a new home at 1005 Hector Street with my mother’s mother, Mama Ruthie. This house was, according to my sisters, 'haunted,' and my father believed that a construction worker was either badly injured or died at the site when the house was being built, but I never researched his claim – although Dad did know the contractor, so there must be a grain of truth in that story (Dad was pretty much pragmatic in his views).

"We lived there from 1963 until 1968, when my father lost his construction business investments and we lost our home. My folks purchased a large old farmhouse on Route 13 (3087 Elmira Road), close to the Tompkins County line in Ponie Hollow, a hamlet of Newfield, NY. My sisters, in the meantime, had married and moved out on their own by 1967. My brother was 10 years older then myself – he and my grandmother and parents moved into the old farmhouse in the early spring of 1968.

"My first experience with the 'unusual,' that I can remember, was at a very young age, about four or five years old. I could 'hear' what others were going to say before they spoke and would tell them; it was like a game to me, I thought it was fun. My mother was not sure what to make of it and my father said others were just playing along…in preschool I was teased because I made other kids cry – not intending to, it really upset me and I thought I was doing something wrong, so I kept these 'incidents' to myself. I also could see 'things' that others could not see, and used vocabulary I was unfamiliar with, and thought it was 'funny' – as I don’t think I understood what was going on. And I still am not certain I ever will.

"There were photos taken at Christmas in the mid-60s where there are colored streamers all over the photos of me, and they appeared on the negatives as well, although others taken at the same time were fine…my mother has looked for these for years and cannot find them… as of yet – but I am certain they are among her things. When we moved into our home in Newfield I thought it was 'noisy' and I kept seeing people that appeared like hazy images, and they talked to me, but their mouths never moved. I learned things from them, like in the barn a man died and he did not like kids, so I should not go in there alone. Also would tell me things like when my mom would pull up to the house, etc. I don’t recall now what these spirits or ghosts were saying, and I don’t think I fully understood at the time it was occurring, either – I just knew these things and associated them with the images I’d see. My grandmother would later tell me that she would 'test' me and tell me things from her childhood and mix the story up, and I would tell her that it didn’t happen that way, and would tell her in detail what happened.

"She said she had a great aunt, Auntie Shelton, who was a wealthy secretary who worked for some time for the senior J.P. Morgan in NY City and lived on Madison Avenue for years. She was a collector of ancient and antique objects, and was very interested in metaphysics – she would read tea leaves and read cards for Wall Street business contacts for the Morgan firm, and for the senior Morgan himself. She told me that intuitiveness ran in the family, and that I was special.

"She was always very supportive of me, and was also my first piano teacher when I was six years old. At the age of four I began to play piano, and by the age of six I was picking out pieces by ear. By twelve I was playing by memory and also by ear…I would 'compose' most of the music all of the time…I heard it in my head – like a radio, but in perfect pitch, and not like regular 'music,' but much more beautiful, like many choirs composed of beautiful sounds; I still have this ability and play regularly.

"The most significant instance was a 'dream' I had, more like a vision…I viewed myself and my family traveling to NY City to see my sister Susan, and her family, about 1972, and I saw us leaving on a sunny morning, and that a storm would come out of nowhere, and the rain would force Dad to get off the Thruway and we would go to a gas station and then drive down an alley where he would park, near a restaurant that backed onto the alley, and there would be a large woman behind a long bar as we entered the restaurant, and she’d be the only one in the place when we got there. I later told my mother in detail…she listened and told me to forget about it and go play. According to her, it was later that summer we took a trip to NY City to see my sister and family, and this vision I had occurred in detail exactly like I had described…I also narrated what would happen along the way, to my father’s dislike…it made him very uneasy…this was only one of many instances I experienced as a child and young boy.

"I loved to hike in the local woods and explore the two local creeks, one was a gorge behind our home…and also liked to explore around the old foundations of homes that were long ago abandoned in the 1800s…I collected old bottles and artifacts like arrowheads…animals such as deer and rabbits, and squirrels and once a raccoon, and birds as well, would come to me and let me pet them or touch them…I loved the outdoors more then anything. I also would see the 'tree people' as I called them. They were tall human-like figures that were like shadows and blended into the trees and foliage as I walked in the forest, I knew they were not harmful, and sort of watched over the forest and animals…and me. There were other nature 'spirits' that I familiarized myself with.

