Blog

February 8, 2020

Plus the politicized Census, police hiring shortfalls, ornamental apple trees and the mayor’s image cloaking device

Yes, it’s a bit different every year, sunny and really cold this year, but not quite cold enough to cancel the event.  For some reason I came outside about 45 minutes early and stood there on Martin Luther King Boulevard on Martin Luther King Day in the middle of Lincoln Park waiting in that 15 degree fahrenheit sunshine wishing I had put on more layers of clothing, every few minutes turning away from that steady breeze that was coming down the hill to face toward the sun, desperately trying to absorb a bit of warmth.  Eventually I realized I’d better put my camera into my pants pocket against my thigh so it wouldn’t freeze up and become inoperable, as happened one year.

I hear that the indoor program held that morning inside the dark, dismal, but warm auditorium underneath The Egg was well attended, big crowds, choruses, speeches, tabling, all kinds of stuff.  But the short march from Madison to the MLK monument in my neighborhood was not quite as well attended as it has been some years when the weather was a bit more tolerable.  Only the hardiest citizens ventured forth into the cold sunshine, but for sure this year we had a whole lot more elected officials than usual.  When there are TV cameras trained on them, politicians can endure almost any conditions.

The March Through Lincoln Park

I definitely got out there way too early.  The City had put out notice, for the first time I believe, that the march would take off from Madison Avenue at 11:45 AM.  So I really had no excuse for going out so far ahead of time and freezing my precious parts like that.  I mean, if I wanted pictures of the area around the monument before the ceremony I could have taken photos and gone back inside my house for a half hour to warm up.  I have to confess that the reason I imposed suffering on myself, unspoken to myself at the time, was… shame.  

You see, a year ago just after MLK Day I was on the phone with a friend who lives in rural Wisconsin and happened to mention to her that year’s march to my neighborhood was cancelled because of the weather, almost two feet of snow had fallen the day before and the temperature was -4F.  On the other end of the line I heard loaded silence… followed by cold, icy contempt, icicles of disgust.  She informed me, as you might inform a pathetic wimp crying about a little boo-boo that, where she lives, when the weather gets balmy like that they put on their Spring outfits and rototill the garden.

I guess in Wisconsin they seem to be proud of how well they endure the horrible cold, but I’d never heard contempt from her before. There’s just something devastating about a person who is never contemptuous with you suddenly spitting derision that can kick one deep inside whether one notices or not.  So somewhere deep inside my balmy head I wanted to show her or somebody how tough I can be. As a result, by the time I could hear the approaching marchers still out of sight singing We Shall Overcome, I felt like I was ready to occupy a drawer in the cold storage unit at the morgue.

Ornamental Apple Tree In Lincoln Park

While I was standing there waiting on MLK Boulevard feeling the warmth of life getting sucked away by the breeze, I noticed a couple of ornamental crabapple trees loaded with tiny bright red apples in the snow covered field. For some reason I’d never noticed them before. 

The little apples on these trees, which ripen to bright red in the cold months, are incredibly sour, make your mouth become inoperable and will probably get tossed back up by your stomach if you manage to swallow them.  Even the birds won’t touch them, that is, not until after a few warm spells at the end of winter when they rot and turn brown, presumably making them less sour and more edible when food is the most scarce for the birds.  Most of the time all they are good for is as projectiles that the kids splatter against buildings and throw at each other.

But in early Spring these trees flower beautifully, an exhilarating announcement of the end of Winter.   In full blossom they are awesome, and the sweet smell is delightful.  The rest of the year they function as hardy and attractive street trees, able to thrive in the shade cast by buildings and never quite growing tall enough to bother overhead wires.

Springtime Apple Blossoms On Morton Avenue Last April

Many years ago, on the corner on Morton Avenue on the other side of the MLK monument, I planted a seven foot tall ornamental apple tree where the City and the power monopoly had conspired to kill what I thought was a perfectly good maple tree that both entities had considered bothersome.  This planting of a tree on public property by me was an illegal act, even though I had paid for the tree with my own money and did the work.  But hey, in the 1990s the City didn’t give a damn about the South End and in particular was openly contemptuous of my neighborhood.

Yet because of these annual marches on MLK day, the area surrounding the monument got looked at once a year by dignitaries and scrutinized by the Corporate Media. So in the last years of the last century the City very reluctantly carried out some projects within sight of the annual ceremony to make the images that ended up on TV look reasonably attractive.  One of these reluctant projects was to replace the crumbling sidewalk on that block of Morton Avenue and to plant some trees along there, starting at my illegal apple tree.

By then my tree, which I had carefully watered and defended from assault by autos and children, was big and strong and beautiful.  The City guys in charge of street trees, including the City Forester at the time, were impressed by it. Finding him and another guy who I think was from General Services (DGS) standing out on the corner by the tree, I asked what kind of trees they planned to plant up the block in the nice square openings that had been put in the brand new sidewalk.

The Wreath Ready To Be Presented To Dr. King

To my delight they told me they planned to plant ornamental apples just like this one that we were looking at, because, as they explained, it was obvious someone had watched out for this tree and taken care of it.  This was a surprise to them, because the prevailing opinion of the City officials at the time was that the people of my neighborhood were subhuman troglodytes incapable of such higher functioning activities as caring for a street tree.  So they were hoping that “some of these people” (as they put it) would give the trees a chance to grow.

But, they told me, they had one problem, they had searched and searched but could find no record of having planted the tree or who had authorized it.  So old motormouth here happily confessed to them the true origin of the tree.  They both visibly started.  And became silent. They didn’t want to talk to me anymore.  I think they were embarrassed.

Well, the ornamental apple trees got planted all the way up the block as planned, and it looks like a couple ended up here in the park on the other side of the MLK monument.  Most of the trees planted on Morton survived quite nicely to maturity, and the City replaced the one or two that didn’t.  And I wasn’t arrested and thrown in prison for my terrible crime.  At least not yet.

Cold Cops On Horses

After the police pace car in the lead came the mounted cops.  The horses, as they always do, looked sleek and shiny and healthy and not minding the weather one bit.  In contrast, the cops that sat on top of them looked cold and miserable, and as I found out one past year when the weather was like this, the guys are quite surly if you try to talk to them.

There’s a good reason for that.  When the marchers gather at the beginning of the march, they do so inside the south entrance to the underground mall opposite the State Museum, which is a nice warm place to mill about.  But the cops have to stay outside with their horses waiting for these people to get their act together and step outside.  Even if they could lead those horses inside through the doors there’s really not much room for the big animals right there at the top of the stairs.  Although that would be an awesome thing to do.

So while they wait the guys sit high up on their horses catching that godawful wind that constantly howls through the overhang on Madison Avenue.  Even those hot horse bodies underneath their butts don’t help.  I’d have to say of all the people trying to duplicate the trials and tribulations of Freedom Marches by this short downhill jaunt to my neighborhood, these cops on horses make the biggest sacrifice.

State Troopers

Next came the four State Troopers, I guess they had thick long underwear underneath those full dress uniforms.  But what’s up with those ceremonial rifles?  I’m taking a big fat guess here… are those US government issued 1903 bolt action Remingtons that you can fix a bayonet to?  If so, I suppose it was a good idea to leave those bayonets back at the barracks.  But bayonets on their shoulders would have been awesome.

Albany Police Explorers

Behind the State Troopers marched the Albany Police Explorers, which is a sort of internship for youth aged 17 to 22 who are considering a career in law enforcement.  The Explorer program is run by the Police Athletic League (PAL) which we usually think of as running sporting events for kids and such.  But this is a serious training endeavor. From an Albany Police Facebook posting about what they call Station Day, which is held at Sienna College:

Station Day is a competition among explorer posts from around the Capital Region in which the explorers are put into scenarios that police may respond to. Some of the scenarios at today’s event included traffic stops, domestic incidents, emotionally disturbed persons, emergency medical care and an active shooter.

October 13, 2019

Citizen’s groups form for and against the construction of large apartment buildings

I was hoping for some shouting and threats, maybe even some thrown chairs and a fistfight.  But no, I was severely disappointed, everybody eased into the subject that evening at the main library and found out they had more common ground than conflict.  Sure, the discussion was constructive and eased a lot of tensions that had been growing throughout this past year, but for sheer entertainment nothing beats a small riot and a trashed public meeting room.

The subject at hand was far from trivial, the siting of new apartment buildings is a vital turning point in the effort to rebuild the City of Albany and reverse the 70 year decline in our population.  On the one hand there are those who are enthusiastically in favor of providing new living space inside the City so that people will live here and pay taxes and support businesses and not clog up our streets by commuting back and forth from the suburbs.  Then there are others who see the surge in construction as a grave imposition on their homes, “changing the character of our neighborhoods” by siting large residential structures in areas where small residential buildings predominate.

Everyone agreed, or at least conceded, that providing new living space for people who want to move into the City of Albany is necessary and important for the economic health of our community. There is indeed a housing shortage in Albany, as a landlord I know that quite well. The main point of contention turns out to be over what kind of construction is appropriate and where precisely it’s located. What we learned that evening is that it seems we have little choice with the sort of buildings that developers want to build, we either let those large apartment blocks get built or settle for nothing.

Everyone Got Along Fine At The Library Meeting, No Assaults Or Death Threats

This was at a panel discussion held at the monthly Council of Albany Neighborhood Associations (CANA) meeting at the beginning of October.  It was well attended, I estimated about 40 people showed up, many of whom I’d never seen at CANA before, along with a content provider from the Hearst Times Union.  This is good, attendance at CANA meetings has been falling off lately.  Us hardcore regulars have been showing up regularly, but for a while it had gotten so dismal that at the beginning of this year Mayor Kathy Sheehan declined to attend and speak to us because the group had become so small, breaking a tradition of mayors meeting with us annually going back about 30 years.

We couldn’t blame her for that.  The problem is that unlike her predecessors, Ms. Sheehan regularly makes herself available to meet the citizens in various forums across the City on a regular basis. We even had a discussion at a recent CANA meeting about this, that the damn City officials had become so responsive lately that the public no longer goes out of their way to see and talk to their leaders at CANA when they get the chance. It’s like the novelty of being face to face with the mayor has worn off.  

But as any neighborhood activist can tell you, it takes a neighborhood controversy to get the neighbors to attend neighborhood meetings. Much of the controversy around these new apartment buildings is centered around the mayor and her decision to allow and support the prevailing construction methods currently favored by developers.  Should the mayor have allowed, some say forced through, the construction of these large “stick construction” apartment blocks that are being proposed? Or should she have held out for smaller buildings considered closer to traditional Albany small architecture, and risk getting nothing new built?

Vince Raguso In Front Of Albany City Hall

We had six panelists that evening. However, it is important to mention that perhaps the number one agitator behind this controversy was not sitting on the panel, he sat right in front of the panelists. Vincent Raguso is one of those aforementioned hardcore regular CANA attendees, he is also the president of the Eagle Hill Neighborhood Association, an area located around upper Western Avenue approaching the City border with the suburb of Guilderland. He is also sometimes called “the 16th Common Council member” because he attends almost every Common Council meeting and almost always gives the elected officials an earful of his opinion.

Vince has started a Citywide group based mostly in the uptown neighborhoods called Stop The Stories, which at first might sound like they want to quash rumors but is actually in reference to the size of these apartment housing proposals, that in many locations rise to six or seven stories high.  This is mainly what he and his neighbors object to, they are resisting what they see as the imposition of large apartment blocks near uptown residential areas composed of mostly single family houses.

After deciding that the mayor and the City departments were not even paying attention to their concerns, Vince and the Stop The Stories group decided to promote a radical solution that was guaranteed to get attention.  They are calling for a moratorium on all development in the City of Albany.  The idea is to use the moratorium period to revise zoning and planning initiatives to suit the needs of neighborhoods that feel they’ve been left out of the process.

City officials, of course, have responded with annoyed disdain at this proposal.  Their position is that they have been soliciting public input over the revision of the zoning laws for several years now, why didn’t these folks participate in the process when it was open?  The response from the group has been that they did indeed participate, especially Vince.  But they say their concerns were mostly dismissed, and in addition they were given promises that have not been kept, particularly about continued citizen input.

City Of Albany Commissioner Of Planning Chris Spencer

From 1950 up until this decade, the population of Albany has steadily declined, especially after the ridiculous anti-urban zoning code adopted in 1968.  In 2012 Kathy Sheehan and her allies were swept into office partly on a promise of promoting policies that encourage the expansion of available housing, which at the bottom meant radically revising the zoning laws.  And she has kept that promise, bringing in competent expertise in the form of the commissioner of planning Chris Spencer, who wrapped up the long, hard revision of the zoning laws that was finalized and passed at the end of last year.

Besides exacerbating population decline, that terrible 1968 zoning code led to a big increase in land use which in turn has steadily reduced tax revenue to the City, forcing property taxes higher.  Fifty years ago this made perfect sense to the Apostles of Sprawl that dominated our community and the entire nation, those people seriously believed that Cities were old fashioned and needed to be replaced with wasteful and inefficient suburban sprawl. For most of us Albany citizens in the 21st Century, who are now dodging suburban traffic in front of our homes and paying higher taxes, that attitude is absurd.

What has changed since 1968?  Part of it is that suburbs are becoming too expensive to maintain, but also there has been a massive generational shift in attitudes about the desirability of City living.  My parent’s generation and my own Baby Boomer generation mostly favored that bizarre anti-urbanism.  Today a large number of younger than 50 don’t want to isolate themselves in suburban residences and depend completely upon automobiles that they have to maintain, they are not attracted to that bizarre kind of life. They want to live in communities that are walkable and thus more affordable.  This is especially true of Millennials, who right now are the backbone of society, the ones who are doing most of the actual work that sustains their declining elders.

Meanwhile, quite a few suburban municipalities are rethinking what they have done to themselves.  Suburban elected officials frequently chatter about “New Urbanism” and propose the construction of “town centers.”  It seems that quite a few people who reside in the suburbs are desirous of urban amenities.  As Martin Daley, one of the panelists at that CANA meeting put it (in answer to a snarky comment from someone in the audience), “Here in Albany we don’t need New Urbanism, we already HAVE Urbanism.”

Stop The Stories Protest In Front Of City Hall Last June

Back in the beginning of June, the Stop The Stories group held a big protest in front of Albany City Hall on a Monday, the day the Common Council meets.  At its peak I counted about 80 people on the sidewalk holding signs, chanting and greeting the Common Council members as they arrived, some of whom briefly joined the protest before going inside. (The Hearst Times Union as usual lied and said “almost 40.”) They were orderly but some of them were quite rude and nasty.  When I went over there to take photos, one woman started harassing me, ordering me to turn around so she could take my picture.  I showed her my back and with great difficulty refrained from showing her my middle finger (“picture this.”)

Across Eagle Street in Academy Park there was a counter protest hastily organized by Andrew Neidhardt.  He’s started a group called Walkable Albany, which describes itself as “A group of citizens advocating for Albany’s historic, beautiful, vibrant, dense, and walkable neighborhoods.”  This protest of the protest across the street had half the size, no more than forty people (again, the Hearst Rag claimed “about 25.”)  I was with this group (which explains why I was threatened when I crossed the street) and we too had signs and speeches, but we weren’t big on chants.

It could be readily seen that the Stop The Stories people in front of City Hall were older people, most were over 50 and I doubt there were any among them under 40.  As best as I could tell they were all from uptown neighborhoods, I didn’t see anyone I recognized that I knew to live downtown or near.  And as far as I saw every last one of them were white.

Counter Protest Across The Street, Andrew Neidhardt Of Walkable Albany Declaims On A Milk Crate

Our smaller group was a whole lot younger and included several parents pushing strollers, The Wife and I were probably the oldest attending. And this group included a few people of color. Standing on an honest to goodness milk crate, Mr. Neidhardt put forth the theme that density is desirable in an urban community, and if we don’t plan for density then we are planning for decline as a community.  This was a direct reaction to the loud demand from across the street for a moratorium on development, which at that point seemed to those of us in Academy Park to be the sum total of the Stop The Stories program.

Except for myself and a Hearst content provider, no one wanted to cross the street and risk a confrontation with the other group.  Too bad, a riot around the Phillip Schuyler statue would have been entertaining, even though our side was outnumbered.  And as an aside, I don’t recall if any cops showed up.  This is Albany after all, we have demonstrations and protests and street marches somewhere in the City several times a week when the weather is tolerable and often enough when it’s not.  The Albany Police learned a long time ago to relax and direct traffic and let the activities happen.

Panel Moderator Robert Murphy

The CANA panel was put together by Robert Murphy, president of the Whitehall Neighborhood Association, he acted as moderator.  And he did a good job, he proved himself personable and fair to everybody and is perhaps the main reason why this meeting did not devolve into a series of shouting matches and slap fights.  This was particularly impressive considering that there were several hotheaded people on the panel and more than several in the audience.

The representative of Stop The Stories was Zachary Simpson, he lives in the Melrose neighborhood and is a fellow board member of CANA.  Zach made it clear that Stop The Stories is about a lot more than just demanding a moratorium on development, the group wants more mixed use in the proposals and, of course, smaller buildings, fewer stories.  The thinking is that these large developments actually destroy the walkability of neighborhoods with their presence, and the sudden introduction of population density that come with these buildings increases auto traffic.

Zach Simpson Of Stop The Stories

This last point about traffic. Stop The Stories complains that the uptown neighborhoods are inundated every weekday morning with suburban autos driven by suburbanites passing through their neighborhoods to their jobs downtown, and then again in late afternoon.  In principle, it makes more sense to offer as many of these suburbanites with housing inside the City, not only to pay taxes but to clog up our roads a lot less.

The counter argument to that is while building a large, densely occupied building in your own neighborhood may reduce overall traffic a bit, it is very likely to increase traffic locally around your own house. Is that true?  During morning and evening rush hours, the main avenue through my own neighborhood, which is located on one side of downtown, is also bumper to bumper almost exclusively with suburbanite commuters.

From years of observation I’ve seen that people who live in my neighborhood tend to drive their cars as little as they can.  Most would rather walk, take the bus, or bike as often as possible.  And a lot of my neighbors don’t even bother with the expense and trouble of owning a car.

The Almost Unnoticeable Seven Story Extended Stay Hotel In My Neighborhood

A couple of blocks from my house is an 8 story building that used to be a nursing home, but went out of business leaving the building vacant for years.  At the end of the last decade a developer turned what had become a decrepit hulk into an extended stay hotel, and this new business has had zero effect on local traffic.  Not even noticeable. Meanwhile the suburbanite autos continue to clog up the roads in front of that building twice a day.

As an ally on the panel to Stop The Stories, Sue Cotner, executive director of Affordable Housing Partnership, maintained that the best solution to the housing crisis is to rebuild the already available vacant housing, more than a thousand residential buildings scattered across the City.  I know well how over the years Sue has worked to prevent random demolitions, to bring vacant houses back on line, and to keep occupied but disintegrating homes from going vacant.  I was delighted to hear that her organization is in the process of purchasing some 30 vacant houses from the Albany County Land Bank, which they plan to rehab and then match with persons of modest means who wish to own their own homes.

Sue Cotner Of Albany Housing Partnership

This is excellent work and I wish there were several dozen agencies with directors like Ms. Cotner out there doing the same thing, our vacant building problem would disappear.  But while it is vital to preserve and renovate the housing that we already have, that does not go far enough to provide enough housing and to significantly increase the population of our community.  We should not be destroying or allowing to go to ruin existing housing, but at the same time we need more housing units on top of those.  And new housing units mean greater density.

Andrew Neidhardt was on the panel, he dismissed the oft-cited concerns about parking and traffic.  “People want to live where parking is hard,” he told us.  Younger, higher income people gravitate toward what he calls “neighborhood centers,” places where it is easier to get around by foot than by auto.  And yeah, we see this in big Cities where the very wealthy have taken possession of the hearts of downtown for themselves, relegating us lower income people to the suburbs or to smaller Cities like Albany. The rich always buy up what is most desirable, and many of them recognize the value of urban centers.

Andrew Neidhardt Of Walkable Albany

An astonishing comment from Mr. Neidhardt was about the Home Depot in Albany (not sure if he was referring to the one along the Central Avenue auto slum or the one on Washington Avenue Extension that destroyed 25 acres of prime Pine Bush.)  “That Home Depot pays some $11 million in property taxes annually.  But if you put ten blocks of houses on that spot the City would receive ten times more in taxes.”  Is that an exaggeration?  I’d like to see a solid breakdown of figures to confirm that.

A woman named Pam Howard occupied a seat on the panel.  She’s the current director of Historic Albany Foundation (HAF), a self-perpetuating non-profit that under her longtime predecessor Susie Holland operated as an ally to former mayor Jerry Jennings, routinely rubberstamping midnight building demolitions and doing little more than providing a good income for Susie until Jerry left office and she had to leave town.  That, of course, is my opinion. Ms. Howard admitted that she doesn’t live in the City of Albany, she’s a suburbanite from Saratoga County.  She might as well have sent a potted plant to sit in her chair instead, she had nothing to add to the discussion.

Martin Daley Of The Capital District Regional Planning Commission

The sixth panelist was Martin Daley of the Capital District Regional Planning Commission, a lifelong City of Albany resident and a passionate urbanist. Currently he lives uptown in Pine Hills, but is strongly opposed to the aims of Stop The Stories. From the start of the discussion he dominated the panel with his expertise in planning matters, which includes his current position as project manager for the decidedly unglamorous but vital Long Term Control Plan, the State sponsored effort to deal with the combined sewer overflow (CSO) crisis in Albany and regionally.

One of the issues brought up repeatedly by Stop The Stories is stormwater runoff from these new apartment block proposals, the possibility that they will make much worse the sewer and storm drain backflow problems that have repeatedly resulted in flash floods and drowned basements.  Mr. Daley pointed out what most people don’t know, that since 1983 Albany has had “some of the most restrictive and innovative stormwater runoff regulations in NY State.”  Since that date, all new construction above a certain size has to provide catch basins or some other method to channel sudden surges of water, and this is enforced by issuance of a CSO permit to each project. Thus it is unlikely these new projects will contribute to further flooding issues, if anything they will help solve the running problems with the old CSO infrastructure by providing more catch basins.

Mr. Daley answered a question of mine, why do we have these “stick construction” apartment blocks being proposed almost exclusively not only in Albany but also in the suburbs and all across the State?  Sure, single family house construction has fallen off drastically and demand for rental apartments has surged, but why these behemoths and not smaller buildings?  Is it merely because developers find them more profitable?

Five Story Apartment Block Planned For 563 New Scotland Avenue

To put it another way, do these big stick construction projects have to have a big footprint and rise to six or seven stories, or is this just developers trying to squeeze in extra profit?  The answer is that profitability is of course an essential driving factor. I know well that without government subsidies, smaller buildings have consistently proven unprofitable for developers, and renovations of older building have also proven to be massively unprofitable.  Those subsidies for renovation, which peaked in the 1970s and resulted in such spectacular successes as the total rebuilding of the Center Square and Hudson Park neighborhoods around upper Lark Street, have mostly dried up.  

According to Mr. Daley, what makes these new stick construction buildings profitable is that by law any of them larger than two stories has to have a series of features including an elevator, and must use materials that will discourage fire from spreading.  The cost of the necessary materials drives up the overall cost considerably.  Thus the extra stories ARE the profit, which in the absence of subsidies, makes the projects worthwhile to the developers.

This limits the range of options open to Albany at this particular time, that is, if we want new residential construction.  Our City is not alone with this limitation, the majority of new proposals in nearby suburbs such as Guilderland and Bethlehem are almost exclusively the same large block stick construction, and they are building a lot of them.  Until and if subsidies for building and renovation become available again, or if there are major changes in building materials and costs, or if State standards of allowable construction shift drastically, we can expect that these will be the prevailing proposals for the foreseeable future.

Drawing Of The Proposed Apartment Building At 1211 Western Avenue

These new buildings will increase population density inside Albany without extending expensive infrastructure to accommodate the developers. In the last century the City administrations enthusiastically encouraged sprawl development of undeveloped Pine Bush in the western end of the City, providing new infrastructure to the developers at taxpayer expense. These policies were enshrined in the bad old zoning code of 1968, this is precisely why our population has declined and our property taxes have skyrocketed, and why so many of our neglected neighborhoods disintegrated.

It would be unfair to say that all the organizers and supporters of Stop The Stories think the same and have the same goals. But I think it telling that over the years, main organizer Vincent Raguso has always very vocally supported sprawl development in the Pine Bush, coming out to speak in favor of every single proposal at Common Council and planning board meetings.  In sharp contrast he has vigorously opposed, in particular, one of these proposals along the well-populated corridor at 1211 Western Avenue, which is close to his own neighborhood.

I guess you could say that Vince is old school when it comes to development options.  It has always been strange and baffling to me that anyone would favor sprawl in the first place, so I’m not one to judge him.  Not all that long ago Vince’s point of view on these matters was the majority opinion, near unanimous among those in charge.  And it seems like only yesterday that my own pro-urban anti-sprawl attitude was considered bizarre, routinely sneered at by those who claimed to “know better.”

Construction At 363 Ontario Street

The location of these apartment buildings has been an issue.  With one major exception, all the proposals, such as 1211 Western Avenue and 563 New Scotland Avenue have been located on main corridors, what Mr. Neidhardt referred to as “neighborhood centers.”  These are the appropriate places to build apartment blocks in an urban community.  

The one exception has been the three apartment buildings under construction at 363 Ontario Street, not even remotely a main avenue. The site was an old bowling alley, but there are also a lot of single family houses right next to the site. And yet, across the street a little ways downhill from the site is a big block of apartments already in place called Park Row. I don’t see that the “character of the neighborhood" is being changed all that much, it actually seems to make it more substantial. Perhaps the neighbors who objected to it simply don’t like change.

Sprawl Suburb Clifton Park Is Attempting To Construct A Walkable “Town Center”, Photo From Last Year

A final issue that gets tossed about is whether or not these newly constructed apartments, despite the acute apartment shortage, will get occupied. Most new units in these proposed buildings are considered high end, will people in Albany want to pay those prices?  I’ve heard about a growing number of vacancies among these already constructed new buildings, but these are anecdotes that I haven’t seen confirmed.  So far there hasn’t been any surveys of occupation that I’ve seen.

What I hear repeated over and over from young middle class people who are trying to get ahead is that the the current apartment situation in Albany is not acceptable to them. They want to, or they aspire to, live in high end housing. They repeatedly say they will be forced to leave town if the housing situation doesn’t change, the available housing they want mostly does not much exist yet. Albany cannot afford to continue to lose the middle class. If building these proposals stops the ongoing exodus then these proposals are desirable and necessary.

September 28, 2019

The Wife Under The Dunn Memorial Bridge, Paddling Toward The USS Slater.

 

July 19, 2019

Checking out the latest Hudson River amenity before everyone else does

On a surprisingly pleasant Sunday morning in July, not too hot, we hauled the boats north of Albany to the other side of the Hudson River to check out the shiny new boat launch that the City of Troy had built on the north side of downtown.  We had the whole thing pretty much to ourselves, only one other vehicle hauling a boat trailer was parked in the spacious parking lot. That was rather fun, taking our time for a change and not worrying about blocking traffic at the concrete ramp. Of course this underuse will not last, by next year this boat launch will be as busy on weekend summer days as any of the more popular launches in the Capital Region.

The Ingalls Avenue Boat launch was just opened on the last day of this past May.  The State of New York apparently really wanted this launch, calling it “a priority site on the Hudson River Estuary Program Boating Access Plan,” and happily provided the funding for the project with a series of grants. First proposed in 2009, it went through several design changes and a slight shift in location southward before construction finally started last year at the end of September.  

For us, what’s really interesting and exciting about this new launch is that it provides a view of a teeming section of the Hudson River that we’ve never seen before.  You can walk along the river until you know every inch of the shoreline, but 20 feet away in the river is a whole other world you don’t expect or even suspect exists until you actually get in a boat and paddle along the shore on the water.  It’s like an alternate reality within easy reach, all you need is a boat and a paddle and a life vest.  Don’t ever forget to wear that life vest, even in the calmest water like we had that day.

The Ingalls Avenue Boat Launch, Dropping The Boats among The Goose Poop

Right away we encountered a problem, there was a large quantity of goose poop all over that brand new pavement.  The Wife was much disgusted, gingerly trying not to step in the poops and trying not to drop straps on the ground as she untied her canoe from the car.  While we were dropping the boats, a flotilla of geese motored toward the boat ramp, but before they landed they took a gander at us (so to speak) and turned around and headed back out to sea.

Incoming Flotilla Of Poopers Changing Course

It’s really nice launching our boats at a new facility, most of the launches we go to are pretty beat or even marginal, some little more than mud flats. A few are kept in good shape like the one at Saratoga Lake, but up there they charge you seven bucks per vehicle and is often as busy as rush hour on the highway.  The launch in Albany is kept in decent shape and is free, but it too can get mighty busy.  In the ten miles between Albany and Troy there are no public boat launches, that’s why the State was so interested in building this new one as an economic development incentive. Socialism!

The concrete slab that descends into the water here at Ingalls Avenue, which is free to the public, has an iron wall alongside it on the river side. That’s very nice protection when launching in rough water or if speeding boats passing by are kicking up waves.  Also, it helps protect the facility from ice damage in the winter.

The Small Boat Launch And Handicap Access Ramp

On the land side of the launch is a long ramp, what we assumed was an elaborate handicapped access launch. We’ve seen these in a few places provided for the rare paraplegic kayaker, they are often a funding requirement.  Well, I later found out it was more than that, it’s also supposed to be a paddle boat launch for small kayaks and canoes.  I didn’t recognize it as such because I’ve never seen anything like it.

It was only later when we were coming back in that I noticed the end of the ramp had low rollers and rails.  I’m always skeptical of anything new that I’ve never seen before, the ramp down to the water looks too narrow and the launch point, well, I don’t know.  I guess next time we come here we’ll have to try it, would be nice to be able to launch our boats while not jockeying with pickup trucks backing trailers down the concrete ramp.

The Wet End Of The Ramp

Because of this year’s lousy weather, too much rain and lingering chill, I haven’t had much opportunity to try out my new kayak.  Last month we did a short paddle from the Lansingburgh launch across to Waterford and around Peebles Island where the Mohawk River empties into the Hudson, that’s a fine journey full of interesting things to check out, perfect for the beginner or the first paddle of the season.  A week later we’d tried to launch onto Ballston Lake from a miserable narrow mud flat jammed up against the road, but the weather was bad on that lake on that day so we quickly gave up and turned back, grinding through those waves and fighting that current was too much like work.

So this was really only the second time I’ve had a chance to use my new kayak, my old 12 year old tub was getting pretty run down and I was losing confidence in it. I’d hate to spring a big leak an hour from shore on Lake Sacandaga.  The new kayak is the same as the old one only it’s the latest model with improvements, plus it looks rather snazzy.  This was a gift from The Wife, she handed me several cash endowments toward a new boat over the last few birthdays and Xmasses, and we finally bought it in May at Mountainman Outdoor Supply in Old Forge up in the Adirondacks. I highly recommend that place if you don’t mind the trip.

East Side Of The Federal Dam and The Lock House

Immediately North of the Ingalls Avenue launch is the Federal Dam which was finished in 1916. (Or 1915 or 1917, depending on the source.) It was built by the US Army Corps of Engineers to improve navigation on the river, thus the name. Socialism! On the East side of the dam is a boat lock that lifts boats 14 feet.  If on a future trip we decide we want to go north past the dam we most certainly can lock through. The cost for locking through for all “pleasure boats,” which would include our little motorless floaters, is no charge.  All locks in the State are free to non-commercial craft, no matter how small.

The Hudson River is tidal and a bit salty (or so I’ve heard, I’ve never dared to taste it) and when the tide comes in the river currents flow north.  That is, until the water hits the Federal Dam.  The water is higher on the north side of the dam, but it’s not always at a consistent depth due to the vagaries of the Mohawk River that flows into the Hudson to the north at Waterford.  Because of that, in the past I’ve erroneously thought that the river was tidal above the dam.

South of the dam the Hudson is unquestioningly an international waterway.  This means that according to the US Constitution the shore along the river is public, any citizen can walk along it and no one can claim the shore as private property.  Socialism!  Most importantly for us, that means we can land our boats anywhere we damn well please if we feel like we need to stand up and massage our sore butts.

Boats Exiting The Federal Dam Lock

As soon as we launched our boats we ran into a traffic problem.  The lock next to the dam had just opened and a line of boats emerged, the boat channel running right past the launch and straight into our little boats. Horns wailed all over the place telling us to get out of the way, as if we had no business on the river.  We scooted out into the middle of the river, but I can see this becoming a serious problem when the Ingalls Avenue Launch gets a lot more use in the near future.  Should be some interesting controversies, funny how no one considered this problem when the launch was being planned.

On the west side of the dam is a hydroelectric plant, which was commissioned to be built almost 100 years ago by Henry Ford to provide power for his company’s car parts manufacturing plant nearby.  The story goes that he was “camping” nearby with his friends Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone and John Burroughs, a hunting and fishing trip that involved a caravan of Ford’s autos to carry the tents and supplies and servants.  He observed the dam and decided to buy up about half of what is now the village of Green Island and petitioned the US Congress to grant him exclusive rights to build and own an electric generator powered by the dam.

The Federal Dam Hydroelectric Plant

In 1988 the Ford Corporation shut down their Green Island manufacturing plant, moving operations overseas so as to break the domestic unions and undermine the US economy.  Today the hydro plant is overseen by the public Green Island Power Authority (GIPA) which allows village residents and businesses significantly lower electricity rates than the main privately owned power provider for the region. Socialism! Because of this amenity Green Island has not gone into a tailspin decline as has happened to so many other upstate New York communities after their main employer bugged out, new businesses have been attracted to the community for the lower rates.

Here we see once again how privateers exploit taxpayer funded infrastructure projects for their own gain.  The Federal Dam was built to control water levels and facilitate navigation, not to provide electricity for Ford’s exclusive profit, he would never have built it for any reason.  And long after Ford’s corporate descendants tired of using the dam, it is the governments that have stepped in and maintained the discarded power plant for the benefit of the community.  And as we observed on this trip, Green Island, the smallest incorporated village in the State, is undergoing an unprecedented expansion of housing. 

The Willow At The North End Of Stomy Island

After inspecting the dam we turned south and quickly encountered what the maps call Stomy Island, but some references call McGill Island.  It’s prone to flooding and thus covered with trees and appears to be uninhabited.  We saw power lines across the island but not much else.  It being low tide we could see a lot of good landing spots, I’m thinking it might make a nice picnic spot on a future boat trip.

The Wife was irrationally spooked by the narrow, shallow channel that separates Stomy Island from Green Island, an overgrown shoreline along a densely populated community that was invisible to us. Green Island, by the way, is no longer an island, it was connected to the rest of North America when the also narrow channel that separated it from the land was filled in during the 1970s when highway 787 was built.  There’s a reason why 787 is unstable and needs constant rebuilding, most of it is built on floodplain mudflats and on fill such as this.

Green Island Neighborhood

But Stomy island is small and soon we were passing under the Route 7 Bridge which sits on the north end of the next island we encountered, Starbuck Island.  On our right, the west side of the river, the brief illusion of being out in the wilderness vanished as the houses of Green Island became totally visible.  Here where the river bank was not overgrown we could see how densely populated is this village.

To our left we could see the massive construction project on Starbuck Island, which is part of the village of Green Island.  The construction is quite visible to anyone crossing the Green Island Bridge which straddles the island and feeds traffic into downtown Troy.  From our boats we were privileged to observe the new construction from below.

Upscale Apartments Being Constructed On Starbuck Island

It has gone by several names, but it turns out that Starbuck is a revival of the oldest European name for the island, chosen by the developer of the project to be the name from now on.  The Wife, of course, wanted to know if we could get coffee there.  Until recently the island was a dismal run down industrial zone with unused oil tanks and languishing businesses, after some soil remediation it is becoming covered with residences for the first time ever.

These apartment buildings look like somewhat fancier versions of the same four story or more “stick construction” projects that are springing up all over the Capital Region in both the Cites and in the suburbs.  These are preferred by developers because they are quick and cheap to build and return maximum profit. These particular buildings appear to be surrounded with parking lots, which makes the new project a virtual suburb plopped down in between two dense urban communities.  

The project is being advertised as a “gated community” which means the entire island will become a fortress that does not allow access to anyone who is not authorized to visit, you and I won’t be able to just walk around there and look.  We noted the wall that now surrounds the entire island. No doubt it is there to prevent floodwater and winter ice from slopping into the parking lots, but also makes it difficult for someone like us to land a boat and go walk around.  In effect, it is a defensive wall and the river serves as a moat.

On The Troy Side Of Starbuck Island

Rounding the island and heading north again with Troy on our right, the defensive wall became fancier and displayed the brand.  In front of the wall on the shore the builders have placed a very impressive ring of riprap composed of sharp boulders, again while this prevents erosion this also makes it nearly impossible to land a boat of any kind along the shore.  In this way they get around the Constitutional injunction against closing off international waterway shorelines to the public.

Just past the brand name sign that faces Troy is the only river access point provided for the future residents of the island.  Naturally it is a high platform that does not allow one to descend to the water, nor does it allow one to launch or land a boat.  Personally, if I considered living on an island in the middle of the river I’d want a boat launch, the only way on or off the island is by the onramps to the bridge.

Construction Visible In Downtown Troy

Large swaths of Downtown Troy are undergoing major rebuilding, this is especially true along the waterfront, which we could see.  Part of the idea is to “reconnect urban communities to the river” which has been a planning mantra finally being put into action in this section of the upper Hudson, the new boat launch at Ingalls Avenue being part of that thinking.  While critics have rightly complained that the outlying neighborhoods of Troy are being neglected by this building boom, it is important to note that the downtowns of the Capital District, such as Troy, have been intentionally neglected since the middle of 20th Century and are in dire need of rebuilding.

That intentional neglect, driven by the suburbanite mindset of planners and civic leaders, caused the north end of downtown Troy to become almost completely abandoned by the end of the 20th Century.  Exactly 20 years ago a group of citizens concerned about food quality were allowed to start an open air farmer’s market, the City gave them a miserable unused parking lot located in the middle of this abandoned section.  With an emphasis on locally produced natural and organic fresh food sold directly by local farmers and small producers, the Saturday morning Troy Farmer’s Market quickly became massively popular.

Within a few years the empty storefronts around the farmer’s market began to attract small businesses that wanted to take advantage of the cheap rents and the sudden influx of people looking to buy stuff at the market.  The Troy civic leaders noted this (to their eyes) magical transformation of a dead part of downtown, so when the market began to outgrow the parking lot they moved it into the heart of downtown, closing off the streets to auto traffic on Saturday mornings in warm weather and in cold weather moving the market into the otherwise useless and mostly unused Atrium Building on Fourth Avenue. Socialism! The market continues to spread across downtown, a weekly festival and economic engine, while the north end of downtown continues to rebuild and transform, thanks to the market.

Green Island Bridge

Continuing to head north we passed under the Green Island Bridge, which can swing open for tall boats.  We didn’t bring our sketchbooks so it didn’t draw for us.   This is actually the third bridge at this location, the first was a wooden covered railroad bridge built in, believe it or not, 1832.  That bridge caught fire and collapsed in 1862, a new steel railroad bridge was not ready for use until 1884.

That bridge held up a long time, only in 1962 was one side of the bridge converted into a roadway for cars, which had to pay a toll.  But in 1977 river ice caused that bridge to collapse spectacularly.  This new drawbridge is impressively solid looking and is for cars and pedestrians only, not more train tracks. It’s hard to imagine Troy or Green Island without this vital bridge, but before 1981 when this one opened for use the communities did without it.

Unused Barge Dock Off Starbuck Island

Paddling north back to the boat launch I spotted this iron covered concrete block near the south end shore of Stomy Island.  Once upon a time this river was one of the busiest highways in America and boat parking was at a premium.  You can see these abandoned structure sticking out of the water up and down the river where one could tie up a barge without running aground, perhaps barges unloaded on this island.

Mysterious Derelict Water Intake Valve

Also we spotted this odd structure, which appears to be an old derelict water intake valve.  I’m speculating that this was put here sometime in the middle of the 20th Century for some long gone industrial concern that was located on flood-prone Stomy Island, which is surprising in itself, hopefully for some manufacturing process and not for drinking and washing.  Today it would be nigh on impossible to locate an intake like this out in the water, besides being an obstruction it’s hard to imagine what justification for having such a thing would go on all the permit applications.

Aerial Drone View Of The Ingalls Avenue Boat Launch

A criticism of the new launch is that is designed to facilitate vehicles pulling trailers, when it gets busy the cars will line up on the approach roadway and only back into the launch (two at a time) when it is the next person’s turn.  This is good auto traffic management but makes it very hard for small boats on car rooftops to untie and launch on busy days.  There is that launch for small boats off to the side, which I repeat does not look very user friendly, but there is no place for cars to park to use it without interfering with trailers using the ramp.

And a big complaint I often cite, the concrete slab descending into the water is too steep, which may be desirable for very large boats but is troublesome for any small craft, with or without a motor.  The next weekend I tried to land my boat on a similarly steep slab and managed to spill myself out of the boat in front of a whole bunch of people. And there ought to be a direct path from the launch to the parking lot, rather than walking the long way around via the roadway I had to climb over a grassy berm and down a steep hill.

The Narrow, Shallow, “Spooky” Corridor Along Stomy Island

But our culture is oriented around motorized vehicles, we certainly couldn’t access this launch without a car to carry our boats up from Albany.  So we paddlers have to adapt to these little indignities, although it would be nice if the planners gave us some serious thought for a change.  We paddlers don’t emit much carbon and don’t spill any oil on the water (which all motorized boats do), we are very much the eco-friendly alternative and deserve a little consideration.

Oh, and The Wife wants restrooms at the parking lot.  A port-a-potty will do.  She doesn’t care to hide in the bushes to do her business after we land, which is probably illegal so maybe she didn’t.  But she doesn’t want to have to expose herself to the snakes and the poison ivy and the bugs when she has to go, hypothetically speaking of course.  That’s an improvement the City of Troy could easily provide.

June 30, 2019

Some photos taken by The Wife with her phone coming back from visiting her downtown clients

The Wife has a little business, self employed, writing databases and maintaining computers for small businesses.  She occupies a good niche which for some strange reason has few competitors, it seems the big outfits want big contracts with big corporations and don’t want to bother with the little guys because they’re not profitable enough.  But the little guys, which includes businesses with dozens of employees, have computers and databases that need regular upgrades and modifications which she provides.  I don’t understand why independent minded young folks with computer skills don’t move into this niche and compete with her, but I guess I shouldn’t complain because she has plenty of work.

“Park with Red Tree,” October 2018

But she has a problem, she doesn’t get enough exercise.  She sits in front of computers all day barely moving and the only physical activity she gets is talking on the phone and tapping keyboards.  Mostly it’s her own fault, she has a lovely park she can use for running or brisk walking all year round.  And she can always bicycle or work out or swim, even though all the pools that she has easy access to have been shut down, mostly for stupid reasons.

Lincoln Park, October 2018

So this is why she happily hoofs it back and forth hauling her computers in bags and in a knapsack to her downtown clients on State Street or North Pearl Street or whatever, the strange woman who always shows up on the day she says she will but is always late, flashing into some office environment ready to make obstinate computers and cheap printers work together, and then she writes user friendly databases that leave everyone cooing with delight.  To the office drones she’s a phenomena wildly out of sync with the rigid routines but vital to the smooth running of the office.  Those three quarter mile walks carrying all that equipment is how she keeps healthy enough to avoid turning into a bedridden whiner, and on those return trips she takes the time to admire the view and take photos.  Here’s a few.

“Is Beautiful’” November 2018

Normally her trip home takes her first through the State Plaza and then through Lincoln Park. These are the two places she likes to snap photos.  She’s not too interested in the architecture of the older buildings, nor any of the daily streetscapes.  And she doesn’t take pictures of people.  What she likes best is sweeping landscapes, which you can see from the photos.

“Is So Pretty!” December 2018

I suppose looking at scenes of the same thing over and over could get boring.  But you know what?  Boredom is an accomplishment. You can travel across the planet sampling everything that’s sitting by the side of the road and still never experience anything.  Or you can visit the same places over and over and see how the same thing is never quite the same and reach enlightenment.

“Soooo Pretty!”  December 2018

Not that she’s getting sidetracked with this sort of offhand semi-philosophy when she’s walking home.  Basically she’s all like, “Oooh, pretty!  I gotta take a picture.”  And she whips out her phone and does, because here in the 21st Century pixels are cheap and you don’t have to know anything about photography to take a decent or excellent picture.

“Dramatic!” January 2019

She often immediately sends these photos to me, and if I’m home and near my desk computer I’ll immediately post the photo on Spacebook on the popular page “Looking Good, Albany!” which is devoted to positive photos of the City of Albany.  By the time she comes through the door the photo will usually get a dozen likes, and over the next few days it will get anywhere from 50 to 200 likes.  I do believe this encourages her to take more pictures.

“Is Pretty Even When It’s Gloomy!”  March 2019

Walking home at the end of the day in winter usually means walking in the dark, the sun setting before 5PM and all that. But as spring approaches her photos are more likely to show daytime again.  I mean, the gloom is all very nice and meaningfully picturesque but you get damn sick of it by February. Okay, I get sick of it well before Christmas but that’s me.

“My Park! April 2019

She occasionally snaps photos of odd things that catch her eye, such as the magnolia trees in bloom or a surprising excavation or once, a squirrel hanging out on a bench.  But she puts the most consideration into the landscapes.  I haven’t bothered to ask her why, from long experience I know she can’t give me a coherent answer.  She just does.

“Looks Sorta Spacey’” June 2019

She also takes photos of the State Plaza, sweeping landscapes again.  Of course the State Plaza was designed to be a sweeping landscape, 96 acres of South End neighborhoods replaced by marble slabs.  She takes pictures of the buildings rising up from the dead stone and looking like some 1950s dream of life in the next century, and I post those too on Spacebook.

“Kinda Cool.” April 2019

As I mentioned, she has been known to run or brisk walk (or as she puts it, “stagger around the park”) for her health, and she sees a few things of interest.  Like this scene across Delaware Avenue from the park.

“In The Park”, May 2019

And finally, here’s this bizarre iron sign planted in the grass of the park near the corner of Morton and Delaware Avenues.  It’s been carefully repainted, lovingly restored, but as The Wife pointed out, the iron pole is still crooked. So she tilted her camera so that the trees in the background and everything else is crooked but not the pole.  I wonder if anybody knows the history of this sign, how long has it been there (I first noticed it in the 1970s) and why it was set so far from the road.  Anybody?

May 25, 2019

The Albany Police take to the air with their first pair of UAVs

The City of Albany Police Department (APD) will soon be purchasing two drones, state of the art miniature flying machines piloted by a remote operator.  Of course this scares the crap out of me, as it would any reasonable person.  These two flying machines, and the department will be getting more of them as time goes on, confer a fantastic new level of power and potential for surveillance by the police that simply has never existed before.

Should the police have these powers? I’m afraid that question is meaningless, the technology has been developed and is now widely available, so it is inevitable that the APD looks for opportunities to acquire it and use it.  In fact it is hard to think of any reason why the police should not have access to this new technology that can make their work safer and more efficient as long as it is available and being used elsewhere.  More to the point which is on everybody’s minds, will this new technology be misused by the police?

The Elios 2 Indoor Inspection Drone

The APD is not the first police agency in the area to purchase drones, the Albany County Sheriff’s recently acquired them as have the police in the adjoining suburban municipality of Colonie, and of course the NY State Troopers have had them for some time.  The APD has requested use of drones from these neighboring police entities during some recent crisis operations in Albany, but naturally these requests take time to fulfill and conflict with other requests.  For no other reason, the APD does not want to be left without the soon to be standard tech tools that other police agencies already have.

Earlier this month I attended a presentation put on by the APD at 200 South Pearl Street, the second public meeting about the acquisition and use of the drones.  Like the first presentation which was uptown at the College of Saint Rose a month or so back, it was poorly attended, maybe fifteen people.  About half the attendees at this South End meeting were citizen members of the Albany Community Police Advisory Committee (ACPAC) which for the past decade has acted as a liaison between the APD and the public.

We had four officers of the APD sitting at a table in front of us. The very personable Albany chief of police Eric Hawkins, who took the job last September, presided over the meeting.  With him was assistant chief Ed Donahue. Answering most of our questions was detective Scott Gottesman, a 26 year veteran of the APD with hard experience with the Narcotics Division and SWAT.  He will be the principle officer in charge of the drone operations, with him was younger but experienced officer Ryan Romagnano whom detective Gottesman indicated would eventually take charge of the program.

Left To Right, Detective Scott Gottesman, Officer Ryan Romagno, Chief Eric Hawkins and Assistant Chief Ed Donahue at 200 South Pearl Street.

This was a sparse crowd in attendance but our questions, while respectful, were probing, looking for straight answers about how these machines would be used and how they could intrude on our Constitutional protection from search and surveillance. How would information gathered by the drones to be used, what are the guidelines, how available will that information be, how long will that information be stored?  Who will determine what information the drones gather has “evidentiary value”?

That phrase “evidentiary value” and the word “observation” were used by the cops as substitutes for “surveillance” which was treated like a dirty word (as do the distributors for the machines.)  The S word apparently is too strong an indicator of police control of citizens with a strong whiff of Fascism and oppression.  When I accidentally slipped and used the word while making a comment, both the officers and the members of ACPAC present immediately piled up on me, reminding me that’s a four letter word we don’t use around here.

The guys from the APD wanted us to understand that it is not their intention to use these drones to watch us in our backyards or through our windows or to follow us around while we go about our daily lives. “Not on our watch,” Detective Gottesman told us, while admitting that there was a danger of what he called “mission creep.”  But really, if past histories of the adoption of new technologies is an indication, it’s hard to see how wider use of these drones by the police can be prevented from happening.

On Site Ad for The Elios 2

So here’s the scoop: the APD hasn’t purchased the drones yet.  The money to purchase has arrived, a grant from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) which is always interested in upgrading and militarizing police departments.  The amount of the grant is $50,500, which is enough to purchase the two drones with some leftover. For the rest of the APD drone handling program there are a variety of funding sources from the State, police and fire foundations, and of course City taxpayers. 

Actually, the APD is still getting quotes for the drones, looking for the best prices.  They have plenty of time to shop because it turns out that police agencies have to get a series of approvals before they are allowed to fly these machines in public airspace. As of this month they’ve gotten pretty much all of them, from  DHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and from the State of New York, all except permission to fly outdoors from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) which they expect soon, but considering the condition of federal agencies under the current Executive Branch who knows how long that will take.

These two Unmanned Aerial Vehicles that the APD plans to purchase, usually called UAVs, are two different models with different functions.  The Flyability Elios 2 is an indoor platform, which means it is designed to maneuver inside buildings. Since the Elios 2 is not supposed to be used for outdoor flight the APD does not have to get permission from the FAA to operate it, as soon as they get the Elios 2 they can start using it.

Elios 2 Colliding With A Wall…

To my eyes it’s a scary looking thing, a beast that would give me a heart attack if I saw it hovering outside one of my windows, or hovering over my bed in the middle of the night shining a spotlight on me. It’s not very big, about 16 inches across. It is surrounded by a geodesic spherical cage said to be “retractable,” which I suppose means it can be collapsed and folded for easy carrying. This surrounding sphere is flexible, when the machine crashes into a wall the cage absorbs the impact and then snaps back into shape.  In a crash test video that I saw, the machine literally bounced off the wall undamaged and continued flying. 

…Springs Back Into Shape and Continues Flying.

The Elios 2 carries two video cameras side by side right up front, a 4k daylight camera and a thermal imaging camera that sees heat, that is, anything alive or burning.  The cameras are high resolution, up to .18 mm/px, and can swivel 90 degrees in any direction.  There is a 10,000 lumen spotlight next to the cameras, which is pretty intense compared to a typical household lightbulb which is about 1600 lumens.  It occurs to me that this spotlight could be used to temporarily blind someone hiding in a dark place.

An interesting detail is that the Elios 2 does not use GPS to orient itself, mostly because this drone will be going into places where GPS signals can’t penetrate.  Instead it has no less than seven stability sensors to keep it navigating properly.  I’d like to know more about how this stabilizing technology works, presumably these sensors are both electronic and mechanical.

This indoor UAV can go places where a human can’t go, or does not want to go.  It can travel down an air shaft, it can be sent into a burning building about to collapse, it can go where a band of desperate criminals with guns are holed up.  By sending this machine into a dangerous place no lives are risked, the way much lesser of two evils being that the taxpayers will be out a pile if it gets damaged.  That’s another use for that flexible cage surrounding it, if someone smacks it with a bat the UAV will likely bounce away undamaged and continue observing. 

DJI Matrice 210 Drone

The other drone the APD wants to purchase is the Matrice 210 (or M210 as the supplier calls it), that’s the outdoor flyer they have to get FAA permission to operate. It is about 35 inches wide when flying and weighs about 10 pounds.  It can be folded up, the propellers easily removed, and the whole thing placed in a carrying case. It takes just a few minutes to assemble from the case.

This UAV is a serious flying machine that is water resistant and can maneuver in winds up to 70 mph, or so we were told.  It can stay aloft in cold down to -4 F and in heat up to 113 F.  It looks like a standard quadracopter, the 17 inch long propellers are what gives it stability in high winds. We were told it attains a maximum of 400 feet from the ground, it wasn’t made clear at the presentation if that was capability or FAA regulations.

The M210 is the machine that has the most potential for misuse as surveillance. It’s not hard to imagine this UAV cruising over the City peering into backyards and following around citizens that look “suspicious” to the drone operator.  All the streaming video is of course recorded, potentially these recordings can be studied and used by anyone who has access to them.

Ray Moran Of ACPAC starts The Meeting, Chief Hawkins And Officer Romagnano Listen

Both of these machines are powered by batteries, according to a reviewer the M120 can stay aloft for about 38 minutes, the APD guys told us the Elios 2 was good for 23 minutes of flight.  Ray Moran of ACPAC told us the most common question he got from people was, “If they’re spending so much money how come they don’t stay up in the air longer?”  I happened to know that’s because of the current limits of battery technology.  The batteries on the machines weigh about two pounds, greater capacity to hold a charge would mean the size of the batteries would balloon so much the machines couldn’t fly. 

The Wife grew up with a relative who built and flew model airplanes that used kerosene or alcohol as fuel, I asked her how long those machines could stay aloft.  As best as she could recall, the most any of them could fly was about ten minutes, while the faster racers were good for no more than three minutes.  Again, weight considerations limited the amount of fuel. So the switch to electric batteries is actually a big increase in capability. 

The M210 can carry a small payload, presumably for accessories that the police can purchase, but what else?  In answer to a direct question, the officers informed us that no, the drones will not be weaponized, they will not carry guns or drop bombs. These UAVs will NOT be shooting missiles at wedding parties in the South End like they do in Afghanistan because, you never know, we might be terrorists. At least not yet, and not with these two drones.

Military Drone Firing a Missile

The only thing that prevents misuse of drone observation by the operators and archivers of the video, as we found out, is the good intentions of the police officers, and the only oversight of the APD’s use of the UAVs is the citizens, particularly ACPAC. The certifications from the federal government and also of the grant to purchase the drones are dependent upon the APD following strict guidelines for respecting Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.  In order to conduct visual investigation of private property the drone operators need to either have a warrant from a court or written permission from the property owner.  

In addition, Chief Hawkins told us, “We are going to have strict procedures that are unique to the City of Albany.”  This is very much a groundbreaking technological challenge to the Bill of Rights, the police will have to be willing to stay inside the law and not abuse these new powers.  “We’re doing what we can to put these restraints in place,” the chief added.

This is all very well and good, the management of the APD has been reasonably trustworthy and quite responsive to the citizens for the past decade.  But as attendee Jacqui Williams pointed out, how can we be sure such promises of restraint, of scrupulously staying within legal limits, will be followed in the future?  We citizens, she pointed out, have developed relationships and understandings with law enforcement in the past, but every five years or so the management personnel change and we all have to start over again building trust.

Jacqui Williams Educating Kids Recently About American History

The officers had no real answer to that.  Like with any government agents, either elected or appointed, the only effective restraint on excesses of power has always been vigilance by the citizenry. In a sense all police officers are politicians, certainly the chief of police is.  Like all politicians the police officers are interested in increasing the scope of their power, it is the willingness of citizens to watch and judge the actions of the public servants that prevents excess of power.

But will citizen watchfulness or an oversight panel of some sort actually prevent “mission creep” with the use of these UAVs? Is wider use of drones for general surveillance inevitable?  Consider the adoption of video cameras in public spaces starting around 20 years ago.  At first it was a contentious issue, but now security cameras are everywhere and no one complains about their placement or use. 

So as drones become cheaper and more technologically advanced we will see police and fire departments routinely using a whole fleet of them with differing functions. So what happens when a drone is peering into the yard of a property that a court has given the operators permission to observe, and on the way over it happens to video an illegal act in an adjoining yard that is outside the warrant?  Will that constitute “just cause” for the police to conduct an on the spot raid, which the federal courts seem to think does not violate the Fourth Amendment? 

Indoor Drone Research Center Obstacle Course At SUNY Albany, College Courses On Drones Are Becoming Standard

That brings up the wider issue with this technology, it is already available to the general public and will become more widely used.  As the officers at the meeting pointed out, as public servants they are governed by legal restraints, so it is more likely that private owners of drones will try to peer through your window. In answer to my question, such behaviors would be covered by the same laws that cover peeping toms and would be prosecuted as such by the police.

Eventually drones will become ubiquitous like security cameras, flying all over the place despite FAA regulations.  Like with the spread of security cameras starting some 20 years ago, as people become accustomed to drones we will see the police using them much more widely and be less strict about limitations to their use for surveillance. General familiarity with this newfangled technology will eventually allow Constitutional protections against intrusion by these devices to erode and eventually be forgotten.

Whether we like it or not, in the near future drones will be fluttering back and forth over us and around us.  This will transform society in ways we can only guess at, we citizens being observed and recorded all the time by random strangers and constantly being vulnerable to having things dropped on our heads.  For sure, sunbathing in your backyard behind a tall fence will become a thing of the past.

Kid with An Unlicensed Go-Cart (Talking On A Phone!) Photographed On Delaware Avenue At Marinello Terrace,
July 2018

But during the meeting a little thing came up that shows “mission creep” is happening already, even before the drones have been purchased.  The officers mentioned making observations beyond strictly following the Fourth Amendment, in the case of using drones to track down kids who, in some neighborhoods, are running loud unlicensed ATVs, go carts and dirt bikes on the streets, disturbing residents. The problem with catching the offender kids has always been that the police rarely can respond fast enough to complaints, by the time a squad car arrives the obnoxious roaring ATVs are gone and out of sight.

The solution suggested by the officers would involve following the offenders with drones until they observed where the kids stashed the ATVs, and then use that collected evidence.  Interestingly, those present at the meeting, many of whom have been annoyed by the ATVs, did not raise any objections to that.  I think that the officers threw that out there on purpose, their faces appeared to me to be watching our reactions with much interest and perhaps a touch of satisfaction.

Another key issue with police use of the drones is that the videos that will be recorded.  Federal licensing regulations say that only a limited number of people can observe the videos, searching for evidence.  We were told that under the federal guidelines only three officers actually looked at the videos, the operators of the drone and their supervisor.

Controller For The Matrice 210

But under questioning that assertion broke down for plain practical reasons.  Simply put, determining what is of “evidentiary value” on the videos is not the job of the drone operators, that needs to be decided by APD management and by legal advisors.  So right there we have the collected videos being scrutinized by a crowd.

To put it plainly, the procedures for determining and gathering evidence from these videos has not been agreed upon. Supposedly these procedures will be hammered out by the Albany County District Attorney David Soares, but it’s hard to see how he can create procedures from thin air.  He may not have the time or be able to adequately deal with these issues or even the willingness, for example lately our DA has been busy galloping about the state trying to derail planned oversight procedures for DAs that were recently signed into law.

We were told by the officers that the procedures for handling drone video footage were “the same as with body cams,” the videos that are supposed to be turned on and recording whenever an officer makes an arrest or engages in a confrontation. Those videos are kept for six months and then deleted, not automatically but by hand, by someone who has to remember to do so.  Videos that have evidentiary value, used in a court case for instance, are kept for as long as necessary and only deleted three years after their usefulness has ended.

Albany Police Department Chief Eric Hawkins

As far as I know, the APD has consistently handled body cam videos with restraint and kept them confidential.  Generally the issue with body cam videos in police departments across the country has been what is perceived as too much restraint when the public demands release of controversial videos and the authorities decline to provide.  So at least we have this precedent, we shall see if as a practical matter the drone videos can be treated in an equivalent manner to body cam videos, time and use will tell.

A certain amount of overuse and misuse of this new tech toy is certainly inevitable, certainly not as alarmingly dangerous as overuse of tasers by the police when that tech was new.  With tasers there was much public backlash with overuse of the new weapon, in time a stasis was achieved as the novelty wore off for both the police and for the public. Something similar will happen with the wide adoption of drones, but we can be sure the effects on our daily lives will be unique and transform our society in ways we have yet to imagine.

Oh, and about that poor attendance at the meeting. The suggestion came up that when the cops actually purchase the flying machines they ought to schedule a meeting to show off their new toys.  If that meeting gets enough publicity, for sure crowds of curious people will show up to see what they look like and ask questions.  Serve sandwiches and I’ll bet half the City will be there, I know I will.

 

Thanks to Beverly Padgett for providing images of the powerpoint we didn’t get to see at this meeting, they were very helpful.

May 5, 2019

But if you miss the Tulip Festival then we got your flowers right here, plus some history

Every year the City of Albany plants a whole lot of tulips all over the City, over 100,000 this year according to the the City website. They are timed to open up and bloom the weekend of the Tulip Festival in Washington Park, which always happens Mother’s Day weekend in May.  This is always a big deal, a commemoration of the founding of the City back in the early 1600s by the Dutch. It’s the perfect place to take your mama on her day to walk around so she can see the tulips after brunch.

However, this year we have a crisis.  A week before the festival the majority of the tulips have decided to reach their peak blossom.  It’s shaping up to be a disaster.  Imagine nudging your poor old mama past the Italian sausage vendors and out of range of the loud musical acts, only to find sad, desiccated, played out tulips, their already browning petals lying in the dirt.  How can you do that to her.

Well fear not brave offspring, this blog is here for you.  I went over to Washington Park with my camera and took photos of those tulips before they went the way of all flowers, shedding their visual delights and going to seed like they desperately want to do. Right here are photos of the tulips that next week you can show the old lady and say to her, See, this is what you missed.

Kelly Triumph Tulip

A fair number of other people appear to have had the same idea I had on Saturday afternoon, see the tulips while they were still fresh and pretty.  There were, of course, nowhere near the crowds that show up for the festival, which made it easy to get decent shots of the flowers without getting pushed aside and without blocking posed pictures every time I turned around.  Still, I did manage to get in the way a few times and had to wait for people to move.  But no big deal, everyone was pleasant and relaxed.

Because that’s the thing you do with the tulips, you take endless photos of your boyfriend or girlfriend or family posing with the flowers.  Or if you are by yourself, like I was, you go from flower bed to flower bed, leaning over the tulips with your picture taking device setting up perfect shots like you are a professional employed by a magazine.  Most people use their phones, but I saw a fair number of honking big cameras with foot long lenses and every size camera in between the two.  

Gotta Get It Just Right

Perhaps I could laugh and sneer at all these people that are so seriously archiving these flowers …um, just like I was doing, but it is plain to see that these photographers are mostly visitors to the City, tourists who don’t usually see such things as this.  People who don’t live here all too often proclaim their disdain for my City but readily show up to take advantage of unique amenities that we have like this.  That annoys me a lot.  But I suppose we need to have such things for tourists to enjoy.

Moses Gestures Above Yellow Foxy Foxtrot Double Earlies and Red American Dream Darwin Hybrids`

The flower beds are arranged around the statue of Moses, I moved clockwise around him systematically taking pictures.  Each bed has a clean, easy to read placard stating the names of the flowers in the bed with identifying photos.  A lady taking her own solo photos saw me taking photos of the placards to remember the names, she proclaimed it a good idea and started doing it herself.

Placard For Flower Power Parrot

The wild tulip, a member of the lily family, originally comes from the Steppes and hills of Central Asia, where the appearance of the bright flowers popping up from among the rocks was seen as a welcome harbinger of spring in the dry and colorless landscape at the end of winter.  This is a different flower than the domesticated varieties we see, the wild flowers all have solid colors and are pointed, not quite opening.  No one knows for sure, but the name is thought to be derived from the Persian word for turban, which the wild flowers resembled. 

After the Ottoman Turks finished conquering the Greek (Eastern Roman) Empire in the year 1453, they imported the tulip and took to it in a big way, cultivating it and producing the first lavish domesticated flowers we see today. Big badass warriors such as Mehmet the Conquerer regularly wore an image of a tulip or of tulips when they went into battle. The Ottoman emperors held the very first tulip festivals, lavish affairs that lasted for days and were usually in honor of a favored son or daughter’s wedding.

Ballade Lily Shaped Tulip

As the Ottoman Empire expanded across the Middle East, North Africa and deep into the heart of Europe in the 1500s and 1600s, the Western European nations sent ambassadors and merchants to the capital Constantinople (actually already called Istanbul, a Greek derived word meaning “the big City”) to propose trading partnerships.  These visitors were struck by the proliferation of unusual but beautiful flowers called tulips that seemed to be growing everywhere in well maintained plots, which in itself was an innovation to their eyes.

The visitors brought the first bulbs to Western Europe in the latter part of the 1500s, and the flowers finally reached the Netherlands in the early 1600s, right about when the Dutch Revolution was overthrowing rule of their country by Spain. Independence immediately led to a tremendous economic explosion for the Netherlands, this is the time when explorations led to the founding of Fort Orange in 1624 in what is today the South End of Albany, and this is the time when tulips were most valuable and coveted by the Dutch.  That’s the basis for the tulip connection between the City of Albany and the Netherlands.

City Of Vancouver Single Late Tulips

The first tulip festival in Albany was held May 14, 1949.  The story goes that the year before then mayor Erastus Corning III asked Queen Wilhelmina of Holland to choose a variety of tulip and dedicate it to Albany.  She chose Orange Wonder which has orange petals and scarlet in the center inside, designating it “the official flower of Albany.”  But I could not find any Orange Wonders growing around Moses, perhaps I missed it but no, I did a full circle and I think I visited every bed.

This is a scandal.  Where are the Orange Wonders?  I plan to make an issue out of this and demand that they be found, purchased and planted next year.  I’m sure old Erastus and Queen Willie are much displeased wherever they are right now, underworld or whatnot, their special tulip neglected and forgotten by the present City leaders.

Red And Yellow Banja Luka Darwin Hybrids with Akebono Single Late Tulips, Kingsblood Single Lates Just Starting To Bloom

There was very little attempt made to create designs other than alternating varieties in diagonals on long beds.  Around ten years ago we had a City Gardener who made astonishing designs with the flowers such as animal shapes and flags.  That would be nice to see again but really, it’s not necessary.

Fancy Frills Fringed

Another thing done in years past was the practice of packing ice around the tulips during overly warm weather before the festival to delay the blooms.  No idea if this was effective, a few years ago the current City Gardener told the local media that the practice was “misguided” because the melting ice would just create a mess.  Apparently all one can do, she says, is be anxious and “pray a lot.”

Unopened Flaming Parrots And Givenchy Double Late Tulips

The gardeners do stagger some of the plantings.  So while most of the flowers open at once, a significant number bloom later than the rest.  I did find that not all the tulips had matured yet, a fair number have yet to open. So next week your poor sweet old mama will get to see at least some fresh and delightful tulips.

Blue Jacket Hyacinth

There are several varieties of hyacinth planted with the tulips, they seem to go well together.  One variety, muscaria, resembles the native blue lupine of the Pine Bush, which is the favorite food and breeding ground of the endangered karner blue butterflies. These are usually placed at the ends of tulip beds like welcome mats.

But of course, despite the superficial resemblance, hyacinth and lupine are not related.  Lupine, which is derived from the latin word for wolf, bloom from the bottom up and grow from seeds.  Hyacinth, which are related to asparagus, put out a stalk that opens all at once.  Like tulips they are grown from bulbs, so for the gardener they go together. 

Muscari Armeniacum Hyacinth

“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
“They called me the hyacinth girl.”
-Yet when we came back, late, from the garden,
Your arms full, your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.

T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland

Accent Daffodil

Ah, what would Spring be without daffodils?  There are a few beds of them plus some scattered around.  They don’t attract attention like the flashy tulips but they are nice to see.

Double Beauty Of Appledorn

Gladly, I did not see any evidence of the tulip breaking virus, sometimes incorrectly called mosaic virus.  It causes spectacular streaks of color in the flowers, visuals that long ago made infected bulbs highly prized and valuable.  Unfortunately it also stunts the growth of the plants and the flower tops, and makes them more fragile.  And there is no treatment for it, infected plants and bulbs must be isolated and destroyed to prevent spread.

Makes me wonder what would happen if the breaking virus was found in Washington Park, would all the tulips have to be dug up and destroyed by specialists in HAZMAT suits?  Would there be soil remediation measures?  Would the Tulip Festival have to be cancelled, perhaps indefinitely, because of the threat of lingering plant disease?  The virus is almost unheard of today, just what are the procedures for handling an outbreak?

Orca Double Early

Starting around the year 1634, the time when our community then called Beverwick was being settled, there was a major financial speculation bubble over tulips back in the Netherlands, generally considered the first significant bubble. Today it’s called the Tulip Mania. In the backrooms of taverns, rare and beautiful tulips sold and resold for ridiculously fabulous prices.  It got more absurd when traders started selling shares in single bulbs and soon also futures, that is, bets that the price of a particular bulb would go up or down when it was planted and finally bloomed.

That’s right, tulips were right there at the birth of modern Capitalism.  And like all speculative bubbles it crashed and left a bunch of investors in debt, although reports that it crashed the Dutch economy are greatly exaggerated.   According to an account in Tulipomania by Mike Dash, a history of that financial bubble, the Dutch government eventually stepped in and mitigated the financial losses of most investors, many of which at the end of the mania were tradesmen and even laborers rather than the wealthy.

Legendary Semper Augustus Tulip, Illustration From The 1630s

The breaking virus, which was not at all understood at the time, actually drove up the prices of affected bulbs during the Dutch Tulip Mania.  The most expensive was the Semper Augustus, a single bulb of which cost as much as a well-appointed house during a time when housing prices were high.  It was runty and sickly from the virus, but the petals sported lavish fiery streaks. Perhaps thankfully, this beautifully diseased variety is extinct.

Some accounts say the tulip plant did not arrive in North America until the 1800s, but that can’t be true.  Did the settlers of early Beverwick get involved in the tulip speculation that was raging back home in the Netherlands? Even if no bulbs were carried to the new colony in the 1630s, surely some of the settlers were caught up at a distance in the frenzy, and perhaps some of the mania took place here too.

Yellow Fritilliaria Crown Imperial

Here and there were some of these Frittiliaria, a kind of lily related to tulips, also from Central Asia.  They look interesting, but they smell “foxy,” which has been described as “unfloral” and “putrid, sulfuric, sweaty.”  Which explains why there are only a few here and there.  They function as a natural protection for the other flowers, the smell is said to keep away predators, particularly moles and deer. They look pretty though.

Finally, we have several of these convenient frames for photos.  I squinted at these and kept trying to figure out exactly how this is supposed to work but finally I realized, it’s a joke son.  I saw several groups of people happily play around with the frames and take pictures of each other with Moses and all the flowers behind them.  Okay, that’s the idea. During the Tulip Festival take a photo of your mama in the frame.  It’s all supposed to be fun.

In Case Your Camera Has No Context

April 20, 2019

Let’s talk about the best way to get rid of used cat litter

It is Spring right now, when the grass turns green and the potholes carved out by the snowplows of Winter make the road in front of my house a bone-jarring axle integrity test for passing cars.  Sure, everyone who drives a car inside a City complains about potholes, and the ones in front of your own urban home are the worst of all because they bother you the most.  Well, I’m no exception to that rule, but I think I have a few outstanding valid complaints.

