The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

Inside Press

Family of Gov. Cuomo Announce Mario Cuomo’s Passing; Laud Accomplishments

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For release:

The family of former Governor Mario M. Cuomo announced that the Governor passed away from natural causes due to heart failure this evening at home with his loving family at his side. He was 82 years of age.cuomo mario

The Fifty Second Governor of New York State, Governor Mario Cuomo served as New York’s Chief Executive from 1983 through 1994. He was credited with simultaneously improving the business environment of New York and the quality of life for its citizens, despite a national recession at the time.

Governor Cuomo presented eleven consecutive balanced budgets, reduced taxes, and implemented comprehensive governmental ethics and fiscal reforms. From the time Cuomo took office, New York experienced an increase of hundreds of thousands of jobs and tens of thousands of businesses.

Proclaiming the Decade of the Child, Mario Cuomo ushered in a multi-faceted effort to improve the lives of all New York’s children. His administration became the first in the country to develop an Energy Plan and to sign into law controls on acid rain among many undertakings.

Prior to his election as governor in 1983, Governor Cuomo served in the public and private practice of law for 18 years, simultaneously teaching as an adjunct professor for more than ten years at The St. John’s School of Law.

Mario Cuomo first gained public recognition for his resolution of the Forest Hills housing controversy in 1972. He was appointed to serve as the Secretary of State of New York in 1975 and in 1978 he was elected as Lieutenant Governor. He later received national attention for his 1984 Keynote Address at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco.

2014 marked 60 years of marriage to first lady Matilda Raffa Cuomo, a graduate of The St. John’s University Teacher’s College. The Governor is survived by his children, Margaret (Howard Maier), Andrew (Sandra Lee), Maria (Kenneth Cole), Madeline (Brian O’Donoghue), Christopher (Cristina Cuomo), as well as 14 grandchildren: Christina Cuomo Perpignano,
Marianna Cuomo Maier, Cara Kennedy Cuomo, Mariah Kennedy Cuomo, Michaela Kennedy Cuomo, Emily Cole, Amanda Cole, Katherine Cole, Samantha O’Donoghue, Kristin O’Donoghue, Tess O’Donoghue, Bella Cuomo, Mario Cuomo, and Carolina Regina Cuomo.

Funeral arrangements will be announced shortly.

Preventing Eating Disorders

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By Dr. Rachel Levy Lombara

PREVENTING EATING DISORDERS

Eating disorders involve extreme emotions, beliefs, and behaviors regarding eating, food and weight. They are a serious health risk, with the highest mortality rate of any mental illness and occur in boys as well as girls from a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. This article provides a summary of the eating disorders, major risk factors for their development (especially those we can influence), and suggestions for how to best protect children from developing them.

Denial and secretiveness can make eating disorders difficult to detect. Other than the obvious symptoms, any of the following may indicate a problem:

• Refusing to eat or denying hunger

• Excessive exercising

• Social withdrawal

• Development of lanugo (downy hair on body)

• Damaged teeth or gums

• Puffy cheeks (swollen salivary glands)

• Sores in the throat or mouth

• Scars or calluses on hands/knuckles

• Loose or baggy clothing (to disguise weight loss)

• Traces of vomit, laxatives, or unexplained missing food

If you are certain a child has an eating disorder, get professional help immediately. If you are concerned but not certain, be as nonjudgmental as possible when broaching the topic. Eating disorders are an illness. Treat them with the respect and concern you would any other illness.

Convey your genuine concern and desire to help. An ED is often a child’s best solution to a complex underlying problem, often a family one. If you are the parent, share in the responsibility for the problem (children are often the “identified patient” in a troubled family system) and be willing to seek help along with your child. With early detection and appropriate treatment, ED can be effectively resolved.

RISK FACTORS

• Low Self-Esteem: A potent risk factor for a range of behavioral problems, low self-esteem occurs when children hear and internalize negative ideas about themselves.

• Criticism and Teasing: Children whose parents and siblings are overly critical or who tease them about their appearance are at a higher risk for developing an eating disorder.