"In about 1969 or 1970 my father would invite friends from church and work out to the house to watch the evening and night 'lights' in the sky…these small brilliant lights usually began with one light in the sky, and then two to three would appear and were a bright white or sometimes were orange/red in color…he could not explain it, and neighbors just ignored it mostly…he never could figure that out, but said most were probably not educated in flight or flying, and that he was once a pilot for the Army Air Force in WWII and then for Curtis-Wright as a test pilot following the war. He had friends out to see these lights to try to figure them out. No one ever did.

"Then one evening my brother and I were in the driveway, I was riding my bike and had stopped to see what he was looking at over the hill in front of our home…then all of the sudden this ball of light came toward us very rapidly He later said he thought it was a ball of lightning, but as it came overhead it slowed down nearly to a stop and there was no heat, or sound – but it left over our heads so fast we did not see until it was over the back hill – instantly over the back hill (in the back of the house), and it grew in brightness and size and disappeared over the hill…near one of the old foundations I used to explore.

"My brother was more shaken then myself, and went and got my father’s .22 rifle and we hiked up the hill in the middle of the night, but we did not see or hear anything unusual, other then darkness and a quietness that seemed to fill the woods; we did not venture into the valley between the hills where a creek ran beyond the old dirt road.

"Many times we heard strange sounds at night on the roof, and one night we heard what sounded like our cat - at first - walking on the old tin roof over the kitchen. We were in my brother’s bedroom which had two windows that faced the back yard and hill, and was above the tin roof. It got so loud it scared us, and my brother went to the window to see, and there was nothing there…we could not account for the loud and menacing thuds on the roof… we would also see lights in the field behind the house at night, like search lights from the sky, but they appeared out of nowhere…this was all before 1973.

"Then, about 1975, when I was 12, I would drive my mother’s old Plymouth around the perimeter of the back field – to the consternation of the farmer who owned it. One late evening, about a half-hour after dark in the summer, the car stalled in the very back of the field at the foot of the middle hill (as we called it)…I could not start the car, and was afraid my dad would get mad at me for driving the car past dark…I remember like yesterday – in between cranks, I noticed that it was dead silent outside, and that was something I had seldom experienced before that. I looked up through the windshield, and could see what looked like a bunch of small lights in the night sky…I opened the door and got out and looked up and it took and minute to focus, and then I saw the outline of a huge aircraft of some kind, it was slightly lighter then the night sky, but was dark and had a shimmer to it, and literally took up the entire sky over me and the hill as far as I could see…there were all these lights of different sizes and colors inside this thing, and I could make out images, but they were very shadow-like, and then I started feeling a tingling feeling, like goose-bumps all over myself…then my hair felt like it was standing on end…I ran home as fast as I could…and kept saying to myself in silence, 'I want to go home, please let me get home…'

"I ran into the house and grabbed my mom and got her to go outside, onto the back porch …it was gone, but she remarked about the silence and stillness in the air, and just about the same time she said the fields came alive with the sound of crickets and then a wind came up and then died down fairly quick…she walked out to the car with me and it started right up…she rode home with me…I never drove the car around the perimeter after that.

"My father took a position in Los Angeles in the late spring of 1977, and called home to tell my mother that she was to put the house up for sale, and pack up…we had to be in Los Angeles by September. My father flew home in late August to sign the papers for the 'new' owners – the descendent of the man who built the house about 1830 was the fellow who bought the place. The house had an artesian spring that ran through the basement from the side of one of the stone walls down to the floor and across about ½ the floor to a hole in the floor that was no larger than a half-dollar…my father had a friend from Cornell come and look at it in about 1969 or 1970 and he said it was nothing to be worried about as far as stability, especially since the house had been there for so long…but he ascertained it was about 40-50 feet deep and then opened up to a large underground aquifer of some kind.

"We had many experiences in that house with cupboards being emptied of contents at night. Usually our folks blamed it on us as playing a joke…not so. And only once did we hear noise coming from the kitchen while we were upstairs – we could hear and see through the register in the floor, so we looked down to see if we could see anything, but couldn’t -- and by the time we got downstairs all the cupboards had their doors opened, even the ones down low.

"After Dad finalized the sale, he was talking to our neighbor, an elderly man about 75 who was like a grandpa to me for many years. He told Dad that his uncle or great-uncle had been killed in the barn…the story went something like…the fellow was in the hayloft and had sent down the rope with the hay hook and his brother downstairs yelled to take it up and the hook slipped and went right through his neck and into his head and killed him…he died in the barn…as a kid he hated to go into the barn as everyone thought it was haunted! I was so surprised, as this old man never told me anything about the barn, just that he was not too fond of it…that was all he ever said to me…and I never told anyone about my experience regarding the barn years before, and my general dislike of the place.

