He stood tall for the scared
Marine vet Daniel Penny’s on trial. For manslaughter. Not a black versus white case. No highlighted racial overtones.
Witnesses say different things. Some: “His actions were not justified.” Others: “Penny should have held on tighter. I was scared.”
The facts. Busy subway car. A homeless drugged-up male scaring people. Many feeling uncomfortable. Threatened. His actions settled on a woman alone. Sitting there quietly. Terrified. Clear to many he was about to hurt someone.
Penny assessed the situation and — trained as he was, his action lifesaving and reasonable — moved to stop this out-of-his-head drugged-up homeless guy. Took him down, placed him in a chokehold. The drugged-up homeless man died. The issue being that the hold took too long and his struggle resulted in the man’s death.
This has become a Page One self-defense claim. Second-degree manslaughter. Criminally negligent homicide. Heroic Penny — trained to fight for us, save us — was the only one in that terrified subway car to come to the rescue. He now faces 15 years.
Really? In today’s tumbled up America, how would you feel if that lone woman had been your sister or mother?
It’s now negligent homicide and charges of manslaughter, despite Penny coming to the rescue of a woman sitting there quietly, alone, amid a trainload of innocents.
In America’s new sense of justice — no bail, release despite multiple charges, it’s Penny — to many a hero — who’s on trial.
That the way our parents taught us? No more E pluribus unum? Better for the entire carload to have exited at the next stop and left the alone woman terrified with him there?
Is that how America the Beautiful educated us growing up? Is that the way we learned in schools where kindergarten kids now bring guns?
‘Come Fly’ with Frank — briefly
“Sinatra the Musical.” Comes Thursday. One shot only. A reading — at the Apollo Theater. Tony winner Kathleen Marshall directs. Full orchestra and the usual. Was a tryout hit in the UK.
The scene opens 1942 New Year’s Eve. The skinny 27-year-old at the Paramount Theatre. Kid Frankie skyrockets. Wife Nancy struggles with his fame. He begins a love-in/sex-in with movie star Ava Gardner. His manhood goes up, his famehood goes down. He stages a comeback.
Etc. etc. and blah blah. His kid Tina, the one behind it, is also the one here with it.
Also, forget Biden. It’s Hollywood and Broadway staging comebacks.
Comes now another retrospective thing — like a comeback for Oscar winner Geraldine Page who left us when we only had 13 states.
In 1986, she won an Oscar. Her final film “My Little Girl” in ’86. She once worked her way through “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”
All she couldn’t master was her long-term marriage with actor Rip Torn — and that was his name. I knew them both. For purposes of sanity they lived separately.
This retrospective, being done by daughter Angelica Page, begins the tour of her solo show “Turning Page.”
SO here’s how you know when a new assistant uses your new computer: there’s Wite-Out over the whole screen.