Seriously, In Real Life It’s Deeper Than It Looks In The Photo

Okay let’s get to the point, the main event.  There’s a short driveway a little ways up the hill from our house on some property that we own, where The Wife and I park our cars.  Directly behind that driveway are several pits in the pavement, and in particular, immediately behind where I park my pickup truck, is one gaping cavern that my vehicle falls into with a sickening ka-bump every single time I back out onto the road.

That hole has been there for well over two years.  Seriously.  Sometimes the City Department of Public Services (DPS) guys come through the neighborhood and fill potholes, once or maybe twice a year.  But for some mysterious reason they don’t patch this hole.  I don’t know why not.  It seems a pretty obvious candidate for patching to me, but it never gets taken care of.

I’ve repeatedly filled in the hole with rocks, broken bricks and concrete shards, along with dirt.  Many times I’ve thought to myself, “There, that will hold for a while.”  But then to my consternation after a week or even a few days the hole would be a foot deep again, the rocks and dirt and whatever having mysteriously disappeared.

Action Shot: The Hole Is Perfectly Positioned To Catch My Truck Every Time 

Now, barring some evil neighbor digging the hole out in the middle of the night just to annoy me, I simply assumed that rainstorms aided by passing cars and trucks had ripped out that loose material.  Sometimes I would see dirt running down the hill from the hole as expected, but what happened to the rocks and concrete shards? And why did the hole empty out completely during dry spells? It didn’t make sense. 

Understand that sad experience with the ways of the world has left me paranoid, but in what I hope is a rational way.  If something in the public sphere maintained by the governments isn’t right I always assume there’s a conspiracy unless proven otherwise. That’s a sensible attitude, or so I believe. I’m usually right about that stuff, kind of a safe bet.

You see, if the former mayor of Albany, Jerry Jennings, was still running the City there would be no question that he had gone out of his way to order DPS to carefully maintain that street cavern.  For real, he did that sort of petty miserable stuff all the time to people he didn’t like or saw as a threat to his power.  That was me.

City Of Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, Apparently Attempting To Conjure Up State Money With A Magic Spell 

But, hey, I get along just fine with our current mayor Kathy Sheehan, and besides, as far as I’ve ever heard she doesn’t engage in childish retaliatory nonsense like that.  Okay, I don’t always see eye to eye with her policies but she knows damn well I’ve been one of her supporters. In my own way I’ve campaigned for her at election time.  I’m even occasionally accused of selling out to her, which doesn’t bother me because I think that overall she’s doing a great job, especially compared to her predecessor.

So late one morning about a month ago I saw for myself why the material I dump into that pit keeps disappearing.  I watched a street sweeper tooling up the hill come to a complete halt over the pit, sit there for like 30 seconds running those big round brushes that scoop up the dirt from the pavement. Then the guy driving the thing continued up the street. When I walked over to look I could see the cavern in the pavement was totally gouged out, nice and clean of everything I had recently thrown into it.

So maybe Mayor Kathy hates me after all?  Or maybe – this is far from implausible – some of the older DGS guys remember the standing orders from the former mayor to discriminate against this particular annoying character and haven’t been told to stop? Or perhaps something more sinister is at play here?

The City Site Doesn’t Say, But I Think Albany Uses These Elgin Pelican “Street Brooms”

Really, no.  I think all that is going on with this street sweeper guy is that this part of the pavement directly behind our driveway is a low spot and collects a lot of dirt.  Some of it spills out of the pit after I fill it with crap, and the guy is just trying to do his job by sitting over the messy spot for a moment.  These guys get to know the roads they clean real well, they’ve come to know that this is a spot that regularly needs extra attention.

But why haven’t the patching crews that occasionally come through the neighborhood filled the hole?  I mean it’s been over two years. The holes that appear down the hill at the intersection by my house always eventually get patched, and when the street at the very top of the hill got a total repaving job last year, the holes up that way got patched.  But the big holes in the middle section of the street have been ignored.

Okay, This Is How They Clean State Street Before The Tulip Festival, May 2011, In My Neighborhood They Use Machines

I suppose what’s going on is that the City of Albany has a lot of streets, more than 670, and as we all know resources are limited. That’s because New York  State shortchanges road subsidies to Cities (other than NY City, of course).  That is the reason why suburban streets look so pretty and are almost always in great shape, while City streets in this State are comparatively rundown and poorly maintained. Effectively we urban dwellers subsidize roads in the suburbs while we get the odorous end of the subsidy stick and have to live with crumbling public byways.

But really, this is ridiculous.  I suppose now that the weather is warmer I could go buy a bag of concrete and fill the hole.  But I refuse to for some obstinate reason that I haven’t fully formed in my mind, something about the principle of the thing or where are my tax dollars going or something like that.  I mean, I’ve poured concrete in the nearby ruts past the pavement to stop erosion of my driveway, that works fine. And mostly I’m the only one inconvenienced by this big hole so why don’t I, huh?

This Cat Needs To Have A Clean Box

Well, see, there’s this thing I’ve gotten into the habit of doing.  Every five or six days I haul the cat litter box out my front door and dump the contents into the hole.  Yes, that’s right, cat poop, cat pee and twenty pounds of baked bentonite, right there into the hole on the street. By doing that I’m probably breaking so many City, State and federal laws regarding hazardous waste, health violations, creating a nuisance and endangering the community that I could get thrown in jail.  But I do it anyway!  I’m a repeat offender! 

Of more concern to me is that it bothers The Wife.  Whenever she goes out to her car after I do my dumping she complains that it looks nasty.  But no big deal, the next rainstorm washes the pee-soaked litter out of the hole and dissolves it like it never was.  As for the nuggets of cat poop, they mysteriously disappear.  Maybe squirrels eat them.  Maybe they imbed into the crevices of tire treads and roll out to the suburbs, I don’t know and don’t care.

The alternative is to do what I used to do, pour the contents of the cat box into a double garbage bag, put it on the back porch and haul it out to the curb in front of my house on garbage day.  From there it would go to the ever-rising mountain of garbage and toxic waste off Rapp Road in the Pine Bush that we euphemistically call a “landfill.”  Some might think my attitude about all this is wrong, but adding more crap to the dump is, for me, the much greater evil.  Why not let the litter dissolve on the street.

Another Scenic Hole In Front Of My House

Of course this is not the only pothole in my neighborhood.  There are plenty more, just not as deep or personally annoying to me.  This stretch of roadway around my house gets what I think is more than its share of annual Springtime pits in the pavement.  Eventually the DGS crews will come by, probably sometime in summer, and fill them in.  And hey, sometime around the middle of the last decade of the last century we got a coat of fresh asphalt over these streets. 

We can only hope that happens again. These stretches of pavement outside my door are stressed and beaten more than they ought to be by cars and trucks because it’s an alternate commuter route for suburbanites driving into and out of Albany.  The bulk of the traffic comes down the hill in the morning starting around 7:30 AM and makes a left turn past my front door, and after about 4:30 PM the traffic heads back the opposite way, kind of a shortcut around the nearby clogged with suburbanite traffic main routes.  As such the pavement gets quite a bit of wear and tear, especially close to the intersection by my house.

This is essentially a residential neighborhood, and the roads aren’t designed for such traffic abuse.  Hell, the street coming down the hill can’t even be properly called a street because it doesn’t even have a curb on one side, the side where I park my truck.  The pavement just disintegrates into a muddy rut where I pour concrete to stabilize it.  The far side of the street used to be like that too until about 15 years ago former Albany Common Council representative Dominick Calsolaro against all odds managed to get a sidewalk built there. We still call it Dominick’s Sidewalk.

Middle Of The Street

Other than Dominick’s intervention, the City has never openly acknowledged that these two roads, the one coming down the hill toward my house and the one that runs in front of it, deserve special attention because of the suburban commuters that it carries.  I suppose intentionally letting a road fall apart and become difficult to use is one way to keep traffic down, but no matter how bad these roads by my house get, the traffic doesn’t let up during rush hours.  There’s no sinister master plan for me to get paranoid about here, the City has always neglected this alternate corridor.

Now and then the City does make a half-assed attempt to fill some of the holes with what they call cold patch, a mixture of large stones and asphalt that is only lightly heated.  This stuff is not intended to be permanent, it’s supposed to be a temporary solution, and so it is. Often it gets scraped out of the holes by pounding tires within a few weeks, or sometimes a few days.

This year at the beginning of March, when there was still ice and snow along the road, the cold patch crews came by and filled some, not all, of the holes in the neighborhood.  Within a few days all the patching material had exited the holes and got ground into dirt, with the exception of a hole around a storm drain which is still intact at the end of April.  Strange, but I’ll take it.  The crews even tried to patch around the State maintained pothole I’ve written about, the manhole that provides access to their fiber optic cable, but that patch was gone by the next day.

An Artistic Crevice

You know what else happened when they came by?  That morning I had just dumped a litter box into the hole behind my truck, throwing it on top of some solid ice that was half filling the pit. The result was about level with the pavement.  With satisfaction I figured that if it stayed cold and the ice underneath didn’t melt I’d have a level pavement for a few days.

Shortly after that the DGS guys came through and dropped a thin layer of cold patch on top of the litter, the only time in history that hole has ever received attention from the City.  I was not happy with the timing of these events, I kinda wished I’d known they were coming and had waited to dump the box.  But the litter had become a crisis and I couldn’t make the cats wait any longer.  The patch, such as it was, was gone without a trace before the evening rush hour.

The Official NY State Fiber Optic Pothole Remains The Same

Now, the problem with taking photos of these road pits is that the pictures don’t show the depth of the holes.  Some of the newer indentations are fairly shallow, but some of the old venerable potholes that never get fixed are more than a foot deep and wide enough to lovingly accept a car sized tire into its recesses.  And as most of us know all too well, it’s not that easy to gauge the depth of these holes in a split second from the driver’s seat of a moving car.

You just have to take my word that these holes will rattle your bones and bust the axles on your silly little “Smart Car.”  So maybe I shouldn’t complain too vociferously, maybe I’d like for these potholes to slow down all these suburban cars that twice a day tear through the stop signs at the intersection hardly slowing down.  Well maybe for that reason I certainly would stay quiet, except for that one annoying pit sitting right behind my truck…

One more thing.  I suppose after some of our local elected officials read this (they all study my blog carefully, hi guys) I will look out my front door one morning and see a City DGS crew carefully and expertly patching the hole with permanent materials.  That would be lovely if it happens, but it will leave me with one regret.  Where will I dump my cat litter?

Please, Think Of The Kitties

March 26, 2019

And a visit to the farm to find out how it’s done

The white buckets had been sitting under the maple trees that line Morton Avenue for weeks before they actually registered on my conscious mind.  That sudden awakening of my awareness happened on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of March when I was circling the block with my pickup, about to load it with usable stuff from our house that we didn’t want.  The plan was to take our stuff to a dropoff point for the Albany Really Really Free Market, which takes place every three months at the Albany Social Justice Center on 33 Central Avenue. But that’s another story in itself.

Anyway, as I slowly drove down Morton, I made a frowny-faced study of the white, five gallon buckets under the trees, and I decided they sure looked to me like maple sap collectors, some 22 by my count from ML King Boulevard to Eagle Street.  My first thought was that somebody was stealing sap from our beloved trees brazenly in the open, which is often the best way to get away with stuff like that.  But who would do such a thing?  Maple sugaring is, after all, some hard work that takes skill.  It’s much easier to go buy some at the supermarket.

Sap Collection Buckets On Morton Avenue

So after we dropped off our usable crap at what turned out to be a house just outside Albany in Menands, I did an inspection of this sap stealing operation.  My main worry was that the trees were being damaged by someone selfish that didn’t care what he or she was doing. To whom, I wondered, could I report this attack on our trees during the weekend? Come Monday morning would the authorities even care?  Perhaps I should take this matter into my own hands?

On close inspection I was relieved to see that the sap collection was being done neatly and expertly.  Only two little holes had been bored into the base of the trees, and unlike the collection lines at maple sugar farms the two tubes that ran from the trees to the buckets were short and narrow gauge.  Clearly whoever did this was not being greedy, taking care as much as possible to not stress the trees any more than necessary.

This was my real concern, stress to the trees.  On some maple sugar farms you might notice the trees that get tapped every Spring look kind of narrow and spindly, not happy and expansive. Not always, but often enough. Consider that every single year when the trees wake up and begin to expend energy to grow leaves, some (mostly) hairless monkeys come along and literally suck the vital life blood from their capillaries.  Add to this that on Morton Avenue these are urban street trees that are under a great deal of stress already from passing cars, their noise, their air pollution, and vibrations.  Is bleeding them a good idea?

Sticker On The Sides Of The Buckets

Turns out I didn’t have to worry about the legitimacy and competence of the sap collectors.  It took me a while but I finally noticed the stickers on the side of each bucket that explained this was a project of the Radix Ecological Sustainability Center, the South End’s fabulous urban farm located on Warren Street on the other side of Lincoln Park from my house.  I also noted the official seal of the City of Albany on the stickers, which meant that for better or worse the authorities heartily sanctioned this operation.

The fact is, if anybody could do this sort of thing properly then Radix could.  Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew have been managing this innovative urban farm since they started building it in 2009, providing fresh farm goods to the neighbors, along with educational opportunities for students from local grade schools all the way up to graduate schools.  The current City administration has recognized Radix as an innovative cultural and economic driver that deserves encouragement. Thus it was no surprise to see the City imprint on the sides of the buckets.

Looking at the Radix page on Spacebook, I noted that they’d had a boiling operation more than a week earlier, on March 7.  I’m annoyed with myself for having missed this, so I can’t give any details about how much sap was collected or such.  I decided I’d find out if there was going to be another public sap boiling that I could visit, or at the very least what their plans were.

Kids Testing Finished Maple Syrup At Radix

You see, I had talked to a maple farmer at the Troy Farmer’s Market last weekend, she told me that they had barely started sugaring (collecting sap) because it’s been so cold.  The sap flows best during that late winter period when the nights are cold and the temperature gets above freezing during the day.  Later in the season when day and night get too warm, the sap still flows but it is too thick and full of, well, nutrients that the trees need to thrive and survive, which we parasitic hairless monkeys consider impurities. 

The late season sap is your “grade C dark amber,” which usually gets mixed in with processed food or is choked down by people who pretend it’s tastier than the light amber stuff from earlier in the season.  Years ago big food corporations would buy the darkest almost inedible very late season stuff from maple farmers and add a little bit of it to their corn syrup (usually 2%) so they could legally call the glop maple syrup.  But due to complaining consumer groups this deceptive legal loophole was changed and the corporations couldn’t make that claim any more, which sadly hit the maple farmers hard for a while. But it also gave the poor a trees a break from very late season bleeding, which is damaging to them.

Sap Collector In Action

The maple farmer I hd talked to in Troy told me she was looking forward to the following week because the predictions were that the weather would be just right for sap production, and they were.  Of course in Nassau in Rensselaer County where her farm is located, some 15 miles from the South End and about 400 feet higher in elevation, it is significantly cooler there.  That farm, by the way, is Wells Maple Farm, from whom we’ve been buying the maple cream that I dutifully spread every morning on The Wife’s english muffins ever since we first found them years ago selling at a county fair. It’s really good stuff.

So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Radix has already harvested enough sap to have already had a syrup boiling, it’s a lot warmer in downtown Albany than the outer suburbs.  Checking with an authority on maple sugaring I see the following:

In a normal season, a single taphole produces approximately 10- to 12-gallons of sap. Your finished yield of syrup will depend on the sugar content of your sap. Generally, assume a 40-to-1 conversion – so 12 gallons of sap will boil down to 1 quart of syrup. 

February 21, 2019

A change of plan to the proposed Lincoln Park sewage treatment facility improves the project but angers a South End neighborhood

I’m starting to realize why past mayors of Albany have gone out of their way to avoid dealing with the problems with the City’s disintegrating drainage system, irresponsibly allowing those problems with the system to grow progressively worse until they have become a massive crisis.  These are chronically unglamorous problems, fixing them most definitely won’t help an incumbent get reelected.  You, the elected official in charge of the City, spend a fortune tearing up the streets annoying the taxpayers where they live, and when the big messy project is done you can’t point with pride at your accomplishments because, well, your accomplishments are out of sight underground.

It gets worse. Faced with a limited amount of time and money, and a limited amount of political capital, you, the mayor, propose a practical solution to that problem.  But then it becomes clear that solution creates another problem.  So you find a fix for that problem.  But then that fix causes an entire neighborhood that up until now has not been affected by the original plan to angrily object to your fix.  

So what can be done to please and placate the angry upset people who live in that now affected neighborhood, in this case the residents of Third Avenue, a long downhill street that leads right to the main county-owned sewage treatment plant that sits along the Hudson River?  Perhaps the residents of that long neglected neighborhood could use some visible upgrades to their street.  Perhaps the City officials could ask them what they want.  Perhaps the City could provide some long needed improvements that have been pointedly denied to them for half a century or more.  Just a suggestion.

Looking Down Third Avenue, A Dreary Day In Late February

Let’s recap for a bit. The City of Albany has a little problem with its street drainage system.  The biggest drain line, actually an underground river confined to a pipe called the Beaverkill which runs through Lincoln Park and carries 70% of the surface runoff in the City, has also been collecting raw sewage from uptown buildings and dumping that sewage straight into the Hudson River. It’s not supposed to do that. This has been happening for quite some time because over a hundred years ago when the system was built the street drain system was designed to carry overflow sewage whenever the regular sewer system is overwhelmed with sewage.  And that seems to happen a lot.

Back then nobody gave a damn about dumping waste into the river. Now in the 21st Century the State of New York has been, for a couple of decades now, asking everybody in the upstream Hudson River communities to please stop dumping sewage into the river.  But lately the State has gotten fed up with inaction by the communities, and in the case of the City of Albany outright evasion.  So now the State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is imposing deadlines and threatening sanctions, thus the Albany City government has got to deal with the drainage problems right now whether the taxpaying voters like it or not.

This crisis has been dumped onto mayor Kathy Sheehan’s lap. Faced with the periodic spectacular flooding across a wide swath of the City, the throat gagging stink in and around Lincoln Park, the basement backups both in uptown houses and in downtown homes near the river, the street and public park cave-ins, the sewage discharges into the Hudson making South End waterfront development impossible, and above all a furious DEC breathing down her neck, the mayor has been forced to come up with a plan to deal with this chronically unglamorous problem whether she wants to or not. 

Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan Discussing The Planned Lincoln Park Sewage Treatment Facility At An AVillage Meeting Last May

Ah, the price of being a responsible public official. The mayor has been forced to work with what she has available. The best and proper solution, digging up a whole lot of streets and constructing a whole new sewage and street drain system, would cost well over a billion dollars at least, construction would last long past the State imposed deadline, and probably lose her the next election.  Or, as she put it, “Cause too much disruption.”

In any case the State is not going to provide a billion or two billion dollars to help fix this problem, the amount they are providing is something on the order of tens of millions.  So to make a long story short that I have related in much detail elsewhere, the City is planning to build a secondary sewage treatment plant astride the Beaverkill drain line on one end of The Ravine inside Lincoln Park.  The State is satisfied with this plan, and to my surprise very few people living around the park have been objecting to it, in fact many have welcomed it.

As for me, I don’t like it one bit, sacrificing a good chunk of our venerable public park to site a secondary sewage treatment facility.  This facility would never have been accepted by anyone living around Washington Park, a place where it conceivably could be sited because the Beaverkill drain line runs the length of that park also.   However, I very grudgingly accept the practical and political realities that are dropping this thing within site of my front porch.  But I don’t like it one bit.

1994 Cave-In Of The Beaverkill Almost Swallowed A Grown Man, Remains Unrepaired To This Day

So progress on this project was going fine for the City, but there was one little sticking point in the plan that a few people started to notice.  Perhaps more importantly it appears to have dawned on the mayor and on the water department officials involved in the project that sooner or later this little created problem would stand out and become all too noticeable.  Even though the proposed facility solves several long-neglected problems, it was starting to look like this new problem would almost for sure become politically disastrous up the road, not to mention stinky and dirty and downright repulsive. 

The original plan called for “solids” that are extracted from the rushing waters of the underground Beaverkill drain line to be “stored on site” in an outbuilding next to the facility and periodically removed by truck.  We’ve been repeatedly told that this part of the operation would be low key and hardly noticeable.  But would it really be?  And, judging by the faces and voices of the City officials that were doing the explaining, did anybody connected with the project really believe what they were telling us?

The problem is that a large component of the “solids” to be removed from the Beaverkill water and stored in an outbuilding to be built next to the facility building would be plain old everyday human poop.  This is, after all, the reason the State is getting upset over the discharges into the Hudson at the South End. During hot summer months the dissolved fecal material and free-floating human intestinal bacteria that feeds off the fecal material ends up suspended in the water of the Hudson River off the South End and becomes outrageously abundant.  The State DEC is not freaking out over leaves and crushed coffee cups, it’s the health hazard and environmental degradation caused by raw human poop that they want to see removed from the drain line before it pours into the river.

The Stinking Aeration Grate In The Ravine In Lincoln Park

Human poop, as we all know, stinks a bit when it is fresh.  But when it has been festering inside a drain line for a while it gives off hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S) generated by anaerobic bacteria.  This is why that aeration grate was installed on the Beaverkill drain line in The Ravine in Lincoln Park in the late 1930s, so that the H2S would not build up to dangerous levels inside the Beaverkill and explode.  And that is why The Ravine, which used to be a tourist attraction, was abandoned and allowed to get overgrown, because the H2S stink pouring from that aeration grate will gag a maggot, especially during warmer months when it tends to rise from the ravine and from manhole covers and waft across the park.

Just so you know, hydrogen sulfide is a full spectrum poison that rapidly corrodes iron and in concentrated form can kill you in a variety of ways besides explode.  You don’t want to breath it and you don’t want it on your skin. It is the gas that made the bomb trains that used to roll through the South End so dangerous for so many years, and why it was quietly removed from the train cars as public awareness of the irresponsible deadly behavior of the fossil fuel corporations began to spread. 

To be fair, concentrations of H2S inside the Beaverkill drain line never gets anywhere near the concentrations that were packed into the bomb trains when they were rolling through Albany. In my opinion, the fossil fuel corporation executives responsible for loading those trains with H2S, putting us all in serious danger (Lac Magantic) and causing an untold number of serious respiratory problems to those Albany citizens that had to inhale the fumes from those trains, I say those suits and ties responsible should all be locked up in solitary for life and several of them executed. I’m quite serious.

Albany March Against The Bomb Trains, May 2016

But even the low levels of H2S that have been emanating from that aeration grate in The Ravine and from various manholes since before World War 2 must have caused subtle respiratory problems to citizens who live and use Lincoln Park. (I think that for a while I was one of those citizens.) Thus mayor Sheehan is to be commended for bringing to the City water department engineers such as Mr. Joe Coffey and Mr. Bill Simcoe who have designed this facility to eliminate that aeration grate and presumably also the emanations of H2S.  It may not be the ideal solution but it is a solution.

But there was that problem with their original design, the storing of solids on site. Not cool.  Periodic removal of the poop infused crud would involve loading it onto honey trucks that would exit the park either on the north side, or more likely on the south side which would mean they’d be rolling practically past my own house. Totally not cool.  Presumably these honey trucks would head across the City to be dumped at the Rapp Road “Landfill” in the Pine Bush, which the mayor has been trying to shut down ever since she first got elected.  Majorly not cool.

So at the end of November another public meeting was called to explain a whole new plan being added to the proposal, a major modification really.  Like most of the other public meetings it was held at the public elementary school inside Lincoln Park next to the site of the proposed sewage treatment facility that has the grandiloquent name Thomas O’Brien Academy of Science and Technology, or TOAST.  About a hundred people showed up for the presentation, along with a crowd of elected officials including mayor Sheehan and Albany County executive Dan McCoy.

The Lincoln Park Sewage Treatment Facility, Showing the pipeline to Third Avenue (Click on image to see larger)

The new plan is to eliminate storage of poop solids on site. The proposal is to lay a 30 inch pipe underground across the park to carry the solids.  The pipe will go along the high ground on the southern rim of Lincoln Park, cross Morton Avenue at Hawk Street, travel down Hawk and hook up with an existing underused 30 inch pipe about a third of the way down Third Avenue.  From there the solids, flushed with plentiful excess water from the Beaverkill, will travel down that long steep hill to the County owned sewage treatment plant situated on the waterfront between the Port of Albany and Island Creek Park.

The new plan does not involve spending more money, rather it involves shifting funding from one thing to another.  Since poop solids no longer need to be stored on site the proposed outbuilding no longer has to be as big and elaborate, all it needs is to be used for storage.  Also, if I understand correctly, some of the internal workings of the main facility need not be as elaborate.  Thus the money saved can be applied to the new pipe.

Mike Miller Of CHA Engineering Explains The Change Of Plan At TOAST In November

According to the presentation at the meeting conducted by Mike Miller, the vice president of the engineering firm CHA which is coordinating the project, the pipeline to Third Avenue will be laid mostly by tunneling and will involve digging only at a few points.  Thus there will be no long, deep trenches and minimal disruption to the park and to the roadways.  Which does not mean no disruption.  For example, auto access to Third Avenue and to Osborne Street, both one-ways that run downhill from Hawk Street, will be completely cut off during the tunneling.  We did not hear how that will be dealt with.

This change of plan means that the existing full sewage treatment plant on the waterfront, which is run by Albany County, will be getting a pretty big new source of concentrated sewage pouring into the facility. Since tunneling the pipeline across the park to Third Avenue, amazingly, is quite a bit less expensive than constructing that originally planned storage building in the ravine, there is a fair sized pile of money left over.  That spare cash will be given to the County to upgrade the waterfront sewage treatment plant so it can increase capacity and install better screens, also for several other improvements that will increase capacity and efficiency. 

The County has been wanting to do these upgrades for a long time anyway.  County executive Dan McCoy indicated that he is more than happy with this deal. City officials are pleased with themselves for proposing this change and coming to this arrangement. Everyone is happy.  It’s a win-win all around, everything tied together with a neat bow.

Some Of The Creighton Storey Apartment Complex Overlooking Third Avenue

Well no, not everyone.  In January City officials met with about thirty people at the meeting space at Creighton Storey Homes on Third Avenue, located about where the new pipeline will meet the existing pipe under the street.  Most attending lived along the street, the rest of us who attended lived nearby.  The mood of the residents of the street was not accommodating.

As several Third Avenue residents put it succinctly, “We get the shit.”  This refers to more than just the sewage extracted from the Beaverkill being sent to their street, it’s all about the neglect that the City has visited upon their neighborhood and upon so many other neighborhoods in the South End.  For at least the last 50 years the South End has been treated like a sacrifice zone, a place that is compromised by design, Third Avenue having received a fair share of this political policy of downgrading as a result of intentional neglect.

People were very suspicious that this new source of waste running under their streets would back up into their homes at some point. This has happened from time to time, particularly on the lower part of the street.  Next time they had to deal with backups, they wanted to know, would they have to from now on deal with this concentrated sludge imported from Lincoln Park?

Water Commissioner Joe Coffey Explains To A Third Avenue Resident While Deputy Water Commissioner Bill Simcoe Listens

Water Commissioner Coffey assured everyone that the water department plans to run cameras down the street drain line to make sure no houses are hooked up to the drain line carrying the poop from Lincoln Park, and if they find any hooked to it they will switch them to the proper sewer line.  Such anomalies have been found, for example, the five story Argus Building at 512 Broadway was discovered to have never been properly hooked up to the sewers back in 1913 when they were installed down there.  Instead, some 30 apartments and a ground floor retail space inside the building have been dumping sewage directly into the Hudson River for over 100 years.

Third Avenue residents complained that bad odors have been periodically wafting out of the storm drains, their quite understandable fear is that running sewage down the drain line will only make this problem worse.  Mr. Coffey was ready with an answer, the plan is to rebuild the drains so that the gas traps under the street drain grates, which are basically the same as the traps underneath household sinks and bathtubs that prevent sewer smells from rising out of drains, will be carefully inspected and rebuilt.  He told us that this has been standard procedure on recent street rebuilding projects such as at Dana Avenue and Madison Avenue.

In addition there will be high tech flow valves monitoring the line.  The valves “literally send emails” when the flow is over capacity. In fact, the City water department was recently lauded for their use of such cutting edge devices. We were assured that except under the most extreme circumstances, flow would remain well below the capacity of the pipes and it was unlikely these devices would be triggered.

Chuck Houghton, Chairman Of The Albany Water Board And Joanne Morton, President Of The South End Neighborhood Association At The Creighton Storey Meeting

The residents remained skeptical.  None of this sounded to them like improvements, they continued to view this plan as an imposition, which indeed it is.  They can look forward to their street being torn up and completely blocked off for a while, along with numerous diggings along the length of it.  When all is done they will see new potholes in the pavement and nothing visible to benefit them.

So maybe it would be a good idea for the City to find out from the residents of Third Avenue what they would like to see done for their street, what improvements would benefit them the most.  Paving?  Sidewalks? Lighting? Facade improvements? Greenery and parks?  Low interest loans and grants?  How about constructing a connecting road halfway down the street along the City owned right of way to the next street over? How about something that someone like me who doesn’t live on the street would never think of?

Considering how long Third Avenue has been deliberately left to disintegrate by previous City administrations it would be right and fair to turn some City resources toward their neighborhood.  While the current administration is to be commended for keeping the residents informed about the plans to divert Beaverkill sewage in their direction, something past administrations would not have bothered to do, that is not enough.  As many of the attendees at the meeting pointed out, they were not being asked if they wanted this but were being told to accept it.

Street Sign At Third Avenue And Hawk Street

Really, the residents of Third Avenue don’t want sludge diverted to run under their street any more than I want a secondary sewage treatment plant in the Park outside my door.  But the facility in the park is being sited along with a package of improvements to the park to make it palatable to those of us who live nearby.  It is only fair that if the residents of Third Avenue have to play host to a river of sewage under their feet that they too get some tangible benefits that could help make their street a much more desirable place to live.

January 5, 2019

I’m reprinting this article from the Spring of 2016.  Why am I doing this?  Because I feel like congratulating myself.  Pretty much everything I said in the article and everything I predicted in this one turned out to be dead on accurate.  I don’t bat a thousand very often.  And more importantly, pretty much everything in the article is still relevant today.  The Bernie supporters and the Hillary supporters are still at each other’s throats and still don’t know why.  The rad righty MAGA Hats still love and adore Donald Pussygrabber more than life itself and still don’t know why.  (Note that back then I called Pussygrabber by his official name.) 

And the Corporate Media, despite some fracturing and despite some buyer’s regret, is still campaigning for that incompetent Brat that they successfully installed into the White House, and continue to campaign for his party. For example, did you know that when Re-pub Paul Ryan left as Speaker of the House of Representatives a few days ago that he had a 12% approval rating?  Missed that headline?  Meanwhile we are being told that incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi “oversees a divided House” and that groundbreaking new member of the House Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a bad person because back when she was a college student she danced on a rooftop with some of her fellow students.  I say it’s about time we had a True Centrist like Ms. AOC in national politics, hope to see a lot more like her replace the usual pack of far right corporatists from both parties.

Unlike Brett Kavanaugh, Who Was Busy Drinking And Raping, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez Was Dancing Through College

Perhaps the most relevant to today thing of all that’s in the article is the analysis of how political campaigning has been changing.  The corporate political combine, where candidates take money from corporations and hand it back to corporations that produce for them TV ads is giving way to personal campaigning.   Ringing doorbells has always been the best way to get candidates elected, and it’s making a big comeback as candidates slowly and painfully realize that TV ads are mostly a big waste of money. And now it is possible for candidates to campaign on social media. The only thing I got wrong in this article are the predictions in the final paragraph, at least they haven’t happened yet.  Hopefully they won’t.

June 2, 2016

What the Hillary Hardliners and the Bernie Fanatics and the
Trump Buttheads all have in common

I’m watching the unfolding drama of the presidential race with a growing sense of horror, but probably not for the reasons that you think. The good thing about this current round is that everyone has an opinion at this point about national politics. It is almost impossible to not follow the developments of the coming November national election, which indeed has, as usual, been degraded into a fantasy sports contest brought to you live, but first we have two years of pregame highlights. At least most everyone is paying attention.

What horrifies me, first off, is that most people I know or communicate with have unthinkingly fallen into one or another camp, either pro-Trump or anti-Trump. These are the two choices that the Corporate Media has manufactured for us while almost no one seems aware of this framing that they have unquestioningly absorbed. Because the stupid selfish elites and their Corporate Media have guided all of us into this mental pit and because hardly any of us question the process, it is almost for sure that Donald Trump will be installed into the White House and this nation will collapse around us.

How’s that for a happy beginning? As I write this it’s been a lovely early morning, overly warm for Spring but quite pleasant. Just wanted to let you know that no matter how bad the future looks and how much I rant about it I rarely if ever indulge in the luxury of despair.

Bernie Sanders Outside The Albany Public Library Addressing The Thousands Of Supporters Who Couldn’t Get Inside The Washington Avenue Armory This Past April

On that overwhelmingly dominant social media site and collector of salable information Spacebook I have a group of “friends” who are fanatic Bernie Sanders supporters and another group of “friends” who are hardline Hillary Clinton supporters. There’s another group of “friends” equally as large who detest everybody in politics equally and want the current political system overturned, these folks are not a cohesive group like the other two. I also have a few “friends” who support Trump, I don’t mind hearing what nonsense they have to say and I don’t hesitate to call BS on them.

So there is no ambiguity here, I consider Donald Trump to be a snotty stupid rich boy, a narcissistic TV actor, a political dilettante who like all spoiled brats demands to be the center of attention and little else. He is quite clever but not very smart. In contrast to his promoted TV image, he is lazy and so ineffectual that he clearly does not have the attention span necessary to to be president twenty four seven. As a result he will leave actual governing to a bunch of corrupt manipulators who will make the handlers who surrounded both that idiot aristocrat Dubya Bush and senile Ronnie Reagan seem almost benign by comparison.

Almost no one understands that the reason Trump is inside their heads is because the Corporate Media put him there. Starting well more than a year ago I began hearing my fellow Baby Boomers, most of whom watch television obsessively, start talking about Trump as if he were somebody important to watch. Naturally I dismissed this as more of the empty media nonsense that members of my generation have always gabbled about and quickly forget.

Donald Trump In Albany: Make America Hate Again

Then around the middle of this past Autumn I noticed that the Corporate Media was giving us a constant diet of Trump. Every time I stepped out of my house or logged on to Spacebook people talked about the nonstop TV crap devoted to him, and every time I was forced to listen to National Public Radio (NPR) I was also forced to listen to items about Trump. For months going well into this year the two local daily newspapers, the Hearst-owned Times Union and the independent but extreme rad righty Daily Gazette put Trump on the front pages of both their online and dead tree editions every single day. Every single day.

Tom Tomorrow, This Modern World

This oversaturation was so grossly obvious that some people started to notice, so as winter turned to spring the Corporate Media began allowing Trump to put on displays of feuding with some of their shills. Famously a TV presenter named Megyn Kelly was chosen by Rupert Murdoch’s FOX to be the recipient of a carefully scripted dispute, and Trump of course threatened several so-called “liberal” Corporatist outfits like the New York Times and Washington Post with retribution. The Corporate Media proclaimed all across itself that Trump was defying the “liberal” media.

To the fools in the anti-Trump camp the Corporate Media reassured them that these disputes effectively finished Trump as a viable candidate and that they wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore. But at the same time these disputes convinced the fools in the pro-Trump camp that Donald Trump is a strong leader firmly in command of the media. Neither side has noticed that they are watching a made-for-TV movie special designed to take the place of thinking for both slack-jawed audiences.

Of course if the Corporate Media hammered Trump nonstop the way they have always hammered Hillary Clinton, or if they totally ignored him except for an occasional burst of negative invective like they do with Bernie Sanders, then no one would be following Trump. No one except a fringe group of Klansmen and unreconstructed Confederates would talk about him. Everyone else would dismiss him as an occasional joke.

Hillary Clinton At Cohoes High School, Flanked by
Congressman Paul Tonko And Senator Kirsten Gillibrand

Meanwhile the Hillary Hardliners and the Bernie Fanatics have been increasingly at each other’s throats, neither side in the least bit aware that they have been manipulated into fighting. I’m particular appalled at how a constant diet of obvious disinformation, much of which originates on sketchy websites hosted by public relations “consultants,” is fueling this dissent. These ephemeral lies are easily debunked by anybody who pays attention to their sources, but coupled with the constant flood of Corporate Media disinformation these lies linger inside of empty heads and work very well to keep the two sides clawing at each other’s eyes.

The Hillary Hardliners don’t see that they are merely reflecting and even repeating verbatim the astonishingly false anti-Bernie Corporate Media line, that he is unqualified to hold office and has no practical positions. Meanwhile the Bernie Fanatics don’t seem to have the slightest idea that their hatred of Hillary mostly reflects nearly three decades of mindless Hillary bashing by the same lying Corporate Media. The legitimate criticisms of both candidates have ended up peripheral to the framing that has been handed to both sides, and indeed these otherwise constructive criticisms have been absorbed and locked into that framing.

Seriously, I want to grab the Hillary Hardliners and the Bernie Fanatics by the scruffs of their necks and start slamming their heads together. What the hell is wrong with you people, can’t you see how easy you are to manipulate? Why the goddam hell are all of you unwilling to examine the conduits through which you acquired your information, that these tainted media sources are the dictators of what you think are your own thoughts?

Bernie Sanders And Hillary Clinton:
The Responsible, Competent Elders

The Trump-centric framing is so pervasive that the Hillary Hardliners are saying that Trump and Bernie are no different from each other, and the Bernie Fanatics are saying there’s no difference between Hillary and Trump! Both of these attitudes are mind boggling absurdities, yet I hear them repeated over and over. Comparing the rival candidate’s flaws to flawed beyond redemption Donald Trump seems natural to both camps because that is what they have been told to think about by the Corporate Media, and the vast majority in both camps don’t have enough awareness to come up with something original.

One of the scariest and most pervasive lies circulating among the anti-Trump people is the notion that Trump supporters are inherently stupid people, This notion is reinforced by a media barrage that extends not only across the Corporate Media but is consistently seeded into social media by paid consultants. This notion reassures the anti-Trump people that they are somehow superior and “more educated” that the pro-Trump people, while at the same time reinforcing the belief among the working class core of the pro-Trump people that the anti-Trump people are smug elites.

I grew up in a working class household and for much of my adult life I have lived among the middle classes. I can assure you that the working classes and the middle classes have the same overall level of intelligence. Some of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known worked for a living and regularly got their hands dirty, while some of the dumbest people I’ve ever met have had multiple college degrees. I’m here to tell you that both the working classes and the middle classes are equally liable to be bamboozled and manipulated by the Corporate Media, both are equally stupid in that way.

From Carol Simpson, 1988: Still True Today

But there has been a game-changing shift in focus by the Corporate Media. In the last two decades of the 20th Century and into the beginning of this one, the Corporate Media concentrated on influencing primarily the thinking of the middle classes. Many if not most working class people felt this neglect by the media acutely, they tended to see themselves as poormouth outsiders in a land of rich persons, that is, a land of relatively wealthier middle class people who did not hesitate to sneer at them.

During the first decade of this current century, two things happened to change this focus by the Corporate Media. First, starting about 2005 the internet became pervasive enough to become an effective rival to the Corporate Media, thus seriously blunting the propaganda effectiveness of the former information monopoly. Competition in a truly open marketplace does that. The second is after the 2008 economic collapse it became evident that the middle classes were shrinking irrevocably and that the working classes had become the largest growing economic group, a trend that is still happening today.

What happened is that the shrinking middle classes started using the internet more than the working classes, who continued to get the bulk of their information from the Corporate Media. By the beginning of this decade the owners of the Corporate Media appear to have realized that they had lost the shrinking middle classes and that the expanding working classes are a growing market. So they shifted their focus and changed their political propaganda targets from the middle classes to the working classes.

Zephyr Teachout, Currently Running For Congress In The NY 19th District

This media class shift was starkly illustrated during the much watched 2014 Democratic Primary for governor in New York State. Unknown Zephyr Teachout ran a campaign almost completely on social media, spending only a quarter of million dollars on traditional campaign media while incumbent Andrew Cuomo enriched the media consultants with at least $14 million and had only a token presence on the internet. Ms. Teachout managed an astonishing 33.08 percent of the vote with her bargain basement campaign against Cuomo’s 59.9 percent.

What was really astonishing was that as the social equality candidate (the true conservative, that is) Ms. Teachout won in solidly middle class and well to do upscale election districts, while the rich man’s Corporatist candidate Cuomo won overwhelmingly in poor, working class and ethnic districts, which was enough to keep him in office. This paradoxical result happened because the economically comfortable middle classes got most of their campaign information primarily from the internet, while the poor, the working class and the ethnic neighborhoods continued to get the bulk of their information from TV.

I see this daily in my neighborhood. Many of the middle class people that I know have stopped watching TV altogether, even the middle class older Baby Boomers who still obsessively watch TV are increasingly turning their heads toward social media. At the same time when I walk into the living rooms of my working class neighbors I see that big flatscreen TV is on almost constantly. It’s like a member of the family, always there and always talking and always demanding attention.

It has become very clear to me that the persons who run the Corporate Media were paying close attention. I strongly suspect that the 2014 Democratic Primary campaign in New York only confirmed for them what they had already figured out. The Corporate Media, which had already lost the shrinking middle classes, decided that their sphere of greatest influence was through that big screen TV constantly blaring and blathering inside working class homes.

Sanders Canvassers Talk To A Skeptical Clinton Supporter In Iowa

There is a sure-fire way to defeat Donald Trump at the polls but I am not confident that this venerable and obvious method will be used in the general election. Big time campaign strategists are starting to relearn that the most effective way to get people to actually go to the polling booths and vote for their candidate is to send canvassers door to door to talk to the voters and make a personal connection. When the campaign advertising consists of real persons actually talking to the potential voter rather than unreal images on the TV then voter turnout rises dramatically in favor of the candidate made real.

Hell, I know that. Years ago I worked as a dissident Democratic committeeman in my neighborhood trying to get decent people installed in our local offices instead of reelecting the moribund kleptocrats. I was just one of many people around Albany doing the same thing, talking to my neighbors all year round, not just two days before election day. Most of my neighbors were actually pleased that there was a guy living up the street who cared enough about the neighborhood to get them to do something positive about it, even if dragging some of them to the polls was like dragging a dog to the vet.

So I keep reading that sudden barrages of TV ads, radio ads, and postal mailers have at most a temporary effect on people. Studies conducted in local elections have consistently shown that media barrages have no statistically noticeable lasting effect on voting results. Again, I’ve seen that here in Albany over and over, the local Corporate Media would pull out all of their techniques to influence local elections but that would have little or no effect on how us voters would actually vote.

TV Ad For Hillary Clinton

Supposedly the opposite is true when we are talking about national races or statewide races in large states like New York, that voters prefer to get their information from sources like TV or the internet. But I would challenge that assumption, I think that if presidential or gubernatorial candidates sent canvassers door to door then voters would respond enthusiastically. Look at the miserable turnout for national elections that we have in this country, obviously a large number of people don’t take any of it seriously.

The obvious objection to this analysis is that sending out canvassers across the entire nation must be expensive, but guess what. The cost of buying TV ads is so prohibitively expensive that hiring people to knock on doors across the nation, which runs into many millions of dollars, is actually a fraction of the cost of buying equivalent media time. Look at the 2012 presidential campaigns, both Barack Obama and loser Willard “Mitt” Romney are each known to have spent well more than a billion dollars, where did that money go?

It turns out that the vast majority of campaign donations, reportedly in some cases as much as 90%, ends up in the pockets of a swarm of hangers-on known as media consultants. Now, if their work was effective it would be money well spent, but if TV ads don’t work very well as compared to canvassing then you have to wonder why candidates continue to campaign that way almost exclusively. There might be several reasons why, other than fear of doing things differently.

Advertising Spending In 2015 Only: Note How Little Trump Spent

Basically those several reasons come down to this. There is a system in place that collects donations primarily from billionaires and corporations and a set of Consultant Corporations distributes that money to other corporations. This ensures Corporate control of candidates. For a candidate to go outside that system means that candidate is bucking Corporate control which of course is unacceptable to corporate bottom lines.

A clear example is Bernie Sanders who raised all of his money from small donors and as far as is known not one penny from any corporations. While his campaign has indeed given much of that money to corporate outfits, most notably saturating Iowa and Nevada with TV ads prior to the caucuses there (both of which he lost!) The fact that he raised his money in the wrong way from the wrong people caused him to be pointedly marginalized by the Corporate Media. Clearly the Corporate Media is trying to send a message to future candidates, we will ignore you and ruin you if you don’t play our expensive money game by our rules.

Some days before the New York Democratic Primary this past April, I answered my door to find a Sanders canvasser. I assured him that I was already in his corner, and after a bit of conversation discovered that he was not a local guy and was not familiar with Albany politics. He behaved like a pro, similar to the Working Families Party canvassers imported from downstate that I’ve encountered some past years during certain local campaigns.

I was delighted, no serious presidential candidate had ever sent someone to ring my doorbell to ask for my vote in the national Primaries. I was also pleased to see that Mr. Sanders was spending his campaign donations on the most effective method of generating votes. And the results proved that effectiveness, despite almost every elected official in and around Albany endorsing his rival, Bernie won the City of Albany and the surrounding municipalities.

On Washington Avenue, Some Of The Disappointed People Who Didn’t Get Inside To See Bernie Sanders, Shortly Before The Candidate Appeared Behind Them

The other technique that Mr. Sanders has used to great effect is holding rallies shortly before the actual Primary voting day, relying on the personal touch. For hours I stood in a line wrapped completely around the Washington Avenue Armory and down Lark Street hoping to get inside to hear Bernie speak, but just as I got as far as the library next door the fire marshals declared the Armory filled. There were well more than four thousand people inside and at least that many still standing in line outside.

And then, all of a sudden there was Bernie at a hastily set up mic standing in front of the library doors. He gave us outsiders a good ten minute speech before he went inside to start the rally, which I understand is something he does regularly. He didn’t say anything that we hadn’t heard from him before, but it sure made me feel it was worth my while to stand in line.

In stark contrast, Hillary Clinton had shown up a few days earlier and held a rally at a high school auditorium in Cohoes, a town north of Albany. I understand the auditorium was big enough to accommodate the parade of local elected officials and the audience of Hillary Hardliners. Prolific blogger of multiple blogs Roger Green tried to get me to attend, but I resisted because going just seemed too much of a depressing chore.

Donald Trump Walks On Stage At The So-Called Times Union Center In Albany

On the same day as Mr. Sanders appeared at the Armory, Donald Trump held one his signature rallies at the so-called Times Union Center. Various media outlets claimed that the crowd was 20,000 or more, but since the maximum capacity of the arena is 17.500 this is clearly a lie. Years ago I attended Hillary Clinton’s official announcement that she was running for senator at that place, with the stage set up on one end the maximum capacity of the arena was 11,000.

The Wife was curious to see Trump, I declined and told her to take pictures. The photos show that the stage was set up, and unlike at that Hillary rally years ago the arena was not packed to capacity, there were a lot of empty seats. So I would say that about as many people showed up to see Trump that day as showed up to see Bernie at the Armory, maybe 8000 or at most 9000 people.

But one thing about those 8 or 9000 people at the Trump rally. The Wife started chatting with some of the people around her and discovered that a fair number of the attendees were like her, curious to see the show but having no intention of voting for Trump. Meanwhile I can report that every single person that I encountered in that line waiting to see Bernie Sanders was either one of his enthusiastic supporters or leaning in his direction.

Protestors Outside The Trump Rally In Albany Add To The Spectacle

Trump’s strategy with the big rallies is to use them as spectacles, as an extension of his TV persona. His supporters know him as a flickering image in their living rooms, but all of a sudden here is in our own town, a real person. This has proven to be effective reinforcement, entertaining spectacle plus contact with the candidate, not to mention stroking an egocentric brat in the way that he wants.

It’s starting to look like Hillary Clinton is going to get the Democratic nomination, edging out Mr. Sanders. Independent polls consistently show Mr. Sanders handily beating Trump, the reason appears to be primarily his rejection of Trump’s radical Corporatism in favor of true conservatism. But I would say Mr. Sanders’ use of canvassers and his holding of local rallies have worked around the negative machinations of the Corporate Media rather well to get that kind of result in the polls.

But Ms. Clinton barely leads Trump in the polls, single digits according to the latest surveys. She carries almost 3 decades of Corporate Media pounding, negatives and disinformation so outrageously vile that uninformed people seriously think she is about to be indicted for some crime any day now. Of course if you ask any of these people what she is going to be indicted for not a single one of them can give an answer. I’ve been asking them.

Bernie Sanders Hustling Into The Side Door Of The Armory In Albany

Assuming that Ms. Clinton gets the nod from the Democratic Party, it looks like she will run a traditional distant media driven campaign, not leaning heavily on using canvassers or holding local rallies. So far Trump has shown no inclination to use canvassers but he may very well continue to hold local rallies. This alone will put Ms. Clinton at a disadvantage in the general election.

The Corporate Media will continue to campaign for Trump, and it is very likely that Trump, who reportedly is broke, will do what is necessary to attract billionaire sponsors. Also consider how many states are practicing voter suppression and using easily hackable electronic voting machines with proprietary software. You can see why I think that a close election will fall in Trump’s favor, or rather be guided in his favor much like the 2000 presidential election was guided toward Dubya Bush.

And thus the federal government will finally be irrevocably discredited and the Constitution effectively overthrown, which is the ultimate goal of the elites. But today is a beautiful sunny Spring day, not too hot with cool breezes. I really should get up and go outside, we may not have too many more days like this.

November 30, 2018

And learning why Amazon is not always the best online alternative

So the other day I needed to buy some finished wall cabinets.  Nothing fancy or expensive, just some nice looking serviceable ones that do the job and aren’t all messed up from water damage like the old ones that they were replacing.  Because, you see, this is a first floor apartment and the problem with first floor apartments is that there is a second floor apartment above it where there are people living who over the years have been known to spill large quantities of water on their floor which trickles down onto the kitchen cabinets below and warp them out of shape.

You can sort of kind of fix the old cabinets after a water event like that, let them dry out and clean them and paint the shelves and attach a few things and make them okay.  But after several of these events you just have to realize that nothing more can be done to make them okay and that the cabinets have just become an embarrassment and it is time to replace them. Besides, they were kind of ugly to start with. So you pry the old ones off the wall and go out to buy new ones.

That’s where the problems began.  All I wanted was to replace what was already there, three cabinets above the sink, light oak finish, all of them 12 inches deep, two taller cabinets flanking a shorter cabinet sitting directly above the kitchen sink, the three altogether the same length as the sink cabinet which is 60 inches, five feet.  Nothing unusual or hard to find, should cost with tax no more than $300.

Ugly Old Water Damaged One Piece Cabinets Sitting In My Backyard Waiting For Trash Day

So the first place I went to was the Home Depot on Central Avenue in Albany.  I’m not a big fan of corporate big box stores in general, but a long time ago the big building supply outlets drove out of business all the local lumber yards and hardware stores, well, most of them.  The local businesses that have survived tend to have limited and specialized stock.  I support them as much as I can, but there are too many things you just can’t get anywhere except at the big corporate mega stores, cabinets being one of them.

I mean, these days if you tried to boycott all of the big retail corporations and never patronize any of them anytime for anything you’re going to end up sitting in a vacant lot stark naked pounding rocks into the dirt. Only a slight exaggeration there.  There’s a few corporations I’ve always boycotted like Nestles, which has a history of killing babies for profit and is now merged with Monsanto, another corporate horror show.  Can’t think of any others that I strictly avoid, there’s probably others.

I’ve even relaxed my boycott of Walmart, what other department stores are left?  Not that I care for them, the coffee maker I bought from then last summer only lasted three months.  Plenty of reasons to hate General Electric, for example the way they laughingly screw over their retirees and I will never forget their multi-million dollar PR campaign to avoid cleaning up their PCBs in the Hudson River.  But they make the best refrigerators and stoves and besides, the corporation is on life support because of decades of mismanagement.  

Home Depot Off Central Avenue In Albany

So there I was walking into the Home Depot and looking at their paltry collection of wall cabinets on their shelves.  They didn’t have anything that I wanted on display.  Of course I went looking for someone to help me but I might as well have been looking for magical unicorns serving ice cream.  Anyway, if you find somebody in one of those places willing to help and the item is not in stock, their instructions are to tell the customer to go look in another part of the store, where an employee there will tell you to look in still another part of the store, and this will continue until you either forget what you are doing and buy something else or give up and go home.  Seriously, that’s what they do in these places.

After standing around grumbling I decided to leave and go look at the Lowes in Selkirk (outside the South End of Albany) thinking to myself, No problem, surely they will have what I want. Well they did, almost.  The main competitor to Home Depot had two of the three items that I required sitting on the shelf.  I stared really hard and said out loud some things a bit earthier than gosh darn but that third item did not suddenly appear. (Actually, sometimes that works.)

I walked around looking for a magical unicorn dispensing ice cream or more irrationally a store employee to help me but no luck with either, employees only show up and offer to help when you have everything you need.  Eventually a woman employee came by and she assured me someone would be along to help me shortly.  I gave it ten more minutes or so and I was out of there.

Did Not See This Or A Helpful Employee

Next on the agenda was to visit the Home Depot out on Washington Avenue Extension, the one that destroyed 25 acres of prime Pine Bush, or the one across the river.  But first, before burning time and gas, I thought I would try something crazy.  I went home, sat down in front of my computer, and looked for what I wanted online.

Bingo.  It took me less than two minutes to find exactly what I wanted.  And here’s the best part.  The items I wanted were currently in stock at the Home Depot on Central Avenue, the very same one that I had just been to an hour or so earlier, the store where the cabinets were definitely not on display and where human assistants were as common as unicorns.  And if I ordered right now I could pick them up today.

I followed the instructions on the screen, entered my credit card and hit send.  In a moment I was informed that the items would be available today.  I checked back about twenty minutes later and was informed that my order was ready to be picked up now.

Yeah, So Like Two Of Those And Another That Matches

Oh humanity, what have you become.  That sounds like a quote from some literature or something, doesn’t it?  But it’s not.  The job of retail sales person has become so devalued in this age of big box stores that those who hold the job are no longer expected to actually sell.  In fact, I’m not exactly sure what they are supposed to do.  I’m beginning to suspect they are present in the store merely because customers expect to see human beings when they shop. 

In this brave new world of the 21st Century it is easier to deal with computers than human beings to get things done.  It is easier to deal with the idea of money rather actual real world representation so money (although some would argue that money has always been an unreal idea.) In simple everyday business transactions human beings have been pushed to the margins, it is easy to imagine that humans other than perhaps the customer may eventually be pushed out of the transactions altogether.

I thought about that fellow in an old cartoon I once saw who was standing at the back of a long line waiting to order a pizza.  But the line wasn’t moving because the guy taking orders kept answering the phone and ignoring the people waiting.  So the fellow whipped out his phone and called in his order to the front of the line.  That was me. 

The Small Item Pickup Corral At Home Depot The Next Day, Note The Lack Of Any Employees

Since it was late in the day I went the next morning to pick up my cabinets, which I had already selected and paid for remotely.  I found the pickup counter on one end of the store, an elaborate corral full of electronic equipment which also served as a home base for wandering employees, the ones who stocked shelves and moved things around etc.  I knew from past experience that it also sometimes served as an overflow checkout counter if the lines got too long and slow at the “contractor checkout” next to it. (That’s the one I always use.)

Of course there was only one young lady at the pickup counter and she was fussing interminably with some guy who was doing I don’t know what, picking up a bunch of small items and making extra purchases one by one all at the same time.  After a while she realized that she couldn’t mess with this guy all day and had to do something about the growing line of customers waiting their turns and blocking the nearby exit.  When she finally noticed me it became clear to me that she was bright and pleasant but totally inexperienced in running a counter like that all by herself.

I showed her my paperwork and she asked, “Is this a small item or a big item?”  I said something like, Um, they’re wall cabinets, not real big I guess.  She said, “The reason I ask is because this is the pickup counter for small items.  The pickup area for big items is down there, on the other end.”  She waved her hand vaguely into the vast receding depths of the store.

My Neighbor’s Xmas Lights Which Has Nothing To Do With Anything But Hey I Thought They Looked Pretty

She said, “Let me check.”  She turned to an array of three computer like devices arranged like the control for an aircraft and punched expertly into all three of them, scanning the results across all of them, then focusing on the screen of the large middle one.  “Okay,” she said, “Your items are at the other counter.  Let me go get a cart for you.”

To my amazement she abandoned her post with the waiting customers and clumped out  of the building exit to grab a rolly cart.  I scampered after her intending to be a total gentleman or something with the idea of pulling the cart for her but no, she had things well in hand and dragged the cart inside past her abandoned station with the other waiting customers and soon disappeared out of sight down the long aisle.

I stood there looking and feeling awkward while the other customers looked confused and after some time she reappeared coming down the aisle, this time pulling a smaller cart with my three cabinets piled neatly and my name slapped across the top in big letters. It seems that cart was all set since yesterday and waiting for me. She handed me the cart and my paperwork, told me nothing more needed to be done, and I thanked her profusely which she seemed to appreciate.

The New Wall Cabinets Installed

The big online ordering enterprise that everyone seems to have become accustomed to is Amazon, it has been overwhelming a lot of other somewhat smaller corporate enterprises.  Most people in my neighborhood use it, on trash day you can look in recycling bins and sure enough you can see those Amazon boxes with that smirk logo.  Amazon has created a new standard, you can buy anything you want and never leave your home, it comes right to you.

But is Amazon the best standard, or has it become the standard to beat?  There seems to be a widespread public perception that it is the best, but this story of the cabinets and some others I’ve heard have made me start to think otherwise.  What I’m seeing is that other corporations, such as Home Depot, have been scrambling to meet and to beat the challenge of convenient online ordering presented by Amazon.

Recently The Wife decided that Verizon’s painfully slow internet was unacceptable anymore and switched to Spectrum, which is much faster and cheaper.  But one problem, the wifi signal did not carry across to the back end of the house.  Thus we needed to purchase a booster, a box that catches the signal from the FM wifi transmitter and amplifies it for a farther area.

Wifi Booster Box Sitting On A Table Covered With All Kinds Of Crap

After a bit she found this lovely little device for $60, very similar to the one installed in our summer vacation cabin up north at Lake Sacandaga. (Yes, it is rough toughing it in the wilderness, but long gone are the days when I would sit in the parking lot of the Northville Public Library checking my email.) But here’s the thing, to get the booster box from Amazon would have taken 7 to 10 business days, or she could pay extra and get it in 3 days.  Instead, she bought it online from Best Buy and they delivered it overnight for no extra charge.

Overnight versus 7 to 10 days.  And it works great.  Consider that, this is a competitive marketplace at work, but who has heard of this apparently growing phenomenon?  I’m not a big fan of online shopping, I like to see the actual item I’m buying before I buy.  That is unless I know exactly what I want, like with the cabinets.

But the lesson I’ve learned this last week is that if I am going to buy something online to not automatically rely on Amazon, to look around for better alternatives before using them.  I think this must be because of their business model, I’ve heard that Amazon is mostly a secondary distributer that hands out a large majority of the orders it receives to secondary contractors. This inevitably results in delayed delivery, plus uncertainty as to the exact delivery time. 

Branches That Busted Off My Poor Dying Maple Tree During A Windstorm And Hung Suspended On The New Cable Strung Earlier That Day By The Comcast Installation Guy

If a locally based outfit has the item you want then that outfit can deliver much faster.  It’s not exactly supporting a local business, these are all large corporations. But dealing with them directly is cutting out a useless middleman, one that can be easily circumvented by an extra thirty seconds of online searching by the customer.  Or perhaps not even that. 

As for the cabinets, well, the first two went up on the wall fine but I was having trouble with the third because, it turned out, it was not put together exactly right and was a bit crooked, thus it didn’t line up properly with the others.  I had several options, including taking it back to the store and complaining bitterly and demanding another cabinet.  But it was easier to just do a small modification and it doesn’t look too bad.  Good enough for a town this size anyway.  

September 30, 2018

A local developer proposes a large residential project where no proposal has gone before

Well, it may finally have happened, what we’ve all, or most of us, have wanted to have happen.  A private contractor wants to build a major residential project in the heart of the South End, something other than a City financed low-income housing project. And it looks like the proposed development along with the developer is something that most people living nearby would really like to see happen.

There have been a whole bunch of residential development proposals in the City of Albany since Kathy Sheehan became mayor in January 2013, most of them large multistory complexes rather than smaller one to four unit homes.  The reason apparently has to do with money, such projects are more profitable to the developers while smaller ones at best barely break even, or so they say.  The residents of some neighborhoods are fine with big projects, but others, particularly uptown where single family houses predominate, often angrily object to these big projects appearing near their homes.  

But the South End is the one part of the City that hasn’t seen any of these proposals.  There are a variety of reasons for that, most of which could be summed up as economic malaise and abandonment caused by many decades of government sponsored anti-urban policies designed to destroy the South End.  Starting with the end of the last City administration those policies have not exactly been radically reversed, at least not yet, but the City has made some effort to lay the groundwork for attracting developers and businesses.  But up until now it hasn’t been enough.

Mr. Corey Jones Of South End Development

The developer proposing this project is Corey Jones, who has put together a company called South End Development to build and to maintain the buildings after they are built.  His proposal, which he said he’s been putting together for the last three years, is to build three residential towers of four stories each on a mostly empty lot at 76 Second Avenue. (The project is called The Seventy Six.) Each tower is to have 16 living units ranging from studios to 3 bedroom apartments, an ambitious undertaking to be sure. 

Now, the initial publicity for this proposal did not look good, to me and to others it sounded like some hit and run outside developer was trying to gentrify the neighborhood and push lower income people out.  The flyer being sent around, for example, called the project “A Southend [sic] Gated Community” and emphasized such things as security cameras, a wall around the buildings and armed guards.  The first impression was very much the kind of things you’d expect from a gentrifying developer running over the neighborhood to make a fast buck.

From The Terrible And Alarming Flyer
(Click on photo to see the whole thing)

But Mr. Jones did his best to let us know that he was not some interloper out to take advantage of the community.  For one thing, he was born and raised in the South End, he is anything but an outsider to many of the neighbors.  He had spent the last ten years managing “large federal projects” and feels that he is ready and has the expertise to bring his skills back to help the old neighborhood with his own first major project as a general contractor. 

“I want you to know,” he told us at a public meeting, “I’m here to stay.  My intention is to rebuild the South End. I love the neighborhood.  My sole purpose in life is to bring the South End up one block at a time.”  Perhaps this was hyperbole but his sincerity as he said these things sounded very genuine.

Most importantly, he also said, “I want to give people and businesses a reason to move into the South End, I don’t want to kick people out.”  This of course has been the ideal behind the City’s halting and scattered construction initiatives in the South End over the past decade, to “jumpstart” economic development by attracting private developers and businesses and thus creating jobs that will attract population.  As every observer has been forced to sadly admit, so far this has not happened to any significant degree.

Elijah Missionary Baptist Church

The well attended public meeting where Mr. Jones explained all this happened one evening in late September at Elijah Missionary Baptist Church at 74 Second Avenue, a beautiful old former Catholic church built in 1880 which is next door to the proposed project. I have to say that what I saw and heard assuaged a lot of my fears, especially noting how most of the immediate neighbors were actually enthusiastic about the proposal, seeing it as a much need and anticipated improvement.  I will say I have some questions and concerns about some of the details and about the scale of the proposal, but it looks like it could be exactly the kind of thing most people are hoping for.

76 Second Avenue, Next Door To The Church

The fascinating thing that I observed is something that I’ve seen before in public meetings about development proposals in the South End, there was a clear demarcation between the white people and the black people.  Most of the black folks were enthusiastic about the project, seeing it as exactly the kind of positive change the neighborhood needed.  But most of the white folks were opposed, they did not want these towers built in a neighborhood of mostly two and three family homes, they did not want to see this sort of change.

In other words, the white people didn’t want to see the character of the neighborhood changed, which I guess they feel attached to.  But the black people very much wanted to change the character of the neighborhood, which they clearly feel is stuck in decline.  Isn’t that interesting.  There were exceptions, but that’s pretty much how it lined up.

By the end of the meeting I was persuaded to have a positive view of the proposal for several reasons, one being that those who live and own property closest to the proposal want to see it happen and want Mr. Jones, whom they considered one of their own, to succeed.  As someone pointed out, having a developer who hails from the neighborhood is much preferable to having some big corporation exploit the area and run over the neighbors.  I’d never even heard of Mr. Jones before that evening so I can’t make any informed judgements on his integrity, but that the people who saw him grow up are willing to trust his promises and his vision are strong indicators that I have to respect.

Jahkeen Hoke Speaks While Common Council Member Dorcey Applyrs Listens

An interesting point was brought up by several people including by Jahkeen Hoke, who grew up nearby on Second Avenue.  Today Mr. Hoke is very much the consummate professional, his impressive resume includes working for the City of Albany, for the Albany Industrial Development Agency, and as a co-founder and Chief Development Officer of a non-profit that works with at-risk youth called 4th Family, along with being a co-founder of the Black Chamber of Commerce.  He always introduces me to other people as the guy who gave him his first job at age 12 wrangling the trash on Sunday nights at my properties, now he drives a fancy car and wears suits.

Mr. Hoke explained (I’m paraphrasing) that one of the running problems for young South End residents who have moved up the ladder like he has is that there is little incentive for them to stay in the South End and contribute to the community.  While there are plenty of (in my opinion) wonderful houses nearby that date back as far as the early 1800s, very few of these old buildings have been modernized and thus made attractive to those who are looking for something more upscale.  Thus because of the lack of attractive housing there is guaranteed to be a continuing brain drain out of the South End, very similar to the often noted problem of South End residents acquiring skills in various trades through City sponsored programs and immediately taking those skills elsewhere. 

Thus the problem of the South End continuing to be a not economically viable place comes down, according to Mr. Hoke and others, to housing, the solution being to provide a variety of housing that residents who acquire trades or succeed in management want for their homes.  One of the ideals among urban planners is the idea of mixed income communities as the desirable alternative to ghettoizing economic classes into rich ghettos, middle class ghettos, working class and poor ghettos.  And of course no one with any sense wants to continue to promote ghettos delineated by ethnicity or skin shade.

Dominick Calsolaro Raises Some Concerns

An objection to the apparently severe security for the building was raised by former Common Council member Dominick Calsolaro, who lives on a side street off Second Avenue a little ways up the hill, saying he was “personally insulted” by the implication that the neighborhood was that unsafe. In reply one nearby resident (whose name I didn’t catch) stated that she and every person who lives in the immediate neighborhood had had incidents happen to them or to their homes, and thus appreciate the high level of security.  This was met by strong applause, mostly by the black people at the meeting who lived nearby.  But I do agree that the surrounding wall, which will separate the buildings from the neighborhood, may prove to be counter productive.

Another point raised by Mr. Calsolaro was that the neighborhood is zoned for one to three family structures, there would have to be a zoning change approved by the Common Council.  Again, it was the black folks living nearby who had no problem with the size and height of the proposed buildings, but in particular one white couple in attendance, long time owners and occupants of a nearby historic building on Second Avenue, were deeply concerned about crowding out smaller buildings and people looking down into their back yard.  But for the majority in attendance, “changing the character of the neighborhood” was not seen as a threat but as something to be desired, as the neighborhood has been in such dire condition for so long.

Mr. Jones Gave Everyone A Chance To Speak

So yes, the apartments in this proposal are upscale.  They range from studios starting at $700 per month to 3 bedroom suites going for $2500, presumably on the top floor.  The rents include all utilities including wifi and parking and other amenities available to tenants.  However, one of the problems is that there does not seem to be enough parking spaces on the property to go around and some cars will have to go on the street, hopefully some parking for tenant’s cars can be found nearby so that parking can always be included as part of the rent as promised.

A certain number of apartments are reserved for low income tenants, Mr. Jones did not go into this but that is often a requirement of certain revenue sources and tax abatement programs.  There will be no ground level retail spaces, but Mr. Jones has an ambitious idea of putting a swimming pool and other amenities on the roof of the first building that he plans to construct, the idea being to both make this available to tenants and to rent out to receptions and such.  I suspect this will eventually prove untenable and be quietly jettisoned from the plan, but it certainly would be something if it got added.

Each apartment includes a washer and dryer, and if I understand correctly each unit unit has it’s own heater and comes with air conditioning.  This seems rather odd to me, wouldn’t it be more energy efficient to have a central heating unit and zone valves so each tenant can control the temperature.  For some reason it was never made clear that there would be central air conditioning, but that too would be the best way to go.

Freshly Laid New Sidewalk In Front Of The Site (Which The City Probably Shouldn’t Have Done)

Several people asked about solar panels and to my surprise Mr. Jones dismissed the idea.  A set of panels on the roofs of the buildings grid-tied would significantly reduce electric costs for the owner.  I strongly suspect that Mr. Jones does not want to add a solar system because he is much enamored of the idea of a swimming pool on the roof of the first building, and may have similar plans for the other buildings.

As for cost, I asked Mr. Jones after the meeting about what kind of money he needs to get the first building constructed, and his answer was that the figure was not determined yet but would fall between $1.9 and $2.5 million.  Right now he has acquired “about 50% to 60% of the land and is in negotiation for the rest,” confident that will be done.  This figure will also include initial preparations for the entire site, so presumably the cost of constructing the next two buildings will be less.

The biggest site preparation issue is water runoff.  I talked about this after the meeting with Nick Daniels of the almost politically required in the City of Albany engineering firm of Hershberg and Hershberg (which shows some good common sense by Mr. Jones that he retained them, one less obstacle.)  The runoff issues have been identified but the solutions have not yet been worked out with the City.

Nick Daniels Of Hershberg And Hershberg

Since this is a densely populated area it is essential that water from storms that falls on the site be channelled away from the street and away from nearby structures.  However, down here in the South End we have the notorious Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO), which means that the storm drains and the sewers are connected at various points so that the two systems can collect overflow from each other.  This was considered a good idea over a hundred years ago when the drainage systems were laid under the streets, this was also back when no one cared about the environment and all the dirty water just poured into the Hudson River.

So part of the site preparation involves installing catch basins under the ground. The idea is that if there is a “100 year storm,” which due to Global Warming seems to be happening every few years, water that falls on the site will flow into the basins first and only slowly flow into the storm drains, that way the drainage system in the vicinity won’t be overwhelmed.  The size and configuration of these basins have yet to be determined, this could contribute significantly to the overall startup costs.

The political landscape so far looks favorable.  The site of the project, to my surprise, falls into the First Ward.  Past decades of gerrymandering has cut up Second Avenue into a patchwork shared by the First and Second Wards.  This has traditionally been done by our civic leaders to intentionally divide neighborhoods so the citizens have less political pull that could threaten the power of elected officials, but never mind.

Site Plan (Click on the photo to see it a little better)

First Ward representative Dorcey Applyrs seems well disposed to the project, which is important if Mr. Jones wants a zoning change approved by the Common Council.  Ms. Applyrs, as is customary for her, stepped up about two thirds of the way through the meeting to take charge and make sure the meeting wrapped up on time and in an organized manner.  Also present was Second Ward Common Council member Derek Johnson who made sure to voice his approval of the project.  In addition such luminaries as Anne Pope, Carolyn McLaughlin and Pastor Avery Comithier who presides over this church gave their strong support.

The support of the neighbors is likely to be decisive.  The big danger for Mr. Jones is if one or more of the neighbors decide to file a lawsuit, which could cause delays and expenses that could easily finish off his plans.  I would strongly suggest to him that he identify those individuals who are opposed to the project or uneasy with it and very seriously work with them to deal with their concerns so as to head off this possibility.

Corey Jones Brings The Site Plan Into The Audience

So we shall see how this goes.  It’s terribly ambitious, and it’s a radical architectural departure for the immediate neighborhood, but these towers would certainly not be the only tall buildings in the South End.  The exterior is either brick or brick facade (that was not made clear) but I would like to see a better depiction of how these buildings will look from the street, will they be ugly or pleasing to the eye.  That’s important, ugly buildings can bring down a neighborhood much like abandoned buildings do.