"Years ago, after we moved to California, my mother gave me a magazine – I have it someplace -- that reports on a sighting or crash near where we lived in Newfield, and the local “witch,” 'Pud' was her name, apparently had an experience with the incident…my mother kept it because they knew her from before the time when I was born, and according to Mother, 'Pud' left her husband and family and moved to the country and ran a tavern which I think was called the Seabring Inn at the time…my folks knew her before the divorce, etc. 'Pud' even wrote columns for the Newfield News for a time in the 1970s – I remember seeing them, as my mom would read them, usually they were about gardening and such things.

"California was a culture shock to a 14-year-old, but I adjusted…and pursued my music and artistic interests, as well as receiving a bachelor of science degree eventually. I am now retired and live with my wife, who is a nurse and instructor at a local college, and three of our five children, my elderly mother -- and my sister, Pam who lost her husband last January – five cats, two dogs, two birds, a snake called Hiss and a gecko! I am currently working on a book project and composing music for the piano, and doing some local performances/benefits. I collect books and have restored two collector cars from the 1950s."

"Here's A Strange"

Famed radio commentator Paul Harvey died a few days ago at age 90. I'm not sure it would have been a surprise, had he signed off earlier at age 80, 70, 50 or 32 1/2. Did the late Coral Lorenzen not warn me after her husband Jim's death that when a spouse dies the other often follows soon thereafter (as did she)? Harvey's wife passed on last year, so Coral's advice waxed impeccable.

Paul Harvey turned out his folksy radio news shtick for decades. Those daily nationally broadcast sessions offered his faithful audience a thumbnail of current events, from the serious to the silly. Some of his material exuded the odor of absurd tabloid stuff, probably intended to keep us listening, while other items were obviously reported solely because he wished to add his personal editorial comments. Harvey transported to our current day the voice and inflections of radio's golden era, a time never to be heard again, served up with a cacophony of bad news, good news, funny news and just news news. One thinks of Walter Winchell and Jimmy Fiddler and Hedda Hopper and a bevy of other radio voices preceding them whose familiar talents built the radio broadcast industry word by word, tear by tear, laugh by laugh.

Yes, Harvey also pitched some questionables over the years, and his familiar commercials for eyesight enhancements and health supplements irritated some in the medical field (for instance, Dr. Dean Edell, "America's doctor" of the radio, who occasionally refers to Paul Harvey sarcastically as "Dr. Harvey"), but hawking such products seems always to have been the norm for national radio broadcasts, especially back in the early days of radio soaps.

I wouldn't be gushing so about Paul Harvey, were it not for his ability to at least report about the weird things, the borderline probability of seemingly wild improbables. One can just imagine the hush settling momentarily over his national audience, every time he turned an adjective into a noun and alerted his listeners of something different with three little words out of place enough to give us a little chill: "Here's a strange."

Often, that "strange" involved a UFO sighting, and long after the radio days of Frank Edwards and Long John Nebel, Paul Harvey remained as a national daytime radio voice to bother with such matters, considered too obscure, crazy or beneath them by other daylight radio hosts with a long reach.

By now, some of you surely believe that the only UFO incident I care about is the alleged Hickson-Parker abduction. This is not true, but the incident does matter in the flow of things. Paul Harvey and his people recognized its importance, too, because soon after Natalie Chambers of the Associated Press revealed to the world a few years ago the names of new witnesses who quite possibly watched the large UFO swoop down where the two men were fishing, Paul Harvey repeated the story.

On a Friday broadcast, he tipped listeners off, inviting them back the next day for his Saturday session, and when Saturday's 15-minute broadcast hit the nation he spent much of it recounting the Hickson-Parker saga, discussing its new former Navy witness who came forward with even more names of those who watched an absolutely bizarre craft cruising low in the sky, descending near the Pascagoula River at the same approximate time as the abduction.

Harvey told the story, plain and direct, conjuring no laugh factor because there was no laugh factor. Like the title of Paul Harvey's other popular national radio show, the Hickson-Parker update was indeed "the rest of the story," and we hope that the additional credibility and attention paper-clipped to Chambers' report by Harvey endures, along with his broadcast legacy.