• Perfectionism: The belief that nothing-but-perfect-is-good-enough is fertile ground for developing an ED.

• Dieting: Excessive food restriction leads to binge eating (even in people without ED); think of the pendulum effect. Our “old brain” ensures survival by stockpiling food in the face of real or perceived threat of starvation.

• Family Conflicts and Lack of Emotional Support: Ongoing, unresolved family conflicts are toxic for children. Lack of emotional support due to a family conflict–or any other reason–can leave a child vulnerable to using food to regulate their feelings and environment.

• Rewarding Weight Loss: The overwhelming positive response and attention children get when they lose weight may cause children to take dieting too far.

• Genetics: Children with a first degree relative with an eating or mood disorder are at higher risk for the development of one themselves. D

• Transitions: Transitions like moving, changing schools or divorce are often “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” directly precipitating an eating disorder. Everyone experiences emotional distress during transitions but children without a good emotional support system are particularly vulnerable.

• Activities such as ballet, gymnastics, running, wrestling: When appearance and weight requirements are rigorous, children are at risk for eating disorders. Coaches and parents may unwittingly contribute to eating disorders by encouraging young athletes to lose weight.

PREVENTION

Too much outside control inadvertently distracts children from their internal instincts which, if heeded, naturally regulate eating and weight. (Think of a baby who eats with gusto then can’t be forced to take another bite when full.) Establishing healthy eating often requires parents do less not more. Consider the following suggestions:

1. Adults choose what food is bought, kept in the house and served at mealtimes. From these selections, children choose what and how much of what is served to eat.

2. Stay neutral about all foods. Demystify sweets.

3. Offer attention, praise, and hugs instead of food to placate or soothe a troubled child. When foods are used to reward children and show affection, they may start using food to cope with stress or other emotions.

4. Find things other than food, weight and body to talk about in social situations. Diet and weight talk can leave everyone feeling bad.

5. Encourage diversity by accepting your own and other people’s bodies as they are.

6. Do not participate in jokes that belittle another person, especially jokes based on appearance.

7. Be critical of messages from the media. Marketing is intended to make us feel as if we need whatever is being sold, even if that means making us feel bad about ourselves first.

8. Compliment children on things that truly matter, not a number on the scale.

9. Reduce competition. Your child does not have to the be the thinnest or best at anything to deserve your love and adoration.

10. Listen for and address thinking errors. How children interpret and respond to events, particularly difficult ones, powerfully predicts susceptibility to eating (and other) disorder. Inaccurate beliefs, negative thinking and faulty assumptions (termed cognitive distortions) left unchecked can leave a child feeling depressed and vulnerable to a host of self defeating behaviors.

SUMMARY

The value our society places on an unrealistically thin ideal creates a baseline of dissatisfaction, putting children at risk for the development of an eating disorder. The best prevention tips work by fortifying a child’s self-esteem. Self-esteem is nothing more than a collection of thoughts that together form a general belief in oneself as capable, likable and worthy. Children often see themselves as the adults in their lives see them. As their mirror, ensure good health by making sure that your own focus is on your child’s strengths and unique abilities.

Cognitive Distortions:

All-or-Nothing Thinking. Seeing things in black and white categories: “I blew the test,” in response to a single error.

Overgeneralization. Seeing a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat: “I’m always late”-when rarely are such absolutes true.

Jumping to Conclusions. Assuming a negative outcome before sufficient data is available: “I’ll never get chosen” – unless one is either a mind reader or a fortune teller, it is impossible to know the outcome.

Disqualifying the Positive. Rejecting positive experiences or feedback as “not counting” to maintain a negative belief.

Personalizing. Seeing oneself as the cause of some negative external event: “The team lost because of me” when really everyone played a roll in the loss.

Catastrophizing. Exaggerating the importance of negative things: “My vacation is ruined” in response to a flight delay.

Labeling. Instead of describing an error, attaching a negative label: “I’m selfish,” rather than I want to enjoy my new doll today but will happily share it tomorrow.

