This is an artists rendering of of the Veterans’ Park.
Stop the “Yellow Journalism”
(Editor’s note: When I attended the Palisades Park Advisory Board meeting in October, somebody asked about who would take care of maintenance for the upcoming Veterans’ Park (and bocce courts) at the Recreation Center. Everyone who has a child that has played PPBA baseball at the park knows that about $75,000 is raised annually in order to keep the Field of Dreams in prime condition. I sent an email to Post 283 Commander Jere Romano, asking if the American Legion would take responsibility for maintaining Veterans’ Park every year, since it’s not an L.A. Recreation and Parks project. Today I received a note from Legionnaire Jay McCann (below). The referenced story, “Bocce Ground Breaking Now Predicted for April,” was published February 4.)
Sue, you have gone way overboard in stretching my one-word answer into your prefabricated, myopic wish to create a controversy or, what you and your like want to call, “news.”
Let’s accept solely for this note your memory of the exchange, though I don’t remember the words exactly: Harter said he didn’t think the Post would let the Gardens “disintegrate,” and, when he asked if I thought that was correct, I said “yes.”
Then, you say “The assurance the Legion would continue maintenance indefinitely stopped any opposition.”
Those are your words, not mine; and it is a classic example of what used to be called “yellow journalism:” sensationalism over facts.
According to you, I baldly said the Post would forever maintain the Gardens, and that assurance “stopped” opposition.
You left logic at the door.
Harter expressed an opinion and asked what I thought of his opinion, and I agreed with his opinion. Opinion! How does that jump to my having given an “assurance” to “indefinitely” do anything?
I thought then and do today he is right. I don’t THINK (note the “think” word, Sue) the Post will allow something so important to it and in which it has invested so much of its treasure to decay.
But I have no ability to assure anything. And you know that!
You know I am only a member and have no dictatorial powers over future, or even today, actions.
And don’t you dare try to turn that answer into a refusal to answer your constructed controversy: I THINK (again, that word, Sue) the Post will closely watch over Veterans Gardens and its maintenance, and, as long as I have anything to say with it, I will push that point. This Post has a long history of being a mainstay, a brick, for the community. That stands for commitment, do the job, stay the course. Give us some credit for what we do and have done for this town!
And, my assurance quelled opposition. Really?
Not one iota of support; it hangs in midair. We are just to assume you are, as you say, “Circling the News,” and, therefore, since it is your news, it must be correct.
You and I have discussed this. I know you don’t like this project. From the very start you have classified it as a bocce boondoggle. You completely ignore the veterans. You, who have supped at our table, taken our confidence! You give that short shrift over and over again. How about, for once, climbing down from your holier-than-thou, I know the “truth” attitude–I’m a journalist, after all–and try reporting facts–not your opinion?
This is a project dedicated to recognizing veterans, their contribution to who we are as a Nation, their sacrifice, their commitment to the values we veterans hold dear, and the meaning of that to this community, its people, its veterans.
You have never understood it is not living rooms; it is not gardens; it is not bouncy house; and it is, most certainly, not bocce. They are an environment, an opportunity to remember the point:
It is Veterans!
Get it right, for once!
Jay McCann
A Veteran!
My response to his response: HUH??