We might very well see some modifications to the plan at the instigation of the City or because circumstances dictate, perhaps some scaling down or exterior changes to fit in better with the nearby architecture. These buildings will be with us until after all of us who attended this public meeting are long gone, so we need to see this done properly all around.  So far, or so it seems to me, we have a proposal that is worth considering that may be exactly what we have been looking for.

August 30, 2018

And an admiring consideration of the amazing unique littoral zones around the lake

One calm evening earlier this month just before the day ended I set out in my kayak on Great Lake Sacandaga to watch the sunset.  As it turned out the sunset itself was not very spectacular, maybe the upper atmosphere had less pollution than usual or something, who knows.  But although the sky directly above the lake was clear, the horizon all around me was populated by fantastic clouds that rapidly changed appearance as the sun rapidly dropped in the west.

The Top Of A Big Thunderhead

Like this one.  I didn’t realize what I was looking at until I saw a flash of lightning deep inside of it, a flash that was so far away that it made no sound that I could hear on the quiet lake.  This is the top of a thunderhead, which are enormous piles of moisture that begin close to ground and rise up into the stratosphere where the air gets thin, almost in outer space.  When they get close by where you are, you don’t see these lofty heights, the heads, you just get off the lake before you are pummeled with rain and struck by lightning.

This thunderhead was to the East, more or less opposite the sunset.  Since I was bobbing in my boat North and West of Albany, this thing must have been somewhere in Massachusetts over the Berkshire Mountains.  There was another one behind it to one side, I guess those folks who lived over there were having a wet evening.

Light And Dark

As the sun set, the angle of light that hit the clouds steadily shifted, causing some puzzling effects.  Some nearer clouds would be shrouded in darkness while distant clouds behind them would glow.  Probably there are clouds behind me, between me and the sun, casting a shadow on these clouds, but they are not big enough to darken the distant clouds.

Heavenly Bridge

This bridge across the sky, oddly enough, was sitting to the South somewhere past the Mohawk Valley and over or beyond the Capital District.  The glow behind it is puzzling, the sun was setting way off to the right almost behind this formation.  Maybe down that way there was more stuff in the air full of charged particles that glowed when hit with light.

Red Glow Far Away

The red glow showed up pretty much everywhere on the horizon except where the sun was setting.  Earlier in the day we’d had a whole herd of thunderheads pass over the lake and nearby, my theory is that they cleaned the upper air of suspended particles but had not gotten around to scrubbing the distant atmosphere on the horizon.  That was also the reason why the lake was so quiet, after the thunderstorms there was no one out on the water in their noisy motorboats, just me.

To The Right Of The Setting Sun

Like I said, the sunset itself was less than spectacular, I mean it was nice, but usually there are better.  The actual spot where the sun was descending was hidden by clouds, but to the right, toward the East, the light managed to break through so it wasn’t completely obscured.  I mean it was nice enough but compare it to this sunset photo I took 3 years earlier:

Sunset, 2016 Seen From Across Lake Sacandaga

Okay, you can’t always get jaw dropping spectacular like that but sometimes instead you can get a skyline full of nice subtle shades.  As the sun dropped behind the hills there seemed to be these strange alien creatures emerging from the clouds.  Like this one, which made me wonder if certain science fiction illustrators got their inspirations by gazing at the sky:

Strange Creature?

So the sunset was nothing special, but it was followed by Venus blazing spectacularly, and I think that was Jupiter following the sliver of Moon.  At first I thought Jupiter was Mars, but then I saw the unmistakably red wanderer appear off to my left as the light failed.  The stars and constellations emerged in the deepening darkness, and I paddled back to shore wishing I had left the porch light on at the cabin so I could see where the hell I was going.

A week or so earlier I had cast off at 4:30 in the morning to watch the sun rise and also watch the morning fog that often shrouds the Kenyon Islands, which are a short distance from our cabin a half hour to an hour paddle depending upon wind and waves.  It was a totally clear and still Monday morning and I got there fast.  Bats flitted around me, some zig zagging across the water probably looking for bugs, others traveling straight over my head like they had somewhere to go. Oddly. there didn’t seem to be much fog.

But I knew it was going to be one of those murderously hot days with temperatures in the 90s F.  I brought plenty of frozen bottles of water with me, along with a bottle of coffee and one of tea.  And sure enough, as the sun appeared above the hills I could see patches of fog starting to form as the sun’s first rays hit the moist air near the ground. 

Fog Forming Over The Islands

Now, this was rather unusual.  What I’d normally seen in the past was that the fog would form before dawn and slowly dissipate into parches billowing over the water as the sun climbed into the sky.  But this day the fog was forming in the hills after the sun rose and spreading into the lower elevation lake with the rising sun.  As I approached the islands the day was clear and bright, but shortly after I landed visibility began to disappear.

Morning Fog Descending

The fog spread across the hills and the sun became less visible as it rose. Then the fog thickened above me like a low hanging cloud and then just like that came down and surrounded me.  I didn’t see it arrive, I think it just formed out of the air around me.

Fog Thickens With The Sun

I don’t know much about how all this works, but I do know the fog is caused by the contrast between the temperature of the water and the temperature of the air.  I did note that the water was warm before the sun rose, which is probably why there was no fog before dawn. A bubble of warm air sits over the lake when the water is warm, it acts as a barrier that keeps cooler air off the lake.

And Then There Was Fog

Interestingly, the air was somewhat cool when I set out at 4:30, cooler than the water.  But we all knew from repeated predictions that this was going to be a scorching hot day, well into the 90s F on the lake and close to 100 F back in Albany.  So it seems that murderously hot day was all ready to start right on schedule at dawn and it pushed rapidly warming air over the lake.

The Fog Dissipates

The morning was well along when I finally started to see patches of blue sky through the fog.  The good part about this was that the fog protected me from that killer sun and kept me reasonably cool.  And really, when the fog vanished I should have headed back to the cabin and gotten out of that sun.

But no, foolishly I hung out at the islands and paddled around them looking for various landing spots.  You see, I was looking with fascination at the littoral zones, which is what we call that shore areas that are sometime covered with water and sometimes are not, a fancy name for the beach.  I stayed out doing this into the afternoon until I was seriously sunburned and had developed sunstroke, which took me three days to recover from.  Not smart.

The Bald Eagle Nest I’d Found Last Year

Around midday I was looking for the bald eagle nest that I’d managed to find last year, but this year I couldn’t find it again.  I know they return to the same nests every year, and I knew about where I’d found it, but after three expeditions I had no luck.  I was worried that maybe the eagles had not returned, but on the last expedition I saw one of the bald eagles circling at the end of the island where I think it lives.  I didn’t bother to follow the bird because I know that they don’t let themselves be seen when they are near their nests.

A Sacandaga Littoral Zone

The littoral zones around Great Sacandaga come in many varieties and are amazingly complex, possibly a unique collection.  This is because unlike most bodies of water the size of these zones and the times they appear are unpredictable.  That is, unpredictable to the living things that try to eke out an existence upon them, not so much to the humans that control the appearance of the littoral zones.

You see, the water levels of the lake are controlled by a dam, which in turn has been controlled since around the beginning of this century by the Canadian corporation Brookfield.  This outfit was handed ownership of the turbine on the dam along with the power to regulate lake levels as part of a corrupt privatization scheme.  These foreign privateers have no interest in the condition of the lake or in the people who live and vacation along its shores, they are only interested in having enough water stored in the lake to keep the turbines that they control generating a profit for them.

Thus in recent years the corporation has kept the water levels much too high, resulting in damage to the lake and causing unnecessary flooding in the upper Hudson River.  But this year the water levels were much lower than past years, perhaps because of growing political pressure forcing the Brookfield corporation to grudgingly act somewhat responsibly.  For this reason the littoral zones were the biggest I’d seen them in August for many years.

Littoral Zone Ends At The Trees

On the larger islands the littoral zones end where the trees begin.  Often one can see a well defined border where the sand of the littoral zone stops at a shelf of forest mulch.  Trees grow out of the mulch close to the border and bare driftwood is deposited on the sand along the border by the now retreated water.  Most of the trees on the islands, by the way, are young.  Before when the lake was flooded in 1930 these were all farmer’s fields.

But really, it occurs to me that one could make a lifetime study of these unique Sacandaga littoral zones.  The more I looked at them this trip the more I realized how complex they are and how little I understood.  What I do know is that these littoral zones are a harsh, unforgiving environment for the plants that manage to survive here, survive rather than thrive.

Some Dicey Looking Clouds

I had this notion of talking all about these littoral zones that I’d been observing, but that wasn’t going to work.  I would have had to talk coherently about the varieties of landscapes, the fields of rocks, the quicksand, the sandy beaches where people gather on weekends, the isolated pools, the variety of plants that show up in one place but not another and so much more.  I decided a better idea was to talk about all the clouds that I was gaping at.  That was an easier subject.

Seagull Convention, Great Lake Sacandaga

 

 

July 29, 2018

The installation of an innovative
living phytoremediation river cleaning machine

On a steamy wet Thursday morning at the end of July I threw my kayak into the back of my pickup and brought it down to Island Creek Park, which is on the Hudson River waterfront next to the Port of Albany.  Not something I do too often in the middle of the week, but this was a special occasion, the Floating Island Release Party.  Since I take a keen interest in the spillage of raw sewage into the Hudson River along the South End I had to be sure to be there.  And I even got to help out a little bit.

Rain had been falling earlier that morning like it had been all week but it didn’t look like the event was going to be cancelled.  Scott Kellog of the Radix Center, the South End’s innovative urban farm, is not the sort to let a little rain upend his plans, or in this case a sky that looked like it would open up and drown us any second.  As it turned out the rain held off until the end of the event, after the Floating Island had been released into the river and functioning to his satisfaction.

Scott Kellogg Of Radix Center Contemplates The Newly Assembled Floating Island

Mr. Kellog and his partner Stacy Pettigrew began the Radix Ecological Sustainability Center in 2009 on several adjacent empty lots covered with decaying asphalt, located on the other side of Lincoln Park from my house.  Since then they have built an impressive two story almost fossil fuel free greenhouse for year round cultivation, laid out an array of above ground garden plots that yield a surplus of vegetables each year, and maintain a pen full of farm animals that all have names so you know they get treated well and don’t get eaten.

The Radix farm has built mutually beneficial relationships with the City government and with various City agencies, with the local public schools, with nearby colleges and universities, with various local businesses, and of course with the surrounding neighborhoods of the South End.  Their purpose according to their website “is to promote ecological literacy and environmental stewardship through educational programs based around demonstrations of sustainable technologies.”  I would add that the Radix farm is an excellent example of an economic driver built by hard work and innovation, of finding an unnoticed niche and using it to fill a community need.

The Deck Of The Floating Island Ready To Go

I arrived at Island Creek Park about 9:30AM a half hour before the scheduled launch of the Floating Island to find that the participants in the project, the majority of them young students, were already there along with most of the device.  The last pieces arrived by pickup truck just as I did and they were carefully lifted out of the bed and laid on the grass next to the other pieces.  It was a strange and wonderful collection of objects.

Fortunately a young lady named Justina was announcing that she was there to explain how the Island worked for anyone who was interested, so I interviewed her.  A chemistry major at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, she had actually worked on the design of the Island during her last semester.  Now as part of the City of Albany Summer Youth Program she split her time this summer between working on this project and teaching others in the program.

RPI Chemistry Major Justina Who Helped Design The Island

That last bit was very interesting to me.  A little later former Common Council member Dominick Calsolaro, who had come to watch, told me that this sort of active educational partnership had become the norm in the City Youth Program after Kathy Sheehan became mayor in 2015.  Many of us remember all too well how the summer youth program operated under her predecessors, groups of kids being paid to roam around the City parks and pick up litter, but mostly goofing off instead of diligently carrying out their busywork.  This now seems a much better use of my tax dollars, assigning young people to help and learn with the urban farm.

Justina explained that the purpose of the Island is phytoremediation.  That’s a big word my spell checker doesn’t like, but it expresses a process that may very well be one of the keys to a safe and happy future for us all.  Certainly this innovative device sounds like a straightforward practical way to clean up the river flowing past the South End or any body of water.  From Wikipedia:

Phytoremediation (from Ancient Greek meaning ‘restoring balance’) refers to the technologies that use living plants to clean up soil, air, and water contaminated with hazardous contaminants.  It is defined as “the use of green plants and the associated microorganisms… to either contain, remove or render toxic environmental contaminants harmless”.

July 14, 2018

A lovely place to paddle, a dying economy and a
suggestion on how to revive the village

The Wife and I are always looking for new bodies of water into which we can throw our boats.  So with extraordinary effort we got up early on a Sunday morning to drive the boats to a place I’d heard about all my life but never visited, Caroga Lake.  The lake and the village alongside it is just inside Adirondack Park in Fulton County, a mere hour and ten minutes from Albany.

The State boat launch was easy to find, eight bucks for a day pass, and because we dropped our boats into the water before 9:30 we got to enjoy the lake before the day got too hot and before it filled with annoying motor boats and jet skis. This is the main reason why we try to be early, the weekend summer vacationers tend to not get up early.  After Noon the roaring of engines becomes constant and the waves kicked up by speedboats become impossible to avoid, that’s when we head back to where we launched and call it quits.

But we also discovered that this lake, and the Village of Caroga Lake that sits along the shore, is in serious decline.  The word impoverished comes to mind.  While the old and relatively small vacation houses that line the shore are kept in good to excellent shape, the community itself that sits behind them is clearly struggling.  And a little further inland along Highway 29A, almost all the businesses are shuttered except for a couple of roadhouse bars.

Year-Round Cabins Along Caroga Lake

Caroga is actually two lakes, called East Caroga and West Caroga.  They are divided by a causeway, and the lakes have just one water connection between them, a narrow underpass that only allows small boats.  The biggest boats we saw were pontoons, which are basically a deck sitting on a pair of flotation tanks that kick up a serious wave when their motors are full throttle, but none of them could have passed through this opening.

This of course was fine with us, the boat launch is in the East lake and the town in the West lake.  Our plan was to circumnavigate the East lake and then zip over to the village on the other lake to land the boats on a convenient shore and, oh I dunno, find a place to have coffee, look around a bit, that sort of thing.  It’s something we like to do, paddle around for a bit and find some dockside amenity where we can stretch our legs and get the blood circulating in our butts again after sitting in the boats.

The Wife Heads Into An Uninhabited Portion Of Caroga Lake

A lot of lakes we go to are overly built up along the shore, all too often choked with rich people’s McMansions that hardly ever get used.  On these lakes we can often see smaller cabins that were built in the middle of the 20th century by middle class and working class people.  All too often these cabins are bought up and torn down and the properties consolidated to accommodate the new unlovely empty McMansions.

Surprisingly, we only saw a few McMansions here, and those were relatively small.  Hundreds of older more comfortable human-scaled cabins dominated the shoreline.  While looking at them, a childhood memory came back to me of listening to the adults talking about Caroga Lake, how crowded it was and why would anyone go up there.  Of course, these adults that I was listening to were just jealous of not having lakeside cabins of their own, I realize that now.

These cabins were nice to look at, most of them year round houses by the looks of them.  Unlike the cavernous McMansions most are not much bigger than the two bedroom cabin we stay in at Great Sacandaga Lake every year.  I noted that the cabins on Caroga were as close together as the houses in my Albany South End neighborhood. 

A Few, Smaller McMansions

Caroga Lake is still a vacation spot of the middle and working classes.  But in the first decade of this century, because of changes to laws governing the distribution of wealth in this country, the solvency of the middle and working classes has collapsed.  Thus here in this place where us lower classes still dominated and the overly rich have not yet moved in and taken away the land, decay and signs of poverty are now starkly illustrated.

This is Fulton County which has one of lowest median incomes in the State, even though it is right next to Saratoga County which has, if I recall correctly, the third highest median income behind Manhattan and Westchester.  This stark disparity is the intentional result of the federal government’s financial restructuring of our society, which in this century has resulted in vast areas of mostly invisible poverty practically within a stone’s throw of rich ghettos like Saratoga.  Yet unlike the rich ghettos these impoverished places somehow have to be searched for, just as we stumbled upon this one.

Flowering Lily Pads

The lake, as I said, was lovely that Sunday morning.  It is surprisingly shallow, only 13 feet at its deepest and thus impassable to large boats, these conditions allowed some sizable beds of white and yellow water lilies to thrive.  The flowers were in bloom all over the place among their islands of floating leaves.  At one point I approached what looked to me from a distance like sun dazzled white puffballs floating on the water, up close they were a water field of white flowers.

White Water Lily Flower… How Did I Take Such A Great Photo

The State stocks fish as it does in all the sizable Fulton County lakes, smallmouth bass, pickerel, brown bullhead, yellow perch, pumpkinseed and interestingly a different kind of trout in each of the two lakes.  We only saw a few small fish darting about, and we didn’t see a lot of early morning fishing.  A guy in a fishing rig who seemed to be heading back in told me that the fishing had been “pretty good this past week.”

The Sole Water Connection Between East And West Caroga Lake

We passed through the water underpass.  This causeway was built across what was once a single lake and today carries Route 10.  But why was it built, why divide the lake like that?  The histories available online are sketchy, but very likely this was to create water power for mills by raising the water level of one side of the lake.

The inlet, Mead Creek, trickles down from the mountains into the West lake, while the outlet, Caroga (or Garoga) Creek flows from an arm of the East lake.  In the 1800s sawmills predominated along with grist mills and several other kinds of mills.  Logging and farming were the main sources of income for the area.  By the 20th century the local trees had all been cut and the farms had mostly folded, that’s when tourism became the main economy.

The Beach At Sherman Park, Recently Placed Sign Stapled To A Pole, And An Official Metal No Swimming Sign By The Water

After we paddled through the causeway we headed along the village side of the West lake to the amusement park.  The park was once well known, the major shoreline amenity and destination for day vacationers.  But now it is abandoned, a sad hulk, a reminder of the now lost tourism prosperity that still barely sustains this region.

Next to the shuttered main building of the amusement park was an excellent stretch of shore where we could easily land our boats.  We quickly realized our landing spot had once been a carefully maintained sandy beach, an abandoned destination in itself.  Posted signs informed us that we could not swim there because there was no lifeguard on duty.

Eastern Tiger Swallowtails

Since the level of the lake appeared to be pretty stable, the beach was reverting back to nature.  The low lying ecosystem that had developed resembled Albany’s Pine Bush a few years after a clearing or a controlled burn.  The sand was colonized with grass and clumps of wildflowers in bloom, along with what looked like garden flowers that had gone feral. 

Swallowtails Sipping Nectar

All along this beach (and along a nearby private beach where we briefly landed) we saw these amazing big yellow butterflies with black edges sunning themselves and working the blooming flowers for nectar.  These turned out to be the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, which can have a wingspan of more than six inches.  This must have been the weekend that they emerged from their pupae, many were sunning themselves like new butterflies do.

I watched one swallowtail harass a couple of other swallowtails and repeatedly get chased off, I wondered if this was macho posturing or was it sexual harassment. While out on the water we saw some of the swallowtails fluttering furiously across the West lake, a crazy  senseless thing that butterflies often do. If they get tired and touch the water they’re done for.  We speculated that they know enough to not get wet but are unable to tell the difference between a creek and a lake.

We walked around the abandoned amusement park buildings, which we discovered was called Sherman Park.  The closed and boarded buildings were intact, not at all in an advanced state of decay, and the grounds kept orderly.  All the rides had been removed except for this one small vintage ferris wheel that was preserved behind a surrounding fence as a kind of monument.

The Vintage Ferris Wheel, Note The Carefully Kept Grounds

A complex of abandoned buildings is sad and fascinating to see.  I found a flyer tacked inside a glass case on the side of one building announcing the music schedule for the 2005 season, so that probably means the place shut down for the season later that year and didn’t reopen for 2006.  I noted that fireworks were scheduled for July 2nd, rain date July 3rd. And the late bluesman Ernie Williams was scheduled to perform on July 30. 

Peering Through The Window

If the place had not gone under we could have had our dockside coffee and maybe a bite while we looked out at the water and watched the yellow and black butterflies.   According to a posted price list for Sherman’s Pub we could have had a cheeseburger for $4, a tossed salad for $3.50 or chicken wings for $5.  Peering in the window of the main building we could see an elaborate dining and drinking establishment, all in disarray but surprisingly showing no signs of either looting or water leakage.

No Ice Cream For Us Today

An interesting thing I noticed here and later at the other abandoned buildings out on Route 29A was that the grass around the buildings was being mowed this Sunday morning by what looked like older residents using their own lawn mowers.  I didn’t talk to or deign to photograph any of them but I suspect that these folks were doing this on their own, not likely anyone was going to pay them.  At the Sherman’s complex we even saw flower garden plots kept neat and in full bloom.

Caroga is a village full of old people, the median age for permanent residents is 59.6.  And it is almost completely white, allegedly only 88.4% but we sure didn’t see any people of color.  The village has the lowest median income in Fulton County and the lowest hourly wages.  So many old folks populating this place makes me think that if the filth who are right now in control of the federal government successfully eliminate Social Security they will immediately plunge this community into much deeper poverty, the kind of poverty where people starve.

Prosperous Cabins

Having seen enough we cast off from the beach and headed back through the underpass and finished the last bit of circumnavigating of the East lake.  As expected it was getting hot and the motorized boats were starting to buzz around us in quantity.  But for a sunny Sunday afternoon in July the boats were surprisingly few.

The State provides excellent well maintained facilities, campgrounds with full amenities and a fine day use beach.  But many of the camps were empty, and to my astonishment I could see that the beach only had a small number of users in the afternoon when we were heading back.  I’ll tell anyone that if you are looking for a beach that doesn’t get overcrowded during peak times on summer weekends or are looking for a low impact Adirondack campsite you don’t have to get on a waiting list for then head up to Caroga.

After loading the boats on the car we headed up to the highway looking for a place to maybe have a light lunch.  Instead we found empty buildings that once were businesses, abandoned in the last ten years.  I would guess that after Sherman’s Amusement Park went under in 2006 these other businesses followed.

“Thee Country Store” Out On 29A

What can be done about Caroga’s terrible economy, which can only get worse if something doesn’t change?  After years of contemplation by their leading citizens, in 2011 and again in 2013 the Town of Caroga came up with a comprehensive plan that centered mainly on the Village of Caroga.  Thankfully the State appears to have paid for this thing.  The colorful document gives us plans for the village:

This commercial center will be known as Town Center. Town Center will be located near and around the former Sherman’s Amusement Park. Town Center will be a walkable, integrated open-air, multi-use development where residents and visitors will be able to gather, socialize, eat, live, drink, recreate, shop, visit, exercise and enjoy its attractive streetscape and landscaping. It will be anchored by retail, dining, and leisure uses, as well as by recreational and residential uses and be the most diverse area of the Town.

June 28, 2018

The City of Albany is still trying to
get rid of the proposed site of Jerry’s Dump

Of all the ridiculous messy stinking problems that former mayor Jerry Jennings left current City of Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan to clean up when she took over City Hall, disposing of the three adjacent parcels of land owned by Albany in the Town of Coeymans in the southern part of Albany County has perhaps been the most persistently odorous.  Well into her second term, Mayor Sheehan continues to spend way too much time trying to find some way to dispose of this frightful waste of City taxpayer money. Perhaps the mayor’s efforts may finally be heading for a sanitary resolution, unfortunately we can’t yet say for sure.

Now, I don’t want anybody’s eyes to glaze over, so here’s the quick read teal deer version of the history behind this sordid mess.  Shortly after taking office as mayor in 1994, Jennings started buying up 363 acres of fallow farmland, woodland and wetlands in Coeymans with City of Albany taxpayer money so that he could plant a gigantic garbage dump that he expected would be enormously profitable.  That’s right, a garbage dump.  Anticipating those profits, he eventually paid three Coeymans landowners the ridiculous sum of $5.2 million of taxpayer cash for land that was worth maybe, at most, half a million dollars.  Maybe.  What landowner would refuse such inflated offers?  Of course they sold him the land.

But certain citizens of Coeymans, led by former Albany resident Jim Travers, got together and hired Save the Pine Bush’s former lawyer Lew Oliver and easily stopped the construction of the new dump on environmental grounds.  Angry as a hornet and true to form, Jennings did not even try to dispose of the now useless property while continuing to pay debt maintenance on the land… with taxpayer money of course.  Since the mid 1990s, Albany has been paying Coeymans about $100,000 a year in property and school taxes alone, which Kathy Sheehan has been stuck paying.

Property Owned By The City Of Albany In The Town Of Coeymans

Asking current City of Albany officials about the ongoing efforts by the City to get rid of the land has been like talking to stop signs and about as informative.  I suppose this is understandable. Surprisingly, the best source of information about the ongoing attempts to dispose of the land come from the normally unreliable Hearst-owned Times Union, which is always ready to emphasize anything that makes the City of Albany and especially Mayor Sheehan look bad.

At a recent public meeting I asked Common Council President Corey Ellis about the status of the land, he claimed total ignorance which I find very unlikely.  At another meeting I asked City Auditor Susan Rizzo about the finances involved, since that is totally her area of concern.  Her very friendly demeanor became cold as ice as she first tried to divert the question and then when I pressed her for an answer she also feigned ignorance while firing a deadly glare at me.

So earlier this month I was able to get Mayor Sheehan to comment in public.  It seems she is currently negotiating with the State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to buy the land, which she claims she is confident will happen.  Ah yes, I’ve heard her say that before.  In past years she has been so confident of impending sales that she has even included the anticipated revenue from the sales in several of her proposed yearly budgets. Which also makes me wonder how she managed to make up for those shortfalls when the sales fell through, but to her credit somehow those gaps got quietly closed.

Mayor Kathy Sheehan

One thing the mayor did not tell me was how much she hoped the State would pay for the land this time around, presumably to make it into a preserve.  Back in 2015 she told me it was a done deal that the State would pay $3.6 million for the land, but I got the distinct impression that she considered that an embarrassing loss from the original price her predecessor had paid.  That deal fell through, I’ve heard no reason why.

But we can guess the reason with a fair amount of certainty.  The State must have taken a hard look at the land and realized that it wasn’t worth anywhere near $3.6 million and balked at the price.  Ms. Sheehan, perhaps hoping to not take an even bigger bath on the sale price, may not have been interested at that time in reducing the price down to the relative pittance that the land is actually worth.  Or possibly the State just turned up its nose, said nope and walked away refusing to negotiate with her. They do that often enough.

After that fell through I heard some ever lowering figures for the land being tossed around but nothing for sure until the City announced that it had found a buyer for the property who was willing to pay the much more reduced price of $620,000, which sad to say is still kind of high.  Apparently by this time the mayor was ready to take any price, this time from an adjacent landowner.  That buyer would be the notorious developer Carver Laraway.  Or would have been.

Edge Of The City Of Albany Property Along Old Ravena Road At Right, Privately Owned Fallow Farm Field At Left

Maybe this is a good place to stop and discuss this property.  A few weeks ago I took The Wife for a drive down to Coeymans to look at the land, not at all sure what we would see or even if we could get near it. We discovered that there was nothing stopping us from looking at it all we wanted, no barriers other than a few faded No Trespassing signs here and there which didn’t bother me because I figured I was a part owner of this land with my taxes and had every right to inspect it.

Turns out there are only two small access points where you can enter the three adjacent properties from public roads.  One access is a strip of lovely woodland on the west side of the Albany properties along Old Ravena Road off of Route 9W, the main local highway through these parts.  This short strip, which is all of 387.5 feet, is between a fallow field adjacent to an old well-kept farmhouse, and on the other side of the strip there’s a barricaded driveway that leads into the LaFarge Cement property next to 9W. We could see some of the LaFarge earthmoving equipment sitting just inside.  

Seeing no way to enter the land at Old Ravena Road except bushwhacking, we drove around to the east side of the property along Route 144, looking for an entry onto the property that we could see on the Albany County tax map called Stylababrack Road. No, that is not a typo caused by me hiccuping while I type.  We figured that if this road really existed (not a certainty with tax maps) and was not barricaded off, then according to the map I’d printed off my computer at home it allowed access deep into the property.

The Wife Looks Back Down Stylababrack Road Toward The Thruway

Turns out that Stylababrack Road is unpaved and from the looks of it not maintained very well, a couple of deep ruts near the entrance that The Wife’s less than a year old car was having trouble navigating. Next time we visit I’m bringing my higher-off-the-ground pickup.  But somehow I managed to slowly drive her car along the ruts without scraping bottom much.

We only drove a short ways to a spot where we could see that other vehicles had parked and turned around, even though the road improved after that and we could have gone a lot further.  It’s really a nice piece of land, perfect for a preserve. The fields alongside the road looked marshy so we didn’t venture to walk onto them, we were dressed for a Sunday ride and not an expedition into the muddy wilderness.  Reportedly, about 60% percent of the property is wetlands, which limits what you can do with the land and as a practical matter precludes using most of it as a dump.

We did walk up the road a little ways, we could see some brush and tree clearing had been done but not recently, maybe five or ten years ago. From the map we could see that the access road did not bring us up to Coeymans Creek which winds through the property in an S curve on its way to the Hudson. Further upstream in Feura Bush is a plastics plant that has been dumping toxic waste and heavy metals into the creek, we can only wonder how much this has damaged the wetlands here and how much of that poison ends up in the Hudson. 

Approaching The Stylababrack Road Thruway Underpass, Seen Through A Dirty Windshield

Shortly after driving onto Stylababrack Road we encountered an astonishing thing.  The New York State Thruway runs through the property close to Rt. 144 at this point where the road enters the land, and we had to go through an underpass to get past the Thruway.  The short tunnel looked to be in good shape, the concrete that is lining it not at all decaying.  Clearly it must have been put there when the Thruway was built in the 1950s so the then landowner could have access to his or her land.  Yet it looked pretty good after 60 years, could it possibly have been re-surfaced some 15 or 20 years ago.

But here’s the thing, the tunnel is small and narrow. It’s barely big enough for one full sized municipal garbage truck to squeeze through.  Larger trucks and big earthmoving equipment could not possibly fit. And one thing we know for sure is that no matter how much influence Jerry Jennings imagined that he had, there was no way the State was going to build him a bigger tunnel here.  So this could not have functioned as the primary access to the land, although it is quite possible that Jennings imagined that it could have.

Which means that either Jennings was hoping to buy more land for his dump east of Rt. 144, or that the 387.5 feet of land along Old Ravena Road was the spot where there was going to be a steady stream of garbage trucks entering and leaving at all hours seven days a week, coming off of Rt. 9W.  The more I looked at this property the more I thought, “What the hell could the guy have been thinking?”

Decaying Cut Logs Along Stylababrack Road

You see, to make the kind of big profits he must have had in mind, Jennings would have had to have a lot of garbage hauled in from all directions.  He wanted this to be the dump to end all dumps.  Supposedly this would benefit the City of Albany taxpayers, but we can reasonably assume that this business model would have benefited him personally, eventually making him a powerful big man.  Very likely that was his main incentive.

But would trucks full of garbage been enough to make this dump profitable? We noted that active train tracks also ran through the property, another way to deliver garbage.  But it has always appeared to me that only one thing would have made this property a fabulous source of cash. and that would have been if this dump could have found a way to accept a whole lot of garbage from New York City via the Hudson River.  

That would have meant the property needed access to the Hudson.  Barges full of crap floating up the river and unloading at Coeymans would have gone a long way to solving NYC’s ongoing garbage crisis, which was particularly acute in the 1990s when Jennings first came up with this plan.  But that meant he needed a port so that the garbage could be unloaded.  There was an unused and rundown port already on the river, but rebuilding it was quite a bit beyond his capabilities.

Carver Laraway

That’s where Carver Laraway comes in.  It was back in 2001 that Laraway bought the land situated between the location of Jerry’s Future Dump and the Hudson River, bought with the intention of rebuilding a decrepit port that was part of a defunct brickyard. The timing is right, I think it very likely that Jennings and Laraway were wheeling and dealing at this point. Or rather that Jennings imagined that he was dealing, Laraway turned out to be the bigger shark who eats characters like Jennings for lunch.

We know for a fact that the two of them were working together at this time.  It seems that Laraway wanted to build an asphalt plant, somewhere, anywhere.  In the year 2003, Jennings told him that a great place to locate an asphalt plant would be on the north end of the Port of Albany about where the Global oil tanks are currently located, close to the neighborhoods of the South End.  It was a perfect spot, with easy access to highways, rail and of course the river.

Only one little problem.  Asphalt plants are serious polluters, and there would be a steady stream of truck traffic in and out of the facility that would pass through Albany neighborhoods.  This spot along the river is the lowest point in Albany and very densely populated.  According to various health agencies, because it is a low point it had and still has some of the worst air quality in the region.

Standing On South Pearl Street Near The Family Dollar Looking Toward The Approximate Location Of The Proposed Asphalt Plant

What Jennings didn’t count on was that the entire South End would rise up to oppose this asphalt plant, including elected officials.  After automatically approving the original proposal like it usually does, the State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) was forced by outraged public demand to reopen the case and hold a public hearing.  After listening to pretty much unanimous opposition from the hundreds of people who packed the auditorium at Giffen Elementary Public School, the DEC was forced to rescind their “positive declaration” and admit that yes indeed asphalt plants may possibly in fact have an impact on the environment and this one ought to examined for toxicity and pollution in the proper legal manner.

This meant that Laraway would have to submit a proper Environmental Impact Statement, which meant the effective death of the project.  Oh, it was glorious.  Laraway and his now deceased prime investor Elias Wiesal sat there in the auditorium grimacing and listening to speaker after speaker holler at the DEC officials for casually approving this assault on our health and well-being.  Jennings was smart enough to stay away from the hearing.  It was a humiliating moment for him. All of us low-born citizens and elected officials convincingly demonstrated to Jennings’ erstwhile business partners that he was not in control of the situation and couldn’t deliver on his promises.

But Laraway, wily shark that he is, didn’t sit back and depend on Jennings to deliver the goods.  Several weeks before this watershed moment in the history of Jerry’s 20 Year Reign, Laraway and his lawyer Donald Zee (well known to Save the Pine Bush as a developer’s mouthpiece) sat down at a table with a dozen or so of us concerned citizens to, supposedly, explain his asphalt plant proposal to us and to reassure us that it was a benign thing that would enhance the neighborhood.  In reality, their purpose was to gauge the depth and effectiveness of the opposition among us neighbors.

Jerry Jennings In 2013 At The End Of His Fourth Term

The other concerned neighbors around that table were a bit too hesitant and polite. Most of what I heard from them that afternoon concerned truck traffic, a valid concern but not the main problem, which was the steady diet of deadly fumes and godawful noise that would emanate from this proposed outpost of Hell day and night.  Laraway was indeed forced to concede to us that he had grossly understated the volume of truck traffic on his environmental impact form, but that was hardly a decisive factor as he well understood.

It was my rude questions that showed me his measure.  For example, I asked him about the volume of particulates generated by the facility, those particles smaller than 10 microns that enter your lungs but tend to not leave.  I asked about a lot of such things that didn’t appear on his environmental impact form.  Laraway and Zee repeatedly replied that they had no idea what I was talking about and that such questions were too technical for them to answer.

I started to get tired of the two of them pretending to to be ignorant. Finally I asked Laraway, “I see you live in Altamont [which is in western Albany County.] Would you want to have this facility sited next to your house?”  Shifting in his seat and forming a grimace across his face that was meant to be a smile, he said, “Yes, I would.”

I took copious notes of this meeting and fashioned them into an email, which I immediately spread all over the South End and beyond to anybody who had a computer hooked up to the internet.  Back in 2003 email was still cutting edge technology, utilizing this newfangled wonder to spread vital information like this was still rare and surprising.  But it had a tremendous effect. I heard a lot of details from it quoted at that public meeting at Giffen Public School. And yes, it turns out I still have that email.

The Port Of Coeymans Today

Since then we have seen that Laraway is no fool, after that meeting he dropped the South End asphalt plant proposal.  He has indeed rebuilt the port at Coeymans on the riverside property next to Jennings’ planned dump that he had bought, word is that it is thriving.  And he did indeed build, or rather acquired and refurbished an old asphalt plant far away from Albany.  And he had no more use for Jennings, who angrily continued to pile imported garbage onto the Rapp Road Dump in the Pine Bush.

So we have to wonder why Laraway decided to buy the 363 acres of adjacent land from Kathy Sheehan, what did he have in mind?  The property is, like I said, some 60% wetland and there is not much you can do with such land without running into problems with regulatory authorities.  And angry citizens, of which Coeymans has a fair number.  

Which also again begs the question, what was Jennings thinking with his dump plan?  My suspicion is that he had dollar signs blinding his eyes and didn’t really think this through.  When he proposed selling the Lincoln Park Pool and several years later proposed usin part of Lincoln Park to site a useless and damaging roundabout in my neighborhood it’s clear he didn’t understand what alienation of parkland means.  I suspect he considered wetlands protection and preservation laws a minor speedbump that he could easily fly over.

Coeymans Creek Off Old Ravena Road Just Outside The Albany Properties

But Laraway is a lot sharper than Jennings and ought to have known better.  He definitely had plans for the property. Last Autumn a fellow I know who was given permission to hunt deer there told me that he saw that Laraway had been doing alterations to the land, building roads and digging and such.  But it appears that whatever he started there he has abandoned.

This past March the Hearst Times Union reported that Laraway had backed out of the contract for the property citing a contingency, something about access to the land that was promised but not forthcoming.  I asked Mayor Sheehan about this, saying to her that the access issue sounded like an excuse to me.  Slightly irritated, she insisted that the access issue was a legitimate negotiating sticking point that they couldn’t get past.

Seriously, that’s absurd.  As I mentioned earlier, Laraway owns land that he already uses adjacent to this property, he could make all the access he wanted. But I didn’t press the mayor, what’s the point. It wouldn’t make the slightest financial sense to sue Laraway for breach of contract, a case the City could not win.  So it’s time to move on, find another buyer.

City Of Albany Property, Coeymans

Except who could possibly want three parcels of overpriced land, two thirds of which is wetlands that can’t be developed.  That’s where the State comes in, maybe just maybe they could turn this into a nature preserve.  Isn’t that the job of big government, to clean up messes created by little governments? Maybe something like The Nature Conservancy might be interested in holding the land for a spell while the State gets around to ponying up the money, we can only hope.

Meanwhile Mayor Sheehan has managed to reduce the expenses that City of Albany taxpayers pay to maintain this bizarre failed boondoggle of Jerry Jennings.  A court decided to reduce the Town of Coeymans assessment on this property from $3,639,400 to the magic number $620,000.  The Hearst Rag reports that this means the City of Albany will only have to pay $18,000 per year in property taxes.

Good news for Albany, very bad news for Coeymans which has been hit with several big tax reduction cases at once this year.  Mayor Sheehan certainly isn’t making any friends down there.  But hopefully this reduced assessment will make the property more attractive to potential buyers, the State or somebody. Really, anybody at all, buy it please.  Take it off our hands.  We can’t afford to maintain this relic of past corruption anymore.

 

June 5, 2018

A visit to a nearby restaurant turns ugly

Few things bring out the stupid in people than trying to discuss race in America. Not only do stupid things get said, but people react to discussions about race with all kinds of stupid.  A few people here and there have a good understanding of what’s going on and express the problems well, but most of the rest of us tend to not talk about it because we are afraid of saying something stupid and we will have to deal with the consequences. 

And when I say “we” I mean everybody in America, not just this group or that group. However, despite the risk I’m taking, I’m going to discuss this apparently racist incident right here and now because I’ve already spread it across Facebook.  And since spreading this story can cause harm I have an obligation to take responsibility for it and explain it as best as I can.  It’s pretty cut and dried.

Since I Have No Photos Of Racism, Here’s A Photo Of Albany From The River Taken This Past Memorial Day Weekend

At the end of May, the Saturday before Memorial Day, The Wife and I were in the mood to try a new restaurant for dinner.  We’d heard from multiple sources that the food was good at Sweet Basil Thai Restaurant at 370 Delaware Avenue, so we made a reservation for early, 5PM.

The dining area of the restaurant is small, much smaller than I remember it to be when the place was another restaurant.  I don’t think the interior can seat more than about 30 people, although there is more seating on the front deck during good weather. (And by the way, the weather was quite good that day and seating could have been available outdoors.) We’d tried to get a last minute reservation at the restaurant the weekend before and failed, but then again both of us forgot that we were trying to get a reservation late on Mother’s Day.

I mention this because when I called that previous weekend for a reservation, the fellow I talked to was amazingly clueless.  An example of the conversation: Me – “Can I get a reservation for 6:00PM?”  Him – “We don’t have any available at that time.”  Me – “So what time will you be taking reservations this evening?” Him – “We can take reservations at 5.”  Me – “Okay, I guess we can make a reservation for 5.”  Him – “No, we have no openings at 5.”  Me – “But you just said I could reserve at 5.”  Him – “Oh, we start taking reservations at 5 but we’re full up at that time.”  This went on for at least five minutes before I divined that there were no seats available that evening.

Vacant Apartment, Morton Avenue, Albany

The folks who run the restaurant are South East Asian immigrants, presumably they are ethnic Thai. I mention this phone conversation because it shows that there might be a good deal of cultural cluelessness at play here by the staff of the restaurant.  It was not a language problem, the fellow I talked with over the phone had a good command of American English. 

So the two of us arrived right on time a minute before 5PM and walked inside.  Only one table was occupied by a couple, an asian looking man and a white woman, who looked like they were finishing up their meal.  The rest of the tables each had a placard that said “reserved.”

As we came in we passed another couple sitting in chairs next to the door.  I’d guess they were about forty, respectable looking, but they seemed a bit unsettled.  And it is important to mention that the man and the woman were black.

Now for the crucial defining moment in all this.  The Wife and I were immediately greeted by a woman who told us to sit where we wanted.  The Wife said, “We have a reservation.”  The woman said okay without asking for our names and checking to see if we really did have one.  Have I mentioned that the two of us are white?

Blooming Ornamental Apple Tree Shortly After Dawn

We sat down at a table and the woman removed the “reserved” placard. But we quickly decided that the table we’d chosen was too close to the kitchen so we immediately got up and moved to a table on the other side of the room.  Without a word the woman removed the “reserved” placard from our new table and placed it on the table we had just vacated.  We were handed menus.

After a few minutes the other couple sitting at a table finished their meal and got up and left, leaving just us and the couple by the door.  The minutes ticked by as we studied the menu.  Finally the gentleman sitting by the door asked us, “Excuse me, did you have a reservation?”

Yes, we told him, we did.  I think I said that in a relieved tone of voice because this situation was already feeling uncomfortable.  I asked them how long they’d been waiting, not too long before us it turned out.  “They told us they didn’t have any tables available because they were all reserved,” they both told us.  So instead the couple ordered take out, which is what they were sitting there waiting for.

The minutes continued to tick by in the almost empty restaurant, just the two of us and the couple sitting by the door.  We talked to them a little, it seems they were in town for some event and had heard this was a good place to eat.  “But we weren’t expecting this,” the lady said.

Apple Flower Petals Covering The Sidewalk After A Heavy Rain

Finally the woman emerged from the back holding a bag of takeout, and the couple got up to pay for it.  The man was angry.  “Why did you tell us there were no tables available?” he said.  The woman simply answered. “We have a table for you now.”  No apologies, no attempt to smooth over the situation, nothing.

As they turned to leave the gentleman said to us, “I can’t believe this is happening in 2018.”  I looked at The Wife, we put down our menus and got up and left right behind them.  I made sure the other couple saw we were leaving.  There was no way we could have enjoyed our meal after something like that.  Anyway, I would have felt dirty giving that establishment my money.

As we were leaving several of the reservations were arriving, by then it was past quarter after five.  These people, all of them white, looked puzzled and alarmed at this angry and annoyed procession leaving as they were walking in.  At most half of the tables would have been occupied.  I do wonder what was said after we were gone.

If it was essential that these black folks walking in had to have a reservation, why didn’t the woman check to see if us white folks really did have a reservation?  If an unreserved table was about to be available, presumably the one where that other couple was just finishing their meal, why didn’t they tell the black couple that one would be available but they would have to wait for a few minutes?  Wasn’t outdoor seating available?  Why couldn’t they have at least offered an apology and claim it was all a misunderstanding?

The Wife Along The East Bank Of The Hudson Opposite Albany

We were forced to the conclusion that the staff did not want black people inside their nice restaurant, no matter how respectable those black people are.  If this couple really did look questionable, like they couldn’t afford to pay for the meal, then perhaps the reluctance of the staff to serve the couple would be understandable.  But they were willing to sell them take out.  We are glad to take your money but we don’t want you sitting here?   

It could have been cluelessness by this woman, who appeared to be in charge rather than a mere server employee.  As someone who has been socially clueless my entire life I might be sympathetic to that, but there are certain things like this that go well beyond ineptitude and don’t lend themselves to that excuse.  The woman, who was the representative of the restaurant did absolutely nothing to dispel that appearance of discrimination based on physical appearance.  That’s no way to run a business.

As we got in the car and drove away, The Wife said, “They seemed like nice people, I would have liked to talk to them.”  We were at a loss for where to go, but we ended up at another place we’d never been to, Tanpopo Ramen and Sake Bar at 893 Broadway, the old Miss Albany Diner that was restored for the movie Ironweed.  It’s a prefabricated “Silk City diner model” that has mostly been left the same as it was, it is after all on the National Register of Historic Places. 

The shu mai appetizer and the ramen dishes we had at Tanpopo were absolutely fabulous, and The Wife drank too much of the plum wine which she declared was excellent.  The service was good and we could see that they did not discriminate based on skin coloration.  I mention this because I want to point out that there are a lot of places in Albany to dine if one wants good food and does not like overt racism.

Interior Of Tanpopo Ramen And Sake Bar, Albany

I have been of the opinion since an early age that all Americans are racist, that it is one of our defining characteristics.  After posting this on Facebook my story got several comments that directed various discriminatory statements toward the people who owned and ran the restaurant.  Those comments made me feel uncomfortable somewhat like the incident at the restaurant made me feel.

One white guy who ought to know better said, without any evidence, that the restaurant existed to launder money, adding, “Those people are not there to move food.”  This quickly devolved into a discussion of the quality of the food, which I pointed out was not the issue here.

Such shady places do exist, if fact years ago there used to be a terribly dismal Chinese restaurant at 250 Delaware Avenue that served almost inedible food, about which I heard various rumors usually involving local cops and prostitutes.  One thing I knew for sure was that there was a lot of Mah Jong being played in the upper floors because I could often hear the tiles clicking like speeded up piano keys as I walked past.  That’s usually a gambling game.  But such misbehavior is hardly exclusive to any one group, and Sweet Basil gets consistently rave reviews for their food.

Carved Relief On The Exterior Of the Federal Building On Broadway In Albany, The Former Main Post Office

A woman whose opinion I usually respect, a black person who is very involved with police community relations, floored me with her comment.  “This is happening all over Albany. When foreigners come in and open businesses, Black Americans are treated less than even though their money is green.”

I very gingerly asked why she thought some foreigners acted that way, and was hit with this:

Because it is bedded in the DNA of America that Blacks are the lowest on the human being list. I hear Black women say all the time that when they go into a nail salon that the Asians are rude to them. But, they go back and spend $30+ a week.The 99cent stores are the same way. They cater to low-income communities and despise them at the same time.

May 7, 2018

Sugar magnolia, blossoms blooming, head’s all empty and I don’t care

Along Martin Luther King Boulevard in Lincoln Park, opposite the statue of the great man, is a row of unusual looking short trees, more like large neatly trimmed bushes.  Most of the time they are not very interesting to look at, just some decorative shrubbery with twisted branches planted the same distance apart.  However, for a short time in early spring these nondescript things bloom into a riot of magnificent flowers, but they do so only during years when conditions are just right.

This just happened to be one of those years.  For a very brief time, maybe ten days at most, two varieties of these magnolias put out crowds of these incredible flowers all over the trees, both a completely white variety of flower and another with flowers that are also white but streaked with a pinkish red.  Then the petals fall with the first serious rainstorm and lay on the ground in a circle around each tree, turning brown.

Magnolias In Bloom Along MLK Boulevard In Lincoln Park

Magnolias are not native to this part of the world, which is why they seem unusual and that’s why we don’t get to experience a full bloom from them every year.  This is a more southerly species of plant that tries to be the first flowering plant to bloom at the first bit of warm weather, but has never developed strategies for dealing with sudden cold snaps like most of our native flowers do.  So with a few sunny warm days in April the magnolia buds will pop out and begin to open, but if that is followed by one night of below freezing temperature those flowers will wither before they can open.

Young Lady Who Was Walking Home From School Quietly Experiencing The Magnolia Bloom From Inside

Some years ago we had an unusually hot three days in April when the magnolias blossomed tremendously, an epic year.  Late in the third day I said to myself, tomorrow morning I’m going to photograph those flowers before they fall.  But when night came the temperatures plunged down into the mid 20s F, a total freeze across the entire region that reportedly devastated the NY State apple crop for that year.

The next morning I went out with my camera and saw that every single one of those magnolia flowers had tuned brown.  All the trees wore a sad and terrible looking canopy of dead flowers, not a single blossom had survived.  It was stunning to look at, beautiful in a strange sort of way, but as the flowers did not drop like they were supposed to and hung on to the branches a long time and, well, made people sad to look at them.

Magnolias Seen From The Walkway

So having learned my lesson I rushed outside this year as the flowers were at their peak, especially since the weather service was predicting heavy wind and rain for that night.  I knew I had to catch the ephemeral bloom before many of the petals got torn off by the weather.  But all the dire weather predictions from this last week or so have mostly turned out to be bogus, so the trees have kept their magnificence intact.

I Think This Is Called Magnolia Virginiana, already playing out.

The two different colors of flowers represent different varieties of Magnolia.  I think that the ones with white flowers are Sweetbay Magnolias, or Virginiana, which is native to the southeastern US but can be found growing naturally as far north as southern New Jersey.  These white ones bloomed first, and by the time I’d gotten out there with my camera the flowers were already playing out and fruiting, that is, forming seed pods. 

These seedpods make me wonder what kind of early emerging bugs are pollinating these flowers, both male and female flowers occurring on each branch.  I’m reading that beetles usually do the pollinating, but what kind around here is a mystery.  Can’t say I’ve seen too many bugs on these flowers since the flowers emerge during the season when bugs are few.

Pretty Certain This Is Magnolia Soulangeana

The trees with pinkish red flowers, which I’m pretty sure are Magnolia Soulangeana or the saucer magnolia (among other names) have an interesting history.  Starting in 1820 a former French cavalry officer in Napoleon’s army crossed two varieties of magnolia that are native to China, denudata and lillifora.  The cavalry officer’s name was Soulange-Bolin, thus the name of the variety.

The hybrid turned out to be hardy and an impressive bloomer, so it quickly became popular across Europe and ended up in North America.  Thus it is very much an invasive plant to this continent, but one which is so well established it might as well be native.  It blooms a few days later than the white ones and thus is probably more likely to survive a cold snap and to be pollinated, but still I wonder about what kind of beetles are out there aiding the tree’s sex lives.

Newly Planted Magnolia

The City carefully maintains the magnolias, keeping them growing upright and from getting too bushy.  They usually live about fifty years, these ones look pretty healthy.  The only one that died a few years back (I forget why) has been replaced and the young tree is blooming nicely.

Martin Seen Through A Magnolia

The magnolias go very well with the monument and statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, who no doubt was surrounded by a lot of magnolias in Georgia where he was born and raised.  But the trees were planted here along the Boulevard well before the monument was dedicated in 2000, they were here in 1985 when I moved to the neighborhood.  It would be interesting to find out when the magnolias were placed along here, and why. Perhaps there is some record in the City archives.

Forsythia Bush Almost Played Out By Early May

Of course magnolias are not the only early spring flowers around here.  The very first flowers around here are the tough forsythias that blaze into bright yellow for a few days and then quickly yield to green leaves.  The branches of the shrub are a tangle of slim wands that the rest of the year serve as an excellent place for small birds to hide from hawks making their daily rounds, the little birds fluttering and screeching inside the protective bushes as the raptors eye them carefully. 

This Daffodil Was One Of The First Flowers To Emerge Around The Neighborhood

Most of these other species, though, can handle the cold better if it hits them. There’s these little blue flowers that always emerge first in April before the snow has completely melted, I forget what you call them, followed by the bright yellow daffodils. And then the white daffodils in the park make their appearance.  

White Daffodils Next To Dr. King

After the beginning of May all kinds of flowers are in a big hurry to get out there and reproduce.  I’ve read that specific flowering plants often evolved along with some particular bug, bird or other kind of critter that it needs to move the pollen from the anther to the stigma, and thus to the ovary to make seeds.  But again, there are so few bugs out at this time and the birds don’t seem too interested in the flowers, so I wonder how they manage to reproduce.  But they do.

Dandelions

Oddly, there are dandelions all over the place.  Seems to me they are more of a late spring and summer flower, I don’t recall seeing them this early.  They ought to be treated with respect because every part of the plant is nutritious food, someday that may become important for us all to survive.  It’s strange how much time money and effort goes into eradicating these innocent little flowers that could be a food crop.  

Former NY State Pathologist Ward Stone, who has always been deeply concerned about pesticide use, has a standard talk about dandelions.  He once listened to a State Cooperative Extension agent enthusiastically explain the many methods to rid lawns of the flower, which includes burning, digging, but mostly poisoning the landscape with herbicides.  Mr. Stone then asked the man, “So why should we do all this to get rid of the dandelions?”  Irritated, the man said, “Brown spots.  You don’t want brown spots in your lawn.”

Maple Tree Flowers

Then of course there are the maple trees.  They begin to form flowers early from green buds which will soon develop yellow petals.  Then after a day or two the petals will drop, carpeting the walkways with the tiny yellow petals, not to mention the parked cars.  After a few days I’ll have to clear off the petals from the walks as they shrivel into lawn trash. Interesting how many of the native early flowers are yellow.

Lawn Violets

Okay, not all the flowers are yellow.  Around the neighborhood are the first of what I call lawn violets, tiny plants with tiny leaves and flowers that lay close to the ground.  It appears to me that these violets developed through natural selection to avoid decapitation by lawnmowers.  Most are purple but there are also white ones about.  Some of the lawns around here get covered with the flowers, especially if you don’t mow for a while.

Magnolia Already Dropping Petals

So the white magnolia flowers are already dropping into a neat circle around each tree, where they will soon turn brown.  Eventually when the grass grows a bit more the City guys will do their first mow of the year, which will clean up the petals.  And the magnolia trees will stand along MLK Boulevard looking not particularly interesting until perhaps this time next year, blooming again magnificently if we’re lucky.

Cherry Blossoms

Oh, I almost forgot, there’s a decrepit old cherry tree up the street.  The twisted elderly thing looks like it is ready to kick the bucket, but it still managed to bloom this year.  The cherries it produces are few and a bit tart, that is, if it produces any at all.  The flowers are already half shot, but here they are anyway.

 

April 9, 2018

An unglamorous sewage health crisis gets an
inadequate proposed solution

UPDATE: The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is offering billions of dollars in loans for water infrastructure projects

Seriously, they want to do this.  The ravine in Lincoln Park used to be the bed of the Beaverkill before the river was buried underground in a big pipe sometime in the 19th Century.  One hundred years ago the ravine was a tourist attraction, something that people actually travelled to Albany to see and experience.  Postcards of the ravine are still common at book and ephemera fairs.  Now they want to fill in the ravine so it is gone forever.

Postcard Marked 1911 Looking Down Into The Ravine In Lincoln Park (Then Called Beaver Park) 

The reason?  The City wants to put an automated sewage treatment plant on one end of the ravine and level off the rest, turning that part into, oh, something, a meditation garden or a pond or whatever.  They want us folks who live nearby to offer ideas about what ought to go in that leveled off part and not think too much about the sewage treatment plant jammed into the middle of a venerable public park within sight of the Martin Luther King monument and forget about the disappearing ravine.

The cost of the Beaver Creek Screening and Disinfection Facility, we are told, will be $45 million of mostly State money, a mere pittance for these sorts of things, and the project will take 3 years to complete with work starting next year. There will be mess and disruption in the park for all that time.  And although they assure us the community garden on the MLK Boulevard end of the ravine will remain, it is obvious that it will have to be abandoned during the three years of construction.

Best Picture I Could Get Of The Proposed Facility, From A Presentation At The Hudson Park Neighborhood Association, MLK Monument To The Left

This plan is being presented to us as better than nothing, the absolute minimum that is more than good enough for those of us who live in the South End.  It all started with a persistent stink emanating from an iron aeration grate on one end of the ravine in Lincoln Park, a grate installed sometime in the middle of the 20th century.  It lets out an odor of rotting sewage that drives most people out of the ravine gagging and retching.  Old timers have told me that it has been stinking up the park as long as they could remember, and, they say, in recent years it has been getting much worse.

From time to time folks who live around the park would complain about the odor emanating from both the grate and from nearby manholes especially after heavy rains, but the elected officials would shrug and pointedly ignore us. After all, they didn’t have to smell it.  And besides, successive City Hall administrations absolutely did not want to deal with what they knew all along to be an unglamorous and expensive problem that apparently only affected the unimportant and despised citizens of the South End.

Another View From The Same Meeting

Now, I hate to congratulate myself (I’d rather someone else did but that’s unlikely) but I started to figure out that this stinking grate on the edge of my neighborhood is part of a massive health and infrastructure problem that stretches right across the City of Albany and into the Hudson River, directly and immediately affecting the quality of life and the health of tens of thousands of people. The more I figured out what was going on under our feet the more it became clear to me that this was a serious crisis. 

So in the second half of the last decade I started my own political stink that rivaled the sewage odor in my neighborhood park, the odor that billowed out from the grate and from nearby manhole covers and made people spit tears of revulsion. At first I was totally ignored.  In 2008 I attended a public hearing about sewers and storm drains put on by the Capital District Regional Planning Commission (CDRPC) and got a chance to study a comprehensive map of the underground drainage system in the City of Albany.  To my astonishment the Beaverkill storm drain line wasn’t even on the map!

Seriously.  I kept asking where it was and the experts in attendance acted like they had no idea what I was talking about. I still to this day cannot understand how they could map out the drains and not indicate the line that carries some 70% of the storm water runoff in the City. Those maps have since been amended, and I’m sure there would be universal denials that anyone ever ignored this vital underground waterway.

The Stinking Aeration Grate On The Far End Of The Ravine

But there was indeed a conspiracy of silence up to that point, nothing elaborate, just the most simple, basic and stupid kind of conspiracy that is common among politicians.  It seems that the then administration of former mayor Jerry Jennings, who operated as a complete dictator, had chosen to pretend that this crisis did not exist.  In fact, he kept it secret from the State. My guess is that he did not want to expend political capital on such an unglamorous problem, along with not wanting to look for and spend money that could better be distributed as graft.

So after describing on this blog back in 2009 what I had figured out, and occasionally publishing photos of raw sewage floating out of the outflow pipe of the Beaverkill directly into the Hudson River, certain State and regional authorities began to take notice of this problem.  But not Jerry Jennings.  In his latter years as mayor he switched from pretending the problem didn’t exist to active denial and sabotage.

You see, starting way back in 2007 the CDRPC began putting together a plan among six local communities along the upper Hudson River to address water quality issues with sewer and storm drain runoff that were adversely affecting the river.  Its official name is the Albany Pool Communities Combined Sewer Overflow Long Term Control Plan.  it was a long overdue State sponsored effort to deal with overlooked pollution of the river that had been going on in some cases for more than a century.

The Roaring Beaverkill Inside The Grate, As Can Be Seen The Chamber Is Disintegrating

But Jennings did something very strange.  He let the CDRPC know all about the problems with the Patroon Creek in the northern part of the City of Albany, which carries runoff from the Rapp Road Dump.  But he did not say one word to them about the very existence of the Beaverkill, let alone the constant outflow of raw sewage into the Hudson.

It was a bizarre silence.  Riverkeeper reported that water samples in the Hudson directly downstream from the outflow for the Beaverkill, the “Big C Pipe,” had grossly elevated levels of dissolved human shit year round, and in high summer vast amounts of fecal bacteria in the water.  You know, the stuff that lives in your lower intestine. Yet until recently the State authorities and the local Corporate Media refused to acknowledge the source of the pollution.  I kept reading Corporate Media reports that the high levels of sewage waste detected in the Hudson along the South End waterfront was caused by “water swirling around by the Port.”  Seriously.  That was their oft repeated phrase. 

So as a result, when a Pool Communities draft plan was put together for the six communities there was no mention of the Beaverkill.  The idea of the plan was for the communities to each kick in a certain amount of money, which required quite a bit of negotiation, and the State would provide the rest.  The cash resources would be “pooled” together, thus the probably unintended pun.  But originally no money was to be directed at the biggest source of pollution of them all.

NY State Assembly Member John McDonald Speaking At The Science March In Albany, April 2017

Fortunately, newly elected State Assembly member John McDonald came to the rescue, pointing out to the State and to the six communities the necessity of including the Beaverkill outflow in the Sewer Control Plan.  The other five communities balked at this, not wanting, as they said, to pay for Albany’s problems, but the now informed State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) had rightly decided the Beaverkill is a priority problem and told the Pool communities they had no choice but to include the Beaverkill in the final plan.

So it fell to City of Albany water commissioner Joe Coffey, who had been appointed by newly elected mayor Kathy Sheehan, to come up with a plan to deal with the Beaverkill sewage.  Now, the DEC had only one concern here, to stop the sewage floating into the Hudson.  Bad smells, runoff sewage, health and quality life problems are of no interest to the State as long as those problems remain confined to the South End of the City of Albany.

It is important to understand this attitude of the State, which is the same as the attitude of the other five communities in the Sewer Control Plan.  They see the City of Albany as an enemy that has to be opposed and defeated at every opportunity, and thus should be denied necessary resources whenever possible.  Thus the State is willing to provide enough cash to prevent raw sewage from continuing to flow into the Hudson River but refuses to spend the the greater money needed to actually fix the potentially dire health problem to the Albany citizens.

Mats Of Decayed Human Waste Floating Out Of The Big C Pipe Into The Hudson River, The Mouth Of The Beaverkill

You see, raw sewage is not supposed to flow down a storm drain in the first place.  But under the streets of Albany we have this thing called combined sewage overflow (CSO), which means that the sewer lines and the street storm drain lines are tied together at certain points.  The idea, when the lines were built about a hundred years ago, was that if either the storm drains or the sewer lines got overwhelmed because of a major storm or major snow melt or too many households flushing toilets at once, the other line would be available to catch the excess water.

The mechanism for this is very simple, a few well-placed underground concrete caverns separated into two chambers by a wall that does not rise all the way to the ceiling of the cavern.  Normally the sewage stays on one side of the wall and the street runoff stays on the other side.  Only when there is too much water on one side will it slop over the wall into the other line.  Usually this was supposed to mean the storm water joining the sewage.

But there’s a very good reason why these CSOs aren’t built anymore.  Municipalities such as Albany love to have developers build new buildings, houses, apartments, commercial buildings, whatever.  But the politicians don’t like to build infrastructure to support these new buildings, or even require developers to build them.  And the one thing they hate to build more than anything else is new sewers, they are expensive, digging for them causes big disruptions, and they are politically unglamorous.

Combined Sewer Overflow Illustrated

So as new buildings were being built uptown in the City of Albany it became convenient to let that sewage slop over the walls inside those big underground caverns and run out through the storm drain lines directly into the Hudson. Successive mayors since the mid 20th century have figured that no one was going to notice mats of decayed human shit floating out of the “Big C” pipe sticking out from under the U-Haul parking lot by the river.  And they sure as hell didn’t care if the citizens of the South End had to deal with sewage stink or any potential health problems caused by seepage into the ground near their homes.

Since no one in power really cares about our health and safety here in the South End, the original proposed solution was to build a sewage treatment plant on the shore of the Hudson River in the parking lot of the U-Haul building.  Of course no one bothered to discuss this with the owners and managers of U-Haul.  And this of course was a big middle finger raised to the citizens of Albany, telling us that no one cares that you are wallowing in sewage, as long as the river is kept clean.

But it appears this plan was discarded.  The reason I heard was because there is a City ordinance that does not allow sewage treatment plants to be built on the riverside flood plain, which makes perfect sense.  Of course this does not disallow the sewage treatment plant that exists a little ways to the south of the U-Haul building next to the Port of Albany. So I’m thinking that citing the ordinance is merely an excuse for a sudden burst of practicality and common sense.

The Big C Pipe, The Mouth Of The Beaverkill Under The U-Haul Building Parking Lot

Thus we have this proposal to put the facility further upstream inside the ravine in Lincoln Park.  It’s supposed to be automated and therefore we are told it will be low impact, quiet, odorless, barely visible because most of it will be underground.  Well, hopefully it will be low impact after three years of construction.  That’s what we’re being told.

But I have two big objections to this plan. The first problem is that this does not take care of sewage running down the Beaverkill coming from the west into Lincoln Park.  In effect, the Beaverkill storm drain runoff line beyond the park will become a dedicated sewer line.  But it will continue to be a storm drain runoff.  That does not sound like a solution to me.

The Beaverkill has another very important function, it is the outflow runoff for Washington Park Lake, which is actually the Beaverkill daylighted.  But wait (you might say) the lake is not filled with sewage.  However, by the time the outflow from the lake gets to the grate in Lincoln Park the stream is lousy with sewage.  Where does the sewage come from?

The Beaverkill Daylighted: Washington Park Lake

That’s a question I’ve been asking for a long time.  Somewhere between the lake and the aeration grate the Beaverkill storm drain line is collecting flushed toilet water full of shit. What’s the source?  Albany Medical Center?  The Park South neighborhood, all those new buildings along New Scotland Avenue?  The Veteran’s Hospital utility plant?  Hackett Middle School?  Or some line from a further neighborhood that connects unseen to the Beaverkill?

There is only one proper solution to this problem, to build a new sewer line from where the Park South neighborhood begins across Madison Avenue from Washington Park Lake all the way down either to the existing sewage treatment plant near the Port or to a new treatment plant built to accommodate the sewage generated by all this new construction and the ongoing expansion of Albany Med, a plant built at a site where it does not inconvenience citizens and their homes or sacrifice dedicated park land.

But I have been told that building a new sewer line is impossible because it would cost well over a billion dollars.  That money is not available.  The unspoken assumption is that those of us who live in the City of Albany are not worth such an expenditure.  Therefore we should be grateful for getting a half-assed solution that takes care of the stink in the park and stops mats of shit from floating into the Hudson.

The Wife Checks Out The Rock Walls In The Ravine

I can’t imagine that if we were talking about Clifton Park, or Delmar, or Loudonville that this would be floated as a solution.  Somehow a billion dollars would magically appear and the overly expensive suburb would get the best sewer line available.  And if they needed a sewage treatment plant it would be sited where it would inconvenience the rich suburban residents the least.

The other big problem with this proposal is that we will now have an ugly fenced off utility building taking away our park lands.  By State law park land cannot be removed from use as a park unless it is properly “alienated,” which means that both houses of the State legislature have to approve it, the governor has to approve it, AND equivalent land must be found nearby that replaces the park land that is lost.  

Commissioner Coffey does not feel that the alienation procedure is applicable in this case because it is a public works project, but our former Common Council member Dominick Calsolaro, who has experience with these matters, strongly disagrees with him.  I have developed respect for Mr. Coffey’s enormous expertise and dedication to his frightfully complex job of wrangling the ancient underground pipes of Albany, his handling of the recent spectacular sewer cave-ins related to the Beaverkill on both ends of Washington Park Lake are examples of his abilities.  I think the City was lucky to have someone that capable available to handle these crisis when they happened.

Albany Water Commissioner Joe Coffey At The Site Of The Elberon Street Sinkhole, August 2016

But Mr. Coffey is neither a politician or a lawyer.  Approaching the problem as an engineer he has collected and analyzed the data and determined what looks to him to be the best practical solution with the resources available.  So the inadequacy of the solution to this problem is not a failure on his part, it is a clever engineering solution under the circumstances.  

Mr. Coffey’s employer, Mayor Kathy Sheehan, certainly deserves credit for tackling this decidedly unglamorous politically unappealing problem that no former mayor had enough backbone to deal with.  It’s clear that she has a lot of financial balls to juggle and that she has to make decisions about what to prioritize based on the politics and the whims of the State governor.  It’s not hard to see that if the State only presents enough money for a partial solution to the problem, that unless the mayor wants to start a war with the governor she has to take what is presented.

Meanwhile, the DEC has already given approval for the facility and the plan it is part of. But why doesn’t the State think we deserve a new sewer line?  The State Thruway Authority had no problem spending over three quarters of a billion dollars to put a third lane between exits 23 and 24, an amenity that does not benefit our community in the least.  Is not freedom from the looming threat of a health crisis worth a billion dollars?  And isn’t a billion dollars something the State tosses around the way we regular folks spend $20 bills?

This Baseball Diamond At Woodlawn Park Can Hold 750,000 gallons of Beaverkill Runoff

We need to consider that this treatment plant will not solve any sewage problems in the drainage area between Lincoln Park and Washington Park Lake.  What happens when these drainage pipes fail in response to more building in Park South and beyond?  What will happen to the new sewage treatment plant in Lincoln Park if the Beaverkill floods again during a heavy storm, as happened spectacularly in 2014?

Various projects have been built uptown that hopefully will catch excessive overflow from the Beaverkill during excessive storms.  In a few places the drainage has been diverted away from the Beaverkill to other drain lines that can better handle a flood.  And a water storage facility that can handle 750,000 gallons has been built out of sight underneath a ball field in Woodlawn Park.  So hopefully we won’t have a repeat of the 2014 downtown flood, which was not the first but certainly the worst and an indicator of even worse floods to come.

But old pipes can and will fail when under stress.  Just west of the ravine in Lincoln Park  a stone’s throw from the stinking grate is a fenced off area.  In 1994 a local fellow named Stanley “Shamar” Oliver was walking across the lawn when the ground gave way beneath his feet, plunging him into watery mud up to his chest.  He managed to scramble out of the hole and immediately reported the new sinkhole to the authorities, But to this day he looks genuinely terrified when he tells the story and relives those moments.

Sinkhole #1 Inside The Fence Above The Ravine

What Mr. Oliver discovered was the Beaverkill pipe collapsing deep underground.  Immediately after this sinkhole formed, Washington Park Lake developed a noticeable smell of sewage, as was reported in the local newspapers.  City crews dug frantically into Shamar’s sinkhole to try to open up the line again.  I recall walking past and asking the guys in the crew what they were doing, and was rudely rebuffed, “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”  I don’t recall anyone at the time linking the two events, the sewage in Washington Park Lake and the sinkhole in Lincoln Park.

Recently I heard Mr. Coffey explain that in 1994 the crews digging into the sinkhole didn’t have equipment that would dig deep enough to reach the Beaverkill pipe.  But somehow they managed to get the Beaverkill flowing again, and pretty quickly the sewage smell in Washington Park Lake dissipated.  I have no idea what they did, but the problem was temporarily solved for the next quarter of a century.

But because outgoing mayor Thomas Whalen didn’t want to rent the equipment necessary to properly repair the pipe the break was left with the temporary repair, and a fence was installed around the area presumably so there would be no more hapless pedestrians sinking into the ground.  In January of 1995 Jennings became mayor and for the next 20 years he did nothing to advance the repair of the pipe at that spot except put a new fence around it.  There were a number of floods that happened along the Beaverkill during his reign, but somehow the former mayor managed to evade responsibility for neglecting the flooding problems.

Sinkhole #2 Next To The Ravine

Today there are two big sinkholes inside the fence, one is filled with water.  This past summer I noticed the ground collapsing in one spot, now the holes are threatening to widen past the chain link fence.  Repairing this ancient temporary repair is part of the plan for siting the sewage treatment facility, but from the looks of it something will have to be done here a lot sooner than that.

It was in the first year that Ms. Sheehan was mayor that the big 2014 flood happened, the first big test of her crisis management skills.  For several hours streets and homes were flooded in a big swath from Elberon Street which is west of Washington Park, across the South End all the way downtown to the waterfront, pretty much along the route of the Beaverkill, a path of ruination.  On Broadway downtown people paddled canoes and rubber rafts across the parking lots among the half submerged cars.