Terror From the Skies! Conglomerate Radio Airwaves on the Attack! (Part Two)

WSYR's (Syracuse) talk show host Jim Reith doesn't care what listeners think of him, as long as they keep listening. Those are his words, not mine. It's all entertainment, newsy tidbits and discussion -- playtime with additives, in essence. But WSYR and Clear Channel Communications need that precious audience to stay tuned in, to be mesmerized by the cavalcade of profitable commercials creeping in often enough to fracture and fragment whatever few minutes of interesting content may turn up on the JR show. Guests and callers can't be rushed off fast enough so those valuable breaks can be inserted into the show.

(My most hated favorites, incidentally, are commercials utilizing ringing phones or screams in the background -- brainless, effortless advertising ploys which obviously serve to keep one's attention and annoyance level high. Nothing reveals lazy marketing or a sponsor who disrespects its audience more than commercials infested with ringing phones or other sound pollution. Products able to stand on their own merits require minimal sound-effect enhancement. As I write this paragraph prior to Valentine's Day, I'm witness to a simple, non-offensive Clear Channel network commercial selling "the one product guaranteed to get women to take their clothes off," and I'm pondering, well, it must be itching powder, but I am wrong. It's mail-order pajamas. At least they weren't selling their product with phony phone rings.)

Reith himself, in all fairness, is exceptional in many ways. He's a good interviewer, politically and historically astute, and his technical Navy background easily portrays high intelligence. He generally treats his guests pleasantly, and good-naturedly takes to task people and issues raising his interest, and is firm both when necessary and unnecessary. He loves his family, works his back off for the community and provides so much assistance to local charities that one truly wonders how they would survive without his involvement. He enjoys a loyal following.

Unfortunately, there's still that smarmy debunking thing. A golden rule of debunking dictates that if one can't confront or argue away the evidence, the next step is to attack the messenger. Therefore, when Jim Reith responds by childishly calling me names instead of confronting UFO evidence, he fits nicely into tried-and-true expectations. Why else would he take off on me, a total stranger whose only wish was to inform him?

Additionally, I suspect that Reith's profound religious views prohibit him from wandering too far outside the box of religious doctrine, so I may have been the subject of his venom based primarily upon faith. He regularly professes his Catholic lifestyle, so it's not as if I'm unfairly dragging something out here that doesn't apply. Listeners are often fed a diet of guests motivated by religion-based activities, so I presume the faithful are a predominantly sought-out audience. Nevertheless, the fact that the Vatican's own chief astronomer recently opened the door a bit further by stating that extraterrestrial life -- aliens -- may actually exist throughout the universe should cause him to question his views. Then, of course, there are Church officials such as Monsignor C. Balducci, with close Vatican ties, who has expressed some very intriguing views about the UFO issue.

Also, when Reith proudly invokes the name of an infamous "skeptic," such as The Amazing Randi on his program, I raise an eyebrow because his familiarity with "Amazing's" uncomplimentary comments about organized religion is obviously lacking. I know it's Reith's program, but if one's religious doctrine prevents a panoramic view of the issues, then a real disservice is done to inquiring commercial radio listeners, should information be excluded based solely upon a radio host's intellectual or dogmatic hissy-fit. Or maybe in being so critical I'm just losing my Reith-ligion.

One might also find Reith's profound dislike of psychics interesting, if not almost slapstick in its effects. He routinely condemns psychics (again, his religious values probably enter into this -- though, I must say, if one believes that Jesus rose from the dead, then it appears almost anything goes!) and many of them certainly deserve his brickbats. You must understand, he absolutely refuses to invite these despised psychics on his show, though his colleagues did so in the past and, for better or worse, achieved phenomenal listener interest (Note: Curiously, there may have been a furor caused by local religious leaders, sponsors and/or management hoping to avoid The Pit, because WSYR-AM hasn't featured a psychic in recent times, and keep in mind that religious beliefs routinely control a lot of hearts, minds, decisions and spending in Central NY).

Imagine the comedy induced, then, from a situation that occurred when Reith went on vacation some time back, and one of his guest hosts that week was local WSTM-TV (not owned by Clear Channel) news anchor Kevin Schenk. Schenk temporarily took the reins and invited a popular psychic on the show to take calls and tell listeners their futures. As expected, the radio audience went wild, and I suspect the phone lines to Reith's studio were jammed to the hilt. After all, say what you will, but a lot of folks love their psychics.

When Reith returned from vacation, he sounded calm, yet incredulous, about the psychic affair tainting his show. It was as if he wanted to soak the entire studio phone system in bleach or something caustic to obliterate the stench of psychic advice. How dare anybody invite psychic filth into his time slot?

