MARKET WATCH COLUMNIST
“Weitzman's illness puts politics in its place”, Ellis Henican Column, Newsday, January 30, 2011
He lost the election and won his life back.
Last time we checked on Howard Weitzman, he was being swept out of office as Nassau County comptroller by voters in a decidedly anti-incumbent mood.
But defeat at the polls wasn’t the only challenge Weitzman had to face in 2009 – not even his toughest one.
As he was raising campaign funds and gathering endorsements, he’d been diagnosed with a rare, life-threatening blood disorder called amyloidosis. Doctors describe it as a progressive, metabolic disease characterized by abnormal deposits of protein in the major organs.
Now that’ll put a tough re-election campaign into perspective!
“I’m feeling great,” Weitzman said at week’s end. “It’s been 18 months since I was diagnosed. The disease is under control, and I’ve really been able to rebuild my health.”
A big part of the credit, he said, goes to his doctors at Boston University Medical Center and Memorial Sloan-Kettering, who unlike many physicians were actually familiar with the rare condition and knew how to treat it.
"It’s too soon to be planning a return to politics," he said, although he’s keeping up with the news.
“So sad,” Weitzman says of the state takeover of county finances. “You can’t promise huge tax cuts then refuse to cut services to make that up.”
But the former pol is out raising money again – this time to support the hospitals that treated him and to fight the disease that nearly took his life.
“Thursday, February 10th,” he said. “Leonard’s of Great Neck. I’m organizing a fund-raiser for amyloidosis research. 
Just as important as the money, we need to increase awareness of the disease. It’s not easy raising money for something most people have never heard of. But that’s exactly what we’re doing here.”
Weitzman promises big-name entertainment and lots of old friends and supporters from in and out of politics.
Details at 516-684-9839 or amyloidosisfundraiser.com
“This is something I need to do now,” he said. “These people really did save my life.”
STATE OF OUR UNION
2. Endless snow
3. Alleged serial killer
4. Stubborn unemployment
5. But wait, there is some good news too: MTV’s “Jersey Shore” really might be coming to Long Island.
ASKED AND UNANSWERED:
The snow is a joke, right? Somebody’s sick idea of a joke?...In this age of digital phone records and caller ID, how dumb does a suspected serial killer have to be to make prank phone calls to the sister of an alleged victim? Dumb -- or secretly hoping to get caught?...7,000 J.C. Penney coupons? Is that all that a Westbury mail
carrier lifted from residents’ mailboxes? That’s all Tommy Tang is charged with – for now…How soon ’til the first bumper sticker appears in state-controlled Nassau County: “Vote the New Bums out”? You know they’re coming...And wasn’t this inevitable too: The ‘tip-of-a-lifetime’ headlines when Long Beach waitress Patricia Eisel won $21.5 million in Lotto?
….What kind of woman would run down her cousin with a minivan – twice? Doesn’t the “twice” make it more than twice as bad?...What is it about Labrador Retrievers that make the breed AKC’s number one on Long Island again? Don’t ask a Labrador owner unless you have two hours for the explanation. But in fairness, owners of Yorkies 4th on this year’s list) and Shih Tzus (5th) are just as head-over-paws for their breeds…Now that Republicans and Democrats sat together for the State of the Union, they’re all getting along great. Right?
LONG ISLANDERS OF THE WEEK
PETE AND HELENE MONTANA : Pizza missionaries
Their Montana Pizzeria was a long-time favorite in Freeport. But let’s be honest. There’s lots of good pizza around here. It wasn’t until Pete and Helene Montana opened an honest-to-goodness Long Island-style pizza shop, Basilicos,
in the tiny Northeast Pennsylvania town of Dickson City, that they truly understood how powerful a brick-oven pie can be. Northeastern Pennsylvanians keep showing up as if to a shrine. “I've got about 250 recipes in my recipe book," Pete told a wide-eyed reporter from the local Times-Tribune the other day. "We've got it down to a science." That sort of thing may not sound so amazing in Nassau County. But it carries real weight in huge swaths of America. "I gotta have my hands in everything,” Pete went on, spreading the pizza gospel. “I guess I’m old-school like that.”
E-mail ellis@henican.com. Follow him at twitter.com/henican
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Short Changed Long Islander’s!
I recently read an article that named “Montana Pizzeria” in past tense located in Freeport in its opening lines. I am writing because I am one of the customers who called the store and asked if the original owners I have come to know and love are still there! To my surprise they responded, “Oh! Yeah Diana we are still here, you must have seen the article in Newsday”. I said “Yes, I did! Why would you allow an article that mentions your business to be printed like that?” Their response was disturbing. They stated “They had no idea about the article and that you took the liberty to write it based on another article you read and that you never actually interviewed anyone to write it. While they tried to contact you about retracting or at least fixing it, you denied that the article actually wrote the food was average and that the owners you referred to actually own a completely different pizzeria and that it wasn’t negative.” Really? I am sorry but I am the average reader it is written in past tense which implies the restaurant might be closed and it compares the restaurant to other pizzerias in the area and it states that the other Long Islanders you were writing about and highlighting moved to Pennsylvania to open up a successful business! Ellis, your article implied a lot more than you care to admit! I am bewildered to understand how a paper that I love and a column intended to be a positive focus on the achievements of Long Islanders could be so indifferent. It is even more obnoxious to hear that you, an acclaimed reporter, read another article and summarized its contents and then added your own personal commentary about Long Islanders you never met! Where is your integrity, proper research and fair reporting? I know my words won’t carry much weight but your careless reporting misrepresented a Long Island Business and owners the restaurant you first named in your story. If you actually did your job you would know that the Montana’s Pizzeria you named is a contemporary restaurant located here in Freeport, Long Island. It is not in par with many other pizzerias in Nassau County because it is receiving an award later this month for being one of the Best Businesses of the Year and that it has been in our community for over 20 years! “Let’s face it Ellis”, you messed up and short changed these hard working Long Islander’s! Shame on you!