In the weeks afterward Mayor Sheehan took immediate steps to come up with a plan to prevent this from happening again, and scheduled public meetings so people could ask questions and vent.  But it seems she quickly decided that the best solution, building a new sewer line that can carry the increased level of sewage safely, was off the table.  I’m not happy with that decision, but it appears I’m quite alone with my displeasure.  I have yet to meet a public official, a concerned neighbor or anyone else who doesn’t immediately accept that it would be impossible for the City of Albany to get a billion dollars from the State to build a new sewer line.

Sheridan Avenue Albany, August 2014

In fact, from what I’ve heard most people who live nearby think it’s a great idea to fill in the ravine because even though very few of them have ever ventured down into the ravine they consider it ugly and dangerous, a place where sketchy homeless people camp.  As far as they are concerned this is a wasted space.  They seem very happy with the idea of turning half of the ravine into some kind of public amenity after it is filled in.

On the first Saturday afternoon in April I took The Wife for a stroll into the ravine, walking around the fence behind the community garden along MLK Boulevard.  Sure enough just behind the fence I saw what looked like a makeshift hut constructed of scavenged materials.  There was some garbage strewn about but the ravine had been cleared of a lot of brush, so it was easy to walk back there without getting muddy.

It’s really a very nice spot with exposed rock walls on either side.  It’s easy to see how this was once a tourist destination.  With a little cleaning up and landscaping it could easily become a delightful garden spot again with a walking path.  And, of course, eliminating that aeration grate stinking up the ravine.

Postcard Of The Ravine Marked 1913, The Sewage Treatment Facility Will Go In The Foreground

But as we walked back there I could hear the mighty Beaverkill roaring underground as we approached the grate.  The Wife, who unlike me has a workable sense of smell, announced that she was not getting any closer to it because of the horrible odor wafting from it.  And I noted that there were no signs of homeless people ever having habitated on this end of the ravine.

The only thing that is wrong with this ravine is the stinking grate functioning as a sewage gas vent, an aeration grate that makes it clear that the original intention was to use the Beaverkill as an illegal sewer line all along.  Sometimes lots of water shoots out of the grate, during the 2014 flood a deluge poured out of the ravine and drowned the garden and blocked MLK Boulevard.  We are being promised that if this facility gets built here then there will be no more floods pouring out of the ravine, or rather, out of the new facility.  I guess we’ll see.

February 20, 2018

The State of New York owns a pit full of fiber optic cables in front of my house

Right outside the door of my house, out in the street where the cars make right turns to go up the hill, is a manhole cover.  I can’t help but think about it all the time whether I want to or not because I have to walk over it, sometimes dozens of times in a day.  It is and has always been an obstruction sunk into the street, a shallow pit that annoys pedestrians and bicyclists that are crossing the intersection, serves as a permanent pothole that cars fall into all day long, and is tearing up the surrounding pavement.

State Of New York Fiber Optic Cable Junction

This annoying pit is not your usual sewer hole or electric cable tunnel, manholes for both of those are set in the street and sidewalk a few steps away from this pit and are not noticeable because they are flush with the pavement.  This iron topped hole in the street is a byway for fiber optic cables owned by the State of New York, placed here by an unannounced excavation through my neighborhood back in 1997.  And because no one except the State is allowed to touch it, the pit remains an annoying obstruction full of mystery.

Because the manhole is a carefully maintained depression in the pavement it collects rainwater and snowmelt.  Eventually that water finds an opening in the manhole cover and pours into the tunnel under the street, the water rising down below until the precious valuable fiber optic cables are lovingly bathed in street runoff. Sooner or later the connections on one or more of those cables leaks, the cables stop working properly or at all, and we have a crisis.

The State Of New York Fiber Optic Cable Junction After Rain Or Snow Melt

I know when the water is getting into the cables because without warning a crew of contractors working for the State will suddenly show up and block the street for several days.  As far as I can see they never bother to get permission from the City to show up, they don’t put up those temporary No Parking signs for a few days in advance and they only place minimal signage for the cars going by.  That doesn’t particularly bother me, when they show up at 8AM on a weekday and cause delays to the suburbanite commuters that disrespectfully tear through my neighborhood every weekday morning I stand in my doorway and laugh as their cars back up.

This repair visitation happens every few years.  The contractors have to pump out the water from the open pit, pull out the offending connections and usually string new cables up and down the block.  Here they were again this past January, during that intense cold, spending three full days poking around in there.  And of course, they were blocking the intersection during morning rush hour, but unfortunately not the evening rush time because they always pack up and leave by 4PM.

Generally, people don’t work outside in severely cold weather in January unless it is vitally important that the work get done, like a gas line break or a collapsed sewer main.  By the urgency of these repair sessions it is clear that keeping these cables operating is considered very important by someone important.  So what are these cables used for?  Why are these people there in my street causing an obstruction?

Contractors Working The Pit, Note Their Cables Spread Across Private Property

Camera in hand I stepped out of my house the second morning the private contractors were out there blocking the intersection to ask a few questions.  It seemed like a good moment because these three guys in hardhats, working for a contracting outfit called Henkels & McCoy, were standing peering down into the open manhole frowning and having a discussion.  When workers show up on my street I almost always go ask them what they are doing, it’s my right to know after all.

As I crossed the street the three looked at me with profound alarm.  I noticed a quick series of glances among them, and two of them stepped back and one fellow readied himself to talk to me.  Apparently he was to be the guy designated to deal with the nosy citizen.

This fellow put on a goofy grin and showed me an Aw Shucks I’m Just A Dumb Cluck Who Don’t Know Nothin’ persona.  He actually pretended that he didn’t know anything about the cables in the hole, that he wasn’t aware they were owned by the State or that they were fiber optic.  Meanwhile the other two guys stood next to each other looking grim while he performed for me.

I didn‘t push it, apparently they were ordered by their superiors to say nothing to us citizens who in a roundabout way are paying their salaries.  But they didn’t try to stop me from peering in the hole or from taking their picture, after all they had no legal right to stop me and it was quite clear that they knew that.  But they didn’t have to talk to me.  And the guy pretending to be goofy scurried out of range of my camera when I pointed it at him.

Inside The Pit After Pumping: Mud, Muck and Oily Water

Actually, if they had talked to me, I could have told them some history of the cables under my street that they likely did not know. I mean, I watched the cables get installed.

Way back in the early 1990s, then NY State governor Mario Cuomo proposed laying what was at the time high tech state-of-the-art fiber optic cable along some 500 miles of Thruway property from NY City to the Pennsylvania border beyond Buffalo.  The reason given was to “make NY State competitive” although it was not clear exactly how a state-owned communication network would do that.  But even though most of us were rather hazy about what this new technology was all about and how it was going to be used, it sounded like a plausible and forward thinking idea.

Unfortunately the State legislature was controlled by the Re-pub Party at the time and those people were conducting a policy of mindless political obstruction of State business complete with government shutdowns, just like they would start doing on the federal level a few years later.  So the idea died until well after after Mario was deposed and replaced by Dirty Joe Bruno’s handpuppet Moonbeam George Pataki.  Under the new Re-pub regime the fiber optic idea was revived, but this time as a so-called “privatized” scheme involving massive payouts to fly-by-night telcos, that is, telecommunication corporations.

A few years later it became obvious that privately owned telcos were not capable of maintaining this new fangled infrastructure on their own initiative, so in 2002 the State took ownership of the cable network away from these financially failing outfits.  After this, information about the cable system becomes murky, little public information is available.  For example, a search for the system yields no basic information, not even a casual mention in the Wikipedia article about the Thruway.  Of course there is no indication why this is.

Contractor Truck Parked On Catherine Street

The most likely explanation for this scrubbing of information from online is “security,” which is more often than not an excuse for hiding the usual thieving of taxpayer money from the public.  There is, however, information out there in the form of announcements of bids for maintenance of the system.  Also there are legal documents pertaining to ownership of the system and disputes with maintenance contractors.

This is kinda hilarious because if this cable system were maintained by State workers instead of being outsourced to contractors then there wouldn’t be these breaches of “security.”  The State has no choice but to make these bid offers public and of course they can’t hide the legal public record, not yet at any rate.  Once again we see that government “security” is merely security theater, little more than a visible pose that does almost nothing to actually make things secure.

The big question is what exactly is this fiber optic network used for?  According to documents some of the cables are leased to private communication operators, which may or may not defray some of the taxpayer costs of having the system, who knows. That information may be buried in Thruway budget documents.  If anyone cares to sift through their budgets and find out please let me know what you find.

See The Black Dot In The Upper Right Corner Of The Puddle? That’s Where The Water Pours Into The Hole

But one thing we do know for sure is that the State government uses some of these cables as dedicated lines for its own business.  Back in 1997 this was explained to us curious neighbors when State contractors originally dug a trench down my block to lay the cables.  When I joked to the guys in charge of the project that I’d like to run a wire out of my house and hook up to their cable so I could get free fast internet, they took pains to explain to me that would not be possible because of the nature of fiber optic cable.  No sense of humor, but back then they were very forthcoming with information.

This thing in front of my house, of course, is not the main trunk line cable, it is a connector that runs from the State Plaza, connecting with the main line just south of Thruway Exit 23 at mile marker 141.  Out of a mere 15 (known) connectors throughout the entire State there are no less than four connectors at Albany.  Two are at Exit 23, which connect to the downtown State Plaza, and two more at the western end of the City that most likely connect to the State Office Campus out there.

From Occupancy And Work Permit Accommodation Guidelines Fiber Optic Facilities Supplement, January 2016

The trench they dug through my neighborhood back in 1997 started at the massively ugly marble clad State office building on South Swan, ran down ML King Boulevard in Lincoln Park past my house, and made a sharp right turn at the manhole covered permanent pit.  From there it ran in a shallow trench uphill on one side of Catherine Street.  The dig continued along Oneida Terrace, keeping to higher ground where possible, and from there through the old uncapped landfill that is now Plumeri Park out to Exit 23.

Seeing as this is the South End and that the guys digging the trenches were suburbanites, the contractors did a lousy job of fixing the street after they were done.  The poor quality asphalt they spread over the trench quickly disintegrated and for a couple of years we had to put up with this long narrow mostly unpaved depression on one side of our streets.  Finally the City realized that commuting suburbanites were being inconvenienced by this exposed trench so they grudgingly repaved our streets. Just one more example of how we City taxpayers subsidize the State with our City taxes.

The FBI Fortress On McCarty Avenue In Albany

But one other thing, this cable runs right past the FBI Fortress on McCarty Avenue.  Perhaps I’m succumbing to a conspiracy theory here, but I would find it hard to believe that the FBI does not have one of these cables for itself so it can watch the State workers.  Every time some poor slob of a State worker gets his face in the newspaper and on TV accused of looking at porn on State time – not even child porn, just plain old everyday porn – I can’t help but think that some sleazy FBI bureaucrat with a permanent sneer on his mug is spending his days rummaging through State computers looking for dirty pictures.  And when that happens I think of this cable in my street.

The streets in my neighborhood were finally fixed with my City taxes, but the manhole with the cables is still a depression in the street.  The City has several times over the years made sure the nearby sewer manhole is flush with the street.  And even the National Grid power monopoly has made sure the electric cable tunnel manhole located at the corner of my property is flush with the sidewalk.

But the high tech state of the art fiber optic network cable manhole cover continues to sink deeper into the street.  The City won’t touch it, and the State does not seem to care that they are carefully maintaining a several inches deep permanent pothole in a very vulnerable spot.  All day long cars and trucks fall into that pit when they make a right turn, surely being hammered with all that weight all day long every day is going to eventually push that pit deeper and finally tear it open.

What State-Owned Fiber Optic Cable Pits Are
Supposed To Look Like

Okay, so this is the South End of Albany so why should anyone care.  Well, it seems to me that the State Thruway people ought to care for the simple reason that this pit constantly collects water and that every now and then that collected water ruins their expensive and apparently vital cables.  Maybe the State could save itself a lot of trouble and cash by sending a crew out, say, every ten years to rebuild the pit so it is flush with the street and no longer collects water, and not get slammed with car tires?

Maybe the Thruway Authority doesn’t care how much money it wastes and maybe the contractors who repair the cables don’t want to fix a problem that periodically gives them contracts.  But it seems to me that when those cables stop working it must cause a mile of crap for the Thruway managers, what with lease holders screaming at them and the FBI issuing classified official federal complaints.  If it takes three days for the workers on my street to pump out water and string new cables, so then the line could be down for a week, at least.  That must be a lot of screaming.

The Fiber Optic Cable Runs Maybe Two Feet Beneath The Edge Of The Crumbling Pavement On Catherine Street

Years ago, during the reign of former Albany mayor Jerry Jennings, I stood looking around my neighborhood one afternoon and realized every single problem with the neighborhood that I could see could be traced back to government neglect, corruption or deliberate destruction.  The majority could be traced back to the City government, but the rest originated with the County, State or even the federals.  It was a shocking revelation at the time, but it immediately clarified a lot things for me.

Of course the ultimate blame for problems rest with We The People for tolerating bad government.  But what can I do about this permanent carefully maintained pothole that is eating up my State taxes and making it difficult to walk across the street?  I guess I’ll do what I usually do, I’ll continue to live with it and keep on complaining bitterly to anyone who will listen. 

January 28, 2018

The Martin Luther King March overshadowed by racist profanity

It was cold, very cold, as it has been for weeks.  On the other side of the world, superheated Pacific Ocean air that had been causing unprecedented fires and drought around the Pacific Rim had been pushing over the North Pole. shoving the normally frigid Arctic air over our heads.  For a while Anchorage Alaska had warmer temperatures than Tampa Florida.  We were freezing our butts off because of Global Warming.

But here in Albany the march in honor of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King took place anyway, the short not at all grueling stroll from the doors of the State Plaza on Madison Avenue to the monument and statue of Dr. King right here in my own neighborhood.  This little march is a symbolic acknowledgement of the original Freedom Marches during the 1960s in places like Birmingham Mississippi and Selma Alabama.  Those brave marchers walked a lot further and faced angry hecklers and violent cops, but I doubt they ever had to face such intense cold.

The Marchers Enter Lincoln Park, Led By Cold Cops On Hot Horses

It was a bone chilling 15 degrees F at almost Noon when they set off, but the sun was shining and there was no wind.  We had a boisterous crowd of well more than 300 people loudly singing We Shall Overcome winding through Lincoln Park, much different than last year’s subdued, strangely quiet and almost frightened crowd.  Perhaps we are seeing the return of hope, certainly a revival of defiance and a greater understanding of the things that all of us are losing because of the onslaught of the anti-American radical right.

You Can Usually Spot The Public Officials Because They Don’t Wear Hats In The Cold

This year’s celebration of Dr. King was marked, overshadowed really, by a particularly vile comment uttered a few days earlier by that disgusting Brat squatting inside the White House, outstanding even for him.  This was the apparently casual statement by the Filthy Boy to several of his equally filthy Re-pub senators and handlers, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries coming here?”  This comment in context was specifically directed at El Salvador, Haiti, and African countries.

Veterans For Peace

After initial denials some of the big Re-pub politicos present during this uttering of party policy by their role model claimed that they heard the word “shithouse” instead of “shithole.”  How these people think that was less revealingly filthy or somehow made this admittedly honest expression of their core values more palatable escapes me.  All it did was serve to confirm that the statement was made by their leader, and their excuses instead of condemnation demonstrated that they heartily approved of it.

Solidarity Committee Shoulder To Shoulder

The Corporate Media along with some Democratic Party politicians amplified the comment as nations across the world reacted angrily. Much of the media generated complaint inside this country was about the foul language, what sort of example is the so-called “president” setting for our children and such.  Almost as an aside, and without any sort of detailed explanation, the Corporate Media mentioned that the comment is racist.

I don’t mind telling you that when I heard about this utterance by that foul Brat I became seriously angry. And while I am no longer shouting at the radio like I did the other morning, I am no less angry at the subsequent calculated media evasions surrounding the utter seriousness of this putrid statement, evasions which appear to have transformed it into another distraction.  So as a public service for patriotic Americans I will lay out exactly what this statement means to a typical Re-pub politico and to their deluded fans so there is no confusion about it.

First, the graphic image employed, and I apologize in advance for offending anyone for what must be said. “Shithole” is a vernacular for “anus.”   The word specifically brings to mind that feces, that is “shit,” comes out of the “hole” that is the anus.  So Donald Pussygrabber is stating that the people of El Salvador, Haiti and Africa are actual pieces of shit emerging from countries that are themselves anal openings.

Marching Through The Cold

The graphic image does not stop there.  Human feces are almost always dark colored, ranging from light brown to black.  The people of El Salvador, Haiti and most of Africa are dark skinned, so the image is all about equating the color of their skin to feces.  The heavy implication is that because of their skin color the people from these countries, and indeed all people with dark skin, are actual pieces of shit instead of human beings.

I know all too well that this last part is exactly what Pussygrabber had in mind.  As a white working class man I have listened all my life to racist talk, spoken freely in my presence because those who don’t know me assume that I’m just as overtly racist as they are.  And yes, that is “the base” that Pussygrabber was deliberately “playing to” with the comment, spoken to otherwise mostly decent people who have been systematically taught by their TV sets to despise themselves and to hate their neighbors.

I have often heard this graphic image applied literally, hearing white racists casually refer to black people as “shitheads” or “shit faces.”  If you have led a sheltered life and have never heard anything like this before, try to imagine the depths of self hatred that would cause someone to think and talk like this.  But don’t think for a moment that this attitude is confined to working class whites, I’ve heard the same exact attitude towards dark skinned people whispered in a much more “refined” manner plenty often by well-heeled and highly educated whites.

So Donald Pussygrabber, who apparently let drop the comment casually, understood exactly what it meant and who was meant to hear it, by both the deluded working class fools who support him and by the parasitic upper class welfare queens who are his real base.  The racist minority is the core of the Re-pub Party, this is why hardly any Re-pub politico has come forward to condemn or distance themselves from the comment. Therefore, as it stands today, the comment reflects the official attitude of the Re-pub Party at all levels, it ought to become the party’s motto.

The Crowd Assembles Before The Public Officials

I came outside my house more than a half hour early, but not wanting to succumb to the cold I walked up to the State Plaza and waited inside the doors for the annual program that takes place in the dismal auditorium under The Egg to finish.  Apparently the program was lively and upbeat this year, I watched a short performance of a rousing gospel chorus posted on Spacebook.  And there was an actual marching band that came out of the auditorium marching and playing but they were not dressed for cold and stopped at the stairs before the doors.  Which is too bad, they should have marched outside to honor my neighborhood along with everybody else.

We had two cops on horses this year.  Usually they wait nearby to lead the march, but I became worried because I didn’t see them until the last minute when suddenly like magic they appeared at the ready.  It’s fairly safe to assume that they stayed out of the intense cold while waiting.  But as someone pointed out to me, “The horses can handle the weather fine, it’s the riders on top of them who can only sit for so long.”

Albany Police Honor Guard

Since I chronicle this march to my neighborhood every year, I walked back along the route looking for a good spot to shoot pictures.  Despite the bright sun there seemed to be a lot of odd shadows of tree branches and such marring the photographic quality of first part of the route alongside the State Library.  So I settled for a spot I’ve often used at the end of Lincoln Park by Park Avenue, remembering to keep my camera warm so it wouldn’t stop working.

Soon came the lead police car, an unmarked to my surprise, and the two cops on horses looking profoundly miserable from the cold despite sitting on steaming hot horses.  But then came an honor guard of City of Albany police officers who seemed to be handling the cold well enough.  I guess that’s the difference between sitting still and walking in such weather.

Mayor Kathy Sheehan Makes A Point

There were a number of groups with banners that seem to have taken a renewed interest in this march.  The Solidarity Committee of the Capital District, which is the most forward thinking labor group in the region was well represented.  Also with a banner was the City of Albany Commission on Human Rights, which looks into “incidents of tension and conflict among or between various racial, religious, and nationality groups” and tries to “resolve such conflicts.”  Both groups grapple with the exact same sort of issues as Dr. King himself did.

Also we saw a small contingent of the Veterans for Peace, they have actually participated a few times over the years.  In certain places in the past the Vets for Peace have been frantically banned from MLK marches by spineless politicians who were afraid that the Corporate Media would attack them for allowing veterans who demand an end to war for the sake of war to be seen in public.  In certain backward places like Binghamton NY they are still banned from St. Patrick’s Day parades, but they were of course welcome here today.

Congressman Paul Tonko

And of course we had a whole herd of local politicians among the marchers.  At the end of the march every single one of them as usual crowded onto the level monument around the statue of Dr. King to peer over the wall at the proletariat assembling on the icy, slippery slope beneath them.  Consider that a metaphor.  If you believe the Corporate Media then the economy is wonderful right now, but out here in the real world it sure feels like we are living the last moments before the planned economic collapse.

As usual mayor Kathy Sheehan presided, giving a strong speech about economic justice and equality, and referred heavily to the viciously inappropriate racism of the “shithole” remarks by the leader and role model of the Re-pub Party.  Congressman Paul Tonko followed with an also strong speech, again focusing on Bratty Boy’s open racism.  It should be noted that neither of them actually spoke the actual word, but of course they did not have to.

Albany County Executive Dan McCoy

And Albany County executive Dan McCoy gave a decent speech about opportunity and equality, again alluding to the vile statements by that pile of feces that plays a lot of golf and plays at being president.  Mr. McCoy’s oratorical skills are not in the same league as the other two speakers, in past years his remarks have caused looks of baffled consternation on the faces of listeners.  I’m happy to report that this year his speech was well considered and much better received all around. 

Mr. McCoy grew up in the South End not far from my neighborhood. Talking to him after the ceremony he told me he originally lived near the bottom of Second Avenue, and when he was a little older he and his family moved further up the hill near Grandview Terrace. He likes to attend this ceremony because, as he told me, this is where he started.

The Reverend Offers A Strong Prayer (What Is His Name!)

After a prayer led by the reverend (forgot to jot down his name again) we had the laying of the wreath at the feet of Dr. King.  The mayor presided over some little kids who did the job just fine as everybody looked on. This year I was alert enough to step in front of the Corporate Media picture snappers before they crowded me out so for once I was able to get a photo.

Mayor Sheehan Supervises The Kids Who Laid The Wreath

The Corporate Media presence was light this year and coverage in their outlets was marginal.  I’m always ready to read political significance in how much the propaganda machine chooses to cover the MLK events, my interpretation this year is that the elites who support that Brat in the White House told them to downplay the holiday this year.  Who knows.  

But despite the well documented official snubbing of this holiday at the federal level, interest in the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King and his legacy seems to have become more prevalent.  There has always been an undertone of grumbling about the holiday from quite a few whites, over the years I’ve heard quite a few sneering comments about refusing to observe the day.  Outside of places like Albany, particularly in the outer suburbs and rural areas, there is usually a pointed tendency to not hold any sort of observance, which is a passive sort of statement in itself.

Afterwards Kids Crowded The Monument

The day before I was amused to see a circular from Boscov’s department store which is located in the suburb of Colonie advertising a MLK Day “I Have A Dream Sale” complete with Dr. King’s iconic profile and American flags.  I’ve noted in the past that the corporate stores, which usually have big sales on major holidays, have pretty much ignored this day.  Perhaps this was because the big retail corporations did not want to alienate the delicate sensibilities of racists?  If that has been so, then this sale circular is a positive sign.

So as the ceremony ended the politicians and hangers on (like myself) stood around and talked for a bit and posed for photos.  I observed that the only persons who did not wear some sort of headgear to keep their heads warm were the top politicians present, along with a few others who wanted to be seen and photographed with them.  The rest of us were more concerned with not having our brains freeze than how we looked in photos.

Will there be a march to my neighborhood next year, will there still be a federal MLK Day holiday?  Since Dr. King represents the best values of the American People that is no longer a certainty, the Re-pub Party societal cancer that is eating up this country heavily frowns upon American values and aspirations.  The holiday may be repealed and observance outlawed by the elites who dictate to those people.  Well, if that happens, we’ll just have to take our celebration of Dr. King underground.

A Common Criminal

 

December 31, 2017

My New Year’s resolution to no longer be ashamed of
holding American values

We live in a Liberal country that is the living expression of a Liberal society.  We were forged in a Liberal revolution fought and won decisively by a Liberal army against what was once the most powerful military in the world.  We are sustained by Liberal institutions that are defined by our Liberal constitution, at the center of which is the Liberal Bill of Rights that is the basis for our Liberal rule of law.  Anyone who considers him or her self to be an American automatically considers him or her self to be a Liberal.

If an American does not consider him or her self to be a Liberal, then that person is not an American and has rejected everything that this country stands for.  If that person hates Liberals, then that person hates Americans and therefore hates America.  Thus it should be obvious that anyone born and raised in this country, who has been nurtured and socialized under American values but claims to hate Liberals, is someone who is self hating and quite possibly mentally ill.

And yet this country is crawling with puffed up self-haters who loudly proclaim their hatred of Liberals.  Meanwhile patriotic Americans who are loyal to the Constitution and acknowledge the primacy of the Bill of Rights have been made to be ashamed of our patriotism by these self-haters, we are mocked and sneered at by those people who hate America.  Look far and wide across this country, you will find almost everyone either claims to hate basic American values or is ashamed of holding basic American values.

Liberal Soldiers Fighting For Independence From The Owners Of The East India Company

However, if you talk to any of these self-haters, you will find that almost all of them actually strongly believe in Liberal American values.  They believe in freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to a fair trial by a jury, freedom from search and seizure by the government or by the government’s agents. Many of them believe in the right to bear arms, a Liberal conception. They even believe in the freedom to share information without restraint by the authorities, although few Americans seem to understand what that means in our modern technological society, even as they routinely assume freedom of information sharing as a right.

The anti-Liberalism of these self-haters is a surface attitude that does not run deep, this surface attitude covers and hides a basic adherence to Liberalism that runs deep into their American souls.  It’s a beautiful thing buried in filth.  Sometimes I wish that I could open the skulls of these people and scrape off that layer of filth from their minds, like skimming the fat of the top of a pot of cold soup.

These sorts of people are not inherently self-hating, they were not born this way, rather they are victims of misinformation and miseducation.  They have been taught to hate themselves, to be ashamed of their Liberalism.  They know very well the difference between right and wrong, but they have been misled by liars who truly hate America and want to see it destroyed.  These folks do not deserve to be condemned for their confusion, what they need is to be made aware of how they have been misled, and how they have been turned into shameful fools by the worst elements of our society.

Neo-Nazis At The 2016 Re-pub National Convention

There are indeed a handful of Americans who truly do not believe in these American Liberal values, such as so-called Neo-Nazis.  These people, for the most part, are immature freaks living in their mother’s basements spending the bulk of their time posting troll comments on message boards and watching porn.  One could plausibly argue that they should be treated the same as any other persons with mental illness, but one could also present a much more plausible argument that they should be held to at least a minimum standard of personal responsibility for their anti-American behaviors. 

Also, and much more importantly, there is a narrow class of obscenely monied self-styled aristocrats who have never accepted the Liberal Revolution of 1776, who reject Liberal values for everyone but themselves.  They dream of recreating the society that they falsely believe existed before the Liberal Revolution, a society where the vast majority of people were ignorant animals subservient to a handful of aristocratic overseers, where none of us Americans dared to  demand basic Liberal freedoms under pain of torture and execution.  These latter day aristocratic pretenders all foolishly and erroneously believe that in this imaginary recreated retro society they will be the new rulers and lord it over the rest of us, the herd of inferiors.

Welfare Queens

Such persons, both these Neo-Nazi basement trolls and particularly these parasitic aristocratic welfare queens, should not be taken seriously by the rest of us at any time for any reason, they do not deserve to enjoy the Liberal rights that define everybody else around them.  They do not support our Liberal society and we Americans should not support them.  As far as I’m concerned both sets of traitors should be rounded up, stripped of the assets that they have looted from the Liberal society that has nurtured them, and expelled from this country permanently.

Yes, in my opinion anyone who does not share and support basic American Liberal values should be deported to a country that hates Liberals as much as they do, a place like Saudi Arabia or North Korea.  There they can experience life without Liberalism, where people are routinely put to death for speaking their minds, where religion is either outlawed or only one is allowed, where information is tightly controlled, where trials are public jokes, where your every possession and your very body has no security.  If this is what those people want for this country then they should go find someplace where they can experience the putrid joys of anti-Liberalism so we don’t have to deal with them. 

Newspaper Newsroom, 1980s

How did this strange state of affairs come about, where the vast majority of Americans are ashamed of basic American values and a large minority openly proclaim their hatred of these values?  How did loyalty to the foundations of our country become politically incorrect?  Why do so many Americans hate themselves for being Americans?

It did not happen overnight.  It took decades of miseducation, and decades of intellectual suppression.  At the same time it took a willingness by the population to believe what they were told, to absorb that miseducation as unassailable truth.  It took a coordinated set of powerful liars who broadcast their lies through one-way information technology.

It took about forty years.  In the late 1970s the information outlets at the time, the newspapers and magazines, the radio and especially the television began to coordinate what sort of information content they presented to the public. The information services became a propaganda machine.  At first it was not at all noticeable, no one was looking for something like that or expecting it.  But by the beginning of the next decade, the 1980s, this new coordinated media had expelled an incumbent president of the United States and replaced him with an extreme radical right ideologue. 

Radical Corporatist ideologue Ronnie Reagan With His
Cabinet Of Handlers

Emboldened by that success, and supported by the new regime that raised taxes on people who work for a living, a regime that began the process of shattering the political power of the middle and working classes, this new coordinated media widened its attack against American society.  This Corporate Media set to reshaping American society in its image, choosing our politicians for us, cowing those it could not remove and infiltrating our minds with their agenda.  And their agenda was nothing less than reducing American society to a Corporate Dictatorship that resembled themselves, a feudal structure where every individual answers to the individual who is their designated superior all the way up to the CEO, the dictator.

An important central part of that Corporatist Agenda involved a seemingly small semantic manipulation, a little adjustment to our minds that has had terrifyingly profound consequences.  The problem before the Corporatist manipulators was this, how do you convince a patriotic freedom loving people to hate their freedom and become unpatriotic?  How do you convince Americans to hate the foundations of their own country and at the same time learn to hate themselves, the idea being to facilitate tight control over the people?

The elites who control the Corporate Media hit on an amazingly simple and effective trick, to teach the American people to hate the word “Liberal.” This Corporate Media machine, speaking in one voice across TV, radio and print, taught us to regard Liberals as bad, and that Liberal Americanism was anti-American.  Those who continued to adhere to foundational American ideals were cowed into being ashamed of themselves for their patriotism, afraid to express their love of country in public.

Patriotic Americans Demonstrate In Albany NY, November 2016

And it worked.  In the late 1980s I attended a talk at our local library from a fellow who had been held hostage in Lebanon for some 3 years and had recently been released.  He’d been deprived of contact with American society all that time.  He told us that he regarded himself as someone who held basic Liberal values… not knowing that the word and the ideas behind it had been declared bad by the propaganda machine.  

The moderator for the talk was a woman editor from the local outlet of the Hearst Corporation-owned local newspaper, which back then had tremendous influence not only over local public opinion but over local politicians.  When the former hostage declared himself a Liberal a smattering of us tentatively clapped our approval.  But the manager from the Hearst Rag glared furiously at those of us who clapped.  She would not tolerate any sort of approval for patriotic Liberalism, and most of us were cowed into silence.  (The former hostage, of course, looked confused by the exchange.)

I mention this story to show that this coordinated effort to demonize the word Liberal was not just a political policy of the top media executives and their owners, distant lords spewing treason from the distant tops of big City skyscrapers.  This order reached down into the newsrooms of outlets located in market backwaters like Albany NY where I live.  But that is how corporations work, whether we are talking about Hearst or the government of North Korea.  The CEO hands down decrees and the little local corporate bureaucrats carry out the commands without question.

Holocaust Survivor Michael Rice Denounces The Anti-Liberal Agenda Of The Current Federal Administration, Albany NY November 2016

By the 1990s the word Liberal had become a pejorative.  A new breed of rad righties nurtured by the politically fascistic Corporate Media were instructed to accuse anyone who held basic American values of being “a Liberal,” and those of us who remained loyal to our country’s principles made excuses and learned to shamefully avoid the label.  Meanwhile the Corporate Media propaganda machine, which by then reigned supreme as an information monopoly, censored the word outright except to occasionally make sneering references to “Liberal” politicians that it attacked because they did not push the Corporatist Agenda to their satisfaction.

But that was not enough for them.  The propaganda machine did not merely censor the word, they worked to obliterate the word Liberal by equating it to and thus obliterating it with the new word “Neoliberal.”  (The word “Neoconservative” was also introduced but withdrawn after it developed negative connotations, such as the accurate description “Neocon artist.”  Today “Neoconservative” is effectively censored for that reason.)

This equating of the two words was done by not clearly defining either one, which effectively muddied the stark line that separate the two.  For example, the quick definition of the word Neoliberalism that pops up on Google is “a modified form of liberalism tending to favor free-market capitalism.”  So then their definition of Liberalism?  “The holding of liberal views.”

Bearing in mind that the elite owners of big internet corporations like Google are basically sympathetic to the political aims of the elite owners of the traditional Corporate Media, these circular and uninformative definitions that are provided to us is a deliberate tactic.  Other than “Liberal means bad” almost no one can define the word anymore.  At the same time pretty much no one can define “Neoliberal” any better than something like “pertaining to matters that are bigger than me and thus beyond my understanding.”

Older folks are bad enough with sorting out this stuff, but younger folks are totally confused.  I have heard people under 40 who hold advanced college degrees say in all seriousness that there is no difference between Liberalism and Neoliberalism.  Almost inevitably these younger folks follow up this confusion by stating an opposition to this false hybrid Liberalism and Neoliberalism which they call “Capitalism,” another word they don’t quite get.

Since the definitions of the two words have been obscured, let me attempt to define them.  The first thing to understand is that the two words are opposites, like in and out, up and down, face and butt.  You can mix the two opposites but what you get is neither desirable nor compatible in the long run.

1) Liberalism is the philosophy developed over several centuries that elevates the individual as a being of worth that has inherent rights, all individuals. Neoliberalism is a recent idea that elevates corporations and their elite owners as beings of worth that have exclusive inherent rights.

2) Liberalism declares that all individuals have a right to own personal property free from threats of seizure.  Neoliberalism defines property acquired and controlled by any means available and at anyone else’s expense as the measure of individual worth.

3) Liberalism demands that government exists to serve and protect individuals and is directly accountable to people.  Neoliberalism demands that government exists to serve a narrow band of elites and to subject the overwhelming majority of to their whims.

The fuzzy detail that elite Neoliberals characteristically exploit is that basic tenet of Liberalism that allows all individuals to have the right to hold property.  Surely, say the elite Neoliberals, an individual has a right to hold as much property as he or she can grasp?  Are not limits on the amount of wealth one can acquire a violation of Liberal understanding?

U.S. Liberal Antifa Infantry Charge Into Battle against German Nazis, April 1945

Thus uncontrolled greed supported by a corrupted government has become the backbone of Neoliberal “philosophy.”  Nevermind that the Earth is littered with the remains of empires that have been looted into oblivion by their own elites.  Nevermind that our own society is currently experiencing the same steep decline fueled by greed that has destroyed so many other once vibrant nations.

As the new century dawned Americans became more and more generally uninformed and ignorant under deepening information censorship by the the monopolistic Corporate Media.  But during the first decade of the century technology provided competition for the Corporate Media, a new way for people to exchange information without the political filters of the Corporate Media.  This, of course, was the internet, which had been around in some form or other since the 1980s but only became widespread after about 2005.

Suddenly we started to see people express their Liberal natures without political filters.  The Corporate Media managers have scrambled ever since to find a way to suppress this uncontrolled exchange of information.  They have had some success but as of today they still haven’t found a way to silence the American values expressed online that terrify them so much.

Outnumbered Patriots Stand Up To Neo-Nazis, Charlottesville Virginia, August 2017

So today, at the end of this miserable year of decline 2017, it is possible for an individual like myself to proclaim my adherence to basic American Liberalism for an audience of thousands.  I need not worry if my statements are too politically incorrect to be allowed to get published by some “editor,” a political factotum who edits out information that displeases his or her elite owners.  I am saying right here what I understand to be true, and I challenge the Neoliberal toadies to try and offer a refutation to my patriotism.

I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions, I’ve always considered them to be depressing drudgery, it’s nearly impossible to change your own life for the better by making a sudden proclamation.  But this has been a long time coming for me.  I’ve watched the worst elements of our society, the layabout welfare queen elites, redefine what might be the most important word in our society in an effort to turn our nation into an open air prison for the vast majority of us.

I resolve this new year to be proud of my American values, the Liberal truths handed down to me by the Liberal army that fought the American Revolution so long ago.  I call upon my fellow patriots to learn to be proud of themselves again, to openly proclaim themselves Liberals as I intend to do.  And if anyone sneers at me for declaring myself a Liberal then I will not apologize, rather I will demand that they explain their disloyalty to their own country and ask why they hate themselves so much.

 

November 23, 2017

A recent visit to Lev’s Leather and Shoe Repair shop

Sometime in the early 1990s The Wife and I were walking the length of the massive Pyramid Corporation Aviation Mall up in Glens Falls.  There must have been a specific reason but I can’t remember why, perhaps The Wife was looking for computer accessories. Hanging out in malls is something I rarely do.  And it occurs to me that would have been the first and last time I’ve ever gone to that soul sucking place, I recall thinking at the time as I walked and walked that there was very little in there of any interest to me.

All of a sudden, somewhere past the second food court, I saw something I wanted very badly.  The Wilson’s Leather Shop was having a massive storewide sale on black leather jackets.  I was like okay, as much as I hate spending money inside a building that belongs to the evil owners of Crossgates Mall I couldn’t just walk past an opportunity like this.

The salesman tried to steer me toward one of these ridiculous looking jackets with all these useless studs and metal chains hanging off of them, a sort of ready-made punk look.  Those dumb looking things were displayed all over the place, it seems that was what the store was most desperate to get rid of.  But I brushed aside the hard sell because I knew exactly what I wanted, and I walked out of the store with a plain black jacket with a detachable liner for cold weather that cost half price.

Lev In His Shop With My Jacket

I was mighty happy with my purchase.  It makes me look respectable, no mean feat, and even though we are almost eighteen years into a new century and I am a bit heftier than I was way back then, I still wear the jacket throughout the cold season.  It cuts the wind nicely, and if I wear long underwear and zip the liner inside the jacket I can endure extreme cold without getting all bulky.  It makes me look like a cool guy and broadcasts to store clerks that I have purchasing power and thus they need to treat me decently.  

And it never goes out of style.  Some may object because my jacket is made of, you know, cows, which are living things and thus in some fashion dimly sentient.  Well please consider this.  The alternative to leather is that I wear a jacket made of petroleum that may have been fracked out of the ground, probably having poisoned somebody’s drinking water and arrived at the artificial fabric making factory either through intrusive leaking pipelines or by explosive rail cars.  

I go with the cow because cows are a renewable resource and produce a much stronger and longer lasting fabric than petroleum does.  Also, I can assure you that many times over the years I have thanked the cows that went into this jacket for their sacrifice. As far as I’m concerned they did not die for nothing.

So imagine my deep distress when I put on my jacket for the first time this season a few weeks ago and the zipper busted after I tried to zip it up.  All of the teeth came loose, but the damn slider was stuck in the middle of my torso so that the jacket flaps were flapping stupidly above and below the slider. I had no choice but to stand there in a parking lot next to my truck and pull it over my head to get it off.

Lev’s Shop On Central Avenue In Albany

As soon as I was done with my errand I zipped over to Lev’s shoe repair shop on Central Avenue in Albany right by the Hoffman Car Wash.  I had taken this jacket twice before to Lev over the years, once to replace the zipper and once I think to repair a seam that had come undone.  He took care of these problems quickly and excellently, and polished up the jacket so it looked spiffy again.

And quite a few times The Wife has taken shoes to Lev to be resoled, such as her beloved maryjanes which are not that easy to find anymore.  She even once brought him a computer laptop bag made of some sort of fancy fabric derived from petroleum.  The seams had come undone, Lev put it back together and eight years later she still uses it.

But alas!  When I got to Lev’s shop that day it was closed, it seems he is now only open two days a week, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 7 in the morning to 7 at night.  This was a Friday.  Can you imagine how utterly devastated I was.  I had to have my old jacket, what could I do?

I briefly considered looking for another leather shop.  There are several other shoe repair places around but I despaired of finding one that would want to do my jacket, and who knows if I could have trusted someone else to do as good a job as Lev.  There was simply no practical choice for me, I’d have to wait and in the meantime I would have to clothe myself in much less stylish cold weather wear.

Part Of The Interior Of Lev’s Shop

So the following Tuesday I brought the jacket to his shop, I had to wait a few minutes behind an elderly lady who was dropping off a pair of shoes to be repaired.  I heard him tell her that she could pick up the shoes the following Wednesday because on the following Tuesday he had to take his mother to a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day.  So it looked like it would be another eight days before I could have my jacket back, but I was not going to complain.

Lev always demands a deposit on everything dropped off to be repaired, he will tolerate no items that he had worked on not being claimed and littering up his shop.  However, The Wife tells me that when she dropped off her computer bag that time he told her she didn’t need to leave a deposit.  “I’m not worried,” he said to her, “you’re gonna be back for that.”  Hey, I wasn’t going to forget about my jacket, you betcha.  But he made me pay a deposit anyway.

The Wife With Her Computer Bag Repaired By Lev

To be sure Lev’s prices have gone up quite a bit, when I first stopped in like 20 years ago he was way cheap.  In fact I remember thinking at the time he was underpriced.  Well, he seems to have rectified that.  Besides, judging by the pile of stuff behind the counter waiting to be picked up it was evident that he had plenty of business and didn’t have to be underpriced anymore.

But his prices are just fine.  I mean, if I could even find another jacket of similar style and quality it would probably today cost like four times what I originally paid for it.  The idea here is to not waste perfectly good quality clothing that can be repaired, the Rapp Road Dump is big enough already. And besides, repairing it shows respect for the cows who sacrificed their skins and their very lives so I could be comfortable and casually hip.

So on Wednesday the day before Thanksgiving I picked up my jacket.  Lev demanded the ticket he’d given me which I fished out of my wallet.  It seems this procedure was necessary, to my surprise there were a couple of jackets behind the counter that looked a lot like mine.  Turned out mine was in a bag hanging under the window, he pulled it out and spread it on the counter.

He had replaced the zipper with an identical strong brass one, and had provided a patch for the tear inside the detachable liner.  In addition he had polished up the jacket which we had not even discussed doing.  Indeed the only times that jacket has ever been cleaned up and polished are the three times I’ve taken it to Lev’s.  I think about doing it myself now and then but that’s as far as I get.

Lev And His Cash Register

Time to pay, I asked him hopefully if I could give him a credit card.  He looked at me steadily over the glasses perched on his nose and solemnly shook his head no.  I said, “Cash only?”  He just as solemnly nodded his head yes and then gestured to his left.  “Look at my cash register,” he said.  “How could I take credit cards?”  It is indeed a vintage antique machine, they sure don’t make them like that anymore.

Actually I understand that well.  I know of several small businesses that I frequent that don’t accept credit cards because the corporations that process them are seriously expensive operations that gouge the little guys.  I don’t take credit cards in my own business because all too often it would cost more to keep the service than I would collect.  It’s just another way that big corporations maintain an advantage over small businesses.

Lev let me take a few pictures of him and his shop.  I tried to interview him but he wasn’t too forthcoming, he gave me the impression that he was too busy and wanted to get back to work.  I asked how long he’d had his shop in this location, he said 30 years.  I asked him when he arrived in this country from Russia, he said 30 years.  Okay, that was that.

I’ll bet he has an interesting story to tell if he is ever so inclined to tell it, but maybe he doesn’t want to.  I do know he was an expert craftsman when I first visited his shop way back in the 1990s, clearly he learned and mastered his profession in the old country.  And clearly he immediately discerned that there was a need for his talents here in Albany, a void that needed to be filled by an immigrant.

The Blogger With His Jacket And Dotika

I have my jacket back, it looks better than it has in years.  The new zipper catches a little but I expect that will loosen up.  Now I have no more fear of the cold and the wind when I go outdoors, bring it on.  Plus I’m stylish and respectable again, or at least as much as can be expected.

. . . Oh and by the way.  Does this article count as advertising on my blog?  Well I guess it does.  I highly recommend giving Lev your business if you need your shoes or leather jacket or computer bag repaired.  But I can assure you that I have not accepted or solicited so much as one penny for this endorsement.  I just like to support local small businesses like this one, that’s all.

September 29, 2017

A surreal journey on a blistering Autumn day

It was Sunday, the third day of autumn, and The Wife was determined to go boating in Fish Creek up in Saratoga County.  It was extremely sunny and the temperature was 91 degrees fahrenheit because of (WARNING: politically incorrect comment) Global Warming caused by Climate Breakdown, which as we all know we are required to pretend is not a problem even though hot summer now extends well into Autumn.  I can say that just because it was late September and the sun was arcing low in the sky, we found out the hard way that you can indeed get too much sun if you don’t watch out.

We got there kind of later than we wanted to and didn’t launch our boats until quarter after ten.  Already the parking lot was filling up with cars and pickups with boat trailers.  Oh, and if you go up there be warned: unlike the State boat launches which are free, this county lot charges $7.00 for the privilege of leaving your car or boat trailer for the day.

On Fish Creek In Late September

Now, Fish Creek doesn’t look very much like a creek, at least not until you follow it quite a ways downstream.  The first time we put in our boats several years ago we thought it was Saratoga Lake.  But Saratoga Lake is a pretty big body of water, divided from Fish Creek by a bridge, and Fish Creek is the drainage for Saratoga Lake that eventually empties into the Hudson River at Schuylerville.  

The boat ramp at the bridge, as far as we know, is the only public place to put in for both bodies of water.  About 4 miles or so down Fish Creek is a dam that not only turns Fish Creek into a shallow lake but also significantly raises the level of Saratoga Lake.  On this trip we paddled all the way up to the dam, which turned out to be a crazy strenuous thing to do because two days after this trip we were both still recovering from the effort.

Rough Water On Saratoga Lake, 2016

Saratoga Lake is a serious body of water with characteristically rough waves.  We found it a lot of work to navigate in a small boat and not very interesting.  There’s very little to see, the shore is lined with rich people’s McMansions and on a sunny weekend there are so many fancy powerboats roaring about you’d think you were on the Northway on a Friday afternoon.  Last time we put in there I was shadowed by two bored goofs in a Sheriff’s patrol boat, presumably because my old whitewater tub looks suspiciously used and not late model so therefore I must be some kind of criminal.

Fish Creek on the other hand, once you get a little ways downstream, is calm and quiet.  Because it’s shallower you don’t see too many powerboats, and no sheriff’s patrols.  There’s long stretches of uninhabited marsh along the shoreline, and although there are a few McMansions there are plenty of real homes and funky shacks and other odd structures along with plenty of natural vegetation.  All in all a much more interesting paddle.

Marshy Shore Along Fish Creek 

Because we’d had a prolonged dry spell this past month with no rain along with the intense heat, the vegetation had a peculiar burned over look.  By this time it was supposed to look like Autumn, but instead the greenery had this kind of late summer survival look.  It was like the plant life was confused and knew it was supposed to have retired by now but couldn’t figure out how.

Interestingly we saw very few bugs, they had mostly gone.  Way downstream I saw some water skimmers and when a big dragonfly landed on my leg I was momentarily shocked because I hadn’t seen any.  But that was about it.  No stinging or annoying flies, no bees or butterflies among the reeds.  And the only wildlife we saw on the water were a few ducks.

Decaying Lily Pads And Water Grass 

Due to the dam downstream, Fish Creek has a very slow current.  This makes for easy paddling in either direction, and it also means there are plenty of stagnant spots along the banks.  The shore is mostly marsh except where the bank rises steep out of the water or where someone has put a house and landscaped the water’s edge with lawn grass.

The lily pads and water grass should have all disappeared or turned brown by now, but instead we saw big patches of weeds way past their prime but hanging on.  Deep in the water the submerged plants that look like vast aquatic towering Cities were half brown and choked with green masses of algae.  A few small fish darted about, inhabitants of these Cities that had become decayed slums.

Summer In The Autumn 

I became fascinated by all this as I drifted along.  I thought about how I’d never really appreciated this sort of late summer decay before, preferring the bright green and lively growth of spring and early summer while deliberately ignoring the end of season tatters.  I decided it was time to change my attitude, especially now that the warming climate would be bringing more of this late warmth to us and to the naturally occurring living things.

Blue Green Algae Alive And Dead 

There were patches of florescent blue-green algae oozing and bubbling on the surface.  There were also big patches of what I thought was brown algae, but eventually I figured out that the brown stuff was just the green stuff that had expired but was still floating.  It was definitely a sign of stagnation, if I paddled through it a little too vigorously it tended to sink and dissipate.

I wondered why there was so much of it, you don’t usually see much in Spring or high Summer.  They say it occurs as a result of the high phosphorus content of runoff from sewage and lawn fertilizer.  I’ve heard it is poisonous, apparently nothing around here was eating it.

Fishing On Fish Creek, Note The Shiny Oil Slick On The Water 

Word is that fishing is excellent on both Fish Creek and on Saratoga Lake.  We saw a number of fancy expensive looking fishing craft operated by guys who seemed to spend half their time talking on their phones.  We generally tried to give them a wide arc as we passed but they usually pulled back their lines from us and looked annoyed.

Because of all the powerboats on Saratoga Lake, Fish Creek has one big oil slick floating on top of it.  You can see the oil shiny reflecting the surrounding scenery like a mirror.  This oil, which leaks from every single petroleum powered boat, has become so ubiquitous on our waterways that most everybody thinks that it’s part of the natural ecosystems.

Ladies Doing Yoga On Paddleboards 

After narrowing a bit the creek opens up wide.  Another half mile and we came to The Ladies Doing Yoga On Paddleboards, apparently a Sunday morning tradition through the summer at this spot.  In the past I’ve simply gawked as I passed and declined to take any pictures out of respect or something, but this year I’ve seen maybe a half dozen photos in various media outlets of the ladies on their boards, photos taken from the water.  

So this time I snapped a few pictures.  All the other photos I’ve seen have bright green vegetation and no decaying plants in the water surrounding them.  And the ladies were doing shoulder stands or such.  My photos are expressions of this overly late summer and thus unique or something. But I didn’t wait for them to put their legs in the air. 

The Creek Was Lousy With First-Time Kayakers And Paddleboarders 

After the ladies we came to the only commercial area along here which we have taken to calling Wood Fired Pizza.  There’s a restaurant here that proclaims this with a big sign but sadly does not open until 5PM.  Which is their loss, even if their “artisan” pizza turned out to be mediocre and overpriced we would certainly be their customers. 

There’s also a kayak and paddleboard rental place along the shore in front of the restaurant that was doing an absolutely booming business on this hot sunny Sunday.  The creek was lousy with their customers.  But these renters are all beginners, we noted that none of them proceed too far from their point of origin like we were doing.

The Wife was, of course, incensed that so few of them bothered to wear lifejackets.  “What if they hit their heads, what good would having a lifejacket sitting on your paddleboard do?”  A beginner kayaker that I passed asked me how to handle a wave generated by a powerboat that had just passed us.  “You point your boat into it and ride it,” I said.  He looked very skeptical like I was joshing him, probably because he noticed I hadn’t bothered to turn my own super-stable whitewater kayak at the little wave.

Guess I Won’t Trespass 

We probably saw a couple of hundred kayakers, canoeists and paddleboarders on the creek that day.  No exagerration.  But once we got past the rentals at Wood Fired Pizza the creek got a lot quieter.  We still would come upon the occasional fishing rig or kayak as we continued downstream.

Property For Sale, Needs Work 

A half mile past Wood Fired Pizza we came to an odd choke point in the creek where there is a tumbledown shack hanging over the water along with double rows of grass-topped wooden piers sticking out of the water on both sides of the creek.  There may have been a bridge here in the past, certainly docks.  There is a narrow boat channel in the middle marked with buoys, only small craft can proceed past this point.

Permanent Duck Blind On Fish Creek 

I noted several wooden structures on the water’s edge that almost certainly served as duck blinds.  Hunters sit in the cold dark inside these things during duck hunting season in late Autumn, freezing their butts and cramping their joints early in the morning, concealed behind tarps waiting for a hapless duck to paddle past so they can blast it to hell.  Don’t ask me why, it’s the thrill of the hunt or something I suppose.

But it does show that when it gets a little cold and the humans with their various boats are mostly gone and the oil slicks slither away into the Hudson that the ducks and presumably other wildlife return to the creek in quantity.  I’m surprised that shooting is allowed so close to residences in Saratoga county, and I’m surprised that these duck blind structures are allowed to stay permanently.

The Wife Drifts Past A House, More Marshland Beyond 

I’m a little confused by all this, the area around Fish Creek doesn’t seem to be a designated wildlife preserve.  Or maybe I’m not looking in the right places.  There’s a lot of unbroken shoreline of marsh and reeds with the occasional mostly occupied residences every so often.  I kept wondering why the creek is not overdeveloped like the shores of Saratoga Lake, with overpriced McMansions rammed up against each other.

Gazebos Enclosed With Screens Are Popular Along The Creek 

If there is no preserve, maybe it’s all about the State and federal laws preserving marshland.  They would make it very difficult to sell and exploit real estate along the creek.  But it seems to me that if the demand for waterfront property becomes great enough then those with the means will find ways to get around the laws.

Suddenly, Pine Trees 

As we proceeded the creek narrowed and the shore became less marshy, rising in steep banks at a lot of places.  The vegetation changed accordingly, at some bends it even looked almost like the Adirondacks.  Beyond that we started to see more houses.

We kept going and going, well past when we should have stopped and taken a rest.  But there were no convenient spots for us to land the boats except for private houses, and we really didn’t want to trespass and deal with an irate homeowner.  We kept meeting occasional boaters who assured us that we were approaching the dam, so we consoled ourselves with that thought as we sloshed along.

The Dam On Fish Creek 

Long story short, we eventually hit Route 29 and the creek made a sharp right turn.  Shortly after that we found the dam, the sluice gate that turned the creek into a stagnant lake and turned Saratoga lake into a miniature ocean.  This was a little over four miles from where we started, and to my consternation there was nowhere to land the boats except a stretch of private property decorated with several no trespassing signs.  Damn. Or dam. Or something.

The dam was obviously rebuilt recently, the concrete looked new, but I wonder why a dam was placed here in the first place. Was it originally a mill dam from the 1800s?  If so then the person who placed the original dam didn’t give much thought to the vast consequences of damming the creek here.

Well, for whatever reason the original dam was put here, everyone upstream adapted to the flooded creek and higher level of the lake beyond.  The dam has to be maintained today for no other reason than to keep the water level consistent.  If the dam were to be removed then a lot of marshland would instantly disappear, and a lot of expensive waterfront McMansions around Saratoga Lake would suddenly sit quite a distance from the water.

Heading Back, Note The Oil Slick On The Water Is Thicker On The Left

So we turned around and headed back.  I kept looking for a place to land and rest, but The Wife did not like any of my suggestions, mostly because she didn’t want to put her nice clean feet into muck.  Back by Wood Fired Pizza we could have landed but it was such a beehive of activity that we realized we wouldn’t be welcomed by the proprietors of the rental business, particularly since we weren’t going to do any business with them.

We both overdid it.  We paddled five and a half hours without even a pee break in that hot sun.  I should have insisted that we make the effort and at least stop to stretch our legs and find some shade, even if it meant sinking our feet in the muck.  As a result I managed to give myself heatstroke and The Wife pulled her back, leaving us both sick and hurting and worthless for the next few days.  Pretty dumb on my part.

There Were Some Ducks . . .

The last mile of the return journey there were all kinds of powerboats tearing back and forth all around us, loud noisy engines and oily water churning in their wakes.  Pretty unpleasant.  The parking lot was packed and there was a line of boats in the water waiting to use the one concrete boat ramp to land, while at the same time on land another line of mostly pickups with trailers waiting to launch boats.  These bodies of water sure could use another public boat launch.

Fortunately there is also a nice gravel slope off to one side of the concrete launch that can be used by paddle boats and small kayaks.  We landed, literally staggered out of our boats, ran to use the port-a-potties, brought the car around and loaded the boats.  It was mid afternoon and it sure was time to leave.

 

August 11, 2017

A thorough and scathing explanation why incumbent
Kathy Sheehan should be reelected

Now, before we start, I want to make it very clear that everything I am about to say in this article is solely and completely my own opinion.  I’m not going to try to be unbiased like the local Corporate Media outlets pretend to be.  I’m going to tell you what I think and if you don’t like it too bad.

The Democratic Primary, the real political contest in the City of Albany, will take place Tuesday September 12.  On the ballot we will have a three-way race for mayor, between the incumbent Kathy Sheehan, Common Council member Frank Commisso Junior, and Common Council president Carolyn McLaughlin.  I’m going to do my best to explain why I think that Kathy Sheehan should be reelected as mayor, and why I think voting for either of her opponents is a bad idea.

Mayor Kathy Sheehan (center) With Frank Commisso, Jr. And Carolyn McLaughlin

I strongly suspect that a vote for Frank Commisso Jr. is a vote for the return of the old political machine that went out the doors of City Hall with the ascension of Kathy Sheehan in 2014.  An upset victory by him would mean that the 15th ward political machine run by the candidate’s father, Frank Commisso Senior, would take control of the entire City.  That would amount to the return of something very much like the old discredited regime of Jerry Jennings in a new and revived form which would result in the effective annulment of the economic revival that we are beginning to see in our community.  

As for Carolyn McLaughlin, you don’t need psychic abilities to see that she has little to no chance of winning.  So why is she running?  Perhaps she is trying to draw votes away from Ms. Sheehan so as to help Mr. Commisso Junior win.  Perhaps there is something else that she expects to gain from this quixotic run.  I could speculate more about her motives but I won’t.  So now let’s talk about the incumbent.

Kathy Sheehan Announcing Her Reelection Campaign
Earlier This Year

Mayor of Albany Kathy Sheehan, who was sworn in January 2014, is finishing up her first term.  She inherited a City from her 20 year predecessor Jerry Jennings that was in ruins both structurally and financially.  She made no attempt to hide this fact during her campaign four years ago.  In her inaugural address, as I’ve pointed out before, she declared:

As we begin 2014, our structural deficit stands at more than $16 million and our rainy day fund will be depleted by the end of the year. Vacant, blighted and abandoned buildings mar far too many of our once vibrant, diverse and historic neighborhoods. One in four of our residents live at or below the poverty level, and many more struggle to support their families. And property taxes are so high that many families and businesses simply cannot afford to locate here. 

July 15, 2017

A photo tour of a fine Albany landmark and
the importance of church buildings

I can’t believe that after all these years of living within walking distance of the former St. James Catholic Church on Delaware Avenue, located almost directly across the street from the firehouse with the beavers on top, that I had never walked inside of it.  During this year’s Delaware Avenue Street Fair (and garage sale) The Wife and I had this opportunity.  It being Saturday afternoon the church was open for all comers to inspect, part of what sounded to me to be a new policy of openness that bodes well for the future of this incredible neighborhood centerpiece.

Actually the church is now officially called St. Francis, in 2010 it was administratively merged with the former St. John St. Ann’s Catholic Church down on Fourth Avenue in the South End, which now is also called St. Francis. It seems that the Diocese, the local church administration, while it was under the former bishop wanted to shut down one or possibly both of the churches, part of the Diocese’s long standing policy of abandoning the City of Albany in favor of the suburbs.  For a while it started to look like we were going to be left with two more magnificent rotting hulks downgrading both neighborhoods while the remaining parishioners would be left to fend for themselves.

Fortunately the small but loyal congregations of both churches, both of which, I was told, have distinct identities and their own manners of worship, successfully resisted the closures and the churches are still with us and open for business.  Since then the church on Delaware, I was told, while not exactly thriving has turned the corner and with support from the new local administration is attracting new congregants. This is good news, for whatever your religious beliefs or lack of them, there is no denying that this structure is very much the architectural heart and soul of the sprawling Delaware Avenue neighborhood.

The Wife Enters The Church On Delaware Avenue

Compared to the several street fairs that take place on Lark Street, the Delaware Avenue Street Fair is low key and basic.  For one thing it’s more informal, pretty much anyone can set up a garage sale on the sidewalk.  It’s much more spread out, you don’t have the densely packed crowds of people elbowing each other, and featured musicians set up on the sidewalk with open instrument cases busking.  There’s not as much food for sale, but those $2 grilled hotdogs we bought at the VFW parking lot were good enough for us.

Of course it was raining on and off, it wouldn’t be a street fair otherwise.  There was one serious downpour before we arrived and we got hit with brief showers at least three times as we walked the length of the avenue from Morton Avenue to The Cheese Traveler and back.  Despite getting splattered and soaked most folks stayed on the sidewalk selling their wares and plenty of people like us braved the storms.

A Lot Of Sky Like This Over Delaware Avenue
During The Street Fair

I was surprised to see the church with doors thrown open for the public, so I figured this was an opportunity I didn’t want to miss.  A group of three ladies sat under a tent in front, safe from downpours, ready to answer any and all questions, while a younger woman worked the sidewalk inviting passing people to come inside.  There were no formal tours or even someone watching the visitors inside the building, they were trusting the public to respect the church as they wandered about looking it over.

Exterior Of The Former St. James (St. Francis) Church (The Next Day Early Sunday Morning With Better Weather)

Outside the building looks like a medium sized gothic cathedral, with wings set back on both sides so that it is more or less in the shape of a cross.  The ornate exterior had been recently renovated and cleaned up, a testament to the dedication of both the congregation and the neighborhood advocates who did not want to see the building fall to ruin.  We saw that the renovations and upgrades included the interior, every bit of the building displays a commitment to its continued upkeep.  It looks pretty good all around.

Looking Back Toward The Entrance From The Altar

Upon entering one is struck by the amount of light inside, a glow that filters through the windows and through the translucent ceiling panels. Even on a day like this one with iffy weather the hanging lamps were almost unnecessary.  The natural light bathes the worshipper, this creates precisely the kind of atmosphere that is conducive to spirituality, and gives meaning to the word sanctuary.

This building, which was completed in 1929, is an extraordinary application of the idea behind what we now call Gothic architecture, which arose in the 1100s AD in Europe.  Before Gothic the prevailing church style was Romanesque, very stately looking but with interiors that were dark and somewhat cavernous.  A church built in that Romanesque style was perhaps a good place to enact mysterious rituals, especially if the congregants felt they had to hide from the world.

The Translucent Ceiling Panels

The idea behind Gothic architecture is that natural light is a manifestation of the divine, thus the place of worship should collect as much outdoor light as possible, and even enhance it.  Thus instead of solid walls we have enormous windows made of ornate colored glass, instead of hallways we have walkways defined by arches that admit light into the interior.  Before the invention and dissemination of electric lights, church buildings in most places were usually the only buildings that were full of light.

Interesting that after a hundred or so years of electric light, all too many new churches have gone back to having solid walls excluding natural light, these places of worship resembling basement cafeterias or in the case of “megachurches” indoor sports stadiums.  The artificial light that illuminates the worshippers in these places is phony and devoid of grace.  I’ve heard that there was intense debate around this issue of light before the Unitarian Universalist Church on Washington Avenue in Albany was constructed, the modernist solution they came up with is stunning and noteworthy but no improvement on the venerable Gothic plan.

Holy Water Font At The Entrance

Inside the entrance is the holy water font, for you non-Catholics this is for the worshipper to dip his or her fingers before making the sign of the cross, touching the forehead and the shoulders.  This act is more than symbolic, it is a spiritual cleansing that demonstrates respect for the holy sanctuary that one is entering.  Chemically it’s just water, but it is blessed by a priest and thus infused with divine grace.

If you’re a Protestant that is all nonsense.  Originally the Protestant Reformation was all about decentralizing religion, the reformers saw such things as performing an entrance ritual with official water sanctified by a bureaucrat as nothing more than a means to controlling the individual for the benefit of a self-serving corporation.  There is, of course, truth to that, but there is also a substance to the spiritual cleansing that is very much lacking in Protestant ideology, a set of ideologies that doesn’t seem to have put a stop to centralized control by corporate hierarchies.

 

Lamb Of God Triumphant On The Font,
Facing The Entrance Of The Church

The holy water font is very interesting, about four feet high carved from a single white stone, marble perhaps. It is set in the aisle between the pews and thus very much visible to all.  The basin is divided into two parts, one for water and the other containing sea shells.  There is also a sea shell on the rim covering something, but I did not presume to lift it to look underneath.

The shells are a symbol of St. James, which is the old name for the church that the Diocese presumed to obliterate some seven years ago.  By this relic it seems that the congregation has not abandoned their identity as the house of St. James, a lingering defiance of the meddling decree handed down by the regional managers of the corporation.  The name St. James is no longer seen in the church as an identifier, but the visitor cannot help but practically run into this basin full of shells.

Like any corporation the Catholic Church is run from the top down, yet those who run the church from the top are sustained by the faith of people who comprise the congregations of local churches like this one.  The modern Church, in America at least, is characterized by this constant push and pull between the upper echelon bureaucrats and the bottom rung people who demand that the bureaucracy adapt itself to their faith.  I saw this in the small Polish church I attended as a child, and I see this again here at the church on Delaware Avenue.

Statue Of St. Francis

That is not to say that there is open defiance to the Church bureaucracy or that St. Francis is ignored or neglected, a statue of the saint with his attendant animals is right up front to one side of the altar.  There was even one of those delightfully raucous blessings of the animals on St. Francis’ feast day several years ago, where people brought all kinds of ridiculous creatures to the church to be blessed.  Apparently this is done on a revolving basis throughout the Diocese at congregations that bear the St. Francis name, hopefully it will returns to Delaware Avenue soon.

But the entire name change thing was handed down from above for what can only be called arbitrary political reasons that ran contrary to the wishes of the congregation.  The congregation, which had been formed in 1837, has always called itself St. James, even the street alongside the building is still called St. James Place.  Perhaps as people continue to move back into the City of Albany, the Diocese administrators will reconsider their anti-urban strategy and reverse their ham-handed decision to change the name.

The Wife Could Use Some Confession

Much of the beauty of the church is in the fine details.  The Wife admired one of the confessional booths, which is topped with stunning wooden carvings.  She peered inside and said, “There’s no chairs!”  I said, “See that bench?  You kneel on that and confess your sins to the priest.”  “He’s inside there?” she asked, pointing to the wall with the grate.  “Not at the moment,” I said.

Which is too bad because The Wife is a Godless Protestant on the fast track to Hell and desperately needs to confess.  I figure a thousand Hail Marys and ten thousand Acts Of Contrition might get her on the waiting list for Purgatory.  This of course is one of the basic contentions between Catholicism and Protestantism, does the person confessing need an intermediary or not?  Does the confessing person need a guide to properly confess or does that guide corrupt a person’s relationship with God?

This may seem like an esoteric issue to all too many people in this modern age but it most certainly is not.  Confession, whatever form it takes, is the acknowledgement of reality in one’s self.  It is the acceptance of personal responsibility.  Sad to say, we live in a time when fantasy is a popular commodity and personal responsibility is openly sneered at and considered a weakness by our leaders and role models.

Most People Can Be Trusted, But…

But for all its corporatist faults the Diocese does indeed sponsor and coordinate a network of relief programs for the poor and indigent of the City of Albany and elsewhere in its territory.  There are too many programs to name, many that have familiar names that go back years.  The Catholic Church in general has the most extensive and well administered programs of any religious institution, available for all, not just Catholics.

“For The St. Vincent De Paul Society,”
The Ornate Iron Grate Is The Radiator Cover

A notable recent program is the establishment of Law Enforcement Assistance Diversion (LEAD) in partnership with local police agencies and a variety of social advocacy groups.  The idea of LEAD is to find alternative solutions outside the court system for non-violent offenders, basically a kind of mediation program that looks to changing the behavior of offenders rather than merely punishing them.  St. Catherine’s, a subsidiary of the Diocese, has been tasked with providing the administrative structure and training for the program in the City of Albany, it is perfectly natural that the Catholic Church steps up to offer its expertise.

Bottom Two Panels Of The Windows,
Saints In The Middle, Soldiers At The Bottom

The divine natural light that enters the church is enhanced by the enormous stained glass windows which are three-tiered.  The larger center sections are of course devoted to depictions of saints, but the smaller bottom and top sections display the interests of the congregation when the windows were made and set.  As is customary in many churches, the bottom panels of many of the windows record the names of generous donors who contributed to the building of the church.

On the right side of the altar (stage left) we noted that both the top and bottom windows were devoted to soldiers and sailors.  They are dressed in World War 2 era uniforms, which would reflect the concerns of the congregations who contributed their children to fight in that conflict.  Beneath the saints in the middle panel is the inscription “To Honor Our Boys And Girls Who Are Serving In The Armed Forces.”

Female Soldiers Honored At The Top Of A Stained Glass Window

Girls!  The Wife noticed that the top windows depict women in uniform, flanked by angels.  Immediately after World War 2 the significant contributions made by women to the war effort, both at home “manning” the machines of industry and serving in the military, was simply erased as if it had never happened.  Millions of young women who had been thrust into positions of responsibility and unheard of self-sufficiency so they could contribute to the war effort were just as suddenly tossed back into a position of dependency and inferior status.

These women mostly accepted their demotion, but many harbored a suppressed resentment that was felt by their Baby Boomer children, particularly the girls.  The erasure of their accomplishments was nearly complete, so it is astounding to see this record remain in these windows.  It is not hard to imagine that the women of the congregation from that time had a strong influence on the design of these windows.

The Sixth Station Of The Cross Depicting The Veil Of Veronica

One of the defining characteristics of Catholicism is the hearty embracing of icons, and so this church is crowded with images and statues, including the obligatory Stations of the Cross.  Among monotheistic religions today using images is mostly a characteristic of Christianity, both Muslims and Jews firmly reject icons.  Those who reject them consider icons to be distractions from true spirituality and thus promoting falsehood, a point which we modern folks who are so easily distracted and influenced by flickering images may want to give some consideration.

The Carved Wooden Cross Behind The Altar

The altar is set back from the seated congregation on a deep dais, like one would expect in a larger cathedral.  On the wall above the altar is an enormous magnificent carved wood cross.  It is a highly detailed artwork that really needs to be studied up close to be appreciated.  But I certainly wasn’t going to disrespect the church by clambering up the dais and rummaging around the altar for a good photo.

In the small low-rent Polish church I grew up in there was an enormous cross behind the altar with a gigantic lifelike bloody dying Jesus hanging from it.  Why that thing never gave me nightmares is actually an interesting question, this realistic violent image has always been part of the background for Catholic children.  What is interesting is that this church has rejected that ubiquitous dying Jesus in favor of an abstraction of a symbol.  I wonder why exactly they chose that.

One Half Of The Pipes For The Pipe Organ

Distance and large scale is an issue since the current active congregation is less than a hundred and fifty people according to the ladies sitting out front.  In the middle of the 20th Century the entire neighborhood was dominated by Catholic immigrants and their children, mostly Italian and Irish, working class people for whom faith was identity.  Back then the church was too small for everybody, a bit of size and distance didn’t hurt.

With the smaller congregation of today the scale of the church has to be compromised for the Sunday masses.  For example, there is a magnificent looking set of organ pipes gracing a high gallery at the front of the church on either side of a space for a choir with magnificent windows behind.  I’d sure like to hear that pipe organ played one of these days, but I’m guessing it doesn’t get used very often.

In front of the altar is a small electric organ, and behind it a set of folding chairs (which can be seen in the photo of St. Francis.)  Apparently this is how the music is made for the Sunday mass these days, and this is where the choir sits.  In a sense these latter day Sunday masses are like gatherings of the last defenders of the faith, huddled together in the cavernous house of glory.

Objects Displayed In A Nook

This may sound ridiculous to some people but I’ve always felt that churches, especially beauties like this one, are much more than mere buildings.  So much human energy is invested in these structures, so much of the life and spirit of so many people, that I consider them more than just arrangements of stone and wood.  There is a life to such a church as this one that can’t be defined by a real estate tax map, and while that structure is alive it sustains the community around it.