Emotional Reasoning. Assuming negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are: “I feel fat” when one isn’t actually overweight.

Should Statements. Trying to motivate with “shoulds” as if one must be punished to get something done.

Mental Filter. Picking out a single negative detail and dwelling on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened: focusing on a single error in an otherwise beautiful performance.

TYPES OF EATING DISORDERS

ANOREXIA NERVOSA involves refusal to maintain body weight at or above a minimally normal weight for age and height, feeling or intense fear of becoming “fat” even though often dramatically underweight and, in menstruating females, loss of menstrual periods.

BULIMIA NERVOSA involves binge eating (eating an abnormally large amount of food in a discrete period of time) followed by purging to prevent weight gain. Purging is usually done by vomiting, laxatives, diuretics or excessive exercise. The bingepurge cycle feels “out of control” and is accompanied by dieting and extreme concern with body weight and shape.

BINGE EATING DISORDER involves recurrent episodes of binge eating. While there is no purging, sporadic fasts, repetitive diets, and feeling shame or selfhatred following a binge are common.

EATING DISORDER NOS is used to describe subclinical or mixed symptom eating disorders, as in someone who binges and purges but not frequently enough to warrant a diagnosis of bulimia nervosa.

Rachel Levy Lombara, Ph.D. is available to provide a seminar on the prevention of eating disorders in children, free of charge, to your nonprofit group or organization. Please contact her at (914) 773-4223 or DrLevyLombara@aol.com with your request.

For additional information:

·The American Psychological Association: http://www.apa.org

·The National Eating Disorders Association Helpline: 1-800-931-2237 Burns, D. Feeling Good . Harper, 1999.

The Yale Guide to Child Nutrition , Ed. by W. Tamborlane. Yale University Press, 1997.

Remembering “Dick” Crabtree…with Love

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By Grace Bennnett

In his final days, as John Crabtree related, Richard “Dick” Clarke Crabtree had offered his son some straightforward instruction on the writing of his eulogy. “He told me to skip the bad stuff and just tell everyone I loved them.” And that’s just what John did. Love was the theme, and yes, it was also very much in the air yesterday at St. Patrick’s Church in Bedford.

There, several generations of Crabtrees, extended family, and hundreds of friends and neighbors gathered to fondly remember the generous love and legacy of Dick Crabtree, the founder of Crabtree’s Kittle House. Recalled were his multiple roles as loving husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather, decorated military leader, restaurateur, benefactor to multiple public service organizations, and more. (See below for a full bio, as provided by the Crabtrees.)

The traditional service included readings by many Crabtree family members. It also led with Msgr. George Thompson’s observation at the outset that it’s not money or even fame that defines the success of a person’s life. It’s love. And that the overflowing room was ample proof of the great love Dick Crabtree shared in every arena of his life.

In a pre-eulogy, Bud Heithaus spoke of his undying admiration for his military colleague, old friend, and offered a salute: “A job well done, General.” In John’s eulogy (which his best friend read on his behalf), John immediately noted that a few pages could not possibly tell the story of such a larger than life man. But he was wrong. Anyone attending could not leave without a keen sense of the compassion, wit and full life Dick Crabtree led.

John encouraged everyone “to keep the Dick Crabtree stories and legends flowing long after the service.” And to that end, the Crabtrees graciously invited everyone in the packed sanctuary to a delicious luncheon at the Kittle House, following the service and burial in Valhalla. The luncheon itself was festive with many indeed exchanging stories. If Dick Crabtree were watching, he’d have agreed that it was all “good stuff.” crabtree table post funeral

A final note. Dick Crabtree’s daughter, Clare Crabtree, told me that what she remembers most about her dad was “just watching him be wonderful.” I’d like to think, at that moment, that Dick Crabtree might have been watching Clare and everyone he loved be wonderful too. Rest in peace.