But there's more. Reith, who tries diligently to line up a succession of -- suitable -- guest hosts when he goes away, experienced yet another embarrassment while he and the family slipped away for a few days of relaxation. One of his guest hosts was Stephanie Miner, a member of Syracuse city government, accompanied by a colleague. This time, however, Reith might have been better off with a psychic on the show, for Ms. Miner took the opportunity over several hours to make numerous unkind and humorously dismissive comments about Reith himself, effectively enraging him upon his return. Reith must have been furious. You could tell, not only because he harped upon the incident for days of broadcasts thereafter, but also because -- even to this day -- he frequently throws out little barbs and digs about her. Whether his on-air criticisms seem on the mark or not, you just know that he harbors a grudge because she brilliantly skewered him on his own show while he was absent from his post. Hmm. . .maybe now he knows what it feels like, though she didn't resort or lower herself to the juvenile name-calling behavior that Reith prefers in my case.

But now, like something from a TV sitcom script, there are further developments. It seems that Ms. Miner intends to run for mayor of Syracuse. This not entirely unexpected event causes Reith to remind his listeners he has submitted over 50 requests for Ms. Miner to guest on his show, and this would be since the infamous hosting gig which he no longer (wisely) references whatsoever, yet she refuses. My question would be, why in the world would she make herself available to JR? Why would she have a need to experience his barbs in person, having effectively dealt with him previously while dominating his own microphone? If elected mayor, perhaps she will present Reith with the key -- not to, but out of the city, though he, somewhat with tongue in cheek, suggests he'll move away anyway if she is elected.

Although the Schenk and Miner-hosted shows are arguably the most memorable of the Reith series to date, to be fair I should mention that the program's occasional encounters with celebrity can provide a rare moment of interest. Last year, singer Robert Goulet visited Syracuse to perform at a benefit, and he stopped by the studio. Goulet, blessed with the best first name in the world and famous both for his performance in Broadway's Camelot with Richard Burton and Julie Andrews, and for his rendition of the song, Old Cape Cod, performed a great service for radio disc jockeys across the nation in 1965 when his booming hit single, Summer Sounds, saw release. No longer did AM radio need to rely upon such seasonal favorites as the Jamies' fifties hit, Summertime, Summertime, or Connie Francis' Vacation to kick off the summer season every year. Goulet, gracious and bright, a shining star and icon for a fading golden musical era, shared a few valuable minutes with Reith and his listeners but, tragically, became gravely ill a few days after departing Syracuse and died.

Now and then, Jim Reith reminds his audience that the program is called "The Jim Reith Show," and, as he recently pointed out, his is a talk show and not a call-in show. I presume that answering phone calls is rather a favor to the caller, not an obligation, so I really don't know why callers even bother, particularly knowing that they have to go through his producer to be screened before having their say (I'll say one thing for Art Bell, he didn't rely on call screeners). And make no mistake, JR always has the last word, whether the caller is allowed five seconds or two minutes on the air, and whether the caller is as dumb as a box of woofers and tweeters, or smarter than the host (people wishing to argue a point often find themselves quickly abolished from the phone connection). After all, whose show is it?

Everything I remember about ingredients that made talk radio fun in Central New York once upon a time has been surgically extracted for the Reith show. Frankly, newer listeners of local talk radio don't know what they're missing. The only person who might find the show thoroughly enjoyable might be President Obama because, if little else, this program is certainly "shovel-ready." Why do I continue to listen in when I can? Because I have faith -- faith in the teeny-tiny possibility that one day, indeed, I'll turn the radio on and find the Reith show gone, a victim of audience ratings, replaced by the melodious sounds of cows belching, cats meowing or dogs barking (my personal preference would be ducks quacking). And many amongst the contemporary, though hardly discriminating, audience will continue listening and loving every moment, blissfully unaware of the program changes.

My most recent non-phone call encounter with Reith's show occurred last May. While he pursued a rant about how people should discuss issues and not resort to name-calling, I e-mailed him, reminding him that name-calling was exactly the approach he took with me in 2006. Predictably, he took off on me over the airwaves with his ridiculing stance and referenced the parts of my e-mail that suited him. He has a talent, you see. You may ask, by calling Reith a debunker am I not name-calling? Yes I am, because he is a debunker, and an obvious one at that, at least when it comes down to the UFO issue. To debunk something generally means to expose a sham or falsehood, but as a succession of people who "explain away" various things based solely upon their lack of knowledge surface more and more, the word "debunker" carries an alternate definition of its own. During that particular show, incidentally, he blurted over the airwaves, as if in a snit, that if I didn't like him mentioning me on the radio, he would nevermore, and this declaration was followed by the sounds of, presumably, my e-mail printout being crumpled up and thrown away. So, the barn door was thus locked -- but I, the obedient horse, the designated consummate whack job with an ethical stance, remained outside of the barn, freezing in the cold chill of icy broadcast airwaves.