Older buildings, I’ve always felt, are the sum total of the people who have lived there and used them.  I look at the hundred fifty year old plus buildings in the City of Albany and I see more than roofs and walls, I see that sum total shimmering.  How much more of that sum total is invested in a church building that has been at the center of so many lives?

Round Window

This is a big reason why I cannot comprehend why certain civic authorities are so enamored of wrecking our old buildings in the City of Albany, that seems to me to be more like murder than demolition.  Our older buildings are living things, they are not the same as most modern buildings which are designed to be torn down and replaced after 30 years. Those newer buildings are designed to reject their inhabitants, they are made to be lifeless.  

So I’m grateful to the congregation of the church on Delaware Avenue for their successful efforts to defend their building and to keep it alive. May they grow stronger in the future.

Above The Front Doors

 

 

June 29, 2017

The rocks exposed at the mouth of the Mohawk River

The City of Waterford sits at the intersection of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers north of Albany, part of a great inland water highway that leads deep into the interior of the United States and ultimately connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River.  The Erie Canal sits on one side of the Waterford waterfront, and Lock 1 of the Champlain Canal which runs up to Canada sits to the north on the Hudson. Historically this was a busy industrial crossroads and is still used for some commercial traffic, today it’s a great place to put in a paddle boat and explore.

We weren’t interested in any of that history and greatness.  It was a glorious first Sunday of summer, the sky was blue with puffy clouds, the water was warm and the weather was not too hot.  The Wife and I took our friend Sandra up there to explore and show her the sights. As The Wife kept telling her, when you get into a small boat and paddle around everything looks different and you see all kinds of things you’d never see if you stayed on dry land. 

Our Friend Sandra And The Wife Rounding Peebles Island

There’s an obscure State boat launch in the Lansingburgh part of the City of Troy where we like to put in, it sits directly across the Hudson from Waterford.  The launch is a bit steep going into the water, but it’s rarely too busy and there’s a convenient parking spot for our cars next to it.  But when we got there a little after 10AM we saw these local fire and EMT guys down at the bottom. 

Uh Oh, This Doesn’t Look Good

Were they looking for bodies, maybe trolling for evidence?  Nope, turned out they were just doing a training exercise.  One of the guys in charge actually apologized to us for getting in our way.  No problem, there was plenty of room for us to carry our boats down and launch, we didn’t want to get in their way.  After all, they were doing something important and we weren’t.

Pleasure Craft Heading Into Erie Canal Lock E-2

Our first order of business was to check out the Erie Canal Lock at the far end of the Waterford waterfront, Sandra had never seen one in operation before.  She and The Wife sat a little too close as the lock was expelling water and they both bounced around in the resulting current fighting to stay in one place.  When the gates opened three non-commercial craft went into the lock.  Since the 1990s pleasure craft use the locks in New York State for free, and that would include our little paddle boats if we had been so inclined to head into this one.

The Old Champlain Canal Lock Used Today As A Spillway

There’s an old canal lock from the 1800s built with big stone blocks that sits next to the current lock, it is still used as a water overflow. We’d always assumed that it was an old Erie or Barge Canal lock but Google Maps identifies it as part of the old Champlain Canal.  Water usually rushes through it tumbling down the rock steps, but I did manage to get in close despite the roiling broiling current inside the narrow passage.

Waiting For The Ladies To Use the Restroom

So then we landed our boats at the launch which sits on the tip of the waterfront and visited the Sunday morning farmer’s market along the water’s edge, which starts at 9AM.  It’s not a big market, it’s very low key but there’s some nice things for sale.  We shopped a little and got some eats, then we hung out for an hour on a bench, eating and talking and looking out at the water and the islands.

Heading Around Peebles Island

There’s a lot to see around here on a paddle boat trip, more than you can find in one day.  We were thinking about landing on Peebles Island, which is now a State Park connected to Waterford by an old refurbished railroad bridge.  There are walking trails, picnic greens, the old “Sanforizing” (textile shrink proofing) factory that is now a museum, and of course the remains of the Breastworks, the earthworks ordered made by General Tadeusz Kosciusko in 1777 to defend the island during the Liberal Revolution that created our nation.

But you see, we got distracted.  We decided to first paddle around Peebles island, where we discovered something very interesting on the other side.  It was just as well, from our vantage point it looked like the island was overrun with people.  There were picnic parties, people fishing, runners on the paths and all sorts of people just wandering around.  We’ll save Peebles Island for another day.

Shale Cliffs On Peebles Island

The point where we started to go around Peebles Island is officially the mouth of the Mohawk River.  It doesn’t look any different from the Hudson River, particularly from a paddle boat, it’s all water.  But the passage on the north side of the island gets progressively more shallow, particularly since this was low tide.  (Yes, the Hudson and also the mouth of the Mohawk are affected by Atlantic Ocean tides 150 miles away, our elevation is low.)

On this north side of Peebles Island are shale cliffs that rise high straight up out of the water.  There is shale all around these waterways and the flaky rock is very visible in those places where there have been few human alterations.  It is layered in striations like stacks of paper crushed together, it crumbles easily into little pieces that lay at the bottoms of the cliffs as mounds of flat gravel.

Closeup Of The Shale Cliffs On Peebles Island

Now, if you look at Peebles Island on Google Maps you would get the impression that the island is circumnavigable by boat but that’s never been true.  There is a wide, flat area of shale in the water that connects Peebles Island to the north bank of the Mohawk.  Beyond these shale flats is an old spillway dam, part of the elaborate set of waterworks designed to make this intersection of the rivers navigable.

Back in the day, like over 200 years ago before humans altered the landscape around here for their own convenience, one could walk across these flats, travel around Peebles Island and continue through the Hudson River to Lansingburgh near where we launched our boats earlier. Thus the name Waterford, it was where you could ford the Hudson River.  You can’t do that any longer, the Hudson along here was long ago dredged out for large boats, and the spillway dam usually makes the shale flats impossible to walk on.

The Spillway Wasn’t Spilling

I said usually.  To our surprise there was no water coming over the spillway dam and the  shale flats were exposed.  The flats looked amazing, the word moonscape came to our minds as we first gazed at it.  But it was a moonscape with puddles of water.  Imagine the Moon like that.

Landing On The Shale Flats

Leading the way I found a navigable channel that came up close to the flats and we landed our boats on a convenient gravel beach across from Peebles Island.   It was easy to walk as long as one carefully stepped around the wet crevices.

The Shale Flats

I do wonder about fording the river here several hundred years ago, these crevices would have been underwater and thus treacherous. Probably more than a few people abruptly fell in the drink and more than a few horses ended up with broken legs. 

Sandra Watches Fish In A Tidal Pool

The puddles, it turned out, were tidal pools full of life that had been caught when the water stopped running over the spillway.  We saw schools of small young fish that may have been pickerel and bass.  There were plenty of snails with pointy shells both black and white, and small freshwater clams.  And strange crawly worms that lurked in crevices.

On Top Of The Spillway

Approaching the spillway the flats rise up.  Sandra and I climbed up and over the dam, sure enough the water on the other side was well beneath the crest.  This was the first time I’d been up there.  I have to say the dam looks like it could use some maintenance, it didn’t look ready to collapse but if it did that could really screw up the hydraulics for the entire area.  I’m just sayin.’

The Wife Waits Way Down Below (The Yellow Dot In The Middle)

The Wife, who was more nervous than usual, would not climb up with us and stayed below.  She alternately called up dire warnings to us about slippage and the rising tide, followed by worriedly pacing.  Eventually I spotted her down below across the flats gazing happily at the scenery.

Clamshells On A Shale Beach

Meanwhile on a shale beach on the other side of the dam Sandra observed that the light colored lines on a shale beach were the shells of freshwater clams.  “Something’s been eating them,” she decided, “maybe birds.”  We’d been wondering if some of the bivalves we were seeing in the tidal pools were the dread zebra mussels, but apparently not.  The zebras have a distinct fan shape and tend to attach themselves to objects in dense clumps.

Channel Under The Spillway

Back on the dry side of the dam Sandra found a pipe in the middle of the dam that emptied a small quantity of water into a deep channel. Not sure why this is necessary, maybe to keep the water moving and fresh at low tide.  Sandra excitedly pointed out some sizable fish in the channel, including a great big bass.  “I should have brought my net!” she said.

Okay, Okay, We’re Coming Back

So now it was late afternoon and the wind was picking up, so we decided to head back to the launch.  After we rounded Peebles Island again the waves were fairly rough in the Hudson and we had to fight the waves for a bit.  We landed and tied up our boats on our cars and went to an early dinner at Hotdog Charlie’s across the river on Route 32, little hotdogs and french fries, you know, health food.  That was our day.

The Armchair Environmentalist Caught Outdoors

 

June 17, 2017

Are Albany County officials seriously considering killing us with a trash incinerator?

I’m not going to mince words or beat around the bush or pull any punches here.  If a garbage burning plant gets built anywhere in Albany County or in the surrounding counties, if then someone takes a rocket launcher to it or packs it full of dynamite or drops a drone laden with C4 explosives on the god damned thing and blows it to Hell where it belongs, and no one gets killed, then I will applaud, proclaim the perpetrator a hero and contribute to that person’s defense fund if caught.

As far as I’m concerned, building a garbage burning plant or incinerator or pyrolysis facility or whatever you want to call it within range of where I live and breathe is a terrorist attack upon my community and upon myself.  We The People have a right to defend ourselves against terrorist attacks.  I don’t care if the terrorists are ideologues, religious fanatics, corporate despoilers or irresponsible politicians, a terrorist is a terrorist.  I have a right to breathe the air without fear of poisoning and so does everyone else.

Day Before Trash Day In My Neighborhood, Holes In Can Lids Are Made By Squirrels

You might wonder what exactly has got me all riled up and ranting about garbage burners like that.  It seems that the Albany County Legislature is looking at the feasibility of creating a regional solid waste authority, something which other Counties in the State have done with success.  The idea is to share this essential service, instead of each municipality in the County collecting trash and operating a landfill or scrambling to find ways to dispose of their trash the County government will standardize disposal and eventually standardize collection.  Fine.

Last month the County Legislature voted unanimously to update a feasibility study they’d done in 2011 but went nowhere because of non-cooperation by the municipalities, particularly by then mayor Jerry Jennings of Albany who didn’t want to give up control of trash disposal in “His” City.   But current mayor Kathy Sheehan has stated that she wants the City to “get out of the garbage business” and is looking for alternatives, so political opportunities have opened up.  Again, fine.

The big question is what will this new County authority do with the trash it wants to collect for us.  Will it find a new location for a county-wide dump?  Will it look for the cheapest dumps operated outside the region and sign a contract?  Or will the authority do the unthinkable and BURN our garbage?  Pollute our air?  Crap in our nest? Shorten our lives?

Albany County Executive Dan McCoy In My Neighborhood On MLK Day 2016

I was sitting and having dinner and reading the Altamont Enterprise, the best news source in this region, which had a big article on the Albany County trash initiative.  According to the article, County executive Dan McCoy indicated that he looks favorably on the idea of a trash authority.  That’s fine too.  But then I read this:

McCoy said that the most successful regional authorities that he is aware of are all in Europe – they include very large recycling centers and generally incinerate waste.  They are closest to what he said is his goal of “seeing zero go back in the ground.” Those facilities, he said, “burn cleaner air than we breathe.”

May 30, 2017

Looking at some killer birds and
learning about how they were saved from extinction

Way back in the last century when the old folks were young and useful, hawks and eagles were almost extinct in the State of New York and were rarely seen anywhere in the United States outside of Alaska.  The few people who noticed this disappearance and who were concerned, mostly naturalists and wildlife biologists, became aware that the dwindling nesting pairs of many raptor birds were simply not reproducing and replenishing their numbers.  The ecological damage caused by this approaching extinction at the top of the food chain was not well understood at the time, but it was becoming clear that birds such as the national symbol, the bald eagle, were unlikely to survive for much longer.

It was in the 1970s that a group of these naturalists and other concerned citizens took it upon themselves to figure out what was killing these raptors.  As is well known today, the culprit was found to be the pesticide DDT which concentrated in the bird’s bodies and made them sterile, once the poison was banned the birds became numerous again and we see them today even in populated urban areas.  But few people today know how the activism of these naturalists convinced the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to take up this cause and lead the nation in promoting the recovery of these birds.

Peregrine Falcon At The Raptor Festival At Schodack Island

The Wife and I recently went down to Schodack Island State Park for the Raptor Festival put on by the Audubon society of the Capital Region.  As far as I can tell this is an annual event that is held in a different place in this region every May.  Back in 2011 we stumbled upon this event at the Nature Center at Thompson’s Lake up in the hills in western Albany County when we took our boats up there for the day, so we hoped we could attend the event in the future when we had more time to appreciate it.

We were also curious to see Schodack Island Park, which opened in 2003 and established some 50 overnight campsites just last year.  The park is a very long narrow island in the Hudson River just south of the City of Albany, running south from Selkirk and ending in a point well past New Baltimore in Greene County.  Only a small part of the island is accessible to us tourists, much is mostly undisturbed habitat, while the southern tip of the island is used by the Army Corp of Engineers for dredging the nearby channels, a constant operation every summer.

Watching For Bald Eagles Fishing The Hudson River At The Schodack Island Boat Launch

The island is separated from the east bank of the Hudson by Schodack Creek, which up on the northern part where the park facilities are is a marshy creek that is only navigable by non-motorized boats during high tide.  Actually the island is technically not an island because the northern tip is connected to the mainland just south of Castleton, this is where the only access road is to the visitor’s area pavilions and campsites.  There used to be a series of islands like this in the northern part of the Hudson that are now attached to the mainland, it’s a wonder that the creek was never filled in and the island developed either for commercial or residential use.

According to a signboard Schodack Island was settled by Dutch farmers in the 1600s.  Before that the island was a meeting place for the Mohican people who lived on both sides of the river, the name Schodack is derived from the Mohican words “ischoda” or fire plain, and “akee” which means land.  There was a Mohican settlement on the southern tip of the island but remains of the site have been obliterated by the dredging operation.

A Hiking Crowd Hoping To Spot Some Wild Peregrine Falcons

We arrived at the festival at 9:30 AM and joined about 70 people who took a walk with a gentleman who is an expert on bald eagles, and sure enough we spotted a few in the distance.  There are three nesting pairs of bald eagles around the island, they mate for life.  The birds build nests high in trees that they return to annually, the nests are quite heavy and sometimes as wide as six feet across.  

The bald eagles we saw were circling and diving for fish in the Hudson.  They are skimmers, they don’t dive through the water like falcons do.  With their incredible eyesight they circle high in the air, and when a fish moves near the surface they swoop down, grab it in their talons and bring the prey to the treetops to eat.

On the north end of the island are the big concrete pillars of the I-90 Thruway bridge that heads east across the river to Massachusetts, these pillars are a favorite nesting place for the peregrine falcons.  These birds dive through the air from incredible heights, sometimes reaching 200 MPH, and take out their prey by slamming into them.  If that doesn’t kill them the falcons then use their powerful beaks to snap their necks.  Sadly, we didn’t see any of them on the walk.

Barn Owl And Handler

The main attraction of the Raptor Festival was, of course, the raptor birds on display.  These were all rescue animals that had injuries that would not have allowed them to survive in the wild, so they spend their lives in captivity.  Their handlers at the festival were all private commercial concerns, one of them even announced that they were available for birthday parties.

Barred Owl Which Kept Hooing Uneasily At The Barn Owl Nearby, With Handler

One might argue that keeping the birds alive in captivity and in effect putting on display performances for people is a cruel thing to do, but I’m not sure about that.  Giving these magnificent animals a further lease on life for the purpose of educating humans and satisfying their curiosity is useful for the survival of their species, teaching the humans to respect them and to support efforts to ensure that they continue to prosper.  And this helps humans to establish connections with both the birds and with the ecosystems that they inhabit.

Nature is not forgiving for the lame and halt.  Some folks do indeed argue that nature should take its course and kill the birds, but in a world dominated by humans who shape the landscape for their own needs there really isn’t much natural course left to speak of.   What nature we still have must be managed if it too is to survive and provide habitat for animals like these, and for us.

The Mangled Tail Feathers Of The Peregrine Falcon

For example, we saw a beautiful captive peregrine falcon, but when he was turned around we could see that his tail feathers were permanently mangled, he couldn’t fly.  We were told that an enormous red tailed hawk, the biggest I’ve ever seen, had “something wrong with his brain and could not fly.”  Sure enough when he became agitated he kept falling off his perch and had to be put into his enclosure.

It was the peregrine falcons in captivity that saved the species from extinction in North America.  These birds are used for hunting, enthusiasts are devoted to the birds.  Back in the 1960s when those enthusiasts heard that the falcons were disappearing in the wild they became quite concerned.  A good number of falcon owners willingly donated their birds to the project to develop a breeding stock to replenish their numbers in the wild.  This ensured genetic diversity of the peregrines which is crucial to long term survival.

The lessons learned with peregrine falcons led to an alliance of a group of concerned experts who, mostly with their own time and money, worked to bring back the bald eagles. Actually, these experts didn’t really know what they were doing, they had to innovate on the fly because nothing quite like this had ever been done before.  But after they got going on their project they received valuable support and assistance from the NY State DEC.

Darryl McGrath Of Albany, Author Of “Flight Paths”
(SUNY Press 2016)

We learned about all this from an interesting talk given by Darryl McGrath, who lives not too far from us in downtown Albany.  Ms. McGrath is an award winning journalist who recently published a book about the incredible saving of the peregrine falcon and the bald eagle and other raptors from extinction called “Flight Paths, a field journal of hope, heartbreak and miracles with New York’s bird people” published by SUNY Press.  The book is a crucial record of how citizen activism is vital for preservation of our land and thus for our society at large, naturally we bought a copy of the book which I look forward to reading.

Central to the story is the almost unknown Dr. Thomas Cade of the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology, whom Ms. McGrath says is one of the most important conservationists of modern times.  Having demonstrated that it was possible to raise peregrine falcon eggs in captivity and introduce the chicks into nests after which the adults would raise the birds to full term, he and others showed that this technique worked on bald eagles.  More than anything else this active intervention brought the birds back from the edge of extinction inside of a few decades.

These actions relied not so much on accepted scientific procedure, publishing papers with peer review, conducting experiments and compiling data, etc. which is usually an exceedingly slow process.  There simply wasn’t enough time, if they had done that the birds would have completely disappeared while everyone was contemplating the best course of action.  Instead Dr. Cade and his allies relied on readily available poultry farming techniques which they refined as they went along by trial and error.

An Enormous Red Tailed Hawk

With the falcons this involved rappelling up exposed cliff sides to find the nests.  The conservationists (which is what environmentalists were called back then) had to wear helmets as they climbed because of the danger of attack by the adult falcons who vigorously defended their eggs and their chicks.  The birds are small but powerful, in their preferred environment the humans hanging by ropes are at a distinct disadvantage in a battle.

With the bald eagles it was much easier for the humans to climb trees, the birds prefer tall pines because the trees provide shelter from storms but will settle for tall broadleaf trees. The enormous adults were less threatening to the climbers than the falcons, after four weeks the chicks can defend themselves adequately and besides, no other creature besides humans even thinks of messing with bald eagles.  The adults would actually stand to one side of the nest and and act agitated while the humans messed around with their eggs and chicks.

At one point there was only one pair of nesting bald eagles left in New York State located in a remote area near Syracuse called the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge, but the female was found to be sterile.  After several attempts the birds accepted a hatchery chick into their nest and raised it to adulthood.  These chicks came from eggs brought from several northern states including Alaska, where there was still a fair sized and genetically diverse population, and where there were still many birds that had not yet been seriously poisoned by DDT.

American Kestrel, A Type Of Falcon

Most people believe that the federal government somehow or other intervened with local laws and practices to save the bald eagle and other raptor birds, but that was not the case and in fact it rarely is it ever.  Almost every instance of successful environmental defense in the United States begins with a citizen’s movement that is slowly taken up by local governments, and only eventually the federal government accepts the will of the people. In this particular situation naturalists and conservationists prevailed upon the New York State DEC to vigorously support their efforts. From the DEC website:

Remote video observation of New York’s only surviving bald eagle pair showed that the birds were carrying out all the functions of nesting, but their eggs broke before they could hatch. Since it appeared that this pair would be good parents, DEC bald eagle program personnel devised a plan to give them a chance.

Within two weeks of the birds settling into incubation, a biologist climbed to the nest, removed any egg present and inserted a plaster dummy egg. The adult birds incubated the artificial egg as their own for the next two to four weeks, while project personnel obtained a bald eagle chick from a captive breeding facility, brought it to New York and “transplanted” it into the nest. For three years, this pair accepted, cared for and fledged captive-bred chicks.

After the male of the original pair died, the female mated with a hacked [hand raised by humans] bird. They returned to the nest site and fostered five more chicks in subsequent years. Since then, hacked eagles have occupied the nest, continuing use of the territory for breeding.

April 28, 2017

The Earth Day March for Science rattled the elites and
could not be silenced

Of all the unanticipated and unpredictable political upheavals of the past six months, the national March For Science ranks among the most surprising.  Americans came out by the hundreds of thousands across the nation to put forth the message that the neocon Corporatist radicals who have seized control of our government are completely out of line with their ideological opposition to and massive monetary cuts to scientific, health and environmental research and initiatives.  There were marches in major Cities and smaller municipalities across the country, simultaneously some 600 marches on every continent including Antarctica.

Here in the City of Albany around seven or eight thousand people gathered outside the State Capital to listen to distinguished speakers including scientists and elected officials, to inspect organizational tables, and finally to march a short loop a couple of blocks up Washington Avenue and back down State Street.  Despite the mood of urgency and sense of defiance this was a well behaved crowd composed of people who mostly looked like they had never attended a demonstration before.  As someone pointed out to me after the crowd had dispersed, there was no litter to be seen anywhere around the Capital.  Not a speck.

Crowds Gather At The Capital Hours Before The Earth Day March for Science, Albany NY

Yet despite this stunning and surprising surge of public expression by an important and influential sector of the public that had never displayed defiant activism before, the Corporate Media was absent both locally at the Albany and Saratoga marches and was absent nationally.  Obviously this was deliberate.  For example, the Hearst owned Times Union briefly mentioned that “hundreds” participated in the Albany march, a lie on their part.  By this crude act of censorship the moneyed corporate elites who own the Corporate Media signaled their terrified disapproval of this novel wave of activism.  We’re scaring them.

Earth Day Science March, Albany NY

The Science marches took place on Earth Day, at the Albany march the two events were melded together.  There are plenty of other Earth Day events held every year in nearby neighborhoods, such as the South End cleanup sponsored by AVillage and the open house and fair at the Radix Center urban farm among others.  I hear these events were held as usual but I’m guessing that attendance and participation was siphoned off by the big event at the Capital.

The blend of themes was a good one that worked well together.  Once upon a time Earth Day was centered around a formerly radical movement called Environmentalism, and the day was devoted to educating the public about a greedy society that was killing itself with pollution and wastefulness while offering solutions to those problems.  This year it was interesting to see that defiant activism of the last century revived in a new and unexpected way, encouraging that people still care about their country. 

Earth Day Science March, Albany NY

After the first Earth Day in 1970 our various governments and much more grudgingly the corporations eventually incorporated a “greener” set of policies that visibly improved our quality of life.  The air, water and land became cleaner, dangerous poisonous substances were removed from our homes and public places, matters of health and nutrition eventually improved.  There were constant debates about consequences of innovative policies mostly promoted by profit-minded special interests, but the general perception was that the authorities were taking charge of environmental matters and were genuinely interested in promoting them for our benefit.

Earth Day Science March, Albany NY… Galileo Said That

But all that changed at the beginning of this year when a cabal of unpatriotic corrupt fools and their party beholden to the greediest of irresponsible special interests seized control of the federal government.  Suddenly anyone with any sense realized that these new authorities are not in the least bit interested in our health and well being, rather they seem to be promoting public harm.  Just as alarmingly, it has become clear that these authorities do not see any reason to promote America’s science and technology because they aren’t smart enough to understand the basic idea of science and research.

Earth Day Science March, Albany NY

Someone asked me recently how it is possible that the fool in the White House or the other fools in his political party could not understand the importance of clean air and water or of scientific research.  Didn’t these people grow up in this country, don’t they live here?  Don’t they breathe the same air and drink the same water that we do, and share in the same technological developments?

My reply was that “Our President” is a very clever person who knows how to get people to give him what he wants, but cleverness does not equate to intelligence.  Many house pets are clever, they are experts at getting what they want from the humans around them, but that doesn’t mean they can comprehend abstract ideas.  “Our President” and his party comrades are much like house pets, no, they can’t see the consequences of their clever but selfish actions, they don’t understand the damage they are doing to themselves and to others.

And yet somehow the greedy little clever house pets have taken over the house.  This is why so many people who have never marched in a demonstration or would even dream of protesting have now taken to the streets as they did this Earth Day in Albany and elsewhere.  No one wants to start a revolution and burn down the house, but just about every decent person with any common sense understands that we can’t let the house pets run our lives.

Display Table, Earth Day Science March, Albany NY

About 45 organizational display tables were set up along State Street next to the capital and nearby walkways, these reflected both the traditional Earth Day concerns but also this newer pro-science theme.  I arrived about three hours before the march was scheduled to begin but already the crowds were so thick I could hardly get near the tables. 

Display Table, Earth Day Science March, Albany NY

From what I could see through the bodies, the emphasis at many of these science tables was hands-on education for the kids.  At one table kids were encouraged to make big round slides of some kind of pond dwelling life form and look at it through a microscope.  At another table sponsored by a medical center I watched a kid being taught medical laboratory procedures.

Display Table, Earth Day Science March, Albany NY

Some of the more traditional Earth Day displays were also hands-on for kids, such as the solar power electronics assembling table. There were also the activism tables representing long-time defenders of our environment that one would expect to see on Earth Day. The Sierra Club was present, as were groups like Women Against War and Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace, patriotic groups that support environmental goals as conducive to peace and prosperity.

Save The Pine Bush Table, Rezsin Adams With Blue SPB Sweatshirt, Earth Day Science March, Albany NY

Notable among them was Save the Pine Bush (SPB), the organization that through some 30 years of grassroots activism achieved the impossible and managed to defend enough of the globally rare Pine Bush ecosystem from sprawl development to put it into a government sponsored preserve, a preserve created by their lawsuits.  The Pine Bush is now considered one of the region’s main attractions.  Last year this venerable group almost disbanded having apparently achieved their main goals, but at what was supposed to be their final meeting some 30 people showed up and demanded that the group stay together to meet the new wave of environmental threats from above.

Dr. Ed Landing Explains The Geology Of Fracking, Earth Day Science March, Albany NY

Also notable were informational tables that blended both the science and environmental themes.  There was one that showed all comers how to test water for impurities, at others I saw some very impressive fossils which reflects the importance of land preservation.  At another I saw retired NY State Paleontologist Dr. Ed Landing passionately explaining the geology of fracking with an interesting colored contour map.  Sad to say Dr. Landing’s State job, which has been maintained since the first half of the 1800s, will probably be ended with his retirement, a bit of anti-science on the State level.

Democratic Socialists Of America Contemplating Some Weirdo With A Camera Approaching Their Table, Earth Day Science March, Albany NY

The Albany march was tied to the Washington DC march, as were all the other marches that took place that day across the country.  Some 890 organizations were listed as national sponsors, many of those organizations have active branches in and around Albany.  But from what I can tell the lead organizer of the march in Albany was the newly revived Albany chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. (DSA) who had a prominent table set right in front of the podium.

Yes, they are not afraid to use that word that we have all been carefully trained to regard as dirty, Socialism.  The folks manning the table looked at me skeptically as I approached and saw a dumbass Baby Boomer white guy, so they gingerly handed me several pamphlets that carefully explained that Socialism was not some kind of communistic terrorism.  Since I realize that Socialism is nothing more than a modern application of the basic cooperative American values enshrined in the Bill of Rights that have made our country great, so we got past that quickly.

Peter Warren, another dumbass Baby Boomer white guy like me, explained that the Albany DSA had become closely allied with groups like Citizen’s Action and the Green Party, which are all too often perceived as extensions of the Democratic Party.  But if that was ever true then that has come to an end.  “We’re not waiting for the Democrats to organize people to march in the streets,” he said.  “We’ll be waiting a long time before that happens.”  He did not say this to me, but I am hearing a growing call to replace the Democratic Party with a party that actually represents the will of the currently unrepresented majority, particularly from people under the age of forty.

Had To Rudely Push Through The Dense Crowd To Get Near The Speakers, Earth Day Science March, Albany NY

There was a podium that early on featured some musicians, but later it was turned over to some dignitaries who gave speeches.  I missed the first few speeches because I had walked up to Lark Street to get coffee and use the can, on the way back I became conscious that I was walking toward an Earth Day rally with a disposable cup in my hand.  I stopped and slurped down my coffee but couldn’t find a municipal trash can in the heart of Center Square, so I deftly slipped the cup into a private garbage bucket sitting in a vacant looking basement doorway.  I do confess to being an ugly hypocritical American.

So I didn’t hear Albany mayor Kathy Sheehan’s speech and I only caught the very end of the speech by 2nd ward Common Council member Dorcey Applyrs, who is a public health science specialist as well as a politician.  I eased myself through the crowds to get near enough to hear some eminent scientist give a boring speech that she read off a printed sheet.  It was quite forgettable but it contained one current cliche that makes me cringe every time I hear it.

Listening Carefully To Speakers At The Earth Day March For Science, Albany NY

She repeated the canard that Science is not a Liberal conspiracy, it is non-partisan.  I call bullcrap on that.  Science is very much a byproduct of our Liberal society because to make effective Science you need a safe atmosphere where ideas can be freely exchanged and debated. Real Science does not exist in totalitarian societies. If your research is hobbled by the threat of suppression and controlled by profiteers then you will not be able to make and share your discoveries.

Indeed, the practice of Science embodies the practice of freedom that is the byproduct of living in a Liberal society.  This, my friends, is a prime reason why the scumbag in the White House and his party comrades are so hot on cutting off money for research, it is part of their broader program of destroying the Bill of Rights and negating the Liberal Revolution of 1776.  It is a simple fact that totalitarians cannot tolerate the pursuit of truth in any form because they see it as a threat to their total control of society.

Congressman Paul Tonko, Earth Day Science March, Albany NY

After several more speeches the final speech by Congressman Paul Tonko was an absolute barn burner.  He called the funding cuts to science and research by the ruling regime “immoral and un-American.”  It was inspiring to watch the thousands of people listening erupt into a roar of applause at this.  Clearly our representative in Washington is one of the few in Congress who understand the link between fundamental American Liberal values and the importance of scientific inquiry to our strength as a nation.

Which is not to be wondered at because Mr. Tonko has a degree in engineering from Clarkson College.  He said, “It is painful to sit in committee meetings and listen to anti-science from my colleagues.  And,” he asked the crowd, “What drives that?”  Instantly thousands of people answered back in one voice, “Special interests!”

That was amazing.  No wonder the Corporate Media content providers were ordered to not report on this event.  Mr. Tonko then told us that he had introduced a bill (HB 1358, if I got that right) that would prohibit cuts to science funding for federal agencies to prevent being “meddled with by politics.”  I’m not sure how this could be enforced, if I heard right this would involve oversight committees within each department that presumably would have the power to block cuts.  Well, we all know that will be killed by the majority gang because they believe in centralizing power.

Marchers For Science Climbing The Steps To South Swan Street, Earth Day Albany NY

Finally we had the march, a very orderly affair led by the dignitaries.  This was the only time we saw the Albany Police at all, they redirected traffic for the marchers, otherwise they were not needed.  Early on The Wife spotted a couple of Capital Cops (who dress like State Troopers) standing threateningly on Eagle Street, one of them brandishing an automatic weapon.  Apparently these goofs were acting on their own initiative hoping to intimidate all these hippy drug addicts, but after a little while they disappeared.

Did all these rallies and quick not very disruptive marches achieve anything or send a message?  Most decidedly yes.  Just as every army depends upon its soldiers, the technology and health sectors depend completely upon the researchers and technicians who work within the universities and the corporations.  Think of what would happen if these folks simply withdrew their support for science and health institutions, something no one has ever imagined until now.

Heading For The March, Earth Day Science March Albany NY

As mentioned earlier, the plutocrat owners of the Corporate Media appear to have wet their expensive trousers over this relatively mild uprising by formerly dependable tech servants.  Just as telling, the spoiled brat in the White House was shocked into issuing an Earth Day statement, something he plainly had no intention of doing.  The point of the statement was to say the following:

“My Administration is committed to advancing scientific research that leads to a better understanding of our environment and of environmental risks.  As we do so, we should remember that rigorous science depends not on ideology, but on a spirit of honest inquiry and robust debate.”

April 14, 2017

In like a lion out like a shark, March turned into April after some serious rain and snow

The first day of April was a Saturday, the first decent sunny day this year and so we went on a drive to go visit some used bookstores on the other side of the Hudson River that we hadn’t been to in a while.  People were outside everywhere we went, kids playing in the yards and in the streets, older folks with rakes and such cleaning up their properties, even a few runners and bicyclists.  After this cold and snowy winter and after several days of constant cold rain mixed with snow it seemed like everybody wanted to get out of their houses for a few hours.

On our way back to Albany on Route 23 I caught a glimpse of Clavarack Creek, so I turned around the car and had to be a tourist. The water was raging over an old dam.  To the left was an old mill house painted barn red leftover from when this was a cutting edge industrial facility in the 1800s. I didn’t have my camera but The Wife of course had her phone:

Clavarack Creek Seen From Route 23

Still photos can’t quite convey the sheer power of a swollen rushing waterway, it’s thrilling to watch and kind of scary.  You stand there and feel thankful it stays where its supposed to and doesn’t rise up to get you.  It’s the power of the water that makes scenes like this extraordinarily beautiful.

The next day, Sunday, was also a nice day.  A neighbor told me that Cohoes Falls was running pretty hard, so I dragged the Wife out of the house to go see.  This is the second highest falls in New York State (behind Niagara) but since the early 1800s the water has been diverted off the falls first for navigation and later for power generation.  It’s only during a wet Spring like we’ve been having that you can see what the falls are supposed to look like.

Cohoes Falls, April 2017, Hydro Power Plant At Left

Holy crap, the falls were running.  Most of the time the second highest waterfall in New York State is a disappointing trickle, it’s been that way since most of the water that is supposed to cascade over the falls was diverted to enhance navigation in the first half of the 1800s.  Back in 2014 we saw the falls running at this time of year, but that was not as spectacular as this.

Cohoes Falls, North End, April 2017

This had to be close to what the falls looked like when the first explorers saw it.  Like I’ve said before, when those pioneer guys were traveling into the wilderness by the river they must have admired the falls with awe for about twenty minutes and then cursed them mightily from then on.  I’ve read it took days to carry boats and belongings up the steep cliffs and through the wilderness just to get around these falls.

Cohoes Falls, South And Center , April 2017

The water is still diverted for navigation, but has also been diverted for power.  Over a hundred years ago that power was water wheels that turned the shafts inside the long defunct Harmony Mills clothing factories, buildings which today are apartments.  Currently the diverted water runs the five turbines of the School Street powerhouse that produce 38,800 kilowatts, enough to power 26.000 houses. That’s according to the helpful placard located at the falls overlook. 

The School Street powerhouse was built in 1915, but it hasn’t been running continuously.  In the late 20th Century the now thankfully dead and gone Niagara Mohawk Corporation took the power plant offline and wanted to fill the buildings with concrete so no one would ever be able to generate power at the falls again.  Why exactly they wanted to do such a nasty thing is a good question, apparently they didn’t want to be compelled to generate renewable energy and didn’t want anyone else to do so either.  Things like this is why corporations need to be barred from exercising any sort of political power.

The Cohoes Falls Overlook

As we hung at the overlook for a spell a fair crowd came and went to look at the spectacle, maybe 50 or so people.  This overlook was built as a mitigation measure by the Canadian Corporation Brookfield, which started up the power plant again about ten years ago.  This was not done out of the goodness of their foul corporate hearts, it was the result of years of litigation by the City of Cohoes under then mayor John McDonald, who today represents Cohoes and downtown Albany in the State Assembly.  But all is well now, the plant is running and there’s that much less fossil fuel being burned into the atmosphere.

I had to browbeat The Wife into going to see the falls, but after we had seen enough of them she had perked up quite a bit and wanted to go see more rushing water.  So we drove back to Albany to the head of the Rail Trail on South Pearl Street to look at the Normanskill rapids.  She’s always looking for excuses to go walking, and since she spends a lot of time sitting in front of a computer barely moving I try not to discourage her.

We walked the trail the half mile or so uphill to the City line.  There were still pockets of snow in protected spots on the banks of the river.  Sure enough, when we got to the rapids the water was furious and frothing.  Why anyone would ever try to run these rapids any time of the year in any sort of rig is beyond me, but apparently some people do that.

Normanskill Rapids Along The Rail Trail, April 2017

The rapids are awesomely scary to look at when they are like this, I mean if you were to fall in your chances of survival are not so great. The Normanskill in Springtime is no joke, still pictures don’t quite convey that sense of deadly danger just out of reach.  Maybe this closeup can convey it a little better.  It churned this way nonstop:

Normanskill Rapids

Now, if you don’t live around here and didn’t experience Albany’s up and down winter this year, you might wonder where all this water came from.  For instance, in the middle of February while the Midwest was having temperatures in the 80s F we were hovering around freezing in the Northeast.  Besides the heavy rains that we had at the end of March we’d had a bit of snow a few weeks earlier:

View From My Front Door On March 14

Meanwhile while it snowed in Albany The Wife was in Southern California “for business reasons.”  As I understand it she did about one day’s work and spent the rest of the time lolling about with her friend, poking around high priced boutiques and checking out young guys in speedos on the beach.  The last few days she told me that she was unhappy because it had gotten a little too cool to go swimming. 

Then her plane was delayed a day because of the snowstorm here. It was just awful.  She complained to me “We are suffering though “bad weather” in Santa Barbara.  It is foggy, so I can’t see the ocean from the hotel window.”   I sent her some photos of the snow and she helpfully sent back a picture she took not far from where she was staying:

Terrible Weather In Santa Barbara

One water issue that thankfully did not happen with all the rain and melting snow is that here in Albany the Beaverkill storm drain line did not overflow and flood the City.  Perhaps the mitigation measures meant to ease the amount of water that this line carries into the Hudson River have been working, it’s hard to say.  In any case I didn’t hear any reports of flooding in the last month on this overloaded drain line.

One notable attempt to deal with the problem has recently happened in Lincoln Park.  Off MLK Boulevard across from the community gardens just above the swimming pool a private contractor was hired by the City to dig into the pavement.  Albany Water Commissioner Joe Coffey told me they were looking for a a manhole to an auxiliary line to the Beaverkill that had not been seen by anyone for over a hundred years.

Filling In The Hole In Lincoln Park, Looking For A Long-Lost Drain Line

The dig was unsuccessful, all they found was an electrical conduit which they already knew was there.  Mr. Coffey told me there would be no more fishing expeditions for this line, his next plan is to send a robot with a camera up the line from down the hill near the pool. Meanwhile the private contractors sure seem to have taken their time filling in the hole, it’s been weeks and as of this writing the hole is still exposed.  The City guys usually fill their holes and put down temporary pavement in like three days.

But all this work on the Beaverkill doesn’t mean we didn’t have some problems this past month.  The Beaverkill is a “combined sewer overflow” which means that although it is primarily a street drain it also can receive raw sewage from buildings, mainly from the Park South neighborhood and Albany Medical Center, or possibly the federal Veteran’s Administration plant behind Hackett Public Middle School.  But the sewage can originate from anywhere between Washington Park Lake (which is the Beaverkill exposed) all the way to the Big C Pipe under the U-Haul building which dumps into the Hudson.

On the afternoon of March 17 the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation reported that 100,000 gallons of raw sewage discharged from the Big C.  The reason given was “Weather Conditions: Snow Melt Event” which I respectfully call pure bullcrap.  That much discharge of raw sewage into the street drain was not an accident, that had to be intentional.  I guess we’ll never know.

The Newly Refurbished Bike Path In Albany At The Beginning Of April (Photo: ABC)

The next weekend we checked out the boat launch in Albany, the water was indeed high, drowning the boat launch and the docks.  At the beginning of April the Albany Bicycle Coalition (ABC) had reported that the Hudson had overflowed onto the new green pavement bike trail that the City of Albany had constructed downtown and onto low spots in North Albany.  But by the time we went looking the water had receded and the bike path was clear, being used by a variety of people enjoying the warm weather.

Other than this quick wash the Hudson has not gone over it’s banks this year in Albany, that is because Great Sacandaga Lake is being used again for flood control.  In recent years the lake was not being used for flood control but was being kept intentionally high for the benefit of private power generators (owned by Brookfield, the same corporation as at Cohoes Falls.)  This caused major flooding in Albany, most notably in 2005 and twice in 2011, but that problem seems to have ended.  As of the middle of April the lake is about three feet under capacity, which means that once it is filled the Hudson should be down enough to handle the outflow from the lake.  

And we saw that the boat launch was mostly covered with water.  I’m ready to throw my kayak into the Hudson but with the water still colder than 50 degrees I’m not going to do that yet.  I suppose I shouldn’t complain, we’re probably in for a long hot Global Warming summer and I’ll have plenty of opportunities to paddle.  So like everyone else I’ll just have to be patient and hope we have warmer water by May.

High Water On The Hudson At The Albany Boat Launch

 

March 28, 2017

The State of New York takes responsibility for the
quality of the air in the South End

Something amazing has been happening in the South End of Albany, down at the Ezra Prentice Homes neighborhood along South Pearl Street. The residents of the complex of apartments stretched along the train tracks have banded together into a tenants association that is fighting back against the daily barrage of deadly pollution that blows in from both the trains and from the constant parade of diesel trucks barreling down the street. The tenant’s association has become a permanent fixture, maintained by a hardcore group that is determined to improve the quality of life for themselves and for their beleaguered neighbors.

That’s not the amazing story. The real news is that the tenants association is succeeding beyond all expectations, as authorities both public and private have started taking this neighborhood very seriously after ignoring and neglecting them for far too long. The neighbors have found some very powerful allies both local and national who are helping them in their fight. And as I learned at a meeting in early March, their battle to upgrade their neighborhood has somehow induced the State of New York to completely change their methods for dealing with air quality issues and for meeting the needs of the public that they are supposed to be serving.

Brian Frank Of The Emissions Measurement Research Group Explains The Air Monitoring Process At The Ezra Prentice Community Room

On March 8 of this year I sat in yet another well-attended public meeting at the Ezra Prentice Community Center on South Pearl Street to hear a NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) employee named Brian Frank explain what he and his co-workers were going to do about the bad air around this neighborhood. He heads a newly formed Emissions Measurement Research Group which is part of the DEC Division of Air Resources. This, he told us right at the start, was the first time his research group was talking to the public.

We were told by Mr. Frank that the effectiveness of this new Emissions Measurement Research Group is greatly facilitated by some new technology that has recently “come onto the market,” some of it so new that they are still waiting for backordered equipment to arrive. Unlike the larger clunky monitoring boxes with limited use that air researchers are used to using, these are small devices with multiple functions hooked up to GPS that fit in your pocket like a phone. This new generation of monitoring equipment opens up new possibilities for researchers and makes it easier to collect and handle data and can better serve the public in innovative ways.

I have to say it was strange and astonishing to hear State officials going out of their way to deliver to the public policies they were asking for. Mr. Frank explained that his new group was beginning their air monitoring work with the Ezra Prentice neighborhood for a very simple reason, “The community came to us.” He also pointed out that their office was located next door in the Port of Albany, “So it is very convenient for us.” Of course it does appear that the their offices were located so close to the neighborhood mainly so they could begin work nearby.

Photo Taken Late July, 2016, Astonished To See No Oil Tankers Parked At The Global Dock In The Port Of Albany

Then again another reason for this amazing responsiveness by the State is the successful lawsuits. Since July of last year the shipments of oil by train to the Port of Albany have ceased due to a lawsuit filed in 2014 by Earthjustice and the Ezra Prentice Tenants Association along with a crowd of environmental groups that have signed on. The courts have ruled that the main oil handler at the port, Global LLC, did not give correct information on its application for a permit to operate at the Port of Albany and that proper procedure was not followed in granting that permit. From the Earthjustice website:

On September 16, the State DEC informed Global that its Port of Albany air permit renewal application will be considered as an entirely new application, requiring additional information to address issues identified by DEC and restarting the State’s environmental review process. On January 26, 2017, a broad coalition including the Ezra Prentice Homes Tenants Association, represented by Earthjustice, notified Global of their intent to file a federal lawsuit against the company. The coalition’s letter claims that because Global’s expired permit was not renewed and it has not yet been issued a new permit, the company has been illegally operating the Albany facility since September.

February 28, 2017

Whoever controls information controls our minds

It used to very simple to explain. Until very recently, information was distributed by the Corporate Media, which was controlled by the Power Elites. The Power Elites were a small, tight group of selfish billionaires who wanted to preserve their control over the rest of us. Among their ranks were the owners of the Corporate Media, so those owners made sure the information that they distributed to the public preserved their elite group’s power and profits. Only the internet provided any competition to their information control.

But a year and a half ago the high-handed owners of the Corporate Media began to operate more and more independently of their fellow elites. They challenged their fellow elites by promoting a lunatic brat TV personality for the presidency of the United States, an immoral child who is obviously unqualified to hold down a job as a greeter at Walmart. They promoted the crazy brat every single day and night for months on end on throughout pretty much all of their information outlets, effectively drowning out all other political discourse and all other candidates.

To their surprise, and apparently to their horror, that unqualified idiot brat captured the presidency. Actually the brat didn’t win, but manipulations of the vote, in other words rigging, yielded for the brat the winning result that was meant for another Re-pub, another candidate that would have instead represented the interests of the usual Old Boy elites. But instead those Old Boy elites were cast aside. That usurpation wasn’t supposed to happen. Oops.

Laya

From talking to people who support President Pussygrabber, and from candid media interviews of Trump voters, I hear the same disturbing thing over and over. These folks appear to believe that the national elections really don’t matter, such things are far away and basically unreal, they don’t really effect our lives. They see it all as pure entertainment, no different form any other sport event or made for TV special. Meanwhile the country runs itself no matter who is in charge.

Of course I’m talking about regular folks, not the rich and powerful, not the controllers of national institutions. Nor am I talking about rabid Teabaggers or other mentally unstable radicals and flaming bigots. When I talk with the Trump voters that I know, people I’ve known for years, I find I can easily out argue them because the facts speak for themselves. But then they dismiss the facts.

Always the same thing. “None of it matters” or “It’s all just a big put-on” or “Nothing’s different, nothing’s gonna change” and more than anything else, “It’s all entertaining to watch anyway.” Where exactly did this attitude come from? How did so many people come to believe that their own country doesn’t matter, their own vote doesn’t matter, and that their government doesn’t mean anything?

Arkita, Younger

A big problem is that almost no one in America trusts our dominant institutions anymore, and for good reason. It’s not the institutions themselves, it’s the routine public behaviors of the people who have been dominating these institutions for so long. The wonder is that there is any trust left at all and that it has taken so long for people to lose faith in how these institutions are managed.

I wonder if this attitude that the elections don’t matter is a reaction caused by the loss of trust, a way of dealing with uncertainty caused by distrust. Of course the Corporate Media has been telling us for decades that elections are just sports events, carefully concealing substantive issues and real debate while loudly emphasizing blatant trivia. Up until the middle of the last decade, when the internet became ubiquitous, it was really difficult and often impossible to get around the mechanisms of information suppression and find out what was really going on.

But there’s more to it than that. It’s like people have wanted to be fooled, people wanted to be lied to. People wanted to hear that everything was just swell. People wanted someone to do their thinking for them. People wanted to be entertained. And the people got what they asked for.

Katekka As A Kitten

But now they’re not satisfied because they’re not getting what they want anymore. Reality has been intruding into their lives a little too much lately. So they retreated into a fantasy of electing an “upstart” who is “going to shake things up” and piss off all the sorts of people they don’t like. A fantasy that was presented to them through the same media full of lies that they had grown to not trust, sincerely believing that the fantasy had seized control of the media that had created it.

The loss of trust of our institutions comes from the widespread use of blatant lying as a political tool, a tool which the contemptuous elites have relied on more and more to control the American people and to advance their short term objectives. In my lifetime lying by the federal government goes back to the pointless War Against Vietnam. For the next three decades after that public satisfaction with institutional lying continued to dominate public discourse, and the persons who controlled and occupied those institutions were more than happy to lie to the public.

Eventually as happens to all unrestrained liars their lying became chronic, the standard default behavior for both government and corporations. And as the years passed their contempt for the public became increasingly deeper and wider, because lying is always a manner of showing contempt for the people who are being lied to. You don’t lie to someone if you think those lies will have negative consequences to yourself.

Dotika

But all that lying did have consequences. Eventually people stopped trusting the liars. Oh, it was good while it lasted, the lies made it easy to rob the public and take away their political power. But now the lies don’t seem to work very well anymore, not as well as they used to. So now the elites need a new media, or maybe they don’t need one at all anymore.

So suddenly we have a new media reality. The traditional Corporate Media represents the interests of the Old Boy elites. That traditional media is now at war with a new media coalition that represents the new upstart elites centered around Donald Pussygrabber Trump. And starting late in February some of the traditional Corporate Media purveyors, such as CNN and the NY Times have been barred from the White House. This is a power struggle happening in front of our eyes.

What’s happened is that we now have two media camps, both of which are peddling the corporate agenda. Each camp represents one side of a power struggle between two opposing sets of Corporatist elites in this country, the Old Boy elites and the Upstart Elites. The purpose of this power struggle is to decide which group of elites gets to control the minds of the citizens, that is, who gets the power to tell lies to you and me.

Katekka

Two Sundays after the disastrously rigged presidential election this past November, the local corporate owned newspaper that we have here in Albany, the Times Union, ran an editorial about the costs of health care. Normally I don’t read these opinion pieces because I consider them deliberately misleading and bogus, the real editorials are the headline stories that the editors choose. But for some reason I scanned this one, and about halfway through I almost fell out of chair.

You see, as a corporate outlet the Times Union has always been vehemently opposed to affordable health care. The local managers and content providers of the Times Union have even gone so far as to manufacture fake news designed in opposition to the Affordable Care Act, producing what can only be called politically correct lies that were immediately picked up and amplified by radical right fringe fake news sites. I strongly suspect that they did this to fulfill a directive handed them by their owners at the Hearst Corporation, but no matter.

As part of their Corporatist political orientation, the Times Union content providers have been, for many years, strictly prohibited from using the phrase “single payer health.” For those who don’t know, single payer would slash the cost of health care in this country by eliminating the swarm of competing corporate bureaucracies that are not only driving up costs but are also also restricting access to health providers. The downside of Single Payer is that combining all these parasitic corporate bureaucracies into one single bureaucracy will reduce some of the profits available to a small group of elite billionaire investors. Of course that can’t be allowed to happen.

Laya

So what do we make of this late November editorial from the Times Union? They start out the essay by waggling their fingers over the epi-pen scandal, which you may recall involved some outrageous monopolistic price hikes for a simple low cost device that is designed to prevent sudden death. But then halfway through the editorial comes this:

Rather than consider reasonable alternatives that would help keep down the cost of drugs to consumers – such as a single-payer system or a publicly-managed option – these lawmakers bow to the powerful health care, pharmaceutical and insurance industry lobbies. Those giant industries spend upwards of $400 million annually lobbying Congress. That’s one of the reasons the Affordable Care Act lacked the fundamental changes needed to better control the rapid rise in medical costs. A single-payer system or a public option – most Western nations have one of those features or the other – would allow the government to negotiate prices for drugs and medical devices, but Congress has been steadfast in its opposition.

February 6, 2017

How some patriotic Americans turned aside a pogrom against a Muslim community

[Last May The Wife participated in an action to defend an isolated community of American Muslims located in the rural hills of Delaware County in New York State. The report that I’d written was buried inside of a post on this blog published in June and received very little attention. So because the ongoing threat to Muslims is imminent, and because very soon anybody who is considered an opponent of the ruling Re-pubs may very well receive similar threats to their property and to their bodies from rad righty thugs and neo-nazis, I’ve reposted the report with some additions and corrections. I’ve also included more of the excellent (under the circumstances) photos that The Wife took with her phone.]

Waiting For The Attack On Islamberg

In our present day perhaps the only group of people it is officially considered okay to denigrate and spit upon in this country is Muslims, or more specifically, lower income Muslims, especially immigrants. Rich Muslims, such as the royal family of Saudi Arabia or the totalitarian Sheik of Abu Dhabi who owns the Global Foundries chip fab in Malta north of Albany, are of course regarded as exceptional and acceptable. Money magically confers superiority. But if the Muslims are working class, immigrants and especially if they are black, then we have been repeatedly told that they are fair game for abuse.

Residents And Visitors Wait For
The Bare Naked Islam Nitwits To Attack Islamberg

This past May The Wife got involved with physically opposing some of that “acceptable” discrimination of Muslims, this particular discrimination directed at a small group living in the back country south and east of Albany, harmless people trying to mind their own business. Islamberg is a small isolated town in Delaware County near the Pennsylvania border with a population of not much more than 200 people. From Wikipedia:

The hamlet was founded in the late 1980s by… a group of primarily African American Muslims who left New York City, reportedly to escape crime, poverty and racism. They built a community of some 40 family houses, with its own grocery store and bookstore and place of worship… "Holy Islamberg", as residents refer to it, is also the headquarters of the Muslims of America organization.

January 30, 2017

Celebrating Dr. King In A Time Of Growing Fear

One more time the authorities led a couple of hundred marchers from the State Plaza to the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King statue and monument in my neighborhood, practically to my own doorstep. The mood was subdued, we all know why. What was noteworthy was the lack of resignation and the lack of despair among the crowd and among the politicians.

But there wasn’t much joyful celebration. The people who come out to march for Dr. King every year are patriotic Americans, and all of us have been watching in horror as a fringe minority supported by decadent greedy elites have seized control of our country… and are proceeding to destroy it. It’s hard to hold to on to hope for the future under such circumstances. But in the subdued and frightened atmosphere of the day hope was still in evidence. That, at least, is the good news.

Congressman Paul Tonko listens as
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan Speaks

For the first time that I can remember there was only one speech delivered at the monument after everyone assembled, by Albany mayor Kathy Sheehan. There were a load of local politicians this year, so many that the mayor declined to name them all. But all the speaking was done by the mayor, not even congressman Paul Tonko, who stood close to the mayor and lingered long after the ceremony spoke to the crowd.

It wasn’t the weather that made the speeches short, it was a fairly mild day with the temperature well above freezing thanks to Global Warming. There have been years when the temperature in Lincoln Park was cold enough to freeze your gizzard, but that didn’t stop the politicians from talking. Those years when this day was cold kept them from talking too much and for too long but it sure didn’t stop them from talking.

Standing Gazing At Dr. King While Waiting For The Marchers

Perhaps I’m reading too much into that, but I wonder if because of the recent national electoral coup and the all too visible disintegration of our federal government the politicians present were reluctant to speak. Our elected officials know perhaps better than most of us voters what could possibly happen these next couple of years to all of us. There is too much to say right now and not enough room to say any of it, so maybe at this moment they don’t want to speak at all.

Our elected leaders must surely feel the expectations of the voters, particularly by this crowd that had come out to honor the martyred great patriot, so perhaps they were reluctant to fail to meet the expectations of their audience. It is also very possible that our elected officials can clearly see the rapidly approaching day when prominent people are persecuted and arrested for the crime of criticizing the illegitimate regime in Washington DC. Perhaps they didn’t want to go on record as having made politically incorrect statements about the brat occupying the White House or about the anti-American ruling party. I can’t say that I blame them.

The City Of Albany Cops On Horses Lead The March

For whatever reason mayor Sheehan took on the job of doing all the talking. She gave a good speech about standing up for what we believe in, and reiterated the City of Albany’s commitment to being a Sanctuary City for Americans who are being persecuted for their ethnic and religious origins by… well, she didn’t precisely name America’s enemies. The very attentive audience clapped and cheered but it was a rather unsatisfying thing to hear, and you could see that in the faces of the listeners.

Indeed the politicians standing up on the monument put on a good show of displaying themselves confidently. But again, there was something subdued about their manner this year, that maybe what they were doing had already become dangerous. It was not like other years when they casually stood around the monument grinning for the cameras, it was more like they were dutifully presenting themselves, stiff and formal as politicians do in a repressive dictatorship.

Front Line Of The March

Otherwise the march and ceremony was much like other years. The main elements of our society were represented in the not very punishing downhill march from the State Plaza that began, as always, at the gathering point across Madison Avenue from the State Museum. This always is the aftermath of a ceremony full of boring speeches in the dark auditorium underneath The Egg, an event I’ve attended in the past but intend to avoid if I can.

As usual the elements of society were represented in the march, the politicians representing the government, the military and police, and of course the only element that really matters, The People trailing behind. There were I would guess a couple of hundred marchers, about the usual number. There was an attempt by some of them to sing We Shall Overcome, but it was weak and as the line approached the monument the march fell eerily silent. To me the silence felt disturbing.

Assembling At The Monument

And of course the Corporate Media was waiting at the monument, the content providers waiting inside their SUVs. Their was a fair number of them this year. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were present this time to record any political incorrectness that might offend the elite ruling party, recordings that could be used in future political purges and kangaroo trials. Hopefully that’s just me thinking dreadful thoughts.

In the past this march and ceremony in honor of Dr. King was treated as a kind of reflexive ritual, a necessary political gesture almost devoid of relevancy. Despite lingering problems and speedbumps our society seemed to be humming along the path of better opportunities and greater equality for all. Back then the mood was almost nostalgic, and the message in the politician’s speeches was mostly self-congratulatory.

Crowded On The Monument

In past years the State actually distributed placards on sticks for the marchers that said things like Equal Housing or End Segregation Now which were then put back into a closet off the main part of the State plaza (I’ve seen that closet!) to be used next year. But in recent years those signs disappeared as we all began to feel a growing unease at the national situation, and more people began to take the march seriously.

Now we have to wonder if there will be a ceremonial march to my neighborhood next year, will there still be a national holiday in honor of Dr. King. It’s well known how the ruling party detests Dr. King and particularly despises his message of freedom and equality for all Americans. It is also now well known that the bratty boy occupying the presidency along with his close supporters are openly racist, and that the brat in chief himself made a special point of dishonoring Dr. King on this day.

Reverend Miller Gives The Invocation,
The Only Other Dignitary To Speak

There may not be a national Martin Luther King holiday next year, and there may not be too many more of these ceremonies in his honor in the City of Albany. If celebrating his life and his work in the cause of American freedom becomes too politically untenable then our State and local politicians may feel compelled to give in to the demand that it be suppressed. Honoring Dr. King during times of fear and oppression may be more than our elected officials may be willing to risk.

If this happens it will be up to us, We The People, to continue the celebration of Dr. King. As astounding as it seems, we may be facing truncheons and fire hoses and attack dogs when we march, or rather this time around tasers and MRAPS and automatic weapons. We will all have to decide how much we want to sacrifice in Dr. King’s honor, we may end up learning first hand the price that Dr. King himself paid in the cause of freedom.

In The End, Will It Be All For Nothing?

 

January 14, 2017

The Electoral Coup of 2016 means we are all screwed

The so-called Republican Party is a cancer upon the body of our American society. For decades this social disease has been kept more or less in check by institutions and prevailing attitudes that have allowed our country to live well and thrive. But the more a cancer spreads and replaces the healthy parts of the body the less likely that cancer can be removed without killing the entire body.

It appears all too likely that we have reached the point where the cancer has metastasized beyond the point of no return. Beginning with the opening of the gerrymandered Congress after New Year’s the United States is a body waiting to die, messily and painfully, the individual cells of our body turned into greedy death machines. Most of us will be trapped inside the body as it falls apart.

And a happy new year to you. Enjoy these final days of peace and prosperity.

Donald Pussygrabber Trump

Since the Electoral Coup this past November I’ve had this notion of trying to catalogue and explain how this coup was carried out, and why the vast majority of Americans have passively accepted the stripping away of their American freedoms. But damn that’s an enormous task. And damn it, how do you explain the obvious to people who are in denial, who not only don’t want to acknowledge the obvious but are being carefully distracted from thinking about it by the corrupt Corporate Media that controls so much of our thinking?

Yes, this was a coup. If you can’t see that for yourself then you will never see it, at least not until it is far too late to do anything about it. Oh, there is a scattering of informed people here and there who see it all too clearly and can see what is coming. However, there probably isn’t a writer or commentator on this planet that can counter the haze of deeply planted propaganda that is making the vast majority of Americans passively accept the end of elected government and the subsequent ruination of our security and prosperity.

So I’ll run through this quick. To start, please consider that the polls were way off from the official vote counts everywhere, not just a little bit but massively off. Exit polls were way off too. There’s always a margin for error but not like that. But you probably haven’t given that much thought because the Corporate Media hasn’t made any mention of that since shortly after election day. That in itself, this silence about a key issue, is a red flag.

Traitors Love Pussygrabber

You may have heard about voter suppression. The problem is so widespread that it has actually been occasionally mentioned by the Corporate Media, a sure sign that it is pervasive and out of control. Along with disenfranchisement of voters it is well known that there are vast regions of gerrymandered congressional districts and election districts particularly throughout the Midwest. This assures that the radical right minority can continue to be grossly overrepresented.

But the biggest problem was not voter suppression, it was suppression of votes. Just before the election journalist Greg Palast discovered that the audit function on electronic voting machines in Ohio (and in other states) had been turned off on the machines. This meant that there was and is no hard record of how individuals voted other than one electronic blip each. And almost no one complained. The easy vulnerability of these machines is an old problem, one that Barack Obama could have dealt with during his eight years in office but chose to ignore.

During the attempts at vote recounts in Michigan and Wisconsin we saw local Republican Party operatives throwing out enormous batches of votes for ridiculous reasons. These perversions of the right to vote were automatically upheld by, you guessed it, judges appointed by the Re-pub Party. One thing I can say about the Re-pubs, a sort of grudging admiration, is that the apparatchiks in the party are quite obedient and work together as one unit. The party comrades know how to work together under their chiefs.

Donald Pussygrabber Welcomes Reince Preibus Into The Bedchamber

No one thinks it strange that the head of the Republican Party, that elitist with the bizarre name Reince Preibus, was given the powerful post of White House chief of staff. Now, why would Donald Pussygrabber reward the party head with such a prize, especially when it was reported during the campaign that Preibus was at most lukewarm with the candidate? Could there have been a deal, fix the election in return for a key post at the door of the bedchamber? That would be very hard to prove without a lot of investigation. But isn’t that rather odd that there are no inquiries.

This is how a fascistic minority has seized control of our society. It was this obedient coordination by the party comrades that took advantage of the disarray by the American voters, most of whom behaved as if this was just another election. If you’ve seen that Donald Pussygrabber is going into his January 20 inauguration with a disapproval rate that is well over 50% then you can see that the electoral process was indeed perverted by Re-pub Party perverts.

Bored Already? Not Enough Diet Pills?

No, the election wasn’t stolen because of the Electoral College, although careful manipulation of that institution was at the center of the theft. The College is actually designed to prevent thefts like this, isn’t it ironic that it turned into the instrument of a stolen election. Eliminating the College will not change a thing, not as long as it is against the law to monitor e-voting machines for fraud. Yes, by law.

No, the election wasn’t ruined because Vladimir Putin of Russia hacked into email servers and revealed tidbits of information to the Corporate Media which ran with it. Foreign governments have been hacking onto US servers for decades and this country has been hacking into theirs. Anyone who wastes time arguing about this one way or the other is obediently allowing themselves to be distracted from the real problems.

No, the election wasn’t stolen because the capo of the FBI, James Comey, spread a bunch of lies about the Democratic candidate a week before the election. Comey’s behavior did reveal to one and all what some of us have known for a while, that the FBI is a partisan political organization that routinely commits perjury, a secretive militia with a political agenda. Of course Comey’s statements, like the Putin hacks, would have had no meaning except that the Corporate Media amplified this garbage and presented it as fact.

Senator Bernie Sanders, The President We Don’t Deserve

No, the election wasn’t stolen because of a poor candidate put up by the Democrats after the party insiders rejected a candidate who was almost guaranteed to win. It is indeed true that the Old Boy Corporatists inside the Democratic Party manipulated the Primaries so that the Old Boy Corporatist candidate Hillary Clinton got the nomination. True Conservative Senator Bernie Sanders would have openly swept across the electorate as powerfully as Barack Obama did in 2008 and carried both houses of Congress with him.

Oh yes he would have. Consider this. Donald Pussygrabber, who was heavily promoted by the Corporate Media, put on a phony show of defying the Corporate Media, to which a large swath of voters responded enthusiastically. Bernie Sanders, who until late in the game was totally censored and was constantly downgraded by the Corporate Media, emerged as a much more sincere direct critic of the Corporate Media and thus became a major viable candidate. If Bernie had secured the Democratic nomination as a platform he would have been able to savage the Corporate Media without mercy, and thus demonstrate the obvious insincerity of Pussygrabber’s media posturings for all to see.

The Phony Brat-Man Vs. The Girl

Meanwhile, Ms. Clinton acted every inch the Old Boy Corporatist and refused to confront the Corporate Media. It’s as if she put her trust and faith in the Corporate Media! Instead, her campaign was centered around well produced TV ads that said, in effect, “Vote for me because I’m not Trump” and not much else.

Even splattered with three decades of mostly unjustified negatives by the Corporate Media Ms. Clinton still could have won the election merely by openly confronting the Corporate Media like Mr. Sanders and Pussygrabber did. In fact, had she done that she would have not only have instantly shed those decades of negatives, she would have picked up millions of admirers and won the election handily.

Donald Pussygrabber’s Favorite Modifier

Instead, on what could plausibly called a subliminal level, we were treated during the TV debates to the spectacle of Pussygrabber acting the defiant manly man while The Girl passively accepted the feces thrown at her. In that sense Ms. Clinton decisively lost the TV debates to the experienced TV actor. She misread the landscape just like that big pack of Re-pub Primary candidates did last Autumn, and now she has been left behind among them.

Because yes, this past election was a referendum on the Corporate Media. A growing number of Americans, particularly those who are under 40 years of age, have figured out that the Corporate Media is a coordinated tool of the Corporatist political agenda. Unfortunately, too many people who realize this are unaware that despite this suspicion, they too are being manipulated by the Corporate Media. They are sure they are too smart to be manipulated like everyone else is.

Delete This Noisy Garbage

Enough of that. I can go on and on about what happened, I can engage in research to back up every one of my statements with supporting arguments and citations. But what’s the use? Most people won’t pay the slightest attention no matter how hard any expert or public figure works at trying to get them to understand, let alone some blogger like me. All most people listen to is the Corporate Media distractions and nothing beyond. If it’s not being endlessly repeated by the Corporate Media, then it didn’t happen.

This 2016 Electoral Coup is the Corporate Media’s greatest triumph, the final undermining of elected government in America. This is the beginning of the end, the negating of the gains for our people made by the Liberal Revolution of 1776. This is the Sunset of America that began with Ronnie Reagan. This is the dawn of the Corporate Dictatorship, the inauguration of the crumbling decadent empire that exists for the benefit of a select group of insiders who are needed to prop up the regime and for no one else.

And of course, it is the triumph of the so-called Republican Party. The symbol of the Re-pub Party, you may recall, is the elephant. That’s because of the idea that elephants “never forget.” Have you ever asked yourself what the Re-pub elephant has never forgotten? That elephant has never forgotten what America was like before 1776, when we the people deferred to wealthy aristocrats and we knew our place beneath them. That subservient past is the future we have before us. It will not be pleasant.

 

December 21, 2016

Albany schools expand with the rising population as
privatization schemes falter

The Albany Public Schools have a problem that they need to solve, a rather good problem. It seems that their projected enrollment for next school year is going to be 23 percent higher than this year. That’s right, our public schools that have been much maligned by anti-urbanist suburbanites and have suffered so much calculated degradation by past City administrations, are more in demand than ever before.

And the projections for future years are that the demand for public education in the City of Albany is going to continue to rise well into the next decade, at least. Meanwhile the substandard so-called “charter” schools, which exist mainly to generate a profit for their investors at taxpayer expense, will continue to see continuing lower enrollment. For many people this is astonishing news that turns all the hype and propaganda upside down, but for anyone who has been keeping an eye on the schools in the City of Albany this is no surprise at all.

395 Elk Street

The immediate problem is that the public schools need more space for these incoming students, which means that the school district needs to purchase more buildings. The plan, which comes to a vote on January 10, is to purchase and renovate two buildings, one at 50 North Lark Street and the other at 395 Elk Street. The district already owns 50 North Lark and leases 395 Elk, but to carry out proper renovations that conform with State regulations both of the buildings have to be owned by the public.

A very important detail, certainly important to a property owner like me who pays a stack of school tax bills every year, is that these two purchases and renovations will have no impact on local taxes. I will repeat that, our school taxes will not go up. For this reason the upcoming January 10 vote has not generated any controversy, even the charter school investors who always come out of the woodwork to loudly oppose public school upgrades have so far not bothered to spew objections to this plan.

50 North Lark Street, Currently Used As The Public School’s Alternative Learning Center

You might ask how that is possible, how can our City taxes not go up. The short answer is sound fiscal management by the Albany School District, anticipating needs and expenses well ahead of time.

One of the district’s best assets is a terrific set of money managers who have, at times in the recent past, kept our public schools afloat during the roughest assaults by charter school investors and by past City administrations. Again, that’s contrary to the hype that you see in the local Corporate Media. But after 15 years or so of attending school budget forums I can tell you that I’ve been consistently impressed by the district’s money management, they always find a way to hold the finances together and move ahead with their plans.

The total cost of the purchases and of the renovations of the two buildings is $10.6 million. Almost half of that money will come directly from the State of New York, $5.2 million. This State aid will go exclusively to the work for 50 Lark, which is calling for a total of $6.5 million. The rest of the cash will come from the district’s Capital Reserve Fund, the creation of which was approved by the voters in 2014.

If I recall correctly the district has been socking away money for years prior to that, they’ve managed to accumulate a tidy nest egg. The Fund is used for work that needs to be done quickly without waiting for voter approval, stuff like replacing a leaky roof or, as in this case, finding accommodations for a sudden sharp rise in student enrollment. The 2014 vote made everything tidy and legal, the current balance in the fund is $9.2 million.

2016 City Of Albany Board Of Education, Elected And Unpaid

Purchase and work on the building at 395 Elk Street will cost $4.1 million, all of this money will come from the Capital Reserve Fund. This building is new, constructed six years ago at a cost of $15 million dollars by the Brighter Choice charter school corporation, all at the expense of Albany property taxpayers who had no say in the matter. After the State shut down this particular charter school for being grossly substandard, the district has leased the building from Brighter Choice for $169,000 per year, a tidy rent.

As for 50 North Lark, that too is a former charter school that was built by a now defunct outfit called New Covenant, also recently constructed at taxpayer expense. This was the last charter school competition to the Brighter Choice Corporation inside the City of Albany, from what I’ve been told by former employees this is where Brighter Choice routinely dumped “problem” students that were cutting into their profits. When the welfare queen owner of Brighter Choice, lobbyist Tom Carroll of suburban Clifton Park, convinced the State to shutter New Covenant, all of their students were suddenly dumped on the Albany public schools.

Well-paid Welfare Queen Thomas W. Carroll, Lord Of Brighter Choice Corporation

And of course by law the public school district had to accept all of these “problem” students. Most of these kids were what is called “special needs,” a category that includes physical handicaps, learning disabilities, unfamiliarity with the English language, behavioral problems and even those students who are “gifted” and require advanced learning. All of these kids require special programs. Charters never spend potential profits on providing special needs facilities or teachers, so at the first opportunity such students are ejected from the operation, usually dumped on the public schools.

By the way, it needs to be mentioned repeatedly that the charter school corporations get their funding out of the public school budget. We the taxpayers have no say in this, if we vote down a school budget the charter corporations receive our tax money anyway while the public schools receive less. I consider this kind of legalized corruption to be little more than robbery. But what do I know, I’m just a dumb taxpayer cow who exists merely to be milked by privatization thieves.