A bio of Richard “Dick” Clarke Crabtree as told by the Crabtree Family:

The Passing of a True Legend

Richard (Dick) Clarke Crabtree died peacefully on December 12 at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx with his family by his side. Dick was born in New Rochelle NY and was raised there by his parents Joseph and Irene. He attended Iona Prep where he excelled in sports, especially track, setting multiple records including in the 440 yard and 220 yard dash which stood for many decades. He attended both Notre Dame and Georgetown Universities where he studied business, and in 1952 he married Marjorie (Mimi) Hannon, a model, his childhood sweetheart, and dedicated wife until his death.

Dick served in the U.S. Coast Guard from 1953 to 1954 before entering the family automobile business, Crabtree Motors, where he took charge of the used car division and introduced the concept of ‘certified pre-owned vehicles.’ Dick was hired by Ford Motor Company as Northeast Manager of Edsel Car Dealership Sales, and despite the short term success of the project, was proud that each of the dealerships that he established survived the Edsel debacle to become thriving businesses. Dick worked as a bank executive at both Citibank and Marine Midland Bank, but eventually realized his true calling was to utilize his prolific people skills in the restaurant business.

He opened his first restaurant, Crabtree’s Plaza Inn in Crestwood, NY in 1974 to great critical acclaim, and then in 1981 he purchased a popular landmark in Chappaqua NY, the Kittle House, and completely restored the building and the business as the preeminent Restaurant and Inn in Westchester County. Amongst his numerous community positions, Dick served as a Commissioner of the Westchester County Police Board, 1978-1986, as Chairman of the Business School Advisory Board at Westchester Community College, as Trustee of the New Castle Historical Society, as president of Chappaqua Rotary, as a Director of Westchester/Putnam Girl Scouts of America, as president of the Boys and Girls Club, Myrtle Beach, and as Prior to the Sovereign Military Order of the Knights Templar. Dick also served in the NY Guard from 1992 until he retired in 1999 as a Brigadier General.

In 1984 Dick received the Westchester County Distinguished Service Award. Dick will be greatly missed by the multitudes whose lives he touched. No matter how many hats he wore, and uniforms he donned, Dick never lost his energy for life and compassion for the people around him, and wherever he walked the world was at least a little bit brighter. He will be forever remembered as a man ‘larger than life’ with a charm, wit, humor, and compassion that were truly remarkable. He is predeceased by his brother Robert and sister Joan Mackin. He is survived by his wife Mimi, seven children, eighteen grandchildren, one great grandson, and many loving nieces and nephews.

The family will receive friends and family at Cassidy Flynn Funeral Home in Mt. Kisco NY Thursday 7-9 P.M., and Friday 2-4 P.M. and 7-9 P.M. A funeral service will take place at St. Patrick’s Church in Bedford on Saturday at 9:45 a.m.

In lieu of flowers please make donations to the Boys and Girls Club of Northern Westchester, the Salvation Army, and Graymoor Spiritual Life Center.

Board Vote OKs Retail at Chappaqua Crossing

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By Eileen Gallagher

The majority of the town board voted last night to approve retail at Chappaqua Crossing, the former home of Reader’s Digest. Supervisor Rob Greenstein and board members Adam Brodsky, Jason Chapin, and Elise Mottel voted “aye” while Lisa Katz voted against the three resolutions on the table.Whole Foods rendering

Though retail uses have been approved in the current “research and office business district”, there will still be opportunities for the public to voice their concerns and opinions in 2015. According to town attorney Nick Ward-Willis, there are a number of steps remaining in this process. For instance, the placement of retail within the campus has yet to be decided.

Each member of the board read prepared statements ahead of the vote. Katz, the sole “nay” voter, expressed her concern about the size of the project. Katz described weighing very carefully the pros and cons of the development for the town and questioned the sum of the benefits that have been praised by others. Not convinced that tax revenues from Summit Greenfield’s property will be substantial, she pointed out the potential decrease in taxes from homeowners and downtown businesses whose assessments she opined would likely go down. Per Katz, the concessions made by the developer do not assuage the additional traffic burden on the town as well as the change in its nature.