As I write this in February of 2009, Reith has begun lecturing his audience about the rarity of civility, particularly bemoaning an incident in which his producer just took a call from a woman who referred to JR twice as an "MF." (ask any military drill instructor what that means, if you don't know). Shocking! Maybe he would have felt infinitely more civil about things, had she called him a WJ, an NB or a WN.

Every few days, Jim Reith still manages to throw in a comment about "aliens," and equates the subject with ghosts, Bigfoot and -- psychics. Just last July, WSYR was running commercials for "California Psychics," even as Reith periodically condemned psychics on his show. Then, one afternoon, when I almost fell out of my chair in astonishment, a paid-for "California Psychics" commercial landed squarely, point-blank, center stage upon a local -- not network-fed -- advertising minute of "The Jim Reith Show" itself, barely two days after his last psychic-driven negative comment. Priceless!

And then I understood everything, as clear as a bell chiming spine-chillingly in the midnight hour, and I could almost see a copy of the book, Animal Farm, held high by the non-existent ghost of George Orwell, not standing in the afternoon mist, unable to mouth the words because appearing before me as a ghost would have been impossible, so I was forced to read the ghostly lips invisible before me: "All psychics are created equal, except some psychics -- the ones who pay the bills on the Reith show and go without criticism by name -- are created more equal than others." And then I wondered how many of his listeners who could least afford it had rushed off to dial up those affable West Coast psychics right there and then, maybe sacrificing milk for a baby -- or, worse, forgetting to take a baby out of the car on a hot July day, or absent-mindedly leaving an infant alone in the yard, certain to be devoured by hungry coyotes -- in order to purchase and relish a few minutes of psychic California consultation, audio-intravenously pushed on the Reith show.

The only occasions when Reith elicits anything resembling an audible chuckle from me occur when he vows a willingness to spend a night in an alleged haunted house -- if he can bring a shotgun along to obliterate anything making strange noises in the darkness. That's funny stuff! But, my advice? Leave the shotgun behind. Next time psychics advertise on the show --"and, after all, why wouldn't they?" to quote a favorite question posed by Reith in a variety of circumstances -- Reith should just invite one to the haunted house, and let that psychic sleuth locate and make friends with the ghost(s) on his behalf. Depending upon whom becomes the next mayor of Syracuse, Reith might just find relocation to a haunted house outside of the city limits preferable. Yes, he may have to put up with a little ectoplasm and incoherent moaning in the night, but so what? Worse things have been known to materialize from the ethers. I should know, I've heard them on the radio.

(** UPDATE BELOW **)

November 5, 2009 Update: The elections are over and Stephanie Miner has indeed been elected the mayor of Syracuse, NY. Jim Reith and Ms. Miner do speak on the radio at times, and he continues to throw little barbs out about her, indicative that Ms. Miner's sharp-witted harpoon from show-hosting frivolities past remains buried somewhere in his psyche. Despite obvious attempts to remain civil with one another, listeners in the know surely sense an icy chill amongst conversations between the two, rather something like an old horror movie where the Wolfman and Frankenstein's monster thaw and attempt mutually pressured communication after being frozen within blocks of ice in a subterranean cave for decades. All of this started when Reith once interviewed Ms. Miner, who was a member of Syracuse city government, and in response to something she said he retorted with, "THAT'S A LIE!" When he eventually allowed her to host his show while he vacationed, I suspect he did so as something of an apology, though he did stand by information he considered untruthful from her. Nevertheless, the two shall now be thrown together like a squabbling married couple as she runs Syracuse government and he attempts to stay on top of her methods -- whether each likes it or not. Adding to this drama, Reith took a phone call this week from a listener in another state who found his show streaming on the Web, and the caller complimented Reith for being unlike other talk show hosts who call their listeners idiots and the like (Psst -- hey, buddy, would you feel the same if he called you a nutbird or whack job? You listened to the wrong shows, dude, because by the day after your call he again used the term, idiot, regarding a caller). Anyway, may Ms. Miner and Mr. Reith enjoy the upcoming years of wedded broadcast bliss as much as I will, on those rare occasions when I must listen and, particularly, may she remain true to her emotions regarding a talk show so frequently bland and narcolepsy-inducing that not even a caveman could long endure its babble.