Journalist Juan Gonzalez

Both of these buildings were constructed to take advantage of a tax loophole that dates from the Clinton presidency called New Market Tax Credits. The original purpose of this tax credit was to spur new construction in inner cities or other distressed areas but that didn’t quite work out as planned. Indeed the only place I’ve heard of these tax credits being applied is exploitation by charter schools.

According to Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now and formerly of the New York Daily News, this loophole provides a 39% tax credit every time a new charter school building is built. You’ll need an accountant rather than me to explain exactly how this works, but it works out that an investor is guaranteed to double her or his investment in seven years. That profit has to come from somewhere, and sure enough that money comes from the State taxpayers and from the City of Albany property taxpayers.

Among the charter investors are a number of local elected officials, you can often tell which ones by their enthusiastic support for the charters. In fact, you can pretty much assume that if a public official supports charter schools then that official is an investor working to protect his or her investment. I say that if that public official denies that assumption, it is up to him or her to prove that characterization is wrong.

The Sign Was A Lie: Then Treasurer Sheehan Protected Albany Taxpayers From Brighter Choice Predation

Some six years ago when then Albany City treasurer (and current mayor) Kathy Sheehan used her position to block another cash giveaway to Brighter Choice, then mayor Jerry Jennings and current Common Council president Carolyn McLaughlin stood shoulder to shoulder to angrily denounce Ms. Sheehan’s principled defense of the taxpayers. Last year Albany County comptroller Mike Connors campaigned furiously to scuttle the desperately needed renovation of Albany High School, how interesting that he tried to stop a public school renovation project in a City where he doesn’t live. He has never tried to stop a charter school from being built in Albany.

So if the two buildings at 50 Lark and 395 Elk were recently built to be school buildings, why does the district need to spend millions of dollars to renovate them? Charter school buildings do not have to conform to the same standards as public school buildings, in other words they are always built to substandard specifications. This is allowed and encouraged by State law. Thus the public school districts have to do massive upgrades to make the buildings safe and conducive to providing a good education.

395 Elk will be used for what is called alternative-learning programs, which are basically the programs needed for special needs students. The curriculum is geared for middle school students so that they can catch up by the time they reach ninth grade. This is exactly the sort of curriculum that charter schools never provide, programs that are desperately needed in a community where more than a quarter of the children live in poverty.

The school at 50 Lark, which is the current alternative learning middle school, will become a third regular middle school, from what I understand that will eventually mean grades six through eight rather than seven through nine like right now. Reconfiguring the grades will be done according to a complicated schedule over several years as the renovations are completed, hopefully construction will not cause disruption to the daily schedules of the students. I have bad memories of seventh grade, being bussed each school day between three different buildings because of ongoing construction. Middle school for most kids is a difficult time as it was for me so I wouldn’t wish that sort of thing on any kids if it can be helped.

Hackett Public Middle School On Delaware Avenue

There are some who say that middle schools should be eliminated altogether, that grades seven and eight should be incorporated either into elementary school or into high school. I’ve always heard that education specialists consider the middle school years as the time when kids are least able to absorb learning, probably because they are too distracted by the mental and physical changes of puberty. The thinking is that the middle school age kids are isolated from both the lower and upper grades because they are in a holding pattern and need a kind of special treatment while they are growing up.

That’s what I heard a long time ago from educators, I don’t know if that thinking is still held today. Personally, I think it’s bogus. If seventh and eight graders are less capable of learning, then perhaps that means the adults who are educating them aren’t doing so effectively and need to change their methods. I have to say that it has always amazed me how my fellow adults have absolutely no memory of what it was like to be twelve years old, as if that had never happened to them.

But I don’t see how eliminating middle schools would solve anything, merging the middle school grades with elementary and high school would just be burying the problems. The young teens are still going through changes, you could say at that age they will always have their “special needs.” I’m not qualified to suggest a solution, but I do know that simply eliminating middle schools with no other plan will solve nothing.

Interior Of Hackett Middle School

A good question to ask is why is there a 23% rise in enrollment, where do all these extra kids come from? A good number come from the charter schools, as they go out of business their students go directly into the public schools. In the first decade of this century the public schools shrank as some 20% of students were snagged by the charters, but that trend has reversed decisively.

The sudden rise in public school enrollment also reflects another phenomenon, the population of the City of Albany is rising for the first time since the early 1950s. Indeed it is rising rapidly, probably faster than most current estimates which put the population of the City at just under 100,000. It would not be unreasonable to assume that the population will continue to rise well into the next decade.

Any local landlord or competent real estate agent can tell you that there is a housing shortage in this City. Housing is being constructed in areas of the City that have been abandoned by developers for decades. The lack of housing is actually slowing down the population growth rate, developers have only slowly been catching on to the opportunities.

Rally In Support Of Muslim Immigrants (And Against The Incoming Pussygrabber Administration) November, Townsend Park, Albany

Much of this rise can be attributed to the reversal of suburbanization, rather than people looking to leave the City we are seeing more of them looking to live here. Particularly for younger people, with or without kids, urban life even in a small City is more interesting and overall less expensive than maintaining a dull suburban existence. As past problems are eliminated, such as police denial of service and deliberate neglect of public schools to name a few, there are fewer reasons for families to not live in Albany.

Albany is the second oldest European settlement in this country, and one of the oldest traditions of this City is the wholesale acceptance of immigrants and refugees. This has not changed in recent years, in particular the Hispanic and Muslim immigrants and refugees from the uplands of Burma (Myanmar) such as the Karen. As these immigrants have issues with language and other problems the charters are not interested in using them, so the kids automatically enroll in the public schools.

As plenty of parents of children that are attending public schools will readily say, the Albany public schools still have plenty of problems that need to addressed. The high school graduation rate remains dismal for many of the students from lower income families, and despite the adoption of security theater at the entrances of the schools safety from bullying while attending school is an ongoing issue. I personally know of several kids with good grades who dropped out of Albany High because they did not feel safe from threats of violence.

Albany County Executive Dan McCoy Official Reopens The Playground At Griffen Public Elementary School, 2012

But at least locally the public schools no longer suffer from the policies of neglect and deprivation that were imposed by corrupt past City administrations that controlled the school board. A prime example is Giffen Elementary school in the South End which was presented as a poster child for failing public schools by the charter school promoters at the end of the last century. Giffen was indeed a failure, but only because the then prevailing political machine in City Hall denied the school basic learning materials, denied building maintenance and even shut down most of the playground, thus sending a clear and deliberate message to the children of my neighborhood that they were nothing but garbage. I’m happy to report that Giffen has climbed out that grave that past mayors had dug for it and for the South End.

Decent buildings and facilities will not by themselves solve the problems that the public schools have inherited from past policies of neglect, but good facilities are an important component of decent schools and of a decent education for the kids. The kids of Albany deserve facilities and opportunities that are equal to those that kids in the rich suburbs receive. I have to say I particularly resented County comptroller Connors descending upon my community from his upscale suburb to try to deny my neighbors a decent education.

Andrew Cuomo And Betsy DeVos:
Hardline School Privatization Ideologues

Today the threats to public education in Albany no longer come from City Hall or by a corrupt school board, in fact the local officials are very much concerned with raising the quality of education in this City. Today the threats come from higher levels of government particularly from the administration of governor Andrew Cuomo which is trying to promote charters. Consider that the State grudgingly kicked in $5.2 million for this facilities plan because the charters in Albany have become total failures on taxpayer life support, this shows how lame are Cuomo’s privatization policies.

And now a potentially fatal threat to education has fallen across the entire country with the appointment of an ignorant privatization ideologue named Betsy DeVos by the incoming president Donald Pussygrabber, she is the sister of mercenary chief Erik Prince of Abu Dhabi. DeVos is expected to undermine public schools from her federal perch and funnel federal tax dollars directly into the filthy hands of charter privateers like our local welfare queen charter school lord Tom Carroll. While Andrew Cuomo and other charter school investors holding public office may gleefully welcome Pussygrabber and DeVos, the rest of us will have to bear the negative consequences and foot the bill.

Supporters Of Fair Public School Funding Pack The NY State Capitol, January 2015

Despite the specter of impending doom we must carry on as long as we can and hope for the best. It’s a good thing this Albany public schools facilities vote is taking place before January 20, otherwise corrupt State and federal government officials might find ways to ruin the planned improvements to our City public school system. So get to the polls on January 10 and vote to approve this plan. Exercise your American rights while you still can, before they are taken away from you.

November 22, 2016

Some photos I took during this Autumn, the Fall of America,
trying to sidestep despair

Several weeks ago, as the leaves turned around my house and in nearby Lincoln Park, I roamed about catching some of the color with my little camera. Downtown Albany is always the last part of the region to have the leaves turn color, and it is the last place where the leaves actually fall to the ground. By the time I’d taken these pictures pretty much every tree from the suburbs up into the mountains had become bare branched, waiting for the late arrival of winter delayed by Global Warming.

Yes, I have much to say about the takeover of my nation by evil liars and their Corporate Media supporters. But like any patriotic American I am still stunned by the results of this display of national self-hatred. Soon I will make my comments about the impending collapse of my country while I am still allowed, before the secret police clamp down violently on free speech. But right now I’m going to show you some colorful leaves and dappled sunlight.

Maples Along Morton Avenue

As usual the color yellow predominated among the leaves, but here and there were flashes of red. The photos below are in Lincoln Park, named after a great president who holds the undisputed title of The Last Honest Republican.

Some Red In Lincoln Park

The grass has continued to grow right into November. It made for some interesting color contrast as the leaves landed on the green.

“And The Leaves That Are Green Turn To …”
Well, First They Turn Red

Trees in Albany often do not look “perfect,” the twisted and gnarled maples in particular are allowed to live as long as they don’t pose a hazard. The City crews have always had the attitude that if a tree is alive it ought to be saved, that half a tree is better than none. Thus there are plenty of odd looking hacked up trees in Lincoln Park, but hey, when left to grow on their own trees are naturally as full of imperfections as people are.

Not all Trees Are Perfect

The magnolias along ML King Avenue (S. Swan in the park) across from the statue of Dr. King are a non native species from way south that do not turn color in the Fall. And indeed, the leaves later all fell from them without turning color. They do bloom magnificently in the early spring, a cascade of flowers. But too often they bloom too early and, as happened again this year, an overnight frost will instantly murder the blossoms and leave them hanging from the trees brown.

The magnolias were planted there long before the statue was placed across the road from them. But I suppose that Dr. King, who was born and raised in the deep South, saw plenty of blooming magnolias in the spring during his youth. A happy accident that compliments the much-visited monument.

Magnolias In Exile, Visitors From Another Clime

Often trees next to the houses stay green the longest because of heat from the buildings. But not always, I suppose that would depend on how early people turn on their heat. Rental properties are required by law to turn on the heat by October 15 at the latest, but because of the persistent warm weather many owner occupiers had little reason to fire up their furnaces early.

Between The Houses

Eventually the leaves did fall off the trees, an event that happens later and later each year as the climate warms up. Every year my neighbors and I contemplate the leaves still clinging to the trees and hope the damn leaves fall off before it starts to snow.

Okay, I know that it is politically incorrect to mention the fact of Global Warming because it cuts into the exploitative profits of the corporate fascists, but I said it anyway. I’m sure statements like that will soon be used as evidence to justify my indeterminate detention. Oh well. America was a great idea, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it wonderful while it lasted?

The Leaves Fall At Last In Albany

Instead of raking and bagging leaves, which is tedious in the extreme, I prefer to mow the leaves with a lawnmower and mulch them into the grass. I got the idea in the last decade from the City crews, who for a few years did that in the park. I’m not sure why they don’t do that anymore. I hear the City makes a profit from making and selling mulch, maybe the fallen leaves are now too valuable to waste as grass food.

So I hired a neighborhood guy to mow the leaves. I stopped to chat with him as he was working, he turned off the loud engine, and a moment later I said, “Why is smoke coming out of the top of the mower?” I looked at it closer and could see flickering inside the engine. A moment later he hurriedly pushed the mower away from the house as flames shot up out of it.

Dangerous Badly Built Husqvarna Lawnmower That For No Reason Burst Into Flames, Don’t Buy Husqvarna

I dumped a couple buckets of water on it until the sizzling stopped. My neighbor had just filled the plastic gas tank so happily there was no explosion, which is a good thing because he’d pushed the mower out to the street next to where I parked my truck. In retrospect, what corporate idiot designed the mower so that flammable plastic parts covered the hot engine?

Oh yeah I’m angry. This is the last Husqvarna lawnmower I’m buying, the first one I bought fell apart in less than a year, this one lasted six months. Now I’m faced with the daunting task of buying a lawnmower in late November. Well, if I can’t find a mower I may be forced to rake and bag after all.

Babygirl

Well, here’s Babygirl, a calico cat who supposedly belongs to a guy who lives up the street but prefers to roam the neighborhood and delight in humans that she has made friends with. She loves to follow her human friends down the hill to the Stewarts and then wait outside the door for them and follow them back up the street. Like most calicos she does not socialize well with other cats, and so some of the feral cats in the neighborhood deliberately seek her out to abuse her. In certain ways cats are exactly like humans.

So yesterday the guy up the street told me he grabbed Babygirl and has locked her in his house. He didn’t want her outside at night in the freezing temperatures, she is shorthaired and lean. But I know that cat is going to be unhappy stuck inside all winter.

Flowers In November

One of the odd things about Global Warming (there I go being politically incorrect again) is that late season wildflowers popping out of the lawns and along fences persist into November. They are nice to see, but they are ominous signs that make me sad. I look at them and can’t help thinking, what will happen to us when there is no more snow, no more winter cold.

Leaves Struggling To Turn At The End Of October

Here’s a photo I took the day before Halloween of the intersection near my house looking at the park. Word was that everywhere else the leaves were past their peak but in my neighborhood it was like the trees were were straining to make their leaves turn color. They eventually succeeded as we can see, but up to this point we hadn’t had any freezing nights.

The one good thing about the unnatural warm weather is the availability of local produce right into the middle of October. It’s a little known fact that despite widespread drought and deteriorating economic conditions this country has had record harvests for the last four years in a row. The reason? The surplus of CO2 in our air, the same gas that is heating up our planet rapidly toward the breaking point, has caused plant life to grow like crazy. Enjoy the surplus while you can.

Young Maples Along Morton Avenue

Okay folks, I didn’t want to sound so negative and full of ominousness. I figured some pretty pictures of trees and flowers would be a good temporary antidote for national despair, but well, you know how it is. Anyone who is happy right now about the future is still hypnotized by their TVs, in serious denial or just plain stupid.

Today I’m going to pick up a big turkey for Thanksgiving, we have an invitation to dine on Thursday and the plan is that I cook the bird for guests coming over to our house on Friday. Yes, we have much to thankful for, despite serious mismanagement by our federal government these last thirty years our nation’s economic system has provided us with prosperity. Ever since the last pieces of the Hamiltonian System were discarded in 1996 we have been coasting along without any real deprivation.

But this time next year, will we still have much to be thankful for? Will we?

October 27, 2016

The blogger is too lazy to write anything relevant so instead here’s a scary story that really happened

Back in my early 20s I managed to get a job as a security guard for the first time. I was attending an institution of higher learning during the day and wanted a night job where I didn’t have to do any work, at least not very much work since after midnight there was almost nobody to watch and criticize me for reading and listening to the radio and occasionally dozing off. While all too many of my daytime coworkers were wannabe cops who took the job seriously, like most of the night shift security I understood full well that my sole function was to drastically lower insurance rates by being a warm body on the premises.

I didn’t encounter any serious criminality working for this particular security outfit, but I did have a couple of otherworldly ghostly encounters. Okay not really. But maybe. During the course of my life I’ve had more than a few real honest not kidding encounters with apparitions and such, but nobody believes me so I rarely mention them. We’ll stick with agreed upon surface reality here and that way everybody will be okay. Mostly. So let me tell you about The Lady In White.

A Recent Photo Of The Ryan Mansion In Rockland County, NY

My supervisor at the security job was a fat middle aged jerk who always wore a suit and a smirk and resembled the sexual predators that I would occasionally encounter when I was a teenager, creatures that would pull up to me in their big sedans, open the passenger door and pat the seat. Think Rush Limbaugh. For no particular reason he had it in for me, he took great delight in sending me to jobs that he thought were the most undesirable.

He assigned me to a big rambling old mansion surrounded by semi-wooded land that at the time was the headquarters for a mining corporation called Phelps Dodge. This big old hulk had been built in the 1800s by a wealthy robber baron named Thomas Ryan, thus it was called the Ryan Mansion by most. For most of the first half of the 20th Century it had been abandoned and vandalized until inexplicably in 1951 Phelps Dodge decided to renovate it for their own use.

It was an astonishing place, with 44 rooms, 13 fireplaces, an original electric elevator and a greenhouse. The company president’s office was once the private chapel with a high round domed ceiling that had reportedly sported a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel painting by Michelangelo, but, unfortunately, had been whitewashed over when the building was renovated due to water damage. In the basement was a long records room with a gorgeous blond hardwood floor that had once been a bowling alley, I was told it was not automatic and required servants to repeatedly set up the pins.

Robber Baron Thomas Ryan In 1913, Who Ordered Built The Mansion Which He Called “Montebello”

Next to the bowling alley records room was a special climate controlled room that I believe was once the kitchen. This room contained The Computer, an IBM 360 the size of a short school bus, and directly across from it an air handler approximately the same size that kept the temperature and the humidity just so. This was before microchips, this big old pig had way less computing power than the phone in your pocket. But it was a god that had to be appeased by a cadre of mysterious priests who fed it data and received the results… that is, when it worked.

The big front doors of the building opened directly into a lobby that was dominated by a massive winding staircase. It was designed to impress visitors, indeed the entire house was designed to impress. Even as an office building, stripped of all the fine furnishings it once had and with its rooms converted to offices it made first time visiting jaws drop.

But I have to say, for a single person all alone in this hulk, guarding the place from midnight to 8AM in the middle of a deserted overgrown grounds, it could be… unnerving. This is why my sadistic supervisor assigned me here. Because you see, it was generally believed by everyone who came in contact with the building, including all of the daytime office employees, that it was haunted by a lively serious ghost.

Ida Ryan When She Was Still Substantial

The apparition was referred to as The Lady In White. She was the wife of the wealthy robber baron Ryan, her name was Ida and she died in 1917 inside the mansion of heart disease. Or, as the story I’d heard went, she died of a broken heart because her beloved eldest son turned out to be an idle brat. It was said she installed the bowling alley in the basement to entice him into staying home, but to no avail.

Ida, so it was generally believed, did not like what her house had become after her death, a place of mercenary commerce. Anytime something went wrong during the course of the day, equipment failing, communications waylaid, or any other general snafu, it was attributed to Ida’s interference. Supposedly this was said tongue in cheek, but most persons I’d heard say these things had a look and a tone in their voice as they blamed her that did not sound completely sarcastic to me.

In particular it was believed that the one thing Ida hated more than anything else inside her building was the IBM 360. The damn thing was supposed to calculate the finances of the corporation and spit out spreadsheets, reams of connected pieces of paper with little holes all along the sides which were used by ratchet wheels inside the printer to move the paper with a godawful clackity clack. Yes, this was at the dawn of civilization.

A Priest Trying To Make An IBM 360 Work, A Scene I Often Observed At The Ryan Mansion

More often than not the computer beast would stop functioning for reasons that the priests who serviced it would find perplexing. They would remove racks of electronics the size of top desk drawers from the machine and puzzle over the wiring. Then they would shake their heads and attribute the glitches and mysterious failures to Mrs. Ryan being particularly strong that day or “in a mood.”

It was actually true, as I and others observed, that the machine was most likely to stop functioning when the moon was full or nearly so, which is when Mrs. Ryan was considered by one and all to be at her most malicious. When certain lights would flash and alarms go off during my shift I was expected to call the high priests via pager to deal with the problem. Thus they would arrive at some horrible hour of the early morning bleary eyed to frown at the machine and pull out the racks and curse The Lady In White.

The reason I was given this job in the first place was because the last two midnight shift guards had quit abruptly. The employee two before me simply walked off the job and when they tracked him down said he never wanted to go back there again. As for my predecessor, it seems he ran in a panic all the way out to the highway, about a mile, and at a well lighted strip mall used a pay phone to announce his resignation.

Thomas Ryan Mausoleum In Virginia… But Where Is Ida Buried?

Okay, I’m not making this up. Both of these fellows reported that as they were doing their hourly rounds they came into the front lobby and saw The Lady In White descending the big staircase. One of them, I forget which, reported a cold wind in the closed up building preceding her appearance. Both decided she was angry at them, neither stuck around long enough to find out if she had anything untoward in mind.

So there I was the first night. My jerk of a supervisor showed me the building and the routine I was to follow, then smirked out a giggly “Have fun” and left me all alone. This was after midnight, you understand.

My main duty was to every hour make rounds of the building and the nearby grounds. Starting at my desk inside the back basement door, which was the night entrance, I would hoist up my Detex Clock, which was a round mechanical timekeeper that ran a ticker tape inside. There were keys at stations around the route I was to traverse, I was supposed to go to each of these stations and insert the keys inside the device and turn them, thus punching the tape. This indicated the exact time I arrived at each key station.

The clock was heavy, designed so that it was practically impossible to bust into and alter the tape without leaving discernible damage. I had to walk hourly from the basement to the fourth floor where the servant’s quarters were, turning lights on and off as I went, 15 or so keys in all. I did my duty responsibly which was a good thing, as I eventually found out that every morning the president of the corporation would fetch the Detex Clock himself, open it up with his key and personally check the ticker tape to see if I had been diligently doing my job.

A Much Used Detex Clock

So there I was doing my first tour of the building, Detex Clock in its black leather case slung from my shoulder. I’ve always loved old buildings much more than anything modern, but this place was giving me the creeps. There were noises… it seemed that after I would pass a place there would be a knock or a small crash behind where I’d been. And up ahead bizarre creaks. I could feel adrenaline squirt into my blood.

So when I arrived at the last key, which was in the lobby, I’d just about had it. I wasn’t going to put up with any more nonsense. So I planted myself firmly in front of the big winding staircase and called to The Lady In White.

“Okay Mrs. Ryan,” I said very loudly, almost shouting so there was no mistaking. “I know you don’t like what’s become of your house. I know you don’t want a lowlife like me running around your house, poking into your rooms all night long. I’ve heard how you threw out the last two guys who had my job and I might be next.

“But please consider, your house fell into ruin and now it’s being used and being taken care of, maybe not the way you want it but hey. And okay you didn’t like those last two guys. But I’m gonna tell you right now that I like your house, I like big old mansions like this. I’m here to make sure it doesn’t burn down or get broken into or whatever. That’s my job.

“Maybe I don’t measure up to your standards but you know what? I’m the best you’re gonna get. I’ll keep an eye on the place. So you let me know right now if you want me to stay here and watch out for your house.

“If you don’t want me here how about you show yourself to me right now. You show yourself on the staircase and come on down just like you did to those other guys. If you do, I will turn right around and go out those doors behind me and I won’t come back. But if you think you can put up with me then don’t show yourself and I’ll stay.”

Detex Key And Box

So I waited, peering up the gloomy staircase. The house had become totally silent, not a creak could be heard. The air was completely still. I stood there for a few minutes, but she most decidedly did not show herself to me.

“Okay Mrs. Ryan,” I said. “Looks like I’ll be here five nights a week. I promise I’ll watch your house. And if you ever decide you don’t want me here anymore just show yourself and I’m gone. I’ll be back here in an hour. Okay?”

I didn’t hear an “okay” back which was fine with me. In the time I worked there I would occasionally feel her presence, and once I got used to the routine creaks and groans of the building I would occasionally hear sounds that weren’t quite right. Like I would be down at my basement desk half snoozing between rounds in the quiet building and suddenly I would snap awake and listen intently. And I would hear… well, it sounded like footsteps upstairs, or a wrenching of wood on wood, stuff like that.

Apparently Much Of The Half Wooded Grounds Around
The Ryan Mansion, Like Most Of The Area,
Has Been “Developed” With Sprawl

And yeah, there were some nights when she was particularly active. There was one back stairway in particular that had a small window halfway up. I would shut the window and turn out the light behind me, an hour later the light would be on and I would shut the window again and turn off the light, an hour later the same thing until dawn. There were plenty of other things like that but like I said, no one believes me so I’ll leave it there.

None of this bothered me because, you see, Mrs. Ryan and I had an understanding. As for my jerk supervisor, I never got the full story but he was fired for incompetence. He was replaced by a lady with whom I got along well, sometimes she’d hang out with me in the wee hours as we drank horrible machine coffee and I told her true ghost stories about the place. And today I wonder if Mrs. Ryan is still haunting the current tenants of her house, or has she finally, um, given up the ghost.

OMG OMG OMG I’m Outta Here

 

September 16, 2016

Publicizing the Pilgrim Pipelines and alarming the military authorities by boating on the river on a late summer day

This is what you may not have heard, until very recently the Corporate Media has been obediently quiet about it and they still haven’t given it much attention. There is a proposed plan to run pipelines carrying Bakken crude oil in two places underneath the Hudson River at the Port of Albany. It’s being called the Pilgrim Pipeline, promoted by an outfit that calls itself Pilgrim Pipelines LLC and appears to be funded by the notorious Koch Brothers.

The idea behind the pipeline is to pick up and carry oil that is currently being delivered by train and by truck to the Global LLC facility at the Port, and send it 178 miles south to New Jersey to refine and then mostly export to other countries. This new oil carrier would run parallel to the oil that will continue to be loaded onto river barges at the port.

Please understand what that means. This pipeline will not reduce the quantity of oil that is being delivered by train and by truck to Albany. The pipeline will encourage even more trains and more trucks to deliver Bakken crude to Albany by increasing carrying capacity out of the port. It is estimated by Riverkeeper that in order for Global to fully use the increased carrying capacity the number of oil trains and oil trucks running oil through our Albany neighborhoods would increase by as much as six times.

The Global Facility And An Oil Barge At The Port Of Albany Near Where One Of The Two Pipes Will Run Under The Hudson River

Actually, Pilgrim is two pipelines running beside each other, one to carry Bakken crude oil south to the refineries at Linden, New Jersey and the other pipe to allegedly carry refined oil products back up north to Albany. Each pipe will be 20 inches in diameter and both will have a carrying capacity of 8.5 million gallons a day. The second pipeline is designed to be quickly reconfigured to carry crude oil south like the first pipe, so the potential carrying capacity of the two pipes will be 17 million gallons per day.

It’s bad enough that this pipeline is being slapped across our backyards along the Hudson Valley. But running oil underneath the river at Albany is dangerous and irresponsible, sooner or later a disaster in the making, particularly since the oil will be sour sulfurous Bakken crude and possibly at a later date low quality thick tar sands oil from Canada. And as the survivors of Lac Magantic and the neighbors on South Pearl Street in the South End know all too well, the people who manage Bakken crude don’t give a damn about the health and safety of the communities that they exploit for their personal profit.

Kayakers And A Few Canoists Prepare To Launch

The local Corporate Media blackout about the pipeline came to a sudden end on the second weekend of September because of a publicity generating event that happened on that Saturday. About forty kayaks and a few canoes manned by concerned citizens gathered at the boat launch in Albany, then paddled along the length of downtown to the South End. The Wife and I were part of the flotilla. At a spot just north of the port we crossed the river in a line and then returned the way we came, having made our point.

We were told by the organizers of the event to gather to launch our boats at 11:30 AM, but of course we stood around the boat launch for an hour or so as latecomers arrived, some by water. There was also a little scheduling problem, because of an earlier threat of rain the Albany Jazz Festival had been moved over here at the last minute so that at least the soundstage would be protected from a sudden deluge by the highway overpass that rises behind the boat launch. Thus all of us boaters had to park our cars in a far parking lot and carry our boats through the lot where the soundstage was already set up.

Happily, the organizers of the event kept the speeches to a minimum, indeed their egos are pretty minimal and I can’t seem to find any names on the Coalition Against Pilgrim Pipeline (CAPP) website. Things were pretty well organized with designated monitors in front and in back of the flotilla, and everybody was required to wear lifejackets and asked to keep together and follow general safety rules. Plus we were all given these little whistles to dangle from our lifejackets and use in case of emergency.

An Event Organizer Hollers Safety Instructions While The Coast Guard Heavy Stands Behind Her

You’d think we were about to splash our way through an uncharted wilderness and do battle with angry sea lions. The Wife and I have paddled up and down this stretch of water more times than we can remember, zipping back and forth across the river and pretty much going anywhere we’ve wanted. It felt really strange to have someone standing there giving us rules and instructions, but that was only a small part of the strange.

You see, the organizers made sure to alert the authorities that this little event was going to happen, more out of courtesy than anything. This was not an act of civil disobedience, nothing like last year’s successful effort to blockade Shell Oil’s giant arctic drilling rig in Seattle, where thousands of “kayaktivists” put their bodies at risk of sudden death if the ship’s captain decided to plow into them. This crowd at the boat launch in Albany was not too interested in dying, indeed this bunch averaged on the more mature side, although a handful of younger people participated.

Thus I was astonished to see this guy from the Coast Guard standing on the launch and giving us more instructions. Seriously, the reaction from the authorities to this event was ridiculous to the point of being unbelievable. This gaggle of solid citizens paddling a bunch of little boats to deliver a mild protest in honor of the environment were escorted by government gunboats. We had a 65 foot Coast Guard “small tug” and we had a New York State Police Boat:

Federal And State Military Ready To Open Fire On
The Paddle Boats

And we had two NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) police on ski-dos:

NY State Environmental Conservation Police, Note Their Sidearms At The Ready

Our tax dollars at work. Of course we were told by the Coast Guard guy that all this nonsense was “for our safety,” whatever that was supposed to mean. The fact was that both the State and Federal boats were armed war machines. Even the DEC cops, I could see when I got up close to them, were heavily armed.

At any time they could have, if they had wanted to, opened fire on us with their guns and well inside a minute we would all have become shattered kayaks and body parts floating in bloody water. This misdirected display of the awesome power of the authorities was clearly meant to intimidate us, to let us know that we were practicing our First Amendment rights only because they were allowing us to. I had half a mind to break from the flotilla and paddle across the river like I usually do just to see what would happen.

Well maybe less than half a mind. Fortunately I decided not to conduct any dangerous tests on my fragile body and perhaps cause the entire event to be aborted at gunpoint. One has to think of other people you know.

Casting Off From The Launch

Finally we cast off just past high tide, so it was easy going south with the current, paddling close together along the blank wall that defines downtown Albany from the river. There was a bit of wind and the water was choppy, exacerbated by occasional boats speeding by. We were all so close together that almost every time I stopped paddling to take a picture my boat drifted into another boat and we kept playing bumper cars.

We were carefully escorted the entire way. The Coast Guard tug, to their credit, stayed out in the channel on the other side of the river shadowing us. But the State Police boat couldn’t manage to stay still, it sped back and forth to no purpose executing sharp turns and at one point went around in circles, the wake they generated traveling across the river and rocking us. Meanwhile the two DEC cops on ski-dos preceded us at a distance repeatedly zipping past each other in a little water ballet.

Map showing where the Pilgrim Pipelines cross the Hudson River between the Port of Albany and Rensselaer
(click on map for larger size)

So what was this all about, why were we out in our boats giving the authorities an opportunity to waste our tax dollars? The proposed pipelines run on the west side of the Hudson River from New Jersey to Albany, but at two places along the Port of Albany spurs of the pipe (laterals) cross underneath the river. One spur crosses near the north end of the port at Global LLC, the largest of the two facilities at the port that handles shipments of oil. The other spur runs under the Hudson at the south shore of Island Creek at the south end of the port, the waterway which is the mouth of the Normanskill.

The two spurs are connected in a loop on the Rensselaer side. From their facility in the port Global would pump oil into the pipes directly underneath the Hudson to the east shore, which would then cross the ecologically sensitive wetlands at the Papscanee Creek. After running south through the tank farm in Rensselaer the pipe turns sharply west and crosses the river again. The place where it lands on undeveloped land next to Island Creek is the Town of Bethlehem, then it continues south across the Vlomankill to New Jersey.

Okay, what’s the problem? The problem is that oil pipelines that run under rivers break, and that happens more often than you might think. When that happens the crude oil shoots into the river in an uncontrolled fashion and pretty much destroys the life of the river, turning it into a river of filth. Once the pouring crude is finally stopped, it takes a long time before the river is usable again and for the foreseeable future it doesn’t really recover completely. Take a look at some of these recent river oil pipeline breaks:

Enbridge Corporation Pipeline Break And Spill Into The Kalamazoo River In Michigan, 2010

It’s important to note that in order to get the oil to flow through the pipeline it must be diluted with a mix of dangerous solvents, including benzene. Canadian tar sands oil, which spilled into the Kalamazoo River, is often 50 percent diluted with these toxics.

Exxon Pipeline Break Spill Into The Yellowstone River, 2015

Benzene, which is really nasty, has a way of ending up in drinking water.

Oil Pipeline Break Under The Moscow River In Russia, 2015

That’s just a quick sample. Many communities along the Hudson, beginning with Bethlehem which is immediately south of the proposed pipeline crossing, draw drinking water from the Hudson. When a breach eventually occurs in the pipes, these communities will have an instant crisis on their hands. In addition the tides will continually push the spilled oil upstream along the Albany waterfront and probably as far as Waterford.

I say that the pipelines under the river will eventually break because the outfit behind this thing, Pilgrim Pipeline Holdings LLC, is basically an ad hoc hit and run developer with no interest in the well-being of the communities upon which it is imposing. Despite their claims, they are only interested in installing pipes that barely if at all meet the minimum federal standards so as to generate the most profit for themselves. The notorious Koch Brothers, who are financing these pipelines, did not greatly inflate the vast wealth that they inherited by building quality infrastructure that could be relied on indefinitely.

As evidence of that vast indifference, please remember that from 2009 to 2014 raw crude Bakken frack oil was shipped across the country and into Albany without stabilizing the oil for shipment first. For some five years the neighborhoods of the South End, in particular the people who live along South Pearl Street, were forced to breath deadly hydrogen sulfide and other volatile gases. And of course they unknowingly lived with the threat of sudden death in a fireball explosion, as happened to the 47 murder victims of Lac Magantic.

Protest Against The Fracked Bakken Oil Trains At The Port Of Albany Last May

Because of growing public outrage the federal and State governments quietly began to regulate the Bakken crude, requiring that deadly volatile gasses be removed before transport, which is what they were supposed to have done all along. But today the politicians and the government bureaucrats can’t tell anybody that they are now doing their job and enforcing safety regulations like they are supposed to because that would be an admission that they had been failing to do their job. That of course would open them up to liability suits and charges of criminal conspiracy.

Since the politicians can’t just come right out and tell the public that the deadly volatile gas transport problem is now fixed, most people don’t really know that it is. Those of us who do know also know that these scumbums betrayed us and they are likely to do so again. So pretty much no one trusts this current crop of politicians and bureaucrats, the general assumption is that they are all paid off and working for the creeps who are fracking and exporting the oil.

Fortunately the State of New York has some say over the construction of this pipeline, and shortly after this kayak trip the DEC gave the proposal what we call a “positive declaration.” This bit of State government bureaucratese is a good thing. It means that the State recognizes that the pipeline has a significant environmental impact. It is now subject to complete environmental review, which means that public hearings have to be held in all the communities the pipeline passes through and the comments made have to considered and incorporated into the review. (To read the Draft Environmental Statement, which has a complete set of detailed maps of the Pilgrim Pipelines, click here.)

The South Shore Of Island Creek Just Past The Port Of Albany, Where The Other Pipeline Will Cross The Hudson

You might wonder why such a thing should even be a question, of course a pipeline carrying crude oil has an environmental impact, right? That’s not how the DEC operates. Routinely, every proposal by a large corporation is quietly given permission to build or do whatever they want without any sort of environmental review unless there is a significant public outcry against the proposal. The bigger the proposal, the bigger the outcry necessary to trigger a proper review.

That’s why some call the DEC the Department of Environmental Conversation. A surprisingly large number of people, particularly older people, naively trust government and corporate officials to watch out for our interests and enforce regulations. The true situation is that when the politicians are not carefully watched they do the carrying and fetching for corporate looters and it is up to us to knock their heads and make them behave.

Paddling Past The USS Slater

Our flotilla of kayaks proceeded along in choppy waves without incident under the watchful eyes of the US and State militaries, paddling past that run down looking floating restaurant and past the USS Slater. We were quite the spectacle. People lined up on the upper decks of a passing tour boat and on the shore, watching us solemnly as we passed. I did wave a few times but I didn’t see anyone wave back, which I thought odd. Maybe we looked scary.

We passed the Big C Pipe which juts out from under the U-Haul building parking lot, from which Washington Park Lake drains into the Hudson via the buried Beaverkill. I was happy to see that for once there were no mats of decayed poop floating out of it and no discernible sewage smell, probably because we were at high tide. At low tide the stink will knock you into the water. I made sure to point it out to my fellow kayakers.

At The Island Creek Park Fishing Deck, Terry Roben At Right Performing

At Island Creek Park we pulled up our boats to greet a delegation of supporters that had assembled on the fishing deck. We became a water-borne audience as singer and songwriter Terry Roben entertained us with a couple of songs. Then we had a rousing speech from activist Mr. Willie White of AVillage, who has been a very important leader in the fight for environmental justice and accountability in the South End.

Mr. Willie White Speaks To The Boaters

I have to say that was kind of cool doing that, being part of an audience while sitting in my kayak in the river. We had at least 50 people and several dogs on the river, not all the boats keeping in one place during the entertainment, meeting in solidarity with assembled shorebound supporters over a vital issue. I would not mind attending some other kind of scheduled event like this, an entertainment or rally for boaters, although it would have to be short like this one was because sitting still in a boat eventually gets hard on the butt.

While we met with our landlubber supporters at Island Creek Park the assembled State and federal militaries waited for us, patiently I presume. A bit later I had a chance to ask one of the DEC cops riding a ski-do how he felt, and he was very happy to tell me that he didn’t mind one bit being out on the water on a nice day. I guess there were a lot worse things these taxpayer funded guys could have been doing besides following around a bunch of harmless kayakers.

Kayaks Cross The River Under The Watchful Eyes Of
The US Military

So we left Island Creek Park and a short paddle later we arrived at our destination, a point just north of the Port of Albany. We were told that the authorities didn’t want us to go any further, and we were also told that supposedly boat traffic in the channel had been stopped for our little action. This was not in the least bit necessary since river traffic is very light on Saturday and we had no intention of forming a blockade or interfering with any oil barges if they appeared.

Using one of the channel markers near the far shore as a guide, we more or less formed a line with our boats and paddled across the river under the watchful eyes of the Coast Guard tug which hovered nervously. It was hard to keep a straight line because now we were running sideways to the current and the waves, as I snapped pictures I quickly drifted downriver out of line. We looped around the white buoy and headed back to the Albany side of the River where we started.

A Brief Line Of Kayaks And Canoes Across The Hudson

And that was it. To my astonishment the kayakers in the lead immediately headed back north along the shore and everybody behind them followed. As The Wife said later, “I expected we would go across and back at least a couple of times.” I really expected a lot of crossings and maybe a little bit of symbolic carrying on, you know, have a little fun.

It seems the majority of these paddlers were getting tired out from what The Wife and I consider a short paddle. We’ve used our boats so much that we both are now able to paddle indefinitely and handle contrary currents and rough water with no problem. When we go out for a weekend jaunt we’re normally on the water for about four hours, traveling a good ten miles is no big deal.

But most of our fellow paddlers did not have the stamina or the muscles or the insensitive butts to play around in the water for a while. That’s one good reason why these social movements desperately need a lot of young people, worn out old people don’t know how to have fun. If you’re going to save the world you might as well have a good time while you’re at it.

Our Friend Grace, Who Is Organizing Opposition To The Pilgrim Pipelines In The Town Of Bethlehem (click here to contact her)

Okay, maybe that wasn’t completely fair. As one of the organizers, our friend Grace put it, “That was the most fun I’ve ever had at a political action.” It was a nice warm day outdoors and the water was warm, how can I complain. I’m just saying that if we went to all that effort we should have done a little more of what we came for, that’s all.

So some of the kayakers headed back to the boat launch where we all started but a lot of us stopped at Island Creek Park for a picnic that supporters of our action had prepared for us. The tide was still high so the mud flats next to the fishing deck were short, so landing was easy without having our feet sink into the mud. This would be a great place to put a non-motorized boat launch, I hope that idea gets revived.

Of course that idea was originally scuttled because of the high levels of e. coli and “fecal coliform” (dissolved human shit) in the water around there. Most of the sewage in the water comes out of the Big C Pipe a little ways upstream. Word is that the authorities have been taking steps to deal with excess runoff from the Beaverkill storm drain, and hopefully their efforts will also deal with the sewage that it carries so that the water at Island Creek Park will become cleaner. We’ll see.

Security Guards Use Dogs To Assault Lakota Defenders Of Their Land At Standing Rock South Dakota Last Month

A whole series of new oil pipelines are being built right now across the country, most notably the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) being built by the Enbridge Corporation to carry fracked Bakken oil in our direction. In case you haven’t heard, which is very possible because of a Corporate Media blackout, there is an ongoing showdown between Enbridge and Lakota Indians of South Dakota who say the pipe is being illegally imposed on their traditional sacred land, and that their water supply is at grave risk. Delegations from native nations across North America and from as far away as Hawaii and even from the Amazon have joined the Lakota to help them defend their land.

Now, you might ask why pipelines weren’t built back in 2009 and 2010 when the fracked Bakken oil began to flow East in quantity, why did the frackers resort to trains and now diesel trucks (100 per hour on South Pearl Street!) to carry oil to Albany? The reason is that Enbridge and the other pipeline outfits refused to carry Bakken crude because the high hydrogen sulfide content of the oil rapidly corroded their pipes. This is the same hydrogen sulfide that for years wafted off the trains that ran through the South End and caused respiratory problems and probably a lot of other health issues that may not show up in South End citizens for years.

Today the deadly and explosive gases are removed from the Bakken crude before it is transported, a regulatory enforcement instituted quietly and without fanfare because the politicians don’t want to be held liable for having failed to regulate the frackers and failed to protect the voters in the first place. So one of the benefits to the Bakken frackers consenting (you know the politicians are working for them) to follow health and safety regulations is that now they can ship their oil by pipe, which is way cheaper than by road or rail.

So we see that DAPL in far away South Dakota has a direct bearing on Albany, part of a new network of pipelines that will greatly increase carrying capacity to the East Coast for foreign export. The frackers would not be making profits if they couldn’t ship their oil to China, which right now is buying up oil on the international market and stockpiling it, which is driving up the price. Thus the NO DAPL signs affixed to several kayaks for this event were entirely appropriate.

We Had A Picnic At Island Creek Park

What are the chances that the pipelines will be stopped? Right now it looks pretty good. Some 27 municipalities along the route have passed resolutions against the pipelines, most notably the City of Rensselaer which will host one end of the underwater lateral spur coming from the Port of Albany. The City of Albany passed a resolution in opposition, but sadly six Common Council members pussied out and voted “present.” instead of showing concern for the health and safety of their constituents.

There is a 100 year old provision under the NY State Transportation Corporation Law that empowers Cities and villages to veto any pipelines that pass through their municipal boundaries (but not towns, there is legislation pending to fix that.) That explains why the plans don’t call for the pipelines to pass through the City of Albany, the developers know the citizens and the politicians and even the cops don’t want the oil. But I do wonder if the northern lateral spur that passes under the river and comes ashore at Global in the port for maybe a few hundred feet could be legally vetoed by the City of Albany.

And finally, as I noted earlier, the DEC grudgingly declared that the pipelines need to be subject to full environmental review, which will cause a big delay, give citizens a platform to complain and most important of all, generate publicity. One of the most important things that must be done in such cases is to find a way around the Corporate Media and force them to accurately report on the story. Because, as the promoters of Pilgrim know very well, if the public finds out exactly what they are up to and the risk they are imposing, then there is no chance in hell that they will get their pipelines built and line their pockets.

 

August 31, 2016

From the South End of Albany all the way to Voorheesville, okay not all at once but we did the whole thing

It seems like every few days I hear or read about more people discovering the Albany County Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail for themselves and offering praises and delight. Actually, most of the trail outside the City of Albany has been open to public use for quite a few years, sorta kinda kept clear and maintained by other municipalities. What’s new this year is the development of the trail from Albany to Delmar, the trail surface paved with asphalt and the old railroad bridges on the trail repaired.

Without question, this newly opened part in the City of Albany is the best laid out and most interesting part of the Rail Trail. Right now we have the best surface for walking or riding bikes, and we have the most interesting things to look at on either side of the trail, and absolutely the most spectacular views. I can say this because yes, The Wife and I have walked the entire length of the trail from Albany to the foothills of the Helderbergs and seen it all.

But we didn’t do it all at once. Without planning this turned into a summer project, three different journeys on three different sections of the trail on some of the hottest afternoons in July and August. Maybe we shouldn’t have ventured out into the midday heat like that, but we both survived the ordeals.

The Normanskill Under The I-90 Bridge Seen From The Helderberg-Hudson Rail Trail In The City Of Albany

It was a very hot Fourth of July when I decided to take The Wife for a walk on the Albany part of the trail. We’d been talking about bicycling on the trail since May when the Albany part officially opened, but to tell you the truth I’m not big on bicycling like The Wife is and my old bike is not in top shape right now so we never quite got it together. But I like walking because you can stop and see so many things that you just miss when you go whizzing by at top speed or panting mightily as you peddle up a long incline.

We had a hell of a time trying to find the shiny new parking lot on South Pearl Street where the trail currently begins. There was no signage, and the County website, among other sources, helpfully told us in detail how to access the newly opened trail from several places in the suburbs but didn’t bother to tell us how to find the trail in Albany. I chalked this up to typical tiresome suburbanite discrimination against my community and we proceeded to search for the trailhead.

The Hard To Find Parking Lot At The Trailhead On South Pearl Street In The South End Of Albany

About six years ago during a muddy spring day The Wife went on a hike on the future rail trail with a few trail advocates, this at the urging of our then Albany County legislator Luci McKnight. The route was mighty rough at that time, punctuated by half buried decaying railroad ties and overgrown with brush.

We had an argument because The Wife recalled accessing the old railroad corridor from a private parking lot behind some warehouse and bushwhacking through a typical South End wooded section to find the railroad embankment. I kept telling her this couldn’t be it, I’d heard there was a new designated parking lot and besides, forcing people in Albany to push through underbrush was too discriminatory even for suburbanite planners. I mean, they would have to consider legal liability.

Eventually we found the parking lot, more or less across from the Cherry Hill mansion to the south. My thinking that bright, swelteringly hot day was to find some nice shady place with trees to take a walk. In this the trail turned out to be congenial enough in Albany, providing tolerable shade in the midday heat.

Pleasantly Shady In Albany

It being a holiday we passed a lot of other people walking the trail, many from Albany, almost everyone was happy and greeted us as we passed. But the bicyclists that passed us coming from Albany had to struggle up a long gradual incline that runs all the way to the border of Albany. That incline, we discovered, becomes even more gradual as you leave Albany but continues to rise almost to Voorheesville.

Shortly after the start of the trail we could see on one side the rooftops of Old South Pearl Street, a neighborhood hidden in the woods on what is now a dead end. On the other side we had a lovely view of the crumbling parking lots behind the recycling waste facility, which may not be too attractive but I found fascinating. I hear there are plans to develop this back lot either with some sort of light industrial or by expanding the recycling facility.

Old Powerlines Overgrown

After that the scenery ranges from pleasant to spectacular. Enough trees had been left close to the trail so that as we walked the blasting sun was regularly interrupted by shady spots. We passed by some rock outcroppings that had been cut back when the railroad was built, rising well over our heads. On either side of the path I spotted remains of the signaling system for the trains, concrete pedestals and old electric lines and such.

All along the trail I observed the embankment we were walking on with wonder and admiration. The trail has only the gentlest of curves in Albany and beyond that is mostly straight as an arrow all the way to Voorheesville, rising slowly and steadily without one single dip or hill for the trains to deal with. In many places the sides of the embankment go down deep into valleys on both sides, and in others, such as at the carved rocks we passed, the hilltops had been cut through probably by chipping them with hammers and spikes because dynamite hadn’t been invented yet.

Rock Outcropping In Albany, Probably Cut By Hand

All of this impressive earthmoving had been done by hand, there were no bulldozers or backhoes back then. I tried to imagine the swarm of underclass laborers who built the embankment with shovels and picks, all this dirt and stones moved by carts drawn by horses and oxen, probably a massive spectacle to see as it was constructed. It was laid down so carefully and precisely that after 150 years the roadbed is still in such good shape that you could lay another set of tracks on the bed tomorrow and run trains safely.

This train line, believe it or not, was opened back in 1863 as the Albany & Susquehanna Railroad (A&S) that ran from Albany across the Helderberg Mountains past Altamont and continued south to the major train hub at Binghamton by the Pennsylvania border, some 143 miles. This first part, the run from Albany to Schoharie, took 12 years to build. Consider that this train line was opened for service a mere 32 years after the first passenger railroad was built in the Western Hemisphere, the tenuous and decidedly low-tech Dewitt Clinton (which ran through my neighborhood a short half block from my house.)

The Normanskill Rushing Over Rocks

This train line was so important and so profitable that in 1869 competing robber barons, JP Morgan on one side and Jay Gould and Jim Fisk on the other, fought each other as both attempted to take over the smaller and more vulnerable A&S. At one point the owner of A&S tried to stop the predators from buying up shares in his company by burying the company’s books in Albany Rural Cemetery. At another point armies of thugs hired by both robber barons commandeered trains and rammed head-on into each other inside a tunnel located about 16 miles east of Binghamton at Harpursville, after which the thugs on both sides jumped out of their wrecked trains and engaged in a pitched battle. By the next year Morgan won effective legal control of A&S, although A&S continued to exist on paper until 1945.

The train revolutionized local travel and movement of goods, the run from Albany to Voorheesville was a mere 19 minutes, faster than by auto today. But passenger service was suspended in the 1930s, probably to force people to become more dependent on autos, a national trend at the time. In 2003 then owners Canadian-Pacific officially abandoned the 11 miles from Albany to Voorheesville, selling the right of way to Albany County in 2009 so that the County could make it a walking and biking trail, but also with the intention of preserving the railroad right of way for some future transportation use.

The Albany Rail Trail, 2016

The upper half of the trail in Albany runs alongside the Normanskill, which is the border of the City with the suburban town of Bethlehem. In spots the river is placid and stagnant looking, but at other sections it rushes over craggy rocks and presents the kind of spectacular vistas you would expect in the Catskills or Adirondacks. That’s the City of Albany for you, parts of it look and feel like you’re in the middle of New York City. But then you can travel a short distance and you are surrounded by near wilderness like this, never leaving town.

The Rail Trail In 2010, Compare With The Photo Above

When The Wife surveyed the trail back in 2010 it looked a whole lot different than it did now. Decaying tracks were buried in the roadbed, and in places there were piled up obstructions. But the path was clear and stable, other than the beds of the bridges there was no serious structural work to be done.

The Suspension Bridge Over The Normanskill In 2010

We eventually came to the suspension bridge over the Normanskill at the City line. The bridge has remained sound and steady since it was built before the Civil War, but the deck had become a crumbling hazard. Six years ago The Wife, who is terrified of heights, refused to cross the bridge with her hiking companions, but she took some good photos.

The Normanskill Bridge Today, 2016

I was interested to see that the Normanskill Bridge had not been carefully cleaned up and painted other than a quick graffiti removal and wire brushing. After 150+ years in the rain and snow it needed minimal work. The metal must be some sort of very high quality alloy. All of the trail gave evidence of quality original construction, I would guess the idea was that the road had to be totally reliable and damn the cost.

I noticed that the wooden surface built on top of the old bridge was held together with joints so sections could move up and down as the metal bridge moved underneath. You see this on the colossal Mid-Hudson Pedestrian Bridge at Poughkeepsie, an old railroad bridge which was designed to sway in the wind. I will be interested to see how long the new wooden platform lasts, it’s pressure treated with copper sulfate but is unpainted.

The Rail Trail In Delmar, Nice But Not Much Shade

So we continued strolling through the sun-blasted midday heat toward Delmar in the Town of Bethlehem. Here there was very little shade, the trees had been cut way back from the path. We had only brought a couple of water bottles with us and The Wife was starting to make complaining noises.

Fortunately the trail runs right through the heart of Delmar, which has a fairly compact urban center in the middle of surrounding suburban sprawl. We exited the trail not far from Delaware Avenue, and even though it was a holiday found a bar and grill open on Delaware called My Place. I’d never been there before, they have good burgers for a low price and we drank a lot of liquid and enjoyed the air conditioning.

The Horrifying Eagle Of Death Atop The War Memorial In Delmar

Soon we got back on the trail and headed for the other side of Delmar. Part of the trail has been in use for several years, maintained by the village. Notably the trail runs through War Memorial Park which must have been a much different place when the trains were running. Today it’s a grassy spot with sitting benches around a granite memorial topped with the most terrifyingly horrible depiction of an eagle I’ve ever seen.

We continued past Four Corners in Delmar, but admittedly we didn’t quite make it to the end of the paving trail where Slingerlands begins because The Wife was losing it and demanded we turn back. Later we drove to the spot where it ended to discover that we had almost made it. Instead we trudged downhill back to South Pearl Street and then drove the car to have ice cream at Emack and Bollios on Delaware Street in Albany.

The New Pavilion At The Other End Of The Rail Trail In Vorheesville

The very next Saturday we drove out to Voorheesville to walk the other end of the trail. Heading up into the hills to Altamont and beyond, freight trains are still running along the right of way. Only the tracks from the rail hub of Voorheesville to Albany were abandoned. I wonder if Canadian Pacific Railway regrets their decision, they sold their run to Albany just as demand for rail service to Albany for tank cars carrying fracked Bakken crude oil began to overload local tracks.

The trails starts on one side of the village of Voorheesville, another small urban center surrounded by suburban sprawl but also by small farms. The trail here, which appears to have been maintained by the village, starts on one side of the community. It wasn’t quite as terribly hot of a day with puffy clouds and a breeze, but we were pleased to find this part of the trail was decently shaded.

At the beginning of the trail a pavilion is being constructed, which appears will remain open sided and will probably be full of history or something like that. According to a historical marker nearby this was the site of a tourist destination in the late 1800s called the Grove Hotel (actually the Friar’s Grove Hotel.) Like the train station that was once located across Grove Street, it is long gone.

The Rail Trail Becomes One Rut As You Head Away From Vorheesville

The Rail Trail near the village started out paved, but turned to gravel and then disintegrated to two ruts or sometimes one rut as we headed out. It turns out the ruts were probably made by the large number of bicycles that passed us, clearly this section turns into a big mud pit when it rains. That problem will be solved soon, the County has taken over the entire trail and this part is scheduled to be paved in 2017.

Our goal that day was to walk to the enormous Hilton Barn built in 1898, which was moved this past March from the old LeVie Farm at the corner of Routes 85 and 85A to this present site a short distance away on Hilton Road next to the Rail Trail. The barn is 120 feet long, 60 feet wide and 60 feet high at the peak and is said to be the largest post and beam structure ever built in Albany County.

The Enormous Hilton Barn On Its New Foundation

It had been jacked up off it’s original foundation, had I-beams clamped underneath, and the I-beams with the whole structure on top of them was placed on a big truck bed and rollers. Electric wires and cables strung on the poles along the road had to be taken down for the move. The move and preparing the new site cost about $150,000, half of it paid for by County taxpayers.

We found that the barn had been placed on a new concrete foundation at the new site. The wood is much decayed at the bottom of the barn, which in itself makes the move a wonder. But the structure is sound enough, it survived the trip without shaking apart. It’s sitting all open with the I-beams still in place. And no, we did not climb inside the barn to look around, we could see pretty much everything from outside.

The backstory about the barn is that back in the 1990s the 179 acre LeVie Farm was sold to a fellow who wanted to build a massive shopping center on the corner of 85 and 85A. A large number of New Scotland residents opposed the unneeded project, their successful effort to delay the construction was centered around preservation of the barn. The owner of the land was enraged at being thwarted, he publicly vowed to let the barn disintegrate, demolition by neglect.

Moving The Hilton Barn Across The Road Last March

Around 2008 the New Scotland town board approved construction of a 1.5 million square foot big box retail center on the site, which is said would have been the fourth largest shopping center in this State. But then an amazing thing happened. The citizenry organized into a group that called itself New Scotlanders 4 Sound Economic Development, and collected signatures on a petition from almost a third of the town residents to oppose the project. "This is not an issue about no growth," said a spokesperson for the group. "This is an issue about sound growth and planning."

The group charged that the town board, which was composed of both Republicans and Democrats, was being bought off by the developers, for which there is some evidence. They also charged the board with deliberately shutting out the taxpayers from having input on the decision, which was a fact. The group ran a slate of both Democrats and Republican insurgents in the 2009 election under the name “New Scotland FIRST” and successfully ousted the old boys and girls of both parties from the board. It was amazing to watch and was not reported properly by the local Corporate Media while it was happening.

The developers, reading the inevitable situation, left town shortly before the election. In 2012 the new town board created a master plan with wide citizen input. This current plan calls for a “traditional village development” on the LeVie Farm site with sidewalks, bike paths, houses and apartments close together, with small retail outlets and a “large town commons.” Right now plans are being developed and the old commercial zoning designations are being replaced.

Looking At The Hilton Barn From The Rail Trail About Where An Access Bridge Will Be Built

But the barn was not forgotten, that is why it was moved across the road next to the Rail Trail by Albany County. I’ve heard various plans for it, a museum or retail shops or an educational center. That’s up to the County and the Town of New Scotland. The idea is for it to be adjacent to the new integrated community to be developed across the road, and to be a desirable destination for anyone traveling the Rail Trail.

We walked back to Voorheesville and drove across the village to Smith’s Tavern for a late lunch. There were reports earlier this year that this venerable landmark was going to close and be replaced with a Stewarts shop, this because the owners are ready to retire. But the waitress told us nothing was certain, Stewarts had not made a commitment and the elderly owners were still hoping to find a buyer and keep the old place the way it’s always been. The food there is still pretty good.

Where The Pavement Ends In Delmar: The County Takes Possession

It wasn’t until the last weekend in August, another blisteringly hot day like the Fourth Of July, that we finally walked the last part of the trail between Delmar and Voorheesville. It turned out to be a shorter stretch than we thought it was, about 3 miles. It starts at the tollgate intersection at the border with Slingerlands, so called because a long time ago Route 85 was a privately owned toll road and this is where the tollgate was located.

This section is far and away the shadiest part of the Trail, sections of it were like tunnels of green which we much appreciated. Other than some nice views of fallow fields of wildflowers through the trees there were not many exciting things to see, and the roadbed was also rutted, but this too will be paved next year. The real excitement was right at the beginning at the Delmar line near the old tollgate.

The Privately Owned Railroad Freight House

There is an old train station there, a freight house actually, that is now a private home. The owner of the house considered the Rail Trail that runs on one side of the house where the train tracks were located to be his personal property. He considered anyone who used the Rail Trail next to his house to be trespassing, so he tried to block off the trail.

The County was not amused, so they took possession of County property by dropping jersey barriers alongside the Trail along with a bunch of orange cones. In addition, the County says the guy doesn’t own the land underneath the old rail house, he was supposed to pay the County rent for the land but hasn’t paid a dime since 2009. So now they are threatening to take the building away from him and dismantle an addition that he had added which encroaches on the Rail Trail. Wonder how that turned out.

View From A Train Window In Slingerlands

We walked up the gradual incline until we got to the Hilton Barn in Voorheesville. I tried to get The Wife to walk the extra few miles into the village so we could visit Smith’s Tavern again, but part way there she began to complain miserably about the midday heat. So in an attempt to stop the whiney noise I acceded to her wishes and we trudged back the way we came toward the car we left in Delmar.

Shady Tunnels Of Green In This Section

About halfway back we chatted with a model suburban family strolling past us towards Voorheesville, Dad, Mom, kids and a dog. We told them we’d now walked the entire trail, which they found impressive, and then we told them we lived in Albany and they should hike that part of the trail soon. At the mention of Albany the faces of the adults immediately changed, we both could see them thinking “Albany is an icky place full of icky people and if we go there drug addicts will eat our dog and force our children into prostitution.”

Even though she was out of it from the heat, The Wife noted their facial expressions and swung into immediate action. She said, “You really should check it out, there’s a brand new parking lot at the trailhead. The trail is newly paved and easy to walk on, it’s the best part that we’ve seen. It has the most spectacular scenery I have ever seen on a walking trail anywhere.” They all looked surprised, and said We’ll have to check it out, thanks.

After they were gone I said to her, The most spectacular you’ve ever seen? She grumbled, Yeah well I haven’t seen a lot of walking trails. I didn’t argue much. When finally we got back to where we started, we sat for a while at a booth inside Tollgate Ice Cream, which has been at the tollgate intersection since 1949 when that area was outside the settled areas and not surrounded by houses. The ice cream is real good, and the air conditioning worked fine, so we recovered from the heat nicely.

The Toll Gate

 

July 26, 2016

The Park South neighborhood still dumps raw sewage into the Hudson River via my neighborhood

*UPDATE* Albanyweblog visits the new spectacular Beaverkill sinkhole at the west end of Washington Park Lake that swallowed a car, and also talks to Water Commissioner Joe Coffey

You know, I hate to complain about the same things over and over, but when the problem is huge and I’m the only one complaining, I feel that I have an obligation to keep complaining. Perhaps eventually somebody who can do something about the problem will hear. And eventually if I can get a few more people complaining alongside me, then several somebodies who can do something will do something about the huge problem just to shut up the constant noise.

Every year I like to make a survey of Albany’s Hudson River waterfront. That’s a fancy way of saying that The Wife and I like to throw our boats in the Hudson on a summer morning and paddle around for the hell of it. While we’re at it, I like to look at the changes to the river and the waterfront, see if things have improved or gotten worse, take photos and maybe report on this blog.

The Big C Pipe, The Mouth Of The Beaverkill Where Washington Park Lake Empties Into The Hudson

The good news is that because of planning initiatives by the Albany City government and by the Albany Port District Commission we could see improvements all along the river. After decades of neglect of the waterfront, the reason that Albany exists, we are seeing a serious interest in considering the river an asset to our community rather than an embarrassment that needs to be walled off. Viewed from the river these plans are moving slowly and haphazardly, but they are real steps.

The bad news is that certain serious problems have remained unchecked and unabated because they continue to be ignored or shunted aside. These problems can be summed up in two words, decay and filth. While much of the decay seems to be being addressed, much of the filth continues to be pointedly ignored by the authorities.

One problem in particular, a very serious but fixable health hazard, I’ve been hollering about for years. This nasty little illegality being committed by the City and by the State of New York has been successfully ignored because you probably will never see it unless you get into a small boat and paddle up close enough to see it and smell it. No matter how hard the authorities ignore this problem it will continue not only to be a dangerous nuisance to humans and to wildlife but will also sidetrack and ultimately destroy the ambitious plans for transforming the South End waterfront.

Partially Decayed Human Shit
Floating Lazily Out Of The Big C Pipe

Underneath the parking lot of the U-Haul building, which sits on the banks of the Hudson River, is the double-barreled Big C Pipe, which is New York State Department Of Environmental Conservation (DEC) shorthand for “combined overflow.” They use this misleading term to describe the pipe because two other short street drains join it before it empties into the Hudson. It is the mouth of the Beaverkill, a river that was buried in the 1800s, and it is where Washington Park Lake empties into the Hudson River.

We’d had some thunderstorms the night before, so once again we spotted partially decayed raw sewage floating out of the Big C into the Hudson. Okay, I won’t mince words, it was partially decayed human shit. The smell was unmistakable. The Wife, whose sense of smell is not particularly good, was choking and gagging. (My smeller is even worse than hers, that’s how I can stand to take photos.)

Now, just downstream from this spot where raw sewage empties into the water is the first of the new waterfront amenities, a brand new 50 slip marina for small boats and pleasure craft, including a big beautiful concrete boat launch. This was added to the waterfront by the existing business located there, Springer Welding Works. There are bathrooms and showers, some food for sale with plans for more retail, but no gasoline sales because there are two other marine gas stations close by.

The New Marina At Springer Welding, Just Downstream From The Big C Pipe

I’ve noticed that the sewage emanating from the Big C tends to cling along the South End shore as it moves downriver. Water analysis by Riverkeeper and, reluctantly, by the State confirm that this is where the bacteria concentrates. The earliest admission by the State that there may be a dangerous sewage problem was when they noted the exponentially large spike in deadly e coli during hot summer months at their monitoring device located a good half mile downriver at the Port of Albany.

So the Springer Marina gets the full brunt of the e coli and bacteria from dissolved fecal matter dumped into the water by the Big C. Like most other people concerned with the South End waterfront I’m glad to see this new marina, so when the marina was proposed I didn’t go before the planning boards and make a fuss about the raw sewage. But I still find it amazing that the State had no problem ignoring the e coli and dissolved shit from the Big C washing over the new marina when it issued water quality permits. Is this institutional corruption, or what?

The Fishing Deck At Island Creek Park

And if you go past the marina you come to the fishing deck at Island Creek Park. We all know that we aren’t supposed to eat fish caught in the Hudson because of the GE PCBs and because of the layer of oil on the surface of the river and because of e coli from the decaying human waste dumped into the river. But many of the poor folks who fish off that deck can’t afford the high price of fish in the supermarket, so they ignore these somewhat abstract prohibitions issued by bland authorities and consume the fish.

In past years I’ve seen so much raw sewage discharge from the Big C that large mats of shit would slowly float past Springer Welding and settle around the fishing deck. The stink rising off the water would be so terrific that the people fishing would be forced to leave. Maybe I’m being picky, but I really don’t know how you can construct a restaurant row along here without dealing with the raw sewage problem first.

Raw Sewage From The Big C Also Affects Wildlife: A Young Blue Heron Hanging Out A Short Ways Downstream From The Big C

So why do we have this raw sewage problem, why are the authorities desperate to ignore it? Why in the year 2016 is the City of Albany continuing to discharge raw sewage directly into the Hudson and not be held accountable for it? Why does New York State, which has finally acknowledged the problem, knowingly continue to put people at risk?

The Beaverkill is supposed to be a storm drain, but it is also part of a system that the planners call a Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO.) This means that the storm drains and the sewer lines are connected to each other at several points by underground basins, through these basins the water from both lines run past each other separated by a low wall. The idea is that when there is a flood or massive downpour and the storm drains are overwhelmed, the extra water slops over the low wall into the sewer lines so as to minimize damage from excess water on the street.

A fine thought all around, except in certain cases, such as here with the Beaverkill, the CSO is deliberately misused. When a sewer line is overloaded because of newly constructed buildings hooking up to it, the municipal governments all too often just let the street drain line become the overflow for the sewer instead of the other way around. That way municipal governments don’t have to pay for installing an expensive new sewer line to carry the extra load, which besides the cost to taxpayers can also be politically unpopular because of the time spent digging up the streets.

Some Of The Park South Residential Construction, Each New Apartment Features Flushable Toilets

The sewage that flushes into the Beaverkill, by the way, comes from the Park South neighborhood and Albany Medical Center. As the massive redevelopment of Park South continues, which is admirable and impressive, there are more and more toilets being flushed and more of a need to deal with the waste. But although there have been mitigation efforts, such as installing a bigger slop basin on the combined sewer overflow or diverting some of the sewage to other lines, the Beaverkill is still expected to carry raw sewage directly into the Hudson.

Consider the Big C Pipe the point where Washington Park Lake drains into the Hudson. The lake is itself a place where the buried Beaverkill river emerges from underground before plunging beneath Madison Avenue at New Scotland Avenue and through the South End, acting as a storm drain line for street grates. The only other place where the Beaverkill storm drain line emerges from underground is a small aeration grate in Lincoln Park along the edge of my neighborhood, out of which raw sewage stink wafts almost constantly. This stink from that vent imposed on our neighborhood by the City government and from manhole covers, by the way, is the reason I initially became concerned with this problem.

The Cave-In At Madson Avenue, Looking Up New Scotland Avenue At Park South

This past spring there was a giant cave-in right in the middle of the intersection of Madison and New Scotland. Details about what exactly was down that big hole were pretty much concealed from the public by the City government, and the local media was not interested enough to demand information about what was down there. All anyone seemed to want to know is when will the hole be fixed so we can drive our cars through that vital intersection without inconvenience.

A couple of days after the cave-in I went down there to find out what I could. Quite a number of official looking guys wearing hardhats stood around staring into the hole with grim faces. Meanwhile several other guys who do the actual work snapped instructions back and forth at each other and generally tried to look busy setting up equipment.

A hardhatted guy who appeared to be in charge of some of the actual workers reluctantly answered my brief questions. (The first few I tried to talk to snarled at me, the tension around that hole was intense.) He told me the cave-in was caused by an old brick sewer line, five feet across and topped with a big slab of slate that had, from what I could gather from him, disintegrated.

These brick and slate sewer lines run under some of the oldest streets in the City, they go back about 150 years. There is one running the length of Morton Avenue in my neighborhood, it is lightly used for municipal fixtures such as the kiddie spray pool in Lincoln Park. A few years back we had a rash of cave-ins along Morton caused by the slates sliding off the top of the brick, apparently these enormous stones moved because of the vibrations of heavy trucks and because of street digging.

New Scotland Avenue Just Above Madison Avenue, August 2014

There is another thing to note about these cave-ins: they happen because of water damage to the fill around the sewer line. Normally the bricks and the slate stay in place until water seepage washes away the surrounding dirt, which gives the bricks and the slate someplace to travel to. You might recall that in August of 2014 this intersection, indeed the entire area along with much of downtown Albany, flooded severely after the Beaverkill backed up during a big thunderstorm.

I was told that the brick and slate sewer under Madison and New Scotland runs about six feet from the drain line for Washington Park Lake, that is, the buried Beaverkill. The fellow I talked to implied… not said… that there was no damage to the Beaverkill pipe. At the time I let that pass because I figured that if the Beaverkill pipe had serious damage then a spectacular geyser of lake water would be shooting out of the hole.

Frowning Guys In Hardhats Inspect The Hole At Madison And New Scotland Avenues

But looking at all those frowning guys in hardhats, plus considering the length of time it took to fix the hole, about a month, clearly something more complicated was going on inside that hole. Each of those cave-ins on Morton Avenue were repaired and passable after two days at most. I watched a few, they dig around the hole, they repair the brick, fill in the sides, push the slate back in place or use another cover, fill on top of the cover usually with concrete and pave the street as soon as possible. No big deal like nothing ever happened.

But the Madison and New Scotland hole was a more difficult problem, I’m guessing because of the close proximity of the Beaverkill line. A screw up repairing the old sewer could cause a breach in the Beaverkill that could turn into the kind of ridiculous spectacular disaster that makes national headlines. I’m also guessing that there was indeed damage to the Beaverkill line caused by recent flooding that was revealed by the cave-in, which certainly would have compounded the problems of repair.

Like I said, with this cave-in we were dealing with an official information blackout so we can’t really be sure what happened to the Beaverkill drain line down that hole. But another bit of indirect evidence that the Beaverkill pipe was damaged in that intersection was reports at the same time of a sewage smell emanating from Washington Park Lake. I learned this from talking to several people, as far as I know there was no testing of the lake and no cleanup, at least nothing was made public so there probably wasn’t any.

The 22 Year Old Unrepaired Beaverkill Cave-In In Lincoln Park, Note The Reforestation

This is not the first time that damage to the Beaverkill line caused a whole lot of sewage to back up into Washington Park Lake. Way back in 1994 during the administration of Mayor Whalen, part of the line caved-in on the lawn of Lincoln Park across from Hackett Middle School. I know the fellow who discovered the cave-in, he was walking across the grass and suddenly the ground collapsed beneath his feet and he was buried up to his chest, he frantically managed to pull himself out before dropping further. He still sounds frightened every time I’ve heard him repeat the story.