Greenstein called this process “the longest and most controversial application in the town’s history.” Describing the “idle, vacant” property and the town’s tax base being 91% residential and only 3% commercial, he expressed his belief that voting to approve retail is the “best possible decision for ALL residents.” Greenstein continued, “Kicking the can down the road is not an option.”

Chapin agreed with Greenstein as to the nature of the vote, calling it the most comprehensive and controversial matter in his seven years on the board. Describing how the town went “far beyond what is required by law” in having at least 20 public hearings, he applauded the town boards, attorneys, and staff who all played an important role, per Chapin. “Change causes fear and uncertainty,” said Chapin, acknowledging that some of his friends and neighbors would be disappointed in the decision.

Mottel expressed her belief in the importance of a commercial tax base and the intention of the board to “ensure the required mitigations are met.” She remains concerned that despite enhancing the tax base, some traffic issues remain unmitigated.

Brodsky described “wrestling the entire year” with this matter, trying to balance the interests of the entire community and realizing that “some are more directly affected than others.”

Greenstein listed concessions by Summit Greenfield, including contributing $1.5 million to the town for recreation and business hamlet improvements, $600k to improve the Horace Greeley High School entrance on Roaring Brook Road, four parcels which would help create a buffer for neighboring homes, the Wallace auditorium, a free jitney for travel between the crossing and the downtown, and covering the town’s consulting fees.

Greenstein summed up the majority decision of the board; “We put aside our differences and acted in the best interests of the town.”

The Fabulous Champagne Joy and her #Cancerland Fundraiser: Monday!

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#Cancerland (www.cancerland.tv) helmed by Champagne Joy is throwing a fundraising party at Holiday House NYC, featuring Francis Hills’ Breast Cancer Photo Exhibit: “Clothing Immaterial” (www.clothingimmaterial.com) this coming Monday, December 15th 5:30-8:30 p.m. Holiday House NYC is located at the Academy Mansion, 2 East 63rd St, on the corner of 5th Avenue.

Party is hosted by Mira Sorvino, Nick Loeb and Amy Sacco. The event will be emceed by Olympic Medalist and World Champion Miles Chamley-Watson with a video presentation by The Nerdist Chris Hardwick.

Along with the cast of #Cancerland, Alex Woo, Tish & Snooky of Manic Panic, as well as various other celebrities, are expected to attend. The food will by Mundo at The Paper Factory and the bar will be by The Cup Bearer.

Tickets are available at Eventbrite and there is a companion online auction at Bidding Owl.

Cancerland Jubilee 2014

Sponsors include What Happens Live with Andy Cohen, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Baci Perugina, Crunchy Condiments, the Greenwich Project NYC, South Moon Under, Manic Panic, Alex Woo Jewelry, Conair, Colavita, Soul Cycle, I Buy Design, Samuel de Cubber, Kiku Collins, The Twins Judy & Joy, Colony Palms Hotel, The City Boys Allstars, Big Joe & Son Tattoo, Contact 543 Designs, Aries Fine Wines & Spirits, Pappy Van Winkle, World Boxing Cares, Daredevil Tattoo, Sweat Shop Studios, The Stretch Yoga, Liebhaber Construction, Golden Door Film Festival, Dr. Eric Berger, Carries Angels.

Champagne Joy
Champagne Joy
About #Cancerland and Champagne Joy:
#Cancerland is both breast cancer charity and a TV documentary series. It revolves around eight women in the New York / Connecticut area, all of whom battle breast cancer while throwing parties and charity functions, getting kids off to school, and participating in political rallies. Rejecting the notion that illness owns the patient, #Cancerland explores the concept of one’s refusal to be hobbled and that “living well is the best revenge.”

Champagne Joy is the founder of the #Cancerland charity as well as the creator of this documentary TV project. As a terminally ill Stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer sufferer, she is determined to make #Cancerland her legacy — a “place” in this world where women can turn for resources, advice and love from fellow women who have the disease and refuse to be defined by it, but insist on redefining it.