At the same exact time it was reported in the Hearst Times Union that Washington Park Lake was stinking of sewage, done in their standard “Isn’t Albany Awful” style. Back here in the real world I heard a lot of people complain about it, the stink was quite severe. Coincidence? No. The Beaverkill has been carrying raw sewage into the Hudson for a long, long time.

So the City crews quickly made a temporary repair to the cave-in in Lincoln Park and almost immediately the sewage smell in Washington Park Lake cleared up. But the City never finished the job, that temporary repair has been temporary for 22 years now. Instead the City put a fence around it and today you can peer through that fence and see that the ground is starting to cave again, which will fill the lake with sewage once again.

Inside The Beaverkill Cave-In Fence: The Ground Is Starting To Collapse Again

When will the City finish the job? In the Autumn of 2014 I attended an informational meeting about the Beaverkill flood that happened a few months earlier, and listened with jaw dropping as long-time City Water Commissioner Joe Coffey said, in answer to my question, that he’d just found out about the fenced caved-in part of the Beaverkill line some two weeks earlier! Whether Coffey was telling the truth or just making a lame excuse for inaction, you can’t get any better illustration of the City’s longstanding policy of pointedly neglecting the South End than that. [UPDATE: Joe Coffey was appointed to the job of Commissioner in January 2014, in August 2014 he really was still learning where the long neglected problems are. My error and my apologies to Mr. Coffey]

Since I first started complaining about all this nearly ten years ago the official reactions to my nagging have cycled through the following, in order: 1) Silence 2) Telling me I didn’t know what I was talking about 3) Denial that there is a problem (which was a major step forward) and finally 4) Claiming that the problem is not really a problem but it is being addressed. My current goal is to get the authorities, starting with Mayor Kathy Sheehan, to admit that this is a serious and potentially deadly problem and that we need a new sewer line to carry the sewage.

About three years ago the State of New York finally admitted the existence of the Big C Pipe. Every water discharge pipe along the banks of the Hudson, form Lake Tear-In-The-Clouds to Verrazano Narrows is supposed to be registered with and monitored by the DEC. Above each pipe must be affixed a green “SPEDES” (pronounced “speedies”) permit sign that shows one and all that the State is only allowing clean water to be discharged from that pipe.

Sunday Morning Discharge Of Greenish Toxic Waste Into The Hudson North Of Waterford By MPM Silicones

Of course the truth is something different. Many times going to various spots on the Hudson in my kayak, I’ve observed surreptitious discharges of vile chemical waste, particularly upriver from Albany by subsidiaries of General Electric. Sunday morning is a favorite time for these corporations to poison the river. This is also done on Sunday to avoid the overworked and politically hobbled State inspectors, who don’t work on the weekends and would be promptly fired if they inspected during their off hours and made a complaint. Each of these pipes discharging poison, I’ve observed, sports a green SPEDES.

As for the State SPEDES permit that quietly and mysteriously appeared above the Big C Pipe a few years ago, it legally proclaims that the State is aware of the sewage coming out of the pipe. So the State is sorta kinda admitting that something ought to be done about any violation to the Clean Water Act. (As the only person who has been complaining I think I can plausibly take credit for this small but significant development.)

But so far this grudging acknowledgement has only resulted in one ineffective and really stupid proposal to deal with the problem. The State drew up plans to build a sewage treatment plant in the parking lot of the U-Haul building to treat the sewage before it pours into the river. Seriously, an entire sewage plant for one line to treat sewage that isn’t supposed to be in that one line in the first place. In effect, the State is saying that it is okay for sewage to run through the street drains of Albany and occasionally bubble up to the surface as long as none of it spills into the Hudson and hurts more important people downstream.

The Livingston Avenue Railroad Bridge, Note The Oil On The Water

That Sunday morning paddling along the Albany waterfront, The Wife and I saw lots of other things. We saw that the north Albany boat launch that we used to put in our boats was being kept clean by the City, for which we were grateful. We saw the wooden sheaths that protect the piers holding up the Livingston Avenue railroad drawbridge had been repaired. Replacement of that bridge is on hold, by the way, because CSX railroad, which “owns” the bridge, refuses to allow a bike and pedestrian walkway on the new bridge.

As I’ve reported in the past, when you paddle down the river you get a stark sense of just how unfriendly is Albany’s waterfront. Much of the waterfront is a concrete wall that was constructed mainly to accommodate the high in the sky ramps of highway 787 at the expense of the river. The only public boat dock along that wall is almost unusable, and as The Wife pointed out as we passed the dock, the City has actually hung up signs meant to discourage use.

Inside The Corning Preserve Ponds, Soon To Be Gone

One of the few nice amenities for a paddler along the waterfront is the inland ponds at the Corning Preserve, which can only be easily accessed from the river during low tide. Well, we were in luck, for once we put in when the tide was almost finished going out. More than once we’ve entered the ponds through the big pipes by laying flat in our boats, this day the top of the pipe that we went through was well over my head.

I realized this might be the last time we could visit these ponds, I don’t think the plan to reconfigure the waterfront park includes keeping them. We could see the heavy equipment sitting high on the banks on one side, I believe the work is supposed to be mostly done this season. The ponds were a poor bit of planning in the first place, and many decades of pointed almost contemptuous neglect of the ponds by the City government is quite evident, but I will miss them when they’re gone.

No Oil Barges: Strange To See No Activity At The Port Of Albany On A Saturday In July

And there are big plans afoot to extend the Port of Albany docks all the way to the southern end of the port, build more grain elevators there, and to build a giant warehouse mostly to accommodate anticipated shipments by General Electric. But we were astonished that Saturday in July to see no cargo ships docked anywhere along the port, no oil barges, no container ships, no grain ships, nothing. Just the venerable tug Kathleen Turecamo sitting idle. But we were glad to see the giant pile of salt that sits on the other side of the grain elevators is finally covered up, just like every other salt pile in every little town in New York State is required to do.

These improvements are all good, but we have to have a new sewer line to carry the increased sewage from Park South that ends in a treatment plant and not in the Hudson River. This is the City of Albany’s responsibility, and it is the State’s responsibility to pay for the new line. And I sure wish we could do something about those Sunday morning illegal poisonous discharges upstream that float on the river and make using the river at Albany quite unpleasant. I guess I can always dream that the governments will start obeying their own laws.

June 29, 2016

Reburying the slaves, the would-be Islamberg pogrom, the Albany response to the Orlando shootings and the need for rational gun policies

Where to begin. I’ll start by mentioning the slaves, the ones found buried in the suburb of Menands right outside the City of Albany, discovered when a sewer line was being dug for a building project. These slaves were of course black, chattel apparently owned by a branch of the illustrious Schuyler family that lived on what was then back in the 1700s a country estate.

These 14 slaves were buried honorably in a forgotten graveyard in individual pine boxes, all oriented East to West, seven children six women and one man. This shows that the aristocratic Schuylers of Menands had some regard for their human property, after all the estate at that time was mostly isolated from the more settled areas and thus among the residents of the estate there must have been quite a bit of familiarity all around. Analysis showed, among other things, that all of these slaves were born in New York State, they were as much native to this land as their masters were.

Remains Of 18th Century Slaves In Their Ossuaries Beneath The Portrait Of Philip Schuyler At Schuyler Mansion

When I heard that the remains of the slaves would be displayed at Schuyler mansion, at the home of Revolutionary general Phillip Schuyler which is located down the hill from my house, a ghoulish part of me was hoping to see the actual bodies. Not sure why, but that was in the back of my mind. There are a few photos of the archeological dig circulating, one shows a mostly complete skeleton exposed in the dirt. Some of the skulls were intact enough so that reasonable reconstructions of the faces of the slaves could be sculpted.

But displaying carcasses would have been terribly disrespectful. The theme of what has been called the Schuyler Flatts Burial Project was respect, bestowing a level of honor upon these underclass folks that surely would have baffled them when they were alive. Indeed the high level of interest in people who are being regarded as spiritual ancestors of the black communities in Albany produced some wonderful ceremony.

Each set of remains was placed in their own box which was constructed by 14 different groups or individuals, ranging from schoolkids to expert woodworkers. All the ossuaries as they were called were beautifully made, much effort went into this volunteer community effort. Each box was only a few feet long though, basically we are talking about collections of bones that did not require full sized boxes like those these folks originally were buried in.

Facial Reconstructions Of Three Of The Adult Schuyler Slaves

The 14 ossuaries were displayed in the downstairs hall of Schuyler Mansion, which is where the white aristocratic Schuylers would have lain in state after their demises. It is unlikely that any of the slaves would ever have been allowed to set foot in that hall and certainly their remains would never have been honored inside that mansion when they passed. The portraits of the Schuylers looked down upon the ossuaries, I tried to imagine the shock and horror that the masters would have felt if they could see this, but I realized the depth of their aristocratic aversion was beyond my understanding.

The next day there was an elaborate burial ceremony at St. Agnes Catholic Cemetery in Menands near the original burial ground which I missed but I hear was very moving. Someone mentioned to me that it was a shame to put all those well crafted boxes in the ground like that, but that was the point. Honor and respect are for the living, despite all our wealth and decoration or lack of it we all will eventually confirm our inherent equality when we return to the dirt.

Inspecting The Ossuaries At Schuyler Mansion

Back in the 1700s The Schuylers were the masters and the black slaves were the human beasts, everyone knew their place in the fixed hierarchy and few questioned it. Today that certainty about hierarchy is gone, thus all too many individuals strive to climb over and suppress each other, scratching and clawing and backstabbing in an ever changing landscape of pointless social struggle. It constantly amazes me how hard most people work at this. Perhaps such behavior is a nostalgic yearning for the days of fixed hierarchy.

These days the usual idea is not to better one’s self to achieve superiority but to downgrade the other person by whatever means are at hand. For example, white people of all economic classes have grudgingly been forced to abandon their automatic sense of superiority over black people. The Burial Project is a strong reminder of that change, a signpost you could say near the end of the road. However, if traditionally inferior people such as black folks can no longer be regarded as inferior by the rest of the population, then there has to be found another group of people who can be relegated to that bottom role.

In our present day perhaps the only group of people it is okay to denigrate and spit upon in this country is Muslims, or more specifically, lower income Muslims, especially immigrants. Rich Muslims, such as the the totalitarian Sheik of Abu Dhabi who owns the Global Foundries chip fab in Malta north of Albany, he and his representatives are of course regarded as exceptional. Money magically confers superiority. But if the Muslims are working class, immigrants or black, then we have been repeatedly told that they are fair game for abuse.

Residents And Visitors Wait For The Bare Naked Islam Nitwits To Attack Islamberg

This past May The Wife got involved with physically opposing some of that “acceptable” discrimination of Muslims. Islamberg is a small isolated town in Delaware County near the Pennsylvania border with a population of not much more than 200 people. From Wikipedia:

The hamlet was founded in the late 1980s by… a group of primarily African American Muslims who left New York City, reportedly to escape crime, poverty and racism. They built a community of some 40 family houses, with its own grocery store and bookstore and place of worship… "Holy Islamberg", as residents refer to it, is also the headquarters of the Muslims of America organization.

May 9, 2016

Lots of photos of that traditional rite of Spring, the
Tulip Festival in Washington Park

Every year I head over to Washington Park to check out the Tulip Festival, a sort of traditional rite of Spring for Albany. I make the rounds of the whole thing at least one day, cruising through the vendors, the art booths, the activist tables, the music performances, and I always pay too much for an Italian sausage on a bun but it tastes so good outdoors like that. And of course I always check out the tulips, this year they were totally on target for the event in bloom and at their peak.

This was the first time I’d caught the crowning of the Tulip Queen since 2007 back when Jerry Jennings was mayor. I was curious to see how the beauty pageant had evolved under a female mayor, and sure enough there were interesting subtle differences from what I saw the last time I watched nine years ago. But under Kathy Sheehan the format is essentially the same, you can tweak some venerable traditions but really, you have to follow the script if you want to continue to be traditional.

The Tulips Were Right On Target For The Tulip Festival This Year

I believe I heard that there were 85,000 tulip bulbs planted in Washington Park this year, which is actually 15,000 less than last year. Every year there are worries that the flowers will bloom too early or too late depending on the weather, this year it looked like they would peak too early. But the weather the last few weeks had been overcast and a bit chilly, which appears to have slowed down the blooming just enough.

One Of The Few Design Plots

The layout of the flowers was not as imaginative as some years, I mean, I’m not one to complain because I know that laying out flower designs is a difficult thing to do. Some years, most notably 2011, we saw some impressive designs depicting recognizable things and scenes. But I’m more than happy to have these tulips blooming all at once so that all these non-residents of the City of Albany tromping around the park snapping pictures can see and admire my tax dollars at work.

Readable Signs

One welcome improvement in recent years are large readable signs on the beds explaining what varieties of flowers we were looking at. For some reason there always used to be these little white stakes in the soil with a few flower variety names printed on them and it was your guess which name matched which flower. These days it doesn’t cost much to print up placards like you might see at a museum so why not.

Everyone Has To Take Pictures

This being the 68th officially sanctioned Tulip Festival there must be literally millions of photos out there of the tulips and of people posing with them going back to the 1940s. For those of you who don’t live around these parts, I should mention that these flowers, which originally came from Central Asia, are directly associated with The Netherlands. Albany, you see, is the second oldest City in the United States (behind St. Augustine Florida) founded in the 1600s by the Dutch shortly after the conclusion of their war for independence from Spain.

But the Dutch theme of the Tulip Festival has been grafted onto the original ancient Pinxter Festival, an informal underclass celebration that was hosted by Black slaves and servants. Back in the 1700s and into the early 1800s, Washington Park was a wildland outside the settled areas. Reading newspaper accounts of the time, this often rowdy festival had a decidedly West African theme that sounded like it may have been a remnant of the old country religion.

The occasion of the old festival was the blooming of the Pinxter flower on the site of the future park, a mildly poisonous azalea which was added to a big cauldron of hooch to give it a mind-bending kick. By the early 1800s the respectable people outlawed this festival, but as we can see it lived on. But instead of the unsavory native pinxter we now celebrate the much more respectable imported tulip.

The Mendelssohn Club Chorus Performs

So I checked out the Activist Ghetto, where the NY Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) graciously shared their table with The Wife, who has been promoting a new idea of hers. She had sewed a cloth banner covering her part of the table that read Ask A Muslim, and a series of Muslim women were beside her to answer any question. The questions asked ranged from thoughtful (“I’m trying to read the Koran, what’s the best way to go about it?”) to idiotic (“Are you born with that head scarf?” apparently asked in all seriousness.)

Plans are to set up this table at more local events, it appears to be a great way to promote familiarity. Muslims are a growing religious minority in this country, some 1% the last I’ve heard, just behind Jews who are at about 2%. Many of the attitudes and behaviors of Muslims may be strange to most Americans, but despite what some people would have us believe, American Muslims are no more likely to blow up your house than a Christian or a Jew… perhaps even less so.

After that I strolled over to the bandshell by the lake to see the Tulip Queen get crowned. I caught the end of a set of old popular songs performed by the Mendelssohn Club chorus, these some 50 guys were quite good. I understand that they perform here every year, they’re part of the tradition. Then an announcer from a local radio station told us the Tulip Queen Parade was approaching.

The Tulip Queen Procession Begins To Arrive

So now all the serious looking cops standing around swung into action and shooed all the people out of the way. First to arrive were three officers on motorcycles, followed by four officers on horses. Man, Martin Luther King doesn’t get that level of respect, on his day in January this year he only got two cops on horses and a patrol car with flashing lights.

Albany Public High School Falcons Marching Band

Behind the cops came the Albany Public High School Falcons drill squad carrying a banner and twirling tie-dye flags. Immediately behind came them the Falcons’ marching band playing and stepping with precision. To turn teenagers into a cooperating group like this you need public schools, the privatized “charter” schools have to generate profit so they always skimp on things like music programs.

Dutch Settlers Society Members

After the Falcons’ marching band stepped past lively, there was a gap in the parade. Walking slowly, the members of the Dutch Settlers Society followed deliberately in their own good time. The banner they carried proclaimed two years, 1624 which is when Albany began as Fort Orange was established in the present day South End, and 1664 which is when the English forcibly took control of the thriving Dutch settlement and changed its name from Beverwyck to Albany.

Mayor Sheehan Accompanies 2015 Tulip Queen Alexandra Cronin On Her Way To Give Up Her Crown

And hard on their heels came a big vintage open top red Cadillac bearing City of Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan and the 2015 Tulip Queen Alexandra “Kate” Cronin. The reigning Queen had arrived to formally give up her crown to the new queen about to be chosen. Ms. Cronin, as most Tulip Queens do, had spent the past year as an ambassador for the City and doing charitable work.

Ms. Cronin is from from the suburban municipality of Selkirk, contestants for the coveted title have been allowed to come from outside the City of Albany since the 1990s. This is not meant as a disrespect for Ms. Cronin or for any of the other contestants, but it seems to me that an event that is so thoroughly Albany should only allow participants who reside in the City to become honorary monarch of our community. Surely there are enough qualified young women in our community, and surely this policy means that our own citizens have much less of a chance of being chosen to participate.

The Contestants Arrive

Each contender for the title arrived in her own open car provided for the event by a local auto dealer, waving and smiling to the crowds. They were all dressed in identical bright spring dresses and green sweaters. The seasonal dress and sweater are part of the tradition, the only noticeable difference this year in the outfits was that the hemlines were shorter than the last time I watched this event, well above the knees.

Contestant Arriving By Mini Cooper

The first two contestants arrived in miniature Mercedes Benzes, the last three in Mini Coopers. In past years the cars have been vintage like the big old Cadillac that brought the Mayor and the reigning Queen, these little cars were a little surprising but of course these smaller cars are relatively more eco friendly, and I suppose they are cute. In future years I’d like to see some of those sporty electric Teslas, although I suppose expecting the ladies to arrive on top of an ELF electric tricycle would be too much.

The Uniformed Gentlemen Escorted
The Ladies From Their Vehicles

Five young gentlemen in military uniform stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the bandshell, at attention, expressionless with hands clasped with thumbs locked behind their backs. As each car arrived one of the gentlemen would help the contestant out of the car and escort her onto the stage. I’m not sure where these fellows studied, ROTC perhaps. But sad to say the ladies only had their services for the event, too bad the winner couldn’t keep her gentleman as an escort for her entire year reign, you know, to do the dishes, bring in an income, serve as a footstool and other things fitting for a reigning queen.

As each young lady exited her car on the arm of her gentleman, partisans in the crowd in the bleachers cheered lustily. Each contestant then ascended the stairs to the stage, gave a brief speech and then sat down to wait, smiling and nervous.

The Tulip Queen Contenders

A word about the contestants. Several of them were, well, not to be rude or anything, but they were rather… chubby. I mean that’s absolutely fine with me, but in past years when men were the mayors of the City it seemed that one of the qualifications for being a Tulip Queen candidate was that they should be quite thin. This informal and rather sexist qualification has clearly been discarded.

Without question this is one of the influences of having a female mayor, since pretty much the same committee has run the Tulip Queen selection for the past ten years going back well into the last administration. Without any evidence I’ve always suspected that the reason former mayor Jennings opened up the pageant to suburbanites was because the pool of skinny white girls living in the City had become too small. Well, I suppose there were some other good reasons for Jerry to have opened up the pageant to outsiders, I just can’t think of any at the moment.

As for Mayor Sheehan, she was clearly having a grand time presiding over the event, basking in the ceremonial good feelings and declaring how the pageant promotes women’s empowerment, which is something that would never have occurred to any of the 74 males who held office before her. Driving through Washington Park on the Friday before the Tulip Festival started, I was impressed by the large numbers of port-a-potties ready for use, another advantage of having a female mayor.

Adaviah Ward Of Albany, 2016 Tulip Queen,
At The Moment She Won

The mayor opened the envelope, and when Adaviah Ward, who lives in Albany, heard her name she threw her head back, and then threw her head forward into her lap. I got the impression that she totally did not expect to win. A few moments later she seemed to be in shock and flubbed her acceptance speech, but she got through it with grace.

The Old Queen Crowns The New Tulip Queen

After Ms. Ward was crowned by Ms. Cronin, the uniformed young gentlemen escorted the contestants off the stage, including the winner. Before Ms. Sheehan the man-mayor always escorted the new queen like a groom bearing his trophy bride, but I guess that would never do for Ms. Sheehan. Instead the mayor descended the stairs with her own uniformed young escort, another of those subtle changes in the tradition.

Big Crowds On Sunday Afternoon

Sunday started out miserable and rainy but by afternoon the skies turned bright blue, so I made my way back over to the park for a little bit. The crowds, as they always are on Mother’s Day in the sunshine, were tremendous, even though the mostly local rock bands playing at the big stage were nothing to go out of your way for. Past years there have been acts such as Joan Jett and John Mayall. Now it seems that rock music is old people music, mostly gray heads were bopping to the bands playing.

But what do you want for free. Alcohol has been banned which makes things a lot more orderly, but if dogs are still banned it sure wasn’t being enforced. But hey, as I was walking around I saw a mob of little children watched by frowning parents, who were having a grand time rolling down a grassy slope, climbing back up and rolling some more. As far as I’m concerned, that’s reason enough to spend my tax dollars to have this annual festival in the park.

Kids Rolling Down A Hill In Washington Park

 

April 30, 2016

Much more than a bike expo, the fabulous Radix Center farm,
and an upcoming radical act of civil disobedience
approved by the local authorities

This is a long article in three parts, jump to the part you want to read:

April 10, 2016

Flowers, gnarly maple trees, sick ash trees, woodpeckers, robins, horny skunks and snow

Weatherwise, we’ve been having an eventful Spring. One day it’s warm and lovely, and the next day it’s winter again. Usually this is the time of year I take off my long winter underwear, those wonderful garments that make cold weather tolerable for me. But each of these mornings I’m baffled, should I wear them or not.

Now, I’ve been writing about some heavy subjects, such as some more about the ongoing perversion of the presidential election that for the first time in like 50 years has shown up in Albany. Also, on my last post I seem to have given people the impression that I was dismissing the topic of racism, that was hardly my intention and I’m on top of it. Racism can no longer be dismissed, even for narrative clarity. So while the world waits with bated breath to read my unsolicited opinions, I’ll show a few photos I’ve taken of Spring in my neighborhood.

Look What This Woodpecker Has Done To My Tree

For the last few months there’s been a woodpecker working around the neighborhood, I could hear him whacking away at trees both dead and alive. When the bird drills into dead wood it sounds exactly like the high, loud clonk when you whack two wooden posts together rhythmically, a rapid musical sound. But when the critter takes on a live tree the sound is more mushy, it carries but is muffled, and the knocks are slower than when the bird drills dead wood.

From the woodpecker’s point of view it’s all the same, if a hunk of wood contains bugs, which are always in short supply this time of year, then hey, a bird’s gotta eat, right? This has been alarming me though, I don’t want perfectly good live trees in the neighborhood torn to shreds and falling on my head. How these birds know a hunk of wood contains edible bugs and is worth the effort of drilling is a mystery to me, I suppose they can hear them inside the wood.

Wood Chips Littering My Sidewalk Nicely Compliment The Lawn Trash Left From Last Year

One morning in March around 7AM a tree branch fell on the road down the hill from my house, around 10 AM the City DGS guys came to cut it up and feed it into their shredder. Shortly after they’d left I arrived back at my house and looked down at the front sidewalk and saw that it was covered with wood chips. My first thought was that the City guys had hacked at the maple tree in front of my house again while they were in the vicinity and hadn’t cleaned it all up, which got me all righteous.

But no, the City guys were not responsible. Some wood chips landed on my head as I looked down and few more landed on the concrete. And I heard that mushy tapping. I looked up and there was that damned peckerhead tearing a giant hole into my street tree right outside my second story window!

The Head Is A Blur As This Pileated Woodpecker Drills

I have a lot of respect for that tree, more than I have for most people, but I have to admit my wooden friend hasn’t been looking too good. Lately the tree has been getting gnarly and dropping branches, and it has begun to lean in an alarming manner in the direction of my house. Last summer the City guys showed up and hacked off a bunch of branches which I grudgingly admit was necessary, but now my precious friend isn’t quite the top notch spreader of shade anymore. I depend on this tree to keep my house cool.

The last thing I want to see is some peckerhead drilling big holes into my tree and messing it up further. I mean look at the size of that hole. But watching the critter I could see it every so often stop shredding wood and eat. So I am forced to admit that my friend is dying and full of bugs. I guiltily wonder if I murdered the tree by pouring root killer into my sewer line.

Woodpecker Takes A Short Break

This guy that tore up my tree, the same one that has been working the neighborhood, was a pileated woodpecker, which are said to be on the increase in upstate New York. This is the first I’ve seen one of these around here. Usually I see the more common smaller red-bellied woodpeckers, which have, um, red heads and white bellies. Seriously, like who names these birds? Those kind smack the wood very rapidly, much faster than the pileated woodpeckers do.

One baking hot July day I was walking through Lincoln Park and heard this rapid mechanical hammering on metal that that got really loud as I approached the source. It turned out to be a red-bellied woodpecker attempting to drill through a metal light post, which made me wonder if these creatures kept their brains intact after smacking their heads against trees all the time. Maybe there were bugs inside the light post, or maybe it heard something electrical which it mistook for food. It sure was tenacious, I’ll grant it that.

First Flower Of March Popping Through The Leaf Litter

There were some nice days at the end of March, it sure looked like this mostly dry winter was over with. The first few flowers popped out of the lawn debris leftover from last year, which I purposely don’t clean up completely so as to give the flowers some cover. We even had a thunderstorm with lightning along with several bouts of high winds like we usually get with summer storms.

It was one of these high wind events that caused me to worry about a dying tree (perhaps an ash?) that was hanging over the spot where I park my truck. I’d been thinking about this job for a while, so I found a hook and rope and revved up the chain saw. I knew I would miss the tree’s shade over my vehicle come summer, but that tree was about to fall over and I need my truck.

The Stump: This (Ash?) Tree Was Not Long For This World

One problem, the tree had to fall in a precise direction so as to spare the overhead wires on the street, not to mention the neighbor’s fence and their parked car. So I needed a spotter to hold the rope, but that Sunday I had no one available who was usually available. So I had to convince The Wife to come outside and help me do the job.

She was most hesitant. I had to humiliate her by telling her that I fully understood that she couldn’t help me because she considered herself a weak stupid girl who wasn’t capable of doing a guy thing like that. Soon she was outside and ready.

I wrapped the rope around an upper part of the tree and gave her precise instructions on how to handle the rope and what to expect. Basically, guide the tree as it falls by pulling with your body and stepping backwards, and that the tree would start falling slowly but then it would crash down to the ground faster than you could think. And hold the rope, don’t wrap it around your hands or it might drag you.

The Wedge, The Red Color Is A Sign Of Infection Of The Wood

I climbed up the ladder, cut out a wedge with the chainsaw in the direction I wanted it to fall, told her to get ready and I carefully cut straight on the other side toward the V tip of the wedge. She guided the treetop precisely as it fell, it missed everything and she was absolutely exhilarated with her accomplishment. She asked me for the wedge as a souvenir, so I dipped into polyurethane a half dozen times. It looks like a melon slice.

Cutting up the trunk I could see it was hollowed out, and as I stacked the logs I noticed I’d disturbed a carpenter ant colony that was probably finishing off the tree. The big black ants were frantically trying to salvage their until recently thriving colony among the stacked logs. It was then that I thought about the woodpecker, not only had I killed a tree and brought disaster upon an ant civilization, I had no doubt destroyed one of the woodpecker’s favorite lunch counters. Okay, I didn’t really worry too much.

Growing Grass And Melting Snow

In mid March the weather was so warm that the lawns were turning green and flowers were popping out, too early because of global warming, but then in early April came the first sizable snowfall of winter. I mean, it melted in a couple of days, but first I had to shovel it. And it got seriously cold for a few days which finished off the magnolias in the park that had just started to bloom.

I saw my first robin in late February, there seem to be quite a few of them around the immediate neighborhood this year. I wonder what they eat around here this time of year, whatever bugs come out early I guess, earthworms or grubs in the ground I suppose, along with whatever meat or suet I throw on my mulch pile. The ground cover of snow must make it harder for them to search the ground for food.

Robin And Snow In April

Back in February the squirrels wake up from their hibernation, and so do other critters. The building I own diagonally across the street from my house has a wrap-around porch, skunks have lived under there since I bought it. They are fat and slow and said to be not very bright with brains smaller than their skulls, but they have nothing to be afraid of except cars.

This February I got complaints from the tenants of that building of a bad skunk odor, the second time this has happened in February. The first time I thought a skunk had woken up and was angry about repairs I’d made to the porch and took it out on the building. But recently I found out that male skunks often wake up in February feeling horny, and if an unwanted male is nosing about, a female will spray around her home to chase off the potential rapist. I suppose human females would want that talent too.

The Iron Trellis

In the yard of that building there’s an old iron trellis. It sat naked for several years, but after someone told me that it might get stolen by an antiques dealer (don’t know if that is true or not, I’m more worried about scrap thieves) I decided to buy a flowering plant that would wrap around it, partly so it would be hard to remove. I have no idea what this thing is called, except it was on sale at the nursery and I was told that it would grow slowly. That turned out to be true.

The plant does not like the iron, it refuses to voluntarily wrap tendrils around it and it does not cling to the metal. I’ve had to carefully guide the stems around the spokes of the trellis, the new shoots are brittle and will break if I bend them too far. By Summer the plant will bloom into a thousand small white flowers and stay that way for months, it’s really very nice. I ought to find out what it is.

Fallen Branches In Lincoln Park

The crazy weather has brought down a lot of branches around the neighborhood, particularly from the maples which are the local dominant tree. It’s kind of odd how the maples around here get gnarly and fall apart as they age. At least they are not getting sick and dying from the ash borer beetles like the ash trees are, several of them in Lincoln Park have had to come down.

Is This an Ash Tree?

A year ago I heard a presentation by Albany City Forester Thomas Pfieffer about the ash borer crisis and what the City is doing to try to save the trees. Some ten percent of the street trees in the City are ash, about a thousand. They’ve been desirable because they are tough trees that can tolerate car pollution and abuse but are no match for the ash borer beetle which currently has no enemies except, of course, woodpeckers.

In fact woodpecker damage to ash trees is often a sign of infection. Mr. Pfieffer’s department has been injecting the pesticide emamectin benzoate into the cambium layer of the tree, right under the bark. This has been the most effective treatment, killing 99% of the beetle larvae inside the tree after four days. I read that woodpeckers are unlikely to be poisoned by the pesticide because they don’t eat dead larvae, they like live food.

The City got a $50,000 grant to combat the ash borer. The cost of treatment varies with the size of the tree, a 15 inch diameter tree costs $100 to treat, while a 40 inch tree costs about $375. Now, I’m not too good at tree identification, but that tree i took down with The Wife’s help was an ash, I think. Maybe. If it was I didn’t see any beetles inside the trunk, I would assume they couldn’t coexist with those big black carpenter ants.

Maples Along Morton Avenue

There is something about these naked trees about to wake up and burst into bloom that is very attractive, a hard to define different feel than in the dead of winter when they seem… dead. Even at a distance they, I can’t describe it, have a glow, an aura? Something like that? They are ancient life forms that I’ve always been convinced are sentient on a level that we humans cannot understand. If that sounds crazy well I guess I am.

So I feel bad when I have to cut down a tree or lop off big branches, similar to the feeling I get when I have to take a dying house pet to the vet to be put down. That’s sort of why I get annoyed when the City DGS guys come around and lop branches off the tree in front of my house, or in the neighborhood. I mean guys, is this necessary? How’d you like to get amputated like that, huh guys? But that’s just more crazy talk so prudently I grumble and shut up.

Looking Across Morton Avenue At Lincoln Park

 

March 22, 2016

No one wants me to add my opinion to this noisy perverted election cycle but here it is anyway

After retreating from American minds for some ten years, the information controlling entity known as the Corporate Media has found a handle and appears to be dictating our thoughts once again. This phenomenon has become painfully evident with this absurd 2016 presidential election cycle, a horror show of misinformation that is designed to degrade our country thoroughly from top to bottom. Somehow the people who control the Corporate Media have shrugged off competition from the internet and taken complete control of this election, turning it into a vile sports contest distraction.

What alarms me the most is how almost no one that I talk to recognizes that the Corporate Media has seized control of their brains once again. Today is very much like the final decades of the 20th Century, when most people walked around parroting Corporate Media concepts and phrases as if those thoughts were their own. Unless an awful lot of people wake up in a hurry and realize they are being manipulated, I fear that we all are in for the start of some very bad times before this decade is finished.

It’s The Elephant’s Crap Spewing From His Mouth

A fringe minority recognizes the true reasons why Donald Trump is currently on a fast track to the White House. Yes, unless some sort of upheaval happens between now and November I think it likely he will be the next president. The thought of this dilettante rich boy spoiled brat taking nominal charge of our country is something we need to look square in the face if we want to survive as a society.

Now, I’m not going to suggest that the popularity of Trump can be explained by one thing, that is what so many scholarly thinkers and dumb fool pundits seem to be trying to do. There are, as the media content providers are fond of saying, Many Factors In Play here. This almost frantic tendency to try to simplify is actually a part of what’s disturbing about this presidential “race.”

What most commentators inside and outside the Corporate Media usually focus on is the One Big Reason for Trump’s popularity. It’s like his popularity baffles them and needs to be not merely explained but explained away. Almost without exception these commentators hand down their explanations from on high with the attitude of “those people” are being manipulated by arcane forces, as if the commentators themselves are immune from those forces.

Actually, Hitler Was Smarter Than Trump And Started Out With Less Privileges

One basic cause of Trump’s popularity that rarely gets mentioned is that he is a longtime TV star. Apparently his authoritarian bullying of working people on that “You’re Fired” series or whatever it was called made Trump’s image on the TV screen a welcome guest in all kinds of living rooms. Familiarity is often the key to popularity just as it is the key to tolerance and acceptance, for all too many people Trump’s image is one of the family. But that’s just the beginning of the explanations.

Another cause of his popularity that thanks to the Black Live Matter movement gets more exposure is Trump’s dance with racism. I don’t wish to upset anybody here, but racism is not a major reason for his appeal, rather it is an ugly symptom. Racism has been presented by Trump and by the Corporate Media as an acceptable outlet for genuine anger and frustration with the failed Neocon Corporatist economic policies that this country has been saddled with since Ronnie Reagan. Let me try to explain this further.

At the core of Trump’s popularity is the enthusiastic support of white people who are working class and working poor, the fastest growing economic class in America today. If some of those commentators ever bothered to lower themselves enough to actually talk to some of these white working folks they would quickly discover that what almost all of them admire about Trump is that he can and does say almost any damn thing that he wants and can get away with it. Actually, a handful of commentators have picked up on this, but none of them that I’ve seen have the faintest clue why this apparently anarchic freedom of expression so overwhelmingly appeals to working people.

Seriously, this is almost universal, I hear it constantly. The Corporate Media is fond of showing to middle and upper middle class people those particular Trump-supporting working class and working poor people who are undeniably dingdongs and nitwits. This is a very deliberate tactic. It reinforces the widespread impression among the middle and upper middle classes that “those people” are all simple minded idiots and that these hordes of simple minded idiots are out there somewhere elevating this elite con artist from New Yawk City to the top of the heap. (For brevity I’ll call the working classes and the middle classes each by one name.)

The Disposable Working Class

The explosive growth of the white working class means that a lot of white people who formerly have been or expected to become middle class are experiencing downward mobility. Meanwhile those who have always been and have always expected to be working people are also experiencing downward mobility. What this bland phrase “experiencing downward mobility” means is that life is getting harder and living conditions are deteriorating steadily with no hope of improvement in sight.

I see this right here in my neighborhood in Albany, middle class white folks (and some middle class black folks) forced to give up their expensive unsustainable houses in the suburbs and moving into easier to pay for apartments in the City. This is widely understood to be a national trend. In Albany there is a serious apartment shortage. Partly because of this trend the population of the City is expected to rise steadily for the near future, the first time since the 1950s.

Of course, once Albany becomes economically vibrant again, the upper classes will start eyeing the sustainable urban center and start taking possession of it, gentrifying poor and working class neighborhoods. Eventually the very poor will be driven to the suburbs, statistics show this Flight Of The Poor is already happening locally. But that’s a whole other story.

Former Re-pub Candidate Ben Carson, The Stupidest Neurosurgeon In America

This might come as a shock to middle class persons, but the vast majority of working class people of any color are not stupid, or rather, no more stupid than middle class people are. Both classes are subject to the same controlling forces, both classes are just as easily manipulated. Both classes have mindlessly succumbed to the decades-long effort to divide them and set them against each other, causing them to regard each other as The Other.

But see, in this country no one except the very upper classes are allowed to think about class, if you do then you are labelled a Communist, and for some reason that is taboo. In fact, I’ve just lost several readers by merely pointing out that the taboo against Communism is mindless and outdated. For the record, I don’t like Stalinist Communism one bit, it is a Corporate style government and I believe no corporation has any right to any sort of political power, but of course that’s a politically incorrect perspective. In any case, the ideological Cold War ended like 25 years ago.

But this taboo against thinking about class is a central and serious problem. Because of that taboo, each class fails to recognize other classes. They only see their own class, and if they notice someone who doesn’t fit precisely within their own class they dismiss that someone as wrongheaded and perverse, “they just don’t know how to behave like proper persons.” And yes, this works in both directions, up and down.

For example, the middle classes regard working people as failed middle class people. They consider anyone who actually works with their hands as inferior, unable to achieve access to a job where they sit in an office like lumps and let their butts get fat for 30 years or so. As someone who was born into the working class and continues to work with my hands while living among the middle class, I get hit with these attitudes all the time. (I deal with it, no prob bob.)

Also because class is a taboo subject, the middle classes have not yet figured out that they are rapidly losing political power as a class. Middle class Baby Boomers in particular, who were born and came of age when the middle classes were still expanding, are probably the most unaware of this shrinkage. Middle class people rail against the apparently stupid people who support Trump, but it appears that no one important seems to give a damn what they think.

I should mention that I’ve been reading reports that a fair number of middle class Baby Boomers support Trump. This is easy to explain, Boom Babies have always been slaves to their TV sets, and Trump is a TV star. Thus they are the second largest group of his supporters, I’m surprised that the rest of my generation is not enthralled with his idiot box celebrity.

Meanwhile the expanding working classes look at the middle classes and feel class discrimination much more acutely than I do, for them it’s a much more serious matter. They notice all too well how their living conditions are steadily deteriorating, how it is getting harder and harder to get by. Along with that they feel quite rightly that any sort of freedom they might have had to try to get ahead has been systematically taken away from them.

A Nation Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

The vast majority of working people, like middle class people, can’t consider class issues because for them it’s taboo, but they can see damn well how the middle classes seem to be getting by okay at their expense. They also see and hear the middle class sneering at them, they catch the middle class attitude that those who do actual work for a living are not good enough. And although the cause of working class economic problems emanates from policies dictated by the very upper classes, the One Percent, working folks don’t see the filthy rich, they see the middle classes. And for sure the Corporate Media is not telling them who’s really responsible for their woes. But they see the middle class sneering all too clearly.

So the Corporate Media has encouraged working folks to blame their troubles on anybody else who seems to be doing better than they are or seem to be receiving opportunities and privileges that are routinely denied to them. “Liberals,” Black people, Eastern Urban Elites (but not Trump!) Gays, immigrants and foreign refugees, Muslims and anybody who looks like Muslims, etc. In fact just about anybody except the very richest of the richest rich boys and girls are fair game.

This is how the Corporate Media has snared control of working class whites, by giving them a language and an “acceptable” outlet for their justifiable anger. Since the early 1980s they have been taught that the middle classes are mostly “Liberals.” Generally, the definition of this word as a pejorative is “anybody I don’t like who thinks they’re better than me.” That makes “Liberal” a fine substitute for “Middle Classes” but without the class understanding.

“Ted” Cruz And A Younger Bill Murray: You’re Telling Me They’re Not Related?

So in this presidential election cycle we’ve been handed a nonstop circus of juvenile airhead brats called “Republican Candidates.” To the feigned surprise of the Corporate Media the brattiest and most juvenile airhead of all has emerged as the popular choice among the working classes, Donald Trump. As of this writing his only rival is far back in numbers, the much less flamboyant Canadian born juvenile airhead brat “Ted” Cruz (who is probably not the Zodiac Killer, certainly not the original one.)

Trump is leading the pack of these buttheads for a very simple reason. Every time I am in the presence of a TV for a few minutes I see or hear Trump. Every time I listen to some radio news show it starts to talk about Trump. Every single day the local paper newspapers feature Trump on their front pages, that particular media is mostly fed to Baby Boomers.

You can’t even look at cat pictures on the internet without scrolling down and seeing clickbait about Trump. You can’t escape him. It’s Trump Trump Trump every day and every night, ooh look he said something outrageous, hey he started a riot, oh boy the old boys in the Re-pub Party want to stop him but they can’t. Now the “Liberals” are all upset about Trump. Yeah, it’s like Trump is already in charge.

True, But Aren’t Those Protests Just Giving This Jerk More Publicity?

That’s why Trump is leading the polls among the rad righty Re-pubs. It’s true that the core of his popularity is driven by the oppressed working class whites who have identified with his blathering style of common touch. But because of that support he is the number one choice of all loyal Gops, both the politicians and the voters. The power of popularity impresses the Gops. Trump will be chosen as their candidate and they will all unite behind him in lockstep with the Corporate Media. You’ll see.

Of course Trump will make a lousy president, perhaps the worst we’ve ever had. Contrary to his carefully crafted image, he is lazy and ineffectual, basically a classic schoolyard bully who gets other people to do his work for him. He’ll get bored with the job almost immediately and hand over most of his power to the worst sort of manipulators, like George W. Bush and Ronnie Reagan did. Almost certainly one of those manipulators will be that scary criminal Carl Icahn.

Imagine if the Corporate Media had instead given us Bernie Sanders twenty four seven like they’ve been giving us Trump. Months of constant exposure along with Mr. Sanders’ very sensible comprehensive programs to begin to solve the problems foisted upon our society by the Neocon Corporate Elites, well, by now we’d be talking about President Elect Sanders. But of course the Corporate Elites are scared half to death of Mr. Sanders, so such Corporate Media exposure could never happen.

Aren’t They Lovely? Rupert Murdoch And His Best Boy Roger Ailes

However, we keep hearing about all this Stop Donald Trump stuff from the Corporate Media without any explanation of exactly who wants to stop him or why. Sure, anybody with half a brain doesn’t want that lazy, privileged blowhard brat anywhere near the levers of power. But I’m not talking about regular folks, I’m talking about some very powerful, very clever but ultimately very stupid people who want to stop him from seizing the presidency purely for reasons of self interest.

You see, we are not witnessing “the disintegration of the Re-pub Party” as the mindless lying pundits have been telling us. What we are witnessing is a coup inside the Re-pub Party, a challenge to the Neocon Corporate Elites who have controlled both the Re-pub Party AND the Democratic Party for decades. Sensing popular dissatisfaction with the political and economic failures of the Corporate Elites, these upstarts are using this presidential cycle to seize control of the party machinery with their control of the Corporate Media.

Or they are trying to anyway. Trump is such an egomaniacal psychopath that he is hard to control by anyone, or at least it appears that way. But is he? It’s really hard to say if Trump is really fighting with his sponsors, such as Rupert Murdoch’s media outlets like FOX and the Wall Street Journal, or if this is a pose designed to show his supporters that he is “anti-establishment.” I think it’s a pose because if the people who control the Corporate Media really wanted to stop Trump they would simply stop covering him and impose a blackout like they’ve done with Bernie Sanders.

What we are seeing is that the Neocon Elites have lost control of the Corporate Media, and the up-and-coming Elites who control the Corporate Media have turned the working class against the Old Boy Elites. For too long the Old Boy Neocon Elites have depended upon the Corporate Media to hold power over the easily controlled American minds. But the Neocon Elites have not kept up with the changing technology behind mass mind control, and now the people who they have depended upon to do the dirty work of generating and feeding propaganda to the voters are shrugging them off.

Meanwhile The Adults Debate The Issues, Mostly Ignored By The Corporate Media

Meanwhile, in the Democratic Party, the responsible adults have been discussing the issues that affect We The People the most. The two candidates talk about economic opportunity, trade deals, foreign policy, personal rights and personal freedom, equal access to services, that sort of thing. Almost none of these vital policy discussions get through the Corporate Media filter, you mostly have to go to the internet if you want to find out what the grown ups who are running for president are saying.

The Corporatist candidate for the Democratic Party is Hillary Clinton, the Elites find her acceptable to their interests. Granted, Ms. Clinton is a very palatable Corporatist, especially when compared to the pack of destructive sniveling Gops. Like Barack Obama she believes that if you want the cows to keep giving milk you have to feed them once in a while and give them some shelter from the elements. Meanwhile, the Re-pubs want to slaughter the cows so they can get all the milk at once, and then burn down the barn so they can collect on the insurance.

Bernie Sanders has shocked and terrified the Elites with his astounding popularity that owes almost nothing to the Corporate Media. Despite a total blackout followed by an intense negative campaign by the Corporate Media, Mr. Sanders continues to handily outpoll all of the Re-pub candidates in a general matchup, including Trump. Especially Trump. Ms. Clinton, who has been vilified by the Corporate Media nonstop since the mid 1990s, does not have anywhere near the popular appeal of Mr. Sanders outside the Democratic Party. All this is well known.

Tom Tomorrow Nails It

Sad to say, as of now it looks like Ms. Clinton is going to defeat Mr. Sanders for the Democratic nomination, a testament to Neocon Corporatist control of the party. Mr. Sanders is far from finished and could still win the nod, but for sure he is running behind Ms. Clinton inside the Democratic Party. It’s hard to say, naturally, but I don’t expect Ms. Clinton will defeat Trump. One would expect the Elites to back Ms. Clinton because she is a much more competent and responsible and can be controlled, but in this current political climate the support of the Elites could actually backfire badly.

Allow me to remind everybody that it is insanely easy to stuff the electronic voting machines, which are used in all too many states and cannot be inspected or their results confirmed because the software that runs them is “proprietary.” In 2004, 2008 and in 2012, now discredited Karl Rove set up elaborate networks to alter electronic voting results, this is well documented in federal court transcripts. Today there are plenty of local party functionaries, probably from both major parties, who know how to discreetly alter electronic data to favor one candidate or another.

In the general election I think it very likely that the electronic machines will be stuffed for Trump over Ms. Clinton. I wonder how much it costs to get a voting machine corporation to hand you a national election, and how much local elections cost to win. But no one is allowed to talk about that. This silence about this obvious problem at the heart of our voting process has always disturbed me greatly, and once again I feel very lonely in my fear.

Senator Sanders At The Chessboard, Vermont 2014

But there is no denying that Mr. Sanders represents a movement toward reform and responsibility in government that is not going to go away, but likely is going to continue growing. Ms. Clinton, like all of the Re-pub politicians, is looking more and more like a dinosaur, a lingering relic of a past age that is fading away much too slowly. If Mr. Sanders does not become the candidate this year he is unlikely to try again because of his age. But he has shown the way for others to follow, new Bernies will arise.

The ray of hope here is that Mr. Sanders has done as well as he has despite being frantically opposed by the Corporate Media. It appears there is a younger up and coming electorate that completely dismisses the Corporate Media and therefore cannot be mind controlled by their propaganda. Perhaps this is why the Corporate Media owners are pushing Trump so blatantly, they know their time is running out and it’s now or never for them if they want to seize control of our society and impose an overt corporate dictatorship.

But I’ll vote for Ms. Clinton if she gets the nomination, the more palatable Corporatist, one more time the lesser of two evils. Very much less evil than the Re-pubs, I should add. I don’t plan to vote for the Green Party candidate Jill Stein or for any of the other third party candidates that get no exposure whatsoever in the Corporate Media and thus have no chance of even making a noticeable blip in the vote tallies. I’m sorry to say that would be a vote for Trump.

Like Mr. Obama, Ms. Clinton will continue to bomb countries for no reason and negotiate disastrous trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership that give away Constitutional power to foreign Corporations and deliver welfare to Wall Street. But Ms. Clinton will not behave like a Re-pub, she will not build walls on our borders to keep Americans from escaping, she won’t re-establish slavery, she won’t undermine abortion rights or gay rights or persecute Mexicans and Muslims and Jews and women and guys like me as dingbat Re-pub politicos like Trump or Cruz promise to do. At least I hope she won’t.

February 29, 2016

Nothing controversial here, just some crappy looking old junk

In the last decade of the 20th Century I bought some old but run down buildings in my immediate neighborhood that were full of rental units. The buildings were solid but the prices were cheap, they needed a lot of work. So this is what I do with my time, I keep these buildings decent enough to rent and I get to stroll around the neighborhood and be The Lord Of The Land.

Actually, I don’t see myself as the owner of these buildings, I consider myself the current caretaker. These buildings, which are the bones, the structure of the City of Albany, were standing here long before I was born and it is my job to pass them on to the next caretaker intact and improved. Thus I spend a lot of time – too much time according to The Wife – making each apartment as comfortable and pleasant to live in as possible.

In the course of improving the apartments I’ve found some interesting things over the years. I keep hoping to find gold coins or valuable artifacts but so far no such luck. But I have found a few interesting things I’d like to show you. Well, I think they’re interesting.

Cast Iron Dog Head Drawer Pull: Is It Really Old?

The top floor apartment of this one building that I own has what The Wife calls a dutch pantry, a short passageway between the living room and dining room that has built-in cabinets and big drawers. The building, most of which dates back to at least 1859, was a serious bargain to buy because of the amount of work needed to make it habitable. For example, the back bedroom of this top floor apartment had a big hole rotted through the middle of the floor caused by a leaking roof, this was covered up with a loose sheet of plywood. Of course before I bought it the building this apartment routinely passed City code inspections.

The handles on the pantry drawers were massive globs of paint. After examining them I became curious, so I scraped away enough paint to carefully unscrew one of them from the wood, and to this removed handle applied quite a bit of spray oven cleaner, a sure way to remove paint from metal. To my surprise I found these dog heads made of cast iron.

Considering That This Was A Common Item The Detail Is Amazing

I didn’t think they were original to the building but they may very well be. I was doubly surprised to notice that there was only one set of screw holes for each handle and no outlines of past handle shapes. It’s unlikely anybody who had replaced the handles over the past couple of centuries would have carefully removed any marks before covering the drawers with another coat of paint.

I read that these were actually common items in what was referred to as “early Victorian times,” which is when the building was built. In the middle of the 20th century “vintage reproductions” of handles like this became available again, but the photos I’ve found of these later knockoffs don’t have anywhere near the same detail. Unfortunately there are no words or numbers cast on the back so who knows. Maybe an expert can tell me.

In these latter days when everybody is crazy about cats we’ve forgotten that up until the last decades of the 20th Century most Americans were dog crazy and routinely decorated their homes with dog motifs. Today most people consider dog decorations a little odd unless they are dog enthusiasts. I always show off these handles to prospective tenants and proudly tell them how I discovered them hidden under globs of paint. No one ever seems to be impressed.

Early “Type B" Square Nail, Showing Two Burred Ridges On The Same Side

The drawers that have these dog head handles are original to the building. In the course of repainting them I noticed what I thought was a nail the someone had banged into the cabinet so I pulled it out. But this turned out to be an original nail that was holding together the frame, so I said oops and immediately replaced the nail with a modern ceramic coated screw.

When I examined the nail I was surprised to notice that it was handmade. Well no, not exactly. I figured this nail is handmade because it is uneven and has a bluish tinge, that it had been sheared off from a piece of hot iron by a blacksmith. This one actually widens a bit in the middle and you can see the hack marks, so my modern eyes saw handwork. Actually true handmade nails sheared off a hunk of iron by a blacksmith pretty much disappeared by 1800.

It turns out this is merely a crude looking early “Type B” square nail, made by a surprisingly sophisticated machine that flipped an iron bar over to cut out the four sides of each nail. This machine, which needed close supervision, left burred ridges on the corners on the same side of the nail. That’s how you can tell it from an even earlier “Type A” machine that cut nails like a guillotine, this older cutting machine left burrs on the opposite corners. I’m not exactly sure why. Round wire nails made of steel which drive more easily into wood were introduced in 1892.

Cast Iron Hinge Circa 1900

These interior door iron hinges were also encased in globs of paint, these are in another building I own that was built around 1900 when Lincoln Park across the street was first opened. Many of these hinges were in bad shape and I was only able to repair three sets so they could be used again. (Please ignore the doorframe which needs a bit of paint.) Note the indistinct animal shapes, perhaps the earlier pressings of the hinges had more details before the dies wore out.

Another item I found under blobs of paint in the older-than-1859 building, or rather two of them, are these original iron door latches. After taking them apart and cleaning them up they work perfectly. I spray painted them black, which was their original color. Alas, the door handles are not original, but these 20th century handles I found somewhere and cleaned up go along pretty well with the latches. (Again, nothing like a close-up photo to bring out normally unnoticed flaws.)

Combination Gas And Electric Lighting Fixture, Circa 1880

This is a very interesting item, a combination gas and electric light wall fixture that I pulled out of a kitchen pantry from a building that dates from about 1880. When I removed it the electric part was still working, an old but not original light bulb socket dangling hazardously by a wire. The gas light part of course was no longer working, the gas lighting system in the building was disconnected long ago.

Buildings from this era built for the middle class or for the better off usually have narrow gauge gas pipes running through the walls (this part of upper Morton Avenue was originally referred to as Doctor’s Row.) There was a short period of time at the end of the 19th Century and at the beginning of the 20th when gas and electric competed against each other for providing light for homes in urban centers. No one at the time could really say which was likely to win out, and so these combination fixtures gave the homeowner a choice which would not leave him or her in the dark if one or the other power source disappeared from the market.

Fancy Restored Gas And Electric Fixture

Here’s a picture of a somewhat fancier restored fixture complete with original electric socket that was on sale for $350. These wall fixtures would have had some kind of glass cover on top, for safety, to protect the flame and to diffuse the light. In wealthy houses, instead of glass the top cover would be thin mica sheets commonly called isinglass, which diffused the gas light with a brilliant glow much like a modern electric bulb.

The gas fixtures were usually installed on the walls at about five feet. When the gas lighting companies went out of business around the time of World War One, most of the combination gas and electric fixtures were removed and replaced with electric fixtures. This was commonly done by fixing with a screw an iron ring around the disconnected narrow gauge gas pipe that was still sticking out of the wall. Definitely not code today. The new electric fixture would be hung on this ring and the ring would secure the wires that powered the new fixture.

Five feet off the ground was the perfect height for a gas fixture, which had to be lit every night with a match and then turned off when one went to bed. Unfortunately five feet is a stupid location for an electric light fixture. I can’t tell you how many time I’ve smacked my head on one of these electric fixtures. I’ve repeatedly used colorful language and ended up knocking holes in the lathe and plaster walls with a hammer so as to move the damn things a few feet up the wall so I could stop smashing the fixtures with my skull.

Expansion Tank For A Pumpless Hot Water Circulation System

Recently I removed an old unused expansion tank for the heating system from an upstairs closet in a building built before 1880. These tanks, which were probably installed at the beginning of the 20th Century, are made of riveted brass and have a glass tube in front to show how full of water they are. This tank is beat and exceedingly ugly and covered in paint but here it is anyway.

These expansion tanks were part of a clever hot water radiator system that did not use electric pumps to push water from the basement to the first and second stories of a building. There has to be one of these tanks on each floor usually tucked away in a closet. Somehow it works. I have a working version of this pumpless system in my own two story house which was built in 1913 and have never had any problems, other than the admittedly useless glass gauges on the tanks breaking seal after a hundred years and leaking all over the closets.

When I finally was able to detach the tank from the iron pipes that held it in place I was excited to see a couple of old envelopes had been stuck underneath. I thought, hey maybe someone stuck these under here to hide them because they were valuable, maybe a stash of silver certificates or a treasured memento, details of a scandalous story or a letter from a famous person?

Letter For Miss Vera Lenge, City

Well no, turns out these were receipts of payment from a life insurance company and from a doctor. Obviously they were among the crap someone had piled up on the shelf and these two letters slipped under the tank and were forgotten when someone cleared out this closet. So far I haven’t found anything in a vacant apartment more valuable than pocket change, and none of the small change I’ve found collectable. Okay, once I found an Indian Head penny. I keep hoping for a 1909S VDB Lincoln penny stuck under the baseboard.

Both of the letters and the envelopes are dated April 30, 1929. The paper is yellow and fragile and falling apart, presumably it was crisp and white when it was new. Such mundane correspondence is not valuable or of particular historical interest but I really hate to throw out stuff like that.

Two Cent Stamp That fell Off The Envelope

One letter is addressed by typewriter to Elvira C. Lenge 232 Morton Avenue (the address of this building) Albany NY, the other hand addressed to Miss Vera Lenge 232 Morton Avenue City. Seriously, you didn’t have to write “Albany” on an envelope for local mail back then, everyone knew that “City” meant the center of activity for this region. And a stamp for a letter cost two cents.

A very interesting detail is that the letters were both composed on the same day in two different locations by two different concerns and arrived together the very same day that they were sent. If you consider the inefficiency of the modern mail system, where it can take up to a week to send a greeting card across town, you have to wonder what went wrong, why can’t the mail function as well as it did 87 years ago. Of course in this century we have email and texting and videochat so the matter of declining mail services has become moot. But still.

I would guess that these two women were unmarried sisters living in the what was then the upstairs flat. Both must have dutifully paid their bills the same day. One was a semi-annual life insurance premium to a building which was within walking distance of the Lenge sister’s home. Presumably they mailed in their payments, it’s possible but unlikely either of them walked to the insurance building and then waited for receipts to arrive by mail.

Life Insurance Premium Receipt For Elvira C. Lenge
(Click On Photo to See Full Size)

Elvira received from the insurance company a printed form letter with a typewriter written body and filled-in particulars, but it does not name the amount that she paid. The company is The Travelers, the letterhead says they are an insurance company, an indemnity company and a fire insurance company, the agent is Fenster Brothers – Fleishman Inc. The address they give is simply Albany County Savings Bank Building with no number or street. I see that building was at 100 State Street way downtown, back then everyone just knew where that was.

I wonder how the insurance company survived the stock market crash and economic collapse that would be coming in October of that year. I wonder if the Lenge sisters lost their investment, did either of them ever collect on the premiums. Who were the recipients, each other or were there other relatives who got a windfall when they passed on? Or maybe just Elvira paid premiums for herself?

The other handwritten letter to Miss Vera is a shorter printed form letter from Dr. Eugene E. Hinman, Dr. Yes, it says Dr. twice. He was located at 146 Washington Avenue, also within walking distance of the sister’s flat. The receipt says May 1 although it also arrived on April 30 according to the envelope.

Receipt From The Doctor For Miss Vera Lenge

This receipt simply says that Miss Vera received Professional Services for which she paid the sum of $2,00. Now this is different, apparently the lady visited the doctor in person but had to wait for the secretary to type and mail the receipt. Remember, back then manual typewriters were the cutting edge of printing technology, but it took time to type out these letters. So Miss Vera had to trust her doctor and wait for her receipt.

Or actually, that’s not clear. If you look at it, this document may not be a receipt, it may be a bill for “professional services.” That could mean Miss Vera tossed it into the closet and forgot about it.

So that little glimpse into the lives of former tenants of the building of which I am the current caretaker owner leaves me wondering where they came from and what happened to them. Neither name pops up on Google. I imagine two Victorian ladies aging together in a respectable neighborhood overlooking the park, I wonder how long they continued to live this way. I do know one thing for sure. By the time of these letters the gas lighting system in the building was long disconnected, the two sisters were enjoying the convenience and safety of electric lighting in their modern urban flat.

January 31, 2016

The mayor’s speech disrupted over the Dontay Ivy incident, a rant about the wannabe terrorists in Oregon, and once again the marchers arrive in my neighborhood on ML King Day

It was cold and a frozen wind that blew across Lincoln Park in the South End of Albany on Martin Luther King day this year, I gotta tell you the weather was nasty. Several times while waiting for and watching the marchers wend their way from the Empire Plaza to the statue of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King in my neighborhood, my little camera kept freezing and wouldn’t function. Three times I somehow managed to warm it up enough to function by clasping it against my thigh deep in my pants pocket, the wind kept blowing right through me.

I have to say that despite the cold this was the largest and most passionate crowd of citizens I can recall marching to the statue, easily 300 people or maybe more in successive waves entering into Lincoln Park. The seriousness on people’s faces was striking, and the song We Shall Overcome was sung loud and clear by all. Clearly something is happening here, what in past years had been a bland display of government sanctioned ceremony appears to have taken on a special significance for the people of this City.

Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan (Red Hair And Shades) Leads A Wave Of Very Cold Marchers Through Lincoln Park On MLK Day

Meanwhile, on this MLK day, in the town of Burns in eastern Oregon, the whole world was treated to a shameful display of media hype and runaway white privilege. About 30 well-fed white guys brandishing rifles walked into the visitor’s center of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and announced that they were forcibly occupying the park. They were demanding that, um, as best as I can figure, that the government should give them personal possession of the public land they were trespassing upon and that the federal government should overthrow itself, presumably after giving them the land.

I’m hardly the first person to point out that if any other group of people besides privileged white boys had pulled this unpatriotic juvenile stunt, the Feds would have stormed the visitor’s center and blown their fat butts to hell weeks earlier. Imagine what would’ve happened if Black folks with guns had occupied this park, or Native Americans, or Muslims, or Hispanics, or environmentalists, or feminists, or gay rights activists, or union organizers, or Bernie Sanders supporters, or just about any group considered politically incorrect by the corporate elites. The few survivors would have been locked away and sentenced to consecutive life terms under the so-called “Patriot” Act.

The Neighbors In Burns, Oregon Were Not Pleased With The “Occupation"

This point is so loud and obvious that even the corporate media has occasionally mentioned it. Instead we were treated to the spectacle of the FBI secret police benignly letting the junior terrorist scumbags come and go from the wildlife sanctuary as if they had a right to commit treason and threaten violence against decent people and against local law enforcement. Meanwhile the corporate media machine, from FOX to NPR, continued to amplify the farce as something important and newsworthy, knowing full well that if they ended their coverage the entire clown show would also cease instantly.

The neighbors of the wildlife refuge continually demanded that the junior terrorists be removed, and even the Re-pub presidential candidates wanted nothing to do with them. After a month of this nonsense, in which once again the United States became the laughing stock of the world, the Obama administration managed to prevail upon the FBI secret police to finally take action. When one or possibly more of these privileged turds raised their guns against the federal cops during one of their media fueled jaunts into town, the FBI boys dropped their sympathy for the armed brats in a hurry and brought a quick end to the “standoff.”

All except for the endless media hype, of course. The leader of this “occupation,” breakaway Mormon Ammon Bundy, was still issuing media fodder and vowing to “carry on the fight in the courts” or whatever. He has not been spirited away to a Communications Management Unit (CMU) like Terre Haute where it is next to impossible for prisoners labelled as terrorists to communicate with the rest of the world. That’s white privilege.

Rancher Tim Puckett And His Crew Repair The Fence Along His Property That Was Torn Up By The Junior Terrorists For The Media: “I Didn’t Give Them Permission To Do Anything"

I can see why president Obama waited a month to take decisive action, he did not want these clowns to become instant martyrs (for what exactly?) that could be exploited by the Radical Re-pub Party presidential candidates and by the corporate media. And of course he had to wait for the FBI to become embarrassed by their lack of action, and I strongly suspect they initially refused to take action. So the president waited for these freaks to make total fools of themselves before doing what was necessary, but meanwhile the neighbors had to put up with them and both public and private property was destroyed.

As for ownership of the land, if anybody other than the federal government owns the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, it is the Northern Paiute Indian Tribe. The land was granted to the tribe as a reservation in 1872, but was forcibly taken away from them in 1879 when the Indians tried to stop white settlers from encroaching on their land. As an inferior race of beings they did not have the same privileges that Ammon Bundy and his band of brats would later enjoy and exploit, the Northern Paiute to this day do not have a reservation of their own.

Dignitaries And Proletariat Listen As Mayor Sheehan Confesses To White Privilege

The high point of the march to the King monument in my neighborhood this year was, once again, Mayor Kathy Sheehan’s stunning address at the monument. With the cold wind pounding her back, she proclaimed that she too was guilty of white privilege and that it was her duty to become aware of the ways in which she personally manifested this problem. It was not so much a proclamation as a confession of ongoing error.

I noticed a lot of hanging jaws as she spoke, people listened intently and applauded warmly (so to speak) when she finished. Following the pattern of the other two years of Ms. Sheehan’s march to the statue as mayor, Congressman Paul Tonko and County Executive Dan McCoy were the only elected officials who got to speak. Neither tried to top the mayor, Mr. Tonko gave a quick Legislative report and Mr. McCoy kept it well under 30 seconds. Everyone except us chroniclers taking pictures bowed their heads as the Pastor gave the invocation, the dignitaries laid the wreath and that was it.

Of course, the monument was lousy with public officials both elected and appointed. Next year we should see this march get even bigger, that is, if people continue to regard Martin Luther King as a mainstream supporter of American values that are currently being taken away by the authorities, and continue to see him as an opponent of radical corporatization who was murdered for his patriotism. And so the politicians will be attracted to the event in even greater numbers to proclaim their solidarity with Dr. King’s anti-corporatism. Welcome everybody to my neighborhood.

Black Lives Matter Protest At City Hall, State Of The City, View From The Balcony (click photo for larger)

A few weeks later Mayor Sheehan faced a much different reception at City Hall when she gave her third annual State of the City address. The local chapter of Black Lives Matter and their supporters made no secret of the protest that they had scheduled over the killing of Dontay Ivy in Arbor Hill by the Albany police on April 2, 2015. Everybody knew there would be a confrontation, but that confrontation turned out to be surprisingly sophisticated and effective.

The mayor and Chief of Police Brendan Cox were well aware that there would be an invasion of the downstairs hall of City Hall where the mayor’s address was held. Usually at public events like this the unconstitutional security theater police checkpoint inside the doors of City Hall is wheeled out of sight for the duration, presumably to create the temporary illusion of friendliness by the City government. But for this event the checkpoint was up and running and the police conducted illegal searches on anyone who was not a City official.

The Wife showed up with her longtime activist friend Rezsin Adams, who is in her late 80s and still going strong. The two of them had walked all the way down to City Hall from Chestnut Street in Center Square, slowly to be sure, and afterwards the two of them walked back up the hill. Rezsin insisted on walking to the event with The Wife, she attributes her longevity (all of her female relatives died by their 60s) to never having owned a car and walking at every opportunity throughout her life.

At the checkpoint Rezsin set off the alarm, the flashing lights that is, because the obnoxious noise was turned off. She tugged on her house keys which were hanging around her neck. “I have these,” she told the cops, clutching the keys. “Do you want me to take them off?” The cops impatiently waved her through, and the lights flashed angrily. Goodness, Rezsin could have carried a bomb into City Hall and killed everybody.

Shortly After The Banners Were Dropped Behind Mayor Sheehan [Credit: The Wife from her seat]

Actually, the checkpoint was supposed to impose a measure of control over the expected protestors, but like all security theater it didn’t work very well. Word is that earlier in the day or the day before some very large banners were smuggled into City Hall and stashed inside, perhaps with help from a City employee. I mean, those banners were really big and hard to hide. But that’s just a likely story I’d heard, who knows how they got in there.

As the time for the mayor’s address approached, cops were stationed at all the stairs and at the elevator to prevent protestors from heading upstairs. But it seems a couple of folks were already up on the balconies waiting. As soon as the mayor started speaking the banners unfurled behind her and the hundred or so protestors in the audience stood up and started chanting in disciplined unison, not letting Mayor Sheehan speak.

This went on for some 15 minutes, the mayor attempting to speak and not being allowed to. The cops around the periphery glowered but did not attack. The protestors called for the firing and arrest of the officers involved in the Ivy incident and the dismissal of both Chief Cox and Albany County District Attorney David Soares. They then broke into a song, and when it was over marched out of City Hall in a disciplined manner. An impressive display.

More Protestors Outside City Hall [Credit: Alice Brody]

The issue, for anyone local who’s been in a coma for the last year, was the death of a schizophrenic black man by the name of Dontay Ivy, who was stopped by police officers shortly after midnight on Second Street in the sacrifice zone neighborhood of Arbor Hill. Reportedly the cops suspected Mr. Ivy of carrying a concealed weapon and attempted to search him. After initially cooperating with the not quite legal search, Mr. Ivy reacted to the close threatening situation in a manner that persons suffering from schizophrenia are likely to do, he panicked.

The cops tasered Mr. Ivy multiple times. Instead of becoming quiescent, he broke free and ran up the street, and collapsed onto the sidewalk, stricken with a pre-existing heart problem. To the credit of the officers involved, they then did everything possible to revive him and get him to a hospital, this according to District Attorney David Soares’ report of the incident. He arrived at Albany Med 34 minutes later and was soon pronounced dead.

The officers involved that night were a patrol that was specifically looking to get guns off the streets, they were doing what they were supposed to do. But it is clear that they badly mishandled the situation and did not recognize that they were dealing with a harmless and hapless mentally ill person. It was a consequence of ignorance by white cops who live in the suburbs toward a low status urban black man. Was it racism? Compare this local incident to how the local and federal cops mollycoddled the white buttholes in Oregon.

Protest Over The Death Of Dontay Ivy At South End Police Station, April 2015

In all the photos of the protest in City Hall, Mayor Sheehan looks very small, almost but not quite overwhelmed. I saw her like this once before back in October of 2014 when a crowd of South End residents at Howe Library shouted her down and would not let her speak about the City budget. The residents were enraged because the City firefighters, who were in the middle of contract negotiations with the City, had spread false rumors that the mayor was planning to close the South End fire station.

I give both Mayor Sheehan and Chief Cox much credit for letting this protest play out the way it did, and for remaining dignified throughout the ordeal. The local corporate media falsely reported the protest as an embarrassing whirlwind of chaos perpetrated by irresponsible anarchists, that was the heavy handed slant in their copy. But the mayor knew better, when after the protest she declared that this was “democracy in action” those were not just empty words on her part.

Rezsin Adams When She Was A Bit Younger Down In The State Plaza Concourse

After the protestors left and after the Mayor gave her speech (which, judging by reactions I read on Spacebook, was considered lacking by the public,) she walked through the crowd of elected officials and those citizens who managed to get inside, meeting and greeting. After a bit she came upon Rezsin and The Wife and greeted them warmly. The Wife had snagged a couple of scarce seats by presenting elderly tottering Rezsin to the fellows acting as ushers, which prompted Rezsin to whisper to The Wife, “You’ve learned very well.”

Talking with them the Mayor vented some of her frustrations, saying that her intention had been to have an open dialogue with the protestors before her address, but they shut her down every time she tried to speak. My guess is that the protestors wanted to send the message that they were through talking about the issue and wanted action. She stated that she still wanted to talk with them as soon as they were willing.

She told The Wife and Rezsin that the problem she has is that she has to represent everybody. “When I go door to door in challenged neighborhoods, people tell me that they want to see more police, not less,” she said. She noted that The Wife lives in one of those affected neighborhoods (she and Rezsin did not participate in the protest, they sat and behaved themselves) but that many of the protestors did not live in parts of the City such as the South End and Arbor Hill, and thus they did not understand the problems those neighborhoods face.

As for firing the Chief and the officers involved in the Ivy incident, she said, that was not an option. “People are not lining up to be police officers,” she said, “you have to work with what you have.” As I’ve observed, since 2010 the toxic culture that formerly prevailed in the Albany Police Department has been greatly reformed for the better. Ten years ago I would have violently disagreed with Ms. Sheehan’s position. Clearly there is room for quite a bit more improvement, but unlike in past decades that improvement is quite possible.

Laying The Wreath Before The Statue Of Dr. King

Finally the Mayor mentioned that she planned “to take City Hall on the road” to the neighborhoods, to find out what people need, and to let people know what the City is up to. During her first term she took the City budget on the road to the neighborhoods, and found that people wanted to talk about a lot more than just the budget. The impression is that this is still in the planning stage, but it seems the Mayor intends to keep focused on what precisely the majority of her constituents want so that she can stand on more solid ground, particularly with issues such as this one.

I’m impressed that The Wife can get the Mayor to open up like that. Whenever I catch the Mayor in public, she flashes a quick involuntary look of alarm, answers my questions briefly and flees at the first opportunity. The Wife explained, “We’re three short women standing there. We’re all on the same level.” Of course the Mayor knew damn well whatever she said would likely end up on this blog.

So what are the solutions, how can the police do their job in “challenged neighborhoods,” get the guns off the street and deal with the criminal element without any more bad incidents like this one? I’ve seen vast improvement with police response and with how they handle problems, but I’m a middle class white guy who has no fear of the authorities and knows how to get my complaints heard without getting shot in the head. But as we can see, obviously that improvement in how the police conduct themselves is not vast enough to adequately protect and serve the black population in low income neighborhoods.

At The April 2015 Rally For Dontay Ivy

All who knew him agree that Mr. Ivy was completely harmless, a sketchy looking individual to be sure but not the sort who would run with gangstas and carry a weapon in his pocket. If the three officers who confronted him were more familiar with the neighborhood and had a better idea who was who, then it is unlikely any of this would have happened. This is a longstanding problem going back at least 40 years, the cops who patrol Albany neighborhoods are for the most part commuters who do not live in the City and thus are not intimate with the neighborhoods or with the people.

And it is rather astonishing that these officers were not able to discern that Mr. Ivy was mentally ill, a fellow with a promising life ahead of him who succumbed to schizophrenia in his 20s and ended up living a marginal life. Reading the progression of the incident in the report put out by District Attorney Soares, one is struck by how the officers reacted to Mr. Ivy’s growing agitation by escalating the confrontation. I’m not a law enforcement professional so I will not try to suggest the best way to handle the situation, but as professionals these officers should have been able to not take Mr. Ivy’s behavior personally as some kind of challenge to their authority and deal with him in a better manner.

Also, I do not see why the officers used a taser on Mr. Ivy. Just about every Friday and Saturday night outside certain notorious downtown bars at closing time, these same officers have to deal with out of control persons zonked out of their minds on alcohol combined with a variety of vile substances, and sometimes it takes a taser and pepper spray and a few good smacks with a stick to get these whacked persons to calm down enough to be detained. But here we had a lone fellow on the street minding his own business, not at all the same kind of situation.

Now He’s The Establishment: Albany County District Attorney David Soares Announcing No Indictment Of The Officers In Dontay Ivy’s Death

A seriously alcoholic fellow used to live in my neighborhood, a white guy with relatives on the force (his last name would be instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with the Albany police.) I once watched the cops drag him out of his flat after a particular bad domestic incident, and I could hear the fellow repeatedly snarl at the cops, “I’ll kill ya, I’m gonna kill ya, leggo a me, I’m gonna kill ya.” To my astonishment the cops just grimly tightened their jaws and led him away, and the fellow was back home a few days later after sobering up.

With this out of control alcoholic fellow we see what was lacking in the Ivy case, the officers were familiar with this fellow and there was a direct community connection, so they knew his death threats were meaningless. But also they were dealing with a white guy. Comparing the two incidents one is reluctantly drawn to the conclusion that the Black Lives Matter activists are absolutely right, in the end it comes down to racial discrimination fueled by ignorance.

This is a fixable problem. I am very reluctant to condemn the officers involved for the way they mishandled the situation, but I am not willing to completely exonerate them either. Although the autopsy showed that Mr. Ivy did not have street drugs in his body as was widely implied by corporate media reports, he did have a serious heart condition and was taking prescribed anti-psychotic medicine, drugs which can have a debilitating effect on the body. It’s quite possible that he was in poor enough health that he was ready to collapse a day a week or a month later without being agitated and tased by the police.

Marchers For Dr. King In Lincoln Park

But this does not mean that that the City authorities should sweep this incident under the rug and hope the public forgets about it, which, it appears, the authorities were doing. At the same time firing Chief Cox and the three officers is not going to make for a better police department. What is most needed is an agreement between concerned citizens and the authorities on how to prevent this from happening again, how to improve officer’s response to similar situations and how the people of the community can get along better with officers on patrol. As I said, this is a fixable problem, we need to do what is necessary to fix it.

January 7, 2016

Salaries, food and taxes, have yourself a nice hot cup of coffee
while you still can

Corruption In Cohoes For a while it looked like things were getting better for the small City of Cohoes, located on the northern end of Albany County. During the first decade of this century, when John McDonald was mayor, Cohoes saw its first population increase since the Harmony Mills clothing manufacturing complex located in the heart of town closed in the 1930s. Among Mr. McDonald’s successes as mayor was the renovation of the beautiful but vacant Harmony Mills buildings into apartments, and negotiation of substantial benefits for the City when the Canadian corporation Brookfield started up the long-dormant power plant at Cohoes Falls.

After Mr. McDonald became a member of the State Assembly in 2013, the mayor’s job went to George Primeau, who after 15 months called it quits citing health issues. So this past September there was an apparently wide open primary race (Cohoes, like the City of Albany, is a Democratic town) which was won handily by the controversial Chairman of the Albany County Legislature, Shawn Morse. There is much to indicate that Mr. Primeau carefully prepared the way for Mr. Morse, who happens to be his nephew, to take over his job.

Shawn Morse Sworn In As Mayor Of Cohoes, Jan. 1

When Mr. McDonald took office in 2000, he immediately lowered the mayor’s salary from $58,541 to $45,000 per year, which as a leading business owner in the City (Marra’s Pharmacy) he could afford to do. However, by the time he left office he had brought his pay up to $60,000 to pass on to his successor. This still left the mayor paid less than a row of senior cops and firefighters along with several City officials.

Shortly after Mr. Morse won the September Primary, uncle George Primeau indicated that he was raising the mayor’s salary to $75,000. Oh, and members of the Cohoes Common Council would go from $13,195 to $14,000. The Council approved the raises along with the creative shifting of funds and dipping into the reserves to pay for the new salaries.

A few days into his new term as mayor, Mr. Morse announced the creation of a new $60,000 per year executive secretary job, which according to rumor is very likely to go to former mayor Uncle George. What about those health issues, have we had a miraculous recovery? And the mayor’s executive assistant, a job which already exists, will be raised to $70,000.

Neighborhood In Cohoes

But the big news is that the new mayor is firing the very successful economic development coordinator Ed Tremblay, who was hired for the job by Mr. McDonald at $59,000 per year. Mr. Tremblay is being replaced by Mike Jacobson who will be collecting a whopping $125,000 per year. Now that’s a raise. Mr. Jacobson came to this area a few years ago from Florida after leaving his job as a vice president at American Express to take a job as director of Capital District Habitat for Humanity, from which he “retired” this past summer.

Mr. Jacobson appeared at the right time for Habitat and managed to get a lot of building projects started and completed, unleashing Habitat’s built up potential. Much of his success came from Habitat’s aura of goodwill and as a launderer of tax liability, basically he knew how to ask for donations. It remains to be seen if he can manage the same success for Cohoes above what Mr. Tremblay accomplished at less than half the salary.

As director of Habitat, Mr. Jacobson did some extensive reorganizing along corporate lines, consolidating departments and apparently increasing efficiency. He also worked to take over and absorb Habitat chapters in nearby counties under one corporate umbrella. As part of this he packed up the Habitat headquarters in Albany and moved those jobs across the river to Troy.

Mike Jacobson As Habitat Director On Alexander Street In Albany (With Common Council President Carolyn McLaughlin) Dec. 2012

I brushed up against Mr. Jacobson when I was serving as a board member of South End Improvement Corporation (SEIC.) He was trying to absorb SEIC into Habitat in order to gain some of that organization’s credentials for Habitat. His effort was unsuccessful, all Mr. Jacobson managed to do was to divide the board and poach the then director of SEIC for a higher paying job at Habitat, which explains her enthusiasm for his plans. (Meanwhile SEIC is under the thumb of a new director who has gutted the board, decreased the number of projects and greatly increased administrative costs.)

Mr. Jacobson struck me as predatory, which I suppose may be a necessary requirement for the kind of thing he does. When he had a reason to know me he was the friendliest most personable person in the world, but when that usefulness ended I no longer rated notice. That makes me wonder how much he does that to other people, which might turn out to be a real problem for him in a small place like Cohoes.

As for Assembly member John McDonald, who represents my neighborhood in Albany as well as Cohoes, I asked for his opinion on the new mayor and the big salaries. His comment was no comment. But he added, “My record of protecting tax payer dollars is clear and thirteen years long. I could only hope that record will be surpassed.”

Coffee Will Make Headlines I don’t like to make predictions, but this one seems like a safe call. In the last few years medical researchers have discovered that not only is drinking large amounts of strong coffee safe, it is actually good for you. It turns out that it has curative powers, so much so that some doctors are now prescribing coffee for patients with hepatitis C and cirrhosis of the liver.

It’s coffee as a substance, not any one ingredient in it that is beneficial. According to Frank Hu, a nutritional epidemiologist at Harvard, quoted in Science News magazine, “It’s extremely difficult to impossible to tease out the effects of the individual components of coffee because there are so many of them. And they travel together.” Various international studies going back to 2012 have consistently confirmed results. For example, just one from the article:

Earlier this year, a European team reported that women who drank two and a half or more cups and men who drank three and a half or more daily were 72 percent less likely to develop liver cancer than people who drank less than about one-third cup a day. The study included roughly half a million healthy people monitored for 11 years.

November 30, 2015

A lament, the blogger complains about a personal relationship gone sour

[The following is a lot of whining and moaning, isn’t that what blogs are for? I don’t expect anybody to read it much. Some or maybe most readers may have made similar mistakes as I describe but perhaps no one wants to be reminded of those mistakes. Here it is anyway. And yeah, I’m backdating this one to November so as to maintain the illusion that I update my blog at least once a month. I promise to replace this juvenile whine with some relevant and more readable observations about Albany politics in the next week or two.]

I used to have a friend. Actually, the truth is that for about twelve years I thought I had a friend, a true friend, someone special in my life who I could talk to about anything, could always depend on, who thought well of me no matter what. This friend I was always ready to help, to listen to and learn from, who I believed watched my back. My friend could always depend on me, I always tried to be there for my friend.

It was wonderful, but my friend was all in my imagination. It turned out that for some twelve years the actual flesh and blood human being that I called My Friend had considered me nothing more than a useful tool, and the way my friend kept me useful was to feed me lines about friendship and special connections that extended beyond life. I ate it up, all of it, like a naive boy.

Finally, in the end, I became not very useful to my friend, that is, not in the way that my friend wanted. And so my friend flipped a switch and turned off the “special connection” talk. Gradually my friend became increasingly nasty and lying and contemptuous and finally dismissed me in the worst possible manner. I feel like someone close to me has died.

Sign On The Gate At Graceland Cemetery On Delaware Avenue

My true friend who turned out to be no friend is a woman. I have a number of women friends, I find I can talk to many women and relate to them in ways that most men don’t or perhaps can’t. I mean, I get along with guys just fine, but please understand that they’re guys, that includes the gay guys. You know what I mean. Most women can think about and talk easily about things that most men don’t like to dwell on, this is something I greatly appreciate and value.

Some might think that odd, but I disagree. I’ve heard that in the animal kingdom among social animals, such as apes and wolves, the males do not make friends with each other, they make alliances or else they compete. However, it’s been observed that the females regularly develop friendships with each other, and often become friends with some males. I’ve come to think that humans are not that much different, just more complex about it.

And of course between human males and human females there is usually this underlying sexual tension, this relationship with my lost friend was no exception. I was indeed entranced by my friend’s femaleness, and I admit to at one point having entertained some ridiculous fantasies. But in any case I’m too nice of a guy to fit her idea of a Real Man.

For convenience sake I’m calling my imaginary friend Nessie, not the name she goes by. In the beginning Nessie was an acquaintance, we had a small business arrangement that brought us together every two weeks during which we had extended conversations. I found these mostly one sided conversations interesting, it sounded like she had a very chaotic daily life and had at one time travelled to some interesting places and done some interesting things.

One day after a year or so of these biweekly conversations, Nessie sat down at a table across from me and, with tears in her eyes, told me a bunch of horrendous stories about her abusive childhood. One thing followed another in a rush accompanied by sobs, more than I could absorb in one sitting. I distinctly recall thinking as she rapidly listed off all the horrors that had happened to her, “I sure hope I don’t get quizzed on this later because I’m not catching a lot of it.”

I was also thinking, What the hell? I hardly know this person, why is she dumping all this crap on me? But of course I knew why. She was using me as an emotional garbage dump. I was someone on the periphery of her life, sort of like a stranger in the next seat on a cross-country bus. She could empty her trash into me and it wouldn’t matter. She could easily forget that the trash can existed and nothing else in her life would be affected by that trash can.

The other thought I had as she talked at me was, How much of this is true? People often exaggerate childhood abuse stories, it’s kind of like a competition to see who can claim to have suffered the most. I’m sure there was some truth to the stories she was telling me, but later she gave me good reason to doubt anything that ever came out of her mouth.

Lincoln Park, Late Autumn, Fog, Night

Our business arrangement continued and so did her less spectacular confessions and descriptions of her screwed up daily travails. I can be a good listener, and in retrospect that’s exactly what she required of me every two weeks. At the time I perfectly understood my designated role as her garbage can, but it was okay because her screwy life was entertaining to listen to.

Most of those screwy problems in her daily life that she told me about were problems of her own creation, not anticipating consequences, ruining relationships, not paying bills on time, choosing the worst possible way to deal with a situation, like that. It was clear that she did not see how often that she was her own worst enemy. And she certainly didn’t want any helpful suggestions from me.

Right at the beginning I noticed that she was self-absorbed and running on a self-defeating treadmill, so how did I get convinced that Nessie was even capable of having a strong equal friendship with anyone, let alone me? What happened is that she started to encourage me to talk about myself. I started to tell her what I was thinking about, what I was doing and had done, the things I wanted to do, personal stuff. And she seemed very interested.

Like with most people, nobody really gives a damn what I think. And no one wants to hear my complaints or mental perturbations. So when someone comes along who seems to care, and wants to exchange stories, concerns and problems, well, if someone wanted to be there for me then I was delighted. Perhaps we had some things in common. Perhaps we really could be friends.

Eventually Nessie started referring to our friendship and our special connection with each other as a settled fact. I had no objection. I was more than willing to be instructed on this matter and follow her lead. Right? What could go wrong?

Cargo Ship, Port Of Albany

This went on for some years, she dumped her trash on me usually every two weeks and pretended to care about me. Finally I ran out of entertaining things to tell her about myself. When I started repeating stories, I could see a shift in her attitude toward me. I was no longer interesting to listen to. I could see that Nessie was bored with my patter.

I was alarmed. But I brushed it aside, we were friends. Friends get to know each other thoroughly and then they develop their relationship together from there. Right?

Nessie has a lot of positive points, she has some excellent skills and talents. She’s mostly self sufficient and she’s tough. For a long time I relished her point of view, which admittedly is rather narrow and limited in range. However, when it came to those things that she considered important, she would examine those things thoroughly and she would learn everything she could about those things down to the smallest details, an admirable trait.

I learned some interesting things from her. I also learned more about hair and makeup and the current state of popular culture than I’ve ever wanted to know. She considered such knowledge to be survival skills for herself as a woman, so I respected what she told me about these things. After all, we were friends.

Over the years Nessie sent me a lot of pictures of herself, mostly selfies. A folder on my computer has at least 50 of them, maybe more but I’m not going to count. I used to look through them and think how beautiful she is, my beautiful friend. Even in the pictures where she looked tired and under the weather I considered her beautiful, she was my friend, my special friend, and she was always beautiful no matter what.

Cutting Down A Tree In My Neighborhood

For a long time I was convinced that Nessie was an extraordinary person, I thought she was deeply spiritual, I thought her ability to overcome adversity was exceptional, I thought she had an unusually solid grasp of reality. I fully believed her when she told me that she and I were deeply connected and that our friendship was bigger than our lives. (Actually, it might be, but I suspect that’s quite common and nothing special.)

But overestimating a person is dangerous. Most people that I encounter have doubts about themselves, a deficit of self confidence, a feeling that they are not as good or as smart or as strong as they ought to be. Many feel like inferior frauds. Down deep most people are terrified that if everyone finds out who they really are, then everyone will gang up and destroy them.

I’ve found that when I overestimate a person, which I do from time to time, that person thinks, usually unconsciously, “I know I am a fool, but this guy thinks I’m smart and great and good, therefore this guy who thinks I’m smart and great and good is an even bigger fool than me.” This thought inevitably generates open displays of contempt for the overestimater. Nessie turned out to be exactly like most people in this regard.

During the time I knew her, Nessie shuffled through a bunch of boyfriends. She had very little downtime between them, once she was through with one she’d pretty quickly find a new guy. I carefully avoided passing judgements on her current relationships, that is until after she dumped them and no longer had anything good to say about them.

The thing that I observed listening to her boyfriend stories was that the guys who treated her the worst were the ones she liked the best. Indeed, she admitted as much. She consistently got bored with the nicer guys and I watched her chase them off in a practiced manner that I got to experience for myself.

A Half-Baked Turkey

I was not her boyfriend, but I had become a significant male in her life. So it had to happen sooner or later, I had to get dumped just like one of her boyfriends. Perhaps more importantly, on an unconscious level, she had to convince me that she was not the wonderful person that I believed her to be. Her deeply buried self contempt could not allow her to tolerate a devoted friend, particularly a male.

In other words, like all the other adult males in her life, I was a temporary supporting actor in her ongoing movie. What made me think that I would not get the same treatment, forced to follow a demeaning script and then abruptly fired from the production. Well, I was convinced of the undying cosmic friendship, I guess that was supposed to make me exceptional. Damn, I can be dumb.

Nessie began to demand a level of attention from me that any normal person could only give to a spouse or to a partner. As I pointed out to her, for better or worse I’m married to someone and that someone gets my prime attention on a daily basis. The only way Nessie was going to get that level of attention from me was if my marriage ended and I became her partner. And that, for several reasons, was not going to happen.

By the beginning of this year that special attention thing became her main complaint against me, that I was not adequately remembering and retaining and cataloguing all the details of her life that she had been feeding me. This was particularly problematic because she not only held back from me a lot of relevant details, some of the details that she did tell me would radically change in her memory as time passed. And as I eventually figured out, she routinely fed me a lot of deliberate misdirections and downright lies about her life.

But under the sunny skies of eternal friendship I let all this pass by. One always forgives one’s true friend, that I believed. I even overlooked her uglier traits, including one in particular that I never tolerate in anybody else. For the sake of friendship I compromised my solid values.

Empty Shelves At A Local Supermarket

Starting in February of this year (by her reckoning, which I think is about correct) Nessie started to verbally harass and browbeat me in a systematic fashion. At first it was occasional. Somehow no matter how hard I tried not to, I kept saying wrong or insulting things, and no amount of attempted clarification could help. Of course I felt terrible about it, I thought I was hurting my friend and not quite sure how or why.

As the months passed our email exchanges would routinely turn into bizarre arguments over petty matters, over a word I wrote or said that she didn’t like, or over some connotation that I obviously never meant. When we talked face to face she would lecture me on my faults and tell me what a failure I was at correcting my mistakes. I’d ask her advice on how to improve but of course she had nothing constructive to offer and would browbeat me some more for asking.

This pointed to a longstanding problem with Nessie, she treats the slightest criticism or tiniest disagreement as a personal assault on her character and integrity. This makes real discussion with her about any topic impossible, and forget about civil arguments. I was the latest person to discover that one either agrees with Nessie one hundred percent or else faces an emotional outburst with violent overtones followed by lingering resentment.

Water Over The Dam Near Waterford

During the summer I made my fatal mistake, the one she was angling for. After several email exchanges in which she listed my faults, some real, the rest exaggerated or imagined, I came back with a list of what I considered some of her faults. These faults that I listed were all minor things, you understand. Oh but oh my, that turned out to be unforgivable. How could I do such a thing to her.

This listing of some of her faults became the justification she needed for intensifying and escalating her sheer nastiness at me. Later I realized that she had done this many times before, she’d had a lot of practice systematically ruining relationships a little at a time, and what she was doing to me was quite deliberate. Clearly it was great fun for her to do that and it seemed to fulfill her in some way.

There were some other reasons for her nasty routines besides having fun at my expense. In the last months she got me (without asking directly) to buy her some useful stuff, and I did some much needed work on her house. But more importantly she did not want to feel personally responsible for having ended our “friendship” for no reason except boredom.

She wanted to piss me off with her nasty behavior and make me walk away voluntarily. That way it would all be my fault. It didn’t work with me as well as it has worked with most of her boyfriends, but I’m sure she could care less about that. I’ve noticed she’s never had much trouble shifting blame away from herself.

But at the time, all I saw was my true friend going through a period of profound mental distress, and I resolved that I would be there for her. Between her perpetual money woes and some developing health problems about which she probably did not report to me accurately, and after a horrible relationship with her last boyfriend, I figured she needed someone to stand by her more than ever. If she needed someone to snarl at, if that made her stronger then I could do that for a friend.

Damn I’m such a dumbass. Lying unnecessarily is a way of showing contempt for someone, and as summer turned to autumn she increasingly showered me with lies. More and more she would announce “We can’t talk about this subject anymore” or “I don’t want to tell you anything about that subject either.” By late October all she would do is holler contradictory nonsense at me about anything or nothing in a contemptuous tone of voice and I would try to quietly take it.

Crowd In Troy

It was in early November that Nessie planned and carried out my final dismissal from her life. Without going into details, she trapped me into a compromised situation in front of a carefully selected audience and proceeded to browbeat me at the top of her lungs. I mean, I was feeling physically threatened as she stood over me holding a sharp object and yelled, “F–k you Dan, f–k you Dan, just f–k you” and other similar niceties.

And the reason for her violent tantrum show? That list of her faults I had made last summer, which I had written in response to her lists of my faults. Really, that’s all she could come up with to justify her behavior. It’s not like I hit her in the face or tried to get her arrested or willfully destroyed her possessions, just something I wrote in an email months earlier. Hell, if I’d burned down her house and laughed about it to her face she probably would have adored me.

Later that day we had a short email exchange which confirmed that she was not going to let up on her crazy act. And yes, it was an act, one she is very practiced at. Just like that, I realized that Nessie was not my friend, had never been my friend, and that all along I was a tool and a fool for thinking so. She finally got me to turn off the light. That was a hell of a day for me.

Consider that she spent some ten months acting nasty at me on an almost daily basis just to see how far she could go before I walked away from her. That’s something one would expect from a teenager. If she were an adult, I eventually realized, she would have tried to have a straight and equal discussion about issues affecting the two of us. Or as an adult she would have simply cut back the relationship without almost a year’s worth of nasty head games.

It finally dawned on me, that this woman with grownup children is merely another emotionally immature person trying to pass as an adult. This was the person I had admired so much, who I thought had the capacity to fully empathize with another human being. Hell, I would have stopped a bullet for her. Seriously.

A month has gone by since Nessie finished dismissing me from her life and I still grieve for losing my friend that never was a friend. And in my daily life there is a void to fill, dealing with her took up a lot of my time which I now count as wasted time. Would that I ever find a real friend like the imaginary one that I have lost.

So now I look through that folder of her selfies, the pictures that I used to gaze at and admire. I look now and I see a dull person posing. Some of the pictures look downright ugly. When I believed that she was my friend they all looked beautiful, even the ones where she is tired or not feeling well. But that person is not my friend, not anymore, nor was she ever.

October 23, 2015

Some celebrations at the beginning of Autumn

*UPDATE* Mr. Leo Levy graciously provided the text of his two addresses he gave at the Peace Pagoda offering a Jewish perspective on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the start of Shabbot, and some of his interesting photographs of the Pagoda

The morning of this past October 3rd a friend insisted by email that I attend the 22nd Anniversary Celebration of the opening of the Grafton Peace Pagoda. This amazing structure is located deep in the woods on a hill located in the rural center of Rensselaer County, which is across the Hudson River from Albany. This is a place where one would normally expect to meet pickup trucks and shotguns rather than a Buddhist shrine devoted to world peace.

Grafton Peace Pagoda, 22nd Anniversary Celebration

The Pagoda is the creation of an amazing woman named Jun-san Yasuda, or as we local Americans often call her, Jun Sun. Some 25 or so years ago I encountered several rootless persons in Albany who had been living a hand to mouth existence suddenly start talking like they had a purpose in life, a purpose which turned out to be to help Jun Sun erect the Pagoda. It sounded like a crazy, pointless idea, and perhaps it was, but I did notice the solid certainty about the importance and inevitability of the project from every person involved with it.

What exactly is it? It is described as “a symbol of non-violence,” one of many like it found around the world that originally were built in India over two millennia ago. Currently it is one of only two in the US, the other located outside Amherst, Massachusetts, although another is currently being built in Tennessee. The best description of its function as a structure comes from the Peace Pagoda website:

Many people ask the question, “what is inside the Peace Pagoda?” The answer is, “nothing but empty space.” Since the first Pagodas were built by the piling of stones on mud, their interiors were solid with no space inside. Although the modern construction techniques used to build the Grafton Peace Pagoda have created an interior space, this area is purposely left unused. All activities take place outside the Pagoda, which is also known as a Stupa.

September 30, 2015

The deadly gasses have been quietly removed from the Bakken oil trains but the the threat of environmental damage is ever present

*UPDATE* On October 24 there will be a Statewide community meeting sponsored by Citizen Action here in the South End to plan strategies for dealing with the Oil Trains

If you’ve been listening carefully you may have noticed that there haven’t been as many oil trains arriving in Albany lately. A year or two or three ago I used to hear the long, loud wail of the train whistles around the clock, when I was lying in bed early in the morning and at odd times during the day. For a while every bit of railroad track in and around downtown held stationary lines of those black tank cars, waiting to unload their dark cargo or waiting for the outbound tracks to clear so they could head back to the oil fields.

Since 2009 the City of Albany has been a significant terminal, a literal faucet on a major highway through which petroleum flows. Crude oil extracted by fracking from the Bakken Fields of North Dakota arrives at the Port of Albany by rail and is poured into massive tank barges, which are towed by tugboat down the Hudson to unload into the refinery tanks located along the New Jersey shore. This fracking oil highway that runs through Albany, along with several others around North America, has had tremendous impact on the world economy and on international political stability.

So far we’ve been lucky in Albany, there has been little negative impact on our City from the trains other than a few very minor spills on land at the Global facility on the north end of the Port. That, along with some annoyance to drivers waiting for the trains to pass over roadways. Local activists and thus local politicians have been deeply concerned with the dangers of this operation, with both the expectation of environmental damage and especially the risk of a fireball explosion that could destroy downtown Albany and kill thousands of people instantly.

NY State Department Of Environmental Conservation Managers Face The Citizens At Ezra Prentice Homes

First, the good news. You may recall how back in June of 2013 these same oil trains caused a fireball that destroyed the Canadian town of Lac Magantic and instantly vaporized 47 people. Some of us can’t forget. The good news is that the oil trains that are now arriving in Albany will not cause an explosion of that size and intensity, not at the Port of Albany or anywhere else in or near our City.

Actually there have been something like 14 derailments with spills and fires since the Lac Magantic disaster. The biggest and most damaging derailments have been in Tennessee, in Virginia and the most recent this past May in South Dakota near the Bakken Fields. But despite the environmental damage and several big fires there were no fireball war-zone explosions and no deaths in any of these derailments.

The Lac Magantic Fireball, June 2013

So why did the oil trains in Lac Magantic explode like that when the other derailments that happened afterwards haven’t? Unlike the later derailments, the tank cars in Lac Magantic were packed with volatile gasses, familiar substances such as butane, propane, ethane, along with massive quantities of the terribly dangerous substance hydrogen sulfide, which can kill you through asphyxiation, corrosion, poisoning and of course by explosion. When that line of tanks cars 16 miles from the US border broke loose on a hill and derailed, all it took was one spark from clashing metal to obliterate a community and murder dozens of innocent people.

I say murder because the standard procedure before transporting crude oil has always been to siphon off these deadly gasses with preliminary refining. The outfit that loaded the Lac Magantic train that exploded, a Fortune 100 corporation called World Fuel Services, very deliberately did not do that mandatory preliminary refining that would have removed these explosive and toxic gases. These corporate executives did this to increase their profits, they are very much on record crying poormouth over their refusal to buy the necessary equipment to make the oil safe enough to travel.

But between 2009 and 2013 World Fuel Services was not the only corporation that loaded these trains with deadly gases. Hess, Marathon, Whiting Oil and Gas to name a few continuously played russian roulette with the American people, using the trains as guns and their Bakken oil as bullets, or rather as bombs. While the psychopathic suits who run these corporations quietly put millions of people at deadly risk for years, government regulators allowed these bomb trains to roll even for months after the inevitable happened in Lac Magantic.

Oil Train Derailment And Fire In North Dakota: Not As Bad As Lac Magantic

According to news reports, federal regulators in the US have known about this practice since at least 2010 but did nothing about it. However, in February 2014, eight months after the Lac Magantic explosion, the Department of Transportation (DOT) inspected the Bakken operation and finally told these corporations to stop loading volatile gasses into the tank cars. They also discovered that these corporate executives were downgrading classification of the oil, in other words deliberately lying about how safe it was.

And so the federal DOT fined these three corporations a total of $93,000 between them. Yes, that’s the punishment these executives received for lying about transporting deadly substances. Meanwhile, three of the grunt workers who were on duty that fateful night in Lac Magantic are still facing criminal conspiracy charges and the rail operators are facing bankruptcy and hundreds of millions in fines.

You won’t be hearing about the government regulators or their political bosses being punished for allowing these corporate criminals to continue committing their crimes even though they knew damn well what was going on. I have yet to hear one single elected official admit that the federal government failed to do it’s job, these politicians don’t want to cause any responsibility to fall on themselves. Instead a few hapless working guys are being held responsible and the railroads involved are being held liable because railroads are considered politically incorrect.

Fracking Well In North Dakota

So in April of 2015, almost two years after the Lac Magantic explosion, the State of North Dakota finally decided to order frackers to remove all explosive gases before shipping oil by train or by truck. North Dakota, of course, is where the vast majority of Bakken Field fracking operations are located. This new set of regulations, which are reportedly more stringent than federal regulations, was handed down by a three member board that includes the governor of that State.

Regulations are worthless if they are not enforced, after all there have been federal regulations in effect like forever that if enforced could have prevented Lac Magantic. Since the explosion, I’ve read reports in the media of the feds forcing the North Dakota corporate frackers to install condensate stabilizers like the frackers had done in South Texas. But so far no one in authority has come right out and said that the explosive gases are no longer inside those tank cars, no one that I’ve heard. And I’ve been listening for that.

Meeting At Ezra Prentice, Dominic Calsolaro At Left, Willie White (Standing Center) Bawling Out The DEC Managers

But now I’m confident that the deadly gases are gone from the tank cars rolling into Albany. At the end of September the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) held an informational meeting in the community room at Ezra Prentice Homes in the South End. About half of this residential neighborhood is set in a narrow corridor between South Pearl Street and a set of railroad tracks that are much used by the oil trains, the rest of the homes are across the street.

In the City of Albany, public hearings and meetings like this are almost always attended by passionate well informed people who ask all the most inconvenient questions and are not afraid to contradict the authorities arrayed before them. As such they are usually raucous good fun to observe even if you don’t know much about the issues involved. Seriously, I don’t understand why more people don’t attend these, where else can you get entertained like that for no charge.

It’s the issue at hand that makes these meetings interesting, or rather the interplay between authorities who are reluctant to clearly speak the truth and citizens who are angry and frustrated at being misinformed and ignored. As a friend of mine put it when I described this meeting to her, “People don’t know how to inform, and they don’t know how to be informed.” Yet I do give credit to the DEC folks for trying their best to communicate, it’s just too bad that for political reasons these State workers are all trained to beat around the bush instead of talking plainly.

Oil Tank Cars In Albany

This issue, of potentially deadly importance, was primarily about the hydrogen sulfide in the train tank cars that clatter past several times a day a short distance from the community room. The DEC guys were trying to reassure everybody that they were doing their best and that H2S was now a marginal problem if at all. But they just couldn’t come right out and say, “The government and the corporations that control the government were breaking the law and putting millions at risk and murdered 47 people in Lac Magantic but now we’ve cleaned up our act and there is no longer any risk.”

In fact, just about nobody in this region knew about the hydrogen sulfide and the illegal volatile gases in the tank cars until a certain local blogger posted a much read article detailing the problem in July of 2014. This article was picked up and disseminated by People of Albany United for Safe Energy (PAUSE) which formed in the wake of the Lac Magantic disaster and is calling for banning the oil trains from Albany altogether. There was nothing in that article that was new, but at the time few people locally were aware that this was an unnecessary threat to their very lives.

So at the Ezra Prentice meeting the DEC folks looked really grim as we the people lit into them for not solving these problems in downtown Albany with urgency the way they surely would if this were, say, rich suburbs like Clifton Park or Loudonville. The problem down here on South Pearl Street is not abstract, for years residents could smell the H2S wafting off the tank cars as they passed close by. Since H2S is a full spectrum poison, who knows what the cumulative health effects have been. No authority seems to want to look into that.

Matt Franklin, The Guy Who Tests For Hydrogen Sulfide

Present at that meeting was the guy who does the actual testing to see if H2S is present in the neighborhood. His name is Matt Franklin, and he uses a handheld device which can measure as low as one part per billion (ppb) in the atmosphere. Most of the testing has only been done in the last few months, as the DEC folks pointed out, this is the only testing like this done in the State, which they said is a response to public demand.

In response to my direct question, Mr. Franklin told us that he has taken oil samples directly from random selected tank cars, swirled them around in a jar, and tested them. Each sample, he told us, registered marginal amounts of H2S, that is, from 0 to 4 ppb. This is much lower than the amounts of H2S that are found in the exhaust of diesel engines, from the Albany storm drains that all too often carry raw sewage, and from the breezes wafting over the nearby sewage treatment plant.

In addition, I noted a comment from a longtime resident of Ezra Prentice whose back windows open onto the train tracks across the yard. She had much to complain about at the meeting, but she stated clearly that although she had been smelling the H2S odor for years, during the last year the odor had ceased. This fell precisely in line with the quiet enforcement of safety regulations in North Dakota, and it confirms Mr. Franklin’s assertions.

Oil Barge Waiting To Load At The Port Of Albany

Thus I am confident that the tank cars no longer carry volatile gasses. Preliminary refining with a condensate stabilizer at the fracking site removes all the gases at once, so if H2S is gone then all of them are. Mr. Franklin seems quite sincere and proud of his own integrity, he had no problem with my putting his face and name on this blog. I believe what he says.

Of course there still could be an oil spill and a fire, but this would most likely happen at the Port where it would remain isolated. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a disaster, oil would coat the bottom of the river and smoke would waft over the South End neighborhoods and force evacuation. Perhaps this risk is the price we pay for dependence on oil to power our lives, but there are many ways to minimize the risk to ourselves and to our environment.

For example the tank cars could be better built. In addition to the DEC guys at the meeting, we had an abbreviated presentation from Robert Montgomery, Chief of the State Department of Transportation Rail Safety Inspection Bureau, telling us how the State has concentrated heavily on watching the oil trains. He was the one who let drop, almost as an aside, how North Dakota now requires that H2S and other volatile gases be removed from the oil before transporting. Really, that’s one of the details that should have been placed front and center.

Mr. Montgomery told us there have been about 20 violations handed out by his bureau at the Port of Albany since February of 2014, all of which are fines. He also discussed how the safer 111 tank cars, which as several people pointed out are far from ubiquitous, are being superseded as of October 1st with newer and safer 1232 tank cars. These are double hulled and of a thicker gauge of metal than the 111s.

Pillar Holding Up The Rail Bridge Over Island Creek

I asked him about the recently refurbished train tracks that run into the back of the Port and terminate at the Global facility. I noticed that the tracks were being rebuilt last year when The Wife and I went boating up Island Creek. Recently there was a newspaper article that mentioned the new tracks, they are now being integrated into a Port expansion project in the southern part of the Port, which includes new docks and the construction of a 56,000 square foot climate controlled shed for handling giant equipment such as turbines.

The tracks cross Island Creek over an old concrete bridge which sits in the middle on a pillar in the water. This year I noted to my alarm that the pillar is decaying badly. On one side where concrete is sloughing off the pillar we now have a metal bar for support, this is the only repair I could see that had been done.

Really, you can’t see any of this unless you paddle a boat up Island Creek. To my amazement Mr. Montgomery claimed to have no knowledge of this newly refurbished track or of the condition of the bridge, and he had not heard of any plans to run oil trains over this bridge. I was glad to see him make a notation as I spoke, perhaps he will follow up on this before the bridge collapses under the weight of a fully loaded oil train.

Global Oil Transfer Facility At The Port Of Albany

A year ago Port officials were looking to accommodate more oil trains arriving, but since then the number of trains has slacked off considerably. The reason is that the price of oil has dropped way down because there is a glut of oil on the world market. Partly this price drop is caused by overproduction, but at the same time worldwide demand for oil is starting to decline.

We all see this at the pump, the local price of 87 octane gas is down as low as $2.30 a gallon at some stations. This price drop has caused about half of the operating fracking wells in North Dakota to be decommissioned, and it has forced Saudi Arabia to drop prices to it’s lowest levels in many decades. And most spectacularly, Shell Corporation has announced that after spending some $7 billion that it will no longer pursue drilling new wells in the Arctic off the coast of Alaska.

This oil glut has forced the tar sands shale oil operations in western Canada to all but shut down. This thick gooey glop is considered the lowest quality oil available, fetching the lowest prices for a barrel while at the same time the most expensive and energy intensive oil to produce. The corporations that have heavily invested billions into tar sands are sitting and waiting, hoping that the price of oil will go up so that they can resume operations, but that is looking unlikely.

Island Creek Behind The Port Of Albany

A few years back Global tried to install heaters at their Port facility in anticipation of receiving tar sands oil. This glop is like tar in cold weather, it has to be warmed before it can be poured into the hold of a tanker, otherwise it will clog the equipment. No one in Albany is crying about this loss, the mere thought of what a spill of tar sands would do to the river is almost unbearable, this kind of likely scenario has served to galvanize activism against allowing the stuff to be sent here.

The DEC quietly approved the heaters, but word got out and the public went ballistic, which forced the State to schedule public hearings. After these sessions the DEC promised to pull the approval (“rescind the negative declaration” in legal parlance) but after two years they have failed to do so. At the moment this is all moot, the heaters have not been installed and tar sands oil is unlikely to show up around here any time soon.

New Oil Storage Tanks On The Rensselaer Side Of The
Hudson River

You want to see the worldwide oil glut for yourself? Bring a motorboat to the launch in North Albany (or a paddle boat to the mud flats of Island Creek Park in the South End like we did) and proceed south on the Hudson River toward Bethlehem and glance at both sides of the river. You can’t help but note dozens and dozens of oil storage tanks, most of them new shiny white with many having been built in the last year.

Big tanks like that are built for a reason, the fact is that there is so much oil being produced domestically that there is nowhere left to store it. Oil distributors are trying to hold onto as much oil as possible hoping for the price to go up again. Reportedly there is no storage space left anywhere in the US, new tanks are spoken for before they are built.

The solution pushed by the oil producers to this non-problem is to rescind the 40 year old ban on exporting domestic oil. That’s right, even though this country is still importing oil (!) the corporations desperately want to lower the total amount of oil available to the citizens of this country so that they can raise the prices that we pay. Of course their spokespeople claim that exporting oil will LOWER the price of gas at the pump, an amazing bit of anti-logic that goes by the technical term “lying.”

Blue Heron In A Tree Behind The Port Of Albany

The ongoing contraction of the oil industry is bad news for anyone who has an oil related job and is hit with layoffs, and it’s an annoyance for anybody who owns oil stocks. But for everybody else this is a great development. Lower prices for gas at the pump means more money in the pockets of regular folks, and if the price of oil remains low this will have a positive ripple effect throughout the real economy.

Meanwhile, burning of fossil fuels is slowly being cut back by increasing use of solar panels, which are becoming competitive with other forms of energy generation, and by wind turbines. This is the best news possible for the rapidly growing problem of Global Warming and the resultant climate change. So we are slowly heading in the right direction, but are we moving fast enough to save our civilization from collapse. I sure hope for the best, this is a race I want to win.

August 30, 2015

Doing the old summer vacation thing again, and my search for Socky the Lakemonster of Sacandaga

Once again we spent two weeks at the cabin on Great Lake Sacandaga because I’m a boring person who keeps doing the same thing over and over. But really, the lake isn’t boring at all, it’s a fascinating thing manufactured by humans that has taught me a lot about the environment in which we live. Each yearly summer visit is a kind of snapshot in my mind, I see the natural and manmade forces at work and I see how after 85 years of existence the lake is still settling into the valley that it has filled with water.

Now, I want you all to know that I spent some time sitting on the screened porch of our cabin trying to compose a very thoughtful article on how corruption in the City of Albany has shifted tremendously. But I just wasn’t into it, I spent most everyday kayaking the lake and taking pictures. So no, you can’t read my take on corruption yet so instead you’ll get a chance to look at some of my pictures.

Dawn On Great Lake Sacandaga

We arrived on Saturday the first day of August right after the blue moon. That first Sunday morning I got up before dawn and kayaked out to see the sunrise. This is the stuff of inspirational posters, I’d better copyright any pictures I post so no one can make a buck off them producing office art. While I was snapping pictures of the sunrise I was surprised to notice the beginning to wane moon high in the sky over my shoulder. I’d tried to photograph the moon shining on the water off to the East the night before, but alas I did not have the equipment to catch night visions.

The Shopping Mall Outside Of Northville

Outside of Northville on Route 30 is this independent convenience store and gas station called Coloney Centre just like the mall on Wolf Road. I told a friend that I tried to visit her at work but for some reason I couldn’t find Macy’s. Oddly enough I’d never had reason to visit. Later I stopped here to fill a gas bottle for the grill, despite the rather forbidding facade the place turned out to be a big and well-stocked general store inside.

Contrail In The Morning

This year I was very interested in the sky. A bubble of warm air over the lake pushes low clouds away from the water, so that very often during the summer the weather along the shore is dark and rainy while the lake itself remains bathed in sunshine. The lake was created by humans, and anyone who watches the summer sky over the lake can see how it pushes around the clouds, so what more proof does anyone need that even relatively minor human activity affects the weather.

The Remains Of Deer Island, Once Covered With Trees Now Destroyed By High Water

One of the first things we noticed when we arrived was that the level of the lake’s water was lower than it has been in years for the month of August. I’ve explained in the past how the State agency in charge of maintaining the lake, the Hudson River Black River Regulating District (HRBRRD) essentially gave the owners of the hydroelectric turbines located on the lake’s dams the power to control the water levels of the lake. Since it is in the interest of the turbine owners to keep the water flowing over the dam without interruption, for the last 15 years the lake has been overfilled all year round.

Not only has the persistent high water damaged the shorelines and islands terribly, the lake can no longer be used for flood control. As a result the City of Albany along with the upper Hudson Valley has had to endure terrible floods that shouldn’t have happened, particularly in 2006 and another in 2011. Apparently this privatization arrangement is fine with the downstate politicians that dominate our State, they could care less if we get flooded and are only interested in the salinity of the lower Hudson that provides drinking water for many downstate municipalities.

Seagulls Hanging Out On Another Nearly Destroyed Island

Now, the turbine at the first dam at Conklingville has no problem with water flow, but the turbine at the second dam further downstream at Stewart’s Bridge is owned by a Canadian corporation called Brookfield, or the Brookfield Energy Group. If the lake levels are low, as normally happens in the Autumn, then the part of the Sacandage River downstream from Conklingville, called the Stewarts Bridge Reservoir, does not fill up adequately with water. Thus the Stewarts Bridge turbine will not turn and generate profits for Brookfield. Therefore Brookfield overfills the lake and doesn’t give a damn about the consequences.

Our State Assembly representative here in the South End of Albany, John McDonald, told me that he introduced legislation to take away the power of the Brookfield Corporation to regulate lake levels. When he was mayor of Cohoes, Mr. McDonald fought Brookfield to a standstill over the hydroelectric turbine that they own in that City, wringing concessions out of the corporation. “They shouldn’t have control over the lake,” he told me, but unfortunately his legislation died in committee.

Green Heron Extending Its Neck

There’s plenty to explore on the lake, for instance I found this odd looking bird hanging out in a cove near our camp that I’d never seen before. I had a bit of trouble identifying it, turns out it’s a green heron. Silly me, I kept searching for a bird with a blue butt and a red throat. A few weeks later I spotted another green heron on the Hudson near Schuylerville, I guess these birds are becoming more numerous in the area.

Tough, Scraggly Willow Bush

The shoreline and the disappearing islands is a harsh habitat for plants that is called the littoral zone, only the toughest can barely survive. For about half of the year these areas are underwater and for the other half are dry like the sand dunes in the Pine Bush but nearly devoid of nutrition. The toughest survivor is a species of willow bush that rarely gets above six feet and usually has twisted gnarled branches and exposed roots.

For the first time, I looked up these hardy bushes and found to my astonishment that under good conditions they grow rapidly some thirty feet high. New York State has commissioned both Cornell and the State University to grow the willow bush and study its feasibility as biofuel. Here I’d ignored these humble looking bushes all these years and it turns out that they may soon become an important crop.

Tough Tree In The Littoral Zone

On one of the larger islands where I landed for an afternoon I admired this tough survivor of a tree that stands alone awfully close to the August waterline. At a distance it looks like it is being strangled to death by parasitic vines, but vines rarely if ever survive in the littoral zone. Up close though I could see that what looked like vines was actually very short branches. I would guess that the branches only grow for a short time at the end of summer and early fall when the trunk of the tree is not drowned and never get a chance to spread.

Is This An American Elm?

Now, I might be mistaken, but these leaves on these little short twigs identify this tree as an American Elm! This is the very same kind of tree that normally spreads awesome branches clear across roadways, and is considered an endangered species because of Dutch Elm Disease. This tree may not look the least bit magnificent but you really have to respect such a tough and lonely survivor.

Iron Rivet Found On An Island

Before the lake was flooded in 1930 every effort was made to remove the debris left by the 1500 or so inhabitants of the valley displaced by the water. Naturally much was overlooked, and occasionally pre-flood artifacts wash ashore or rise up out of the sand and stones. On a disappearing island (the one with the seagulls above) I discovered two iron clamps that someone had found and placed carefully on an exposed rock.

This artifact in the photo appears to be a brace for holding blocks of wood together, probably homemade in one of the blacksmith shops that sat along the old riverbank. The round thing is a plate that has slid down and rusted fast next to a wedge that acted as a rivet to hold the brace in place. Perhaps it was part of a heavy horse cart? I thought of taking it and the other clamp as souvenirs, but since I have enough useless crap in my house I put these artifacts back on the rock for someone else to examine before the water rises again later this year.

Oil Slick On Great Lake Sacandaga

Plenty of motorized boats ply the lake, I have observed that every single one of them leaks petroleum. I’ll see some pontoon or jet ski pass a short distaqnce in front of my kayak, and by the time I paddle up to where the boat passed I can observe the line of oil that shows exactly where the motorboat passed. This path of oil will sit in place for hours because the oil floats on top of the water mostly independent of the water currents underneath.

Because Sacandaga is relatively clean, when the lake is calm you can see this generally light oil slowly collect into big slicks in the middle of the lake. Eventually these slicks move into the outlet arm of the lake, pass over the dams and joins the oil that flows past the Albany waterfront. Personally I’d like to see motorized pleasure craft replaced by electric boats, unfortunately current technology is not yet ready to produce electric speed boats.

The I Go Inn, Accessible By Boat

Speaking of the outlet arm, one day at The Wife’s insistence we both paddled about five and a quarter miles across the lake and up the arm to visit the I Go Inn for lunch. This is a weird and wonderful place with a Caribbean Island theme, Bob Marley tunes on the loudspeakers and a Polish flag flying proudly above the thatch umbrellas on the deck. The food is great, the staff is welcoming and the waitresses are all cute and the mixed drinks are ridiculous concoctions, but you can get anything at the bar.

The Wife At The I Go Inn

The I Go Inn sits high above the water, it actually predates the flooding of the lake. The story is that in the late 1940s a fellow from Amsterdam NY acquired the place in a poker game, his family still owns and runs the place which is only open in the summer. If for no other reason I recommend going there to watch the spectacular sunsets from the deck.

Sunset At The I Go Inn

The outlet arm of the lake, which follows the old river channel, has high steep banks on either side. On the map or at a distance the arm looks small and uninteresting, but after crossing some of the roughest open waters of the lake we found that it is actually enormous and rather unique. As usual distances are deceiving, it’s a long, long paddle up the arm before you finally reach the Conklingville Dam.

No Sign Of Socky, The Legendary Lakemonster Of Sacandaga

With my camera ever at the ready I searched the coves and open water for evidence of the legendary lakemonster Socky, a prehistoric creature that has lived in the murky depths of Great Sacandaga since the age of the dinosaurs. There are stories that Socky can swallow jet skis and their riders in one gulp. Yes, I was aware of the danger to myself, thank you for asking, but I persisted anyway.

Does Socky The Sacandaga Lake Monster Visit This Cove?

In this cove I heard a loon and saw waterbirds and bugs and fish jumping, and one past year I landed here and was briefly surrounded by a pack of foxes who trooped past pointedly ignoring me. But no sign of the monster. Skeptics contend that Socky is a fiction because the lake is no deeper than 49 feet and has only been in existence since 1930. I say pooh pooh to those smirking smarties and their so-called facts, even though I made all this up I hope to one day catch an image of Socky and then we’ll see how those skeptics smirk.

Rough Water In Paradise Cove

But seriously, the lake is not a toy, I always wear my life vest and pay close attention to the water and the weather. Every year during the warm months the lake takes a few lives either by drowning or by accidents, and every winter a few more bodies either fall through the ice or die by snowmobile. This past June a vacationer drowned in Paradise Bay near our camp in the direction of Mayfield, not to be wondered at because the water there can be rough and unpredictable.

The funny thing is that generally I’m not a risk taker, I don’t do things like rock climb or pick fights where I might get hurt. So why do I repeatedly paddle out into the middle of this unpredictable lake? One day I was out in Paradise Bay and tried to photograph the rough water that I was in, but I had to abandon the camera and work the paddle when the waves rose up four to five feet. Scary.

Taking The Pups For A Swim

We don’t get a lot of visitors at the camp which is fine with me, but as usual a couple we know showed up with their two little dogs to stay overnight. Other years I’d stay up way late with these folks and party and bang drums by the firepit overlooking the beach. But this year we went to bed early and all of us including the dogs took off in our boats and spent the morning on a deserted sandy beach on one of the bigger islands. We had leftover grilled chicken for breakfast. Most of these islands are State land and they are only accessible by boat but are quite popular on busy weekends and get crowded, with various boats parked along the best beaches like cars at a strip mall.

On My Left I Saw A Storm

That morning, a Monday, the lake was calm and silent and we saw only a few fishing boats, but the lake can turn violent very quickly. One afternoon I was searching for Socky and I looked to my left and saw this storm across the lake by Broadalbin moving out onto the water. I was about an hour from the camp but close to shore and started heading back, but the warm air bubble over the water held firm and pushed the storm back onto the land and I was safe.

Observing The Rainbow

Before sunset on the last full day that we were there, The Wife pointed out a spectacular rainbow on the other side of the lake. This turned out to be a rather durable rainbow that lasted right to the end of the day and beyond, and for a moment we had a double rainbow. But the really interesting thing was how the rainbow mutated as the sun set.

Mutating Rainbow At Sunset

It almost looked like somebody dropped a small atomic bomb on the hamlet of Fish House across the lake. Even after the sun went down behind the hills the strange rainbow persisted. Eventually the sky grew dark with no moon and the rainbow flickered out and the next day we had to pack up and go back to Albany.

One Last Sunset

 

July 28, 2015

The Wife competes in what might be the last Pine Bush Triathlon, but she did not compete barefooted like some

*UPDATE* The Wife gets her medal!

Every year starting in the year 2000 the Capital District YMCA has put on the Pine Bush Triathlon, an event where participants swim, bicycle and run for, well. for the hell of it. They do this for health, to get outdoors and do something physical in the summer, to have a training goal to work towards, to find out what they are capable of. But maybe the biggest reason is to say, hey, I did it.

Sadly, there are signs that the Capital District YMCA wants to put an end to this event. The event has a limit of 400 participants and usually is forced to turn away last minute registrants, but this year there was almost no advertising and more ominously, apparently no email notices were sent out. As a result of this notification neglect, this year’s event had only about 240 participants signed up, and perhaps because of dicey looking weather earlier in the morning only 197 actually showed.

Lifeguards Head Out On Kayaks And Paddle Boards To Man Their Positions On Rensselaer Lake Before The Pine Bush Triathlon Begins

But The Wife showed up. Believe it or not this is the eighth time she has “run” this triathlon and completed the entire course. Her stated goal has always been to not come in last, and this year thanks to someone 20 years younger than her who was apparently in worse shape than her, she managed second to last place. She wasn’t included in the earliest of the nine “heats” going into the water at the start of the race, these groups were full of young healthy people wearing body suits and looking buff.

Healthy Young People Get Ready To Jump In The Water

She had no doubt that she could finish the course this year, thanks to living in the South End of Albany she had plenty of opportunity to prepare. Lincoln Park is right outside our door, so she can always run on a smooth pavement in a green park without fear of cars. She prefers to haul her bicycle by car the eight tenths of a mile down to the Corning Preserve which is stretched out along the Hudson River, and there she can have a healthy scenic bike drive without cars.

Lincoln Park Pool Before Opening Day,
Great For Training When It’s Open

Unfortunately it’s become hard for her to train for the swimming. The previous mayor of Albany closed down Bathhouse #2 for no reason other than sheer spite, and Capital District YMCA CEO David Brown shut down our local YMCA because he personally hates swimming pools and because he happily relishes that typical suburbanite disdain for the City of Albany. So for all practical purposes The Wife can’t do much if any swim training in cold weather.

Fortunately she does have Lincoln Park Pool practically outside our door, which opens near the end of June when the public schools let out. She tells me that one and a half times around the circumference of the enormous pool is about equivalent to the 325 yard swim in Rensselaer Lake, and that she can do four times around without stopping. So she has the endurance, but because of the lack of winter training she slurps through the water at a painfully slow pace.

Early Heat Of Healthy Young People
Rounding The First Big Orange Ball

One problem we didn’t have this year was a long line of women waiting to use the one available toilet before the start of the race, in past years I’ve counted as many as 50 women nervously clenching their thighs. This year there was no line, no waiting. Partly this was from the low attendance to the event, but mostly this was because I badgered The Wife into writing a letter to the mayor.

City of Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, you might recall, is female. Through one of her staff she wrote back to The Wife that she was “very sympathetic” to her complaint but that the City could only ask the Capital District YMCA for relief in this matter. Well it looks like a request from the mayor’s office worked wonders, this year we had no less than four porta-potties set up in the nearby parking lot.

The Ninth And Last Heat Waits For The Starting Horn

So with everyone else long gone into the water and beyond, the eight old people in the ninth and last heat got ready to take off. For The Wife this is the toughest moment of the event, she has to wrestle with irrational fears as she is about to plunge into the water. I suggested to her that she immerse herself in the water while waiting to start, she reports that this helped her a great deal.

The Geese Did Not Compete

Yeah, she’s a slow swimmer but she this year she didn’t stop and hang on a kayak, and thanks to the big orange balls she didn’t stray too far off the course. I had plenty of time to stroll around to the other side of the lake carrying her abandoned flip-flops. I even had time to watch the geese that were surely befuddled by all this early morning activity.

The Wife Staggers Ashore Trailed By Someone Slower
And All The Lifeguards

Eventually she staggered ashore much more solidly than other years, and amazingly there was a guy who trailed behind her. Right behind that guy all the floating lifeguards followed ever so slowly, their job was done. And The Wife waddled dripping wet to The Transition Area.

The Wife Struggles With A T-Shirt At The Transition Area

The time it takes to change clothes and grab the bicycle is counted in the overall time. When she’s transitioning I swear The Wife forgets that she’s in a race and believes that she’s at home on a Monday morning selecting her underwear for the day. I acted like a tough coach and hollered at her to get moving, but instead of dressing faster she waved her socks furiously at me and hollered back. Meanwhile, the guy who swam slower than her arrived, jumped on his bike and took off leaving her all alone in last place.

After a while she stopped fussing around with her clothes and started fussing with her bike, and eventually she actually got on the bike and took off as that part of the event shut down behind her. Realizing that I had all the time in the world I strolled back across Fuller Road to where my vehicle was parked. I then navigated all those stupid unnecessary pedestrian unfriendly roundabouts that kill bicyclists and increase auto fender-benders out to the YMCA that is located on route 20 in the western end of Guilderland.

Claire Nolan Arriving In Guilderland, She Did The Entire Triathlon Barefooted

The bicycle drive to Guilderland was a mere 11.5 miles. When we were driving our car to the event The Wife noted that the road was divided with orange cones, because of this she was worried that during the event she would have to drive her bike through road construction. She is terrified of biking in auto traffic which slows her down considerably. But someone explained to her that the cones were put there for the triathletes so they would be safe from the cars and she felt much better.

I arrived at the Gulderland YMCA bicycle abandonment corral in time to see her friend Claire Nolan pass the gate to start the 3.25 mile run in suburban traffic. Claire has won category prizes in this event in past years, but a few years ago because of arthritis she was told by her doctor that she would never compete like this again. But after a hip replacement here she is, not winning any awards but not doing too badly either.

Barefoot Weddings Have Become The Thing: Showing Off Foot Adornments

Claire did the entire event barefoot, swimming, driving her bike and running on the suburban pavements. She’s always had a predilection for minimal footwear, wearing flip-flops outdoors when snow is on the ground, etc. Lately she has become an advocate of this decade’s Going Barefoot movement, displaying below the ankle nudity outdoors as much as possible and regularly competing in physical competitions like this one without shoes.

Reportedly her feet are healthier than ever and have not had any mishaps. There’s a bestseller book out about Going Barefoot and there are, inevitably, accouterments for sale such as foot adornments for barefoot weddings, and henna tattoos. But officially bare feet are considered unhealthy (“No Shirt No Shoes No Service”) and eventually if the movement gets popular there will be a pushback and undoubtedly Bare Feet will morph into a civil rights movement.

The Wife Arrives In Guilderland

At the bike drop-off area in Guilderland I waited near the YMCA with the other husbands who had slow pokey wives. After some ridiculously interminable amount of time The Wife came staggering out of the bicycle parking corral and started the run, a loop that came back to the YMCA. I knew I had plenty of time to wait. While I was waiting for her to complete the run the organizers held the award ceremony without waiting for all the competitors to finish. I didn’t think that was fair.

There was one other husband still waiting after The Wife dropped off her bicycle and streaked through the checkpoint, he was very worried. This was his wife’s first triathlon and he asked several volunteers if there was any way of checking to see if she was alright, if she had been hit by car or something. They assured him that there were plenty of EMTs and ambulances and cops out there watching for that sort of thing along with a sweep car that followed behind the last straggler.

The Wife Plods Uphill As Barefoot Claire,
Who Finished A Long Time Ago, Encourages

The number one reason why I accompany The Wife on these Pine Bush triathlons is so I can eat free hotdogs. But this year The Wife was so damn slow that by the time I went over to the YMCA building to collect my pink slime prizes, I was informed that the hotdogs were already finished. All they had left was bananas, like meh, and they had little pots of yogurt, an unappetizing substance which I only grudgingly concede is food.

So I grumped a bit and went over to wait with the guy with the extremely slow wife for our respective spouses to trudge into view. Eventually The Wife appeared at the bottom of the hill, walking, mind you, not running. I hollered at her to Go Go Go For The Gold Turn On The Juice and halfway up the hill she did indeed break into a slow trot.

The Wife Streaks To The Finish

I strolled behind The Wife as she ripped up the pavement in the home stretch. There was discussion all around about whether anybody else was still out there after The Wife, so I pointed out the fellow who was still over by the road staring intently down the hill for signs of his wife. After a while he lay down in the grass, when he suddenly stood up and looked alert I knew that she had finally appeared.

The Winner Gets Her Reward

Every year the Guilderland Fire Department sets up a firehose on a crane to spray water over a corner of the parking lot. Standing under this spray is what The Wife looks forward to as she runs through the suburban roads, remember that this is July and it is freaking hot even in the morning. I made a point of thanking the FD guys for doing this for the competitors.

The wife with First Place Winner (Women 60 – 69) Theresa Portelli [Photo: John Portelli]

But wait. Despite being slower than a slug in a bucket of molasses, The Wife actually came in second place in her category, Women 60 – 69 years old. Okay, there were only two women in that category, and she even passed the first place winner Theresa Portelli on her bicycle. But as can be seen in the photo, Ms. Portelli wore a triathlon friendly outfit and did not waste time fooling around in the transition area. In the clothes-changing competition The Wife could not compete with the winner.

They Sent The Winner Her Medal

Earlier I mentioned that the awards ceremony was held before all the runners finished, and the winners of the latter heats didn’t get to participate and be honored. Well, the next day Ms. Portelli complained bitterly and her first place medal was delivered to her promptly. But what about The Wife who technically came in second? Where’s her medal?

She also complained, but I don’t think the Female Older Baby Boomer category had a second place. They said they’d get back to her, but I’m not holding my breath. But what the hell, give her a medal. She finished the event, didn’t she?

*UPDATE* So The Wife called the YMCA on Monday and they said they would get back to her. She called again Wednesday afternoon and they said Yes! They had a Second Place medal for her! She jumped in the car and drove all the way out there. She told me she "got there so fast the guy hadn’t brought down the medal yet.”

 

July 19, 2015

Due to privacy requests I have removed this article. I apologize to the readers, and I apologize to everyone who feels their privacy was violated by the article, that was unintended.

June 25, 2015

Plus a third Dan in the race, and a discussion of some well known political words

I’m the first to admit that I don’t keep a close watch on the government of Albany County. But despite not paying attention, my gaze keeps getting drawn in that direction so that I often surprise myself with how much I know about the County. And there’s nothing like a loudly contested election to draw everybody’s reluctant interest along with mine.

It’s the Democratic Primary in September that we’re talking about of course. All the County offices are up for election but the big race is for County Executive. One term incumbent Dan McCoy, a former County legislator, is being challenged by former City of Albany School Board President Dan Egan. For a lot of people this is a tough call, that is, for those of us voters who don’t hold grudges or have a specific axe to grind over the personalities and associations of the two candidates.

Albany County Executive Dan McCoy And Former City Of Albany School Board President Dan Egan

The very interesting thing about this race is that it reflects a growing trend across the country, the movement of acceptable political discourse away from the corporatist radical right and closer to the political center where most Americans reside. Of course this is Albany, NY, not Lower Wifebeater, Texas. A strong majority of voters in Albany County have no use for the inhuman corporate centralism espoused by the rad righties in such places, most of us take it as a given that the function of government is to serve the people of the community.

Thus we are seeing both the incumbent and the challenger falling all over each other insisting that each is more Progressive than the other. A glance at Mr. McCoy’s campaign website has an entire section called Progress, on which the very first line is “Innovative approaches through smart and progressive management.” Indeed his campaign slogan on the home page is “Progress. Together.” In a recent press release he pointed to his “incredible progressive record.”

Mr. Egan also uses the word “progressive” a lot, he uses the phrase “Lifelong Progressive” prominently, so as to counter the incumbent’s claim on progress. In his official announcement, he promised to deliver “progressive leadership.” In one of his first TV interviews he declared outright that he is the more progressive candidate. On Facebook he wrote “Albany County needs real, progressive, professional leadership, and needs it now.”

Dan McCoy Announcing His Run For Reelection

Just what does this word mean? We all know it’s not the same as the old fashioned notion of Progress, or Progressivism, that “advancement in science, technology, economic development, and social organization are vital to improve the human condition” (Wikipedia.) However the word does indeed derive from that once dominant idea, a philosophy developed in the 17th and 18th centuries that replaced a more restrictive religious basis for Western civilization.

Back in the late 20th Century (like when I was a kid) “Progress” as a notion had become a propaganda tool of “The Establishment,” that is, The Authorities who dictated policies that all the rest of us were supposed to accept without question. For many of us this amounted to helplessly watching the filthy tide of uncontrolled sprawl advance around our homes, destroying the landscape beyond repair and failing to establish a sustainable urban infrastructure in its place. The resigned phrase “You Can’t Fight City Hall” was the widespread justification for passive acceptance of this degradation.

These days most people assume that Progressive is a substitute for the word Liberal, a word which back in the 1980s was subject to a very successful campaign by the corporate media to attach a negative connotation. Liberalism is the basis upon which the American Revolution was fought, therefore Liberalism is the foundation upon which this country and this empire rests. The still ongoing campaign to vilify Liberalism is basically a campaign to undermine American sovereignty and freedom, the destruction of which is at the core of the corporate political agenda.

Dan Egan Announces His Run For County Executive

The best definition of the two words I can find is that “Liberalism is a set of ideals grounded in the social contract (rule by consent of the governed for mutual benefit),” while “Progressivism is a problem solving method.” The self-identified Liberal site Politicus USA Points out (perhaps not the best example):

The progressive method is not an ideology but a pragmatic search for solutions that work, grounded in a healthy skepticism. Thus, for example, Prohibition was a progressive project and was based on the social science of that era, but “The Great Experiment” of Prohibition failed in practice and progressives also worked for its repeal. The 20th century can reasonably be summarized as the rise and spread of the progressive method.

May 24, 2015

What a new Family Dollar building, revised zoning and a mayor who bicycles means for the City of Albany

The world is going to hell in a honey pot, ask almost anybody why and they’ll probably talk about the government. Our federal officials are horribly out of touch, and the general consensus seems to be that those clowns down in Washington DC are working for anybody other than us American Citizens who foolishly allow them to exercise power. On the State level, two of the three most powerful elected officials have recently been charged with graft and gone down in criminal disgrace, while right now everyone is waiting for the biggest one, the governor, to join them as a co-conspirator.

But meanwhile the City of Albany appears to have acquired a forward thinking and downright honest government, possibly for the first time since 1609. Remnants of the Old Boy kleptocracy are being rooted out, as a result the City’s population is rising and as the economy improves more jobs and more housing appear. Gross mismanagement has sent the nation as a whole into a tailspin decline, but somehow local prospects are looking brighter than at any time in living memory.

Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan and Her Bicycle

Recently a friend explained to me the process of our national decline by repeating the old saw, a fish rots from the head first. I don’t know if that’s a strict rule for either piscines or for human societies, but it’s apparent that most of our State and federal politicians are corrupt tools who work for corporations, for foreign governments and for the lazy irresponsible rich, and these tools are dragging our economy and our very souls into a bottomless pit. We Albanians are quite familiar with institutional corruption, but somehow us locals seem to be getting beyond decline and past the stink of rotting fish.

Take this recent small but significant indicator of change as an example. Less than ten years ago the Albany police were routinely harassing bicyclists, treating bicycles as roadway obstructions and bicycle drivers as criminals, terrorists or worse. Until all too recently, whenever a bicycle driver was mowed down by a car, the police would automatically pass judgement against the dead or injured bicyclist and not even ticket the car driver, no matter how obviously responsible was the auto driver for the collision.

There were several reasons for this open discrimination against bicyclists. One was the usual cultural reason, most Albany cops and many City officials grew up in the suburbs where bicycles are considered a toy that one should never take onto a road. And, believe it or not, eight or ten years ago the local FBI was spreading the story that bicyclists are terrorists, which reinforced suburbanist attitudes. But the main reason that bicycles and their drivers were harassed and discriminated against was that the Old Boy kleptocrats who ran the Albany City government had no use for bicycles and didn’t want them cluttering up their streets and getting in the way of cars driven by suburban commuters.

Bicycle Drivers Ready To Roll At Bethany Reformed Church (State Assembly Member Pat Fahy At Right)

However, survey after survey for the past 20 years has returned the same result, a strong majority of Albany citizen taxpayers want to live in “walkable, bikeable neighborhoods.” By the turn of the decade pro-bicycle activism had developed from several directions and had become annoying, forcing the Albany City authorities to grudgingly retreat from their anti-bicycle attitudes. In the last few years of his administration, former mayor Jerry Jennings even made some concessions to the idea of urban bicycling, but nothing that seriously encouraged bicycling or promoted safety for bicyclists.

But with the new regime of current mayor Kathy Sheehan there has been a total reversal of attitudes toward bicycling. This is part of the wider policies that swept her into office, that of putting the neighborhoods and the citizens of Albany first, that is, aligning planning initiatives so that the needs of City taxpayers are considered above those of commuters and other outsiders. That this is considered a radical change of attitude shows how far down this City had sunk in the last 20 years or so.

Stopping At The Downtime On Madison Avenue, Mayor Sheehan (Center)

Former mayor Jennings followed a policy of accommodating daily commuters and other suburban “visitors” (as he called them) above all else. One clear ongoing example was his choice of which roadways received priority funding for rebuilding and maintenance. The main commuter routes into the City received the most attention, Western Avenue, Delaware Avenue, Northern/Henry Johnson Boulevard and of course, New Scotland Avenue. Meanwhile local neighborhood streets and sidewalks were lucky to get plowed after snowstorms, unless of course they were commuter routes.

Making it okay to drive bicycles in Albany appears to be a little thing, but as an issue it sits right in the middle of a major urban vs. suburban controversy, to whom do City streets belong? Do the streets exist exclusively for cars, most of which are driven by outsiders, or do streets exist so that citizens of the City neighborhoods can use them for walking or pedaling without fear of being mowed down by vehicles?

Claire Nolan and Her Grandkids In Tow

So on a Friday morning in the middle of May I had to kick The Wife out of bed so that she could ride with mayor Sheehan on Bike To Work Day. She threw her bike onto the back of the car and I drove her up to the parking lot of Bethany Reformed Church, which is on the big bend of New Scotland Avenue way up past St. Peter’s Hospital. Sure, she should have bicycled over there but running late as she was, it really wasn’t a good idea for her to fight the crowded and aggressive commuter traffic that always clogs up the roads that early in the morning.

We made it in plenty of time, and at 8 AM the mayor led about thirty or so bicyclists out of the church parking lot and into the heavy traffic of New Scotland Avenue at rush hour. Driving bikes with them were three Albany police officers, the mayor in the lead and a police car behind as sweep. This was serious critical mass. It was an official bicycle parade and the suburban commuters in their belching, darting cars had to put up with it and give the City of Albany bike drivers right of way.

On Madison Avenue Taking Off For City Hall

In no time at all the parade made it over to the Downtube Bike Shop on Madison Avenue for a very brief press conference. Earlier this year Downtube sustained serious water damage from an upper story fire, but somehow they have managed to partially stay open while repairs are made, and I hear that because they have excellent insurance they are even able to continue paying idle employees. After that mayor Sheehan led the bicyclists to City Hall and invited them inside her conference room for coffee and bagels. They brought their bikes inside and no one had to pass through the security theater checkpoint.

Coffee And Bagels In The Mayor’s Conference Room

Of course the mayor has bigger problems to deal with than bicycle safety. Just about every neighborhood in the City has been struggling with decline, the loss of population and the attendant loss of prosperity. The good news is that this decline appears to have slowed to a stop and living conditions are starting to trend toward improvement.

Some Albany neighborhoods way uptown have fared okay under the last three administrations, not great but not too badly. It was the downtown neighborhoods that were encouraged to rot and became empty of inhabitants. It’s no exaggeration to say that some downtown neighborhoods came to resemble bombed out Cities in the Middle East, it took a lot of planning to make them that way.

The Lot At 418 South Pearl Street

South Pearl Street in the South End has been a sad mess for a long time, with a lot of empty storefronts and abandoned 19th Century buildings. It wasn’t always like that. When the nearby neighborhoods were packed with working class people of a variety of ethnic origins, and when the Port Of Albany was a bustling provider of a steady stream of good temporary jobs, the street thrived. South Pearl has never had the high-class polished demeanor of other downtown areas like lower State Street, but it used to be a practical and affordable retail and business district that attracted people from all over.

But in the last quarter of the 20th Century the nearby neighborhoods emptied of people and the Port of Albany was allowed by our local governments to languish and decay. For a while now South Pearl has not been the sort of street one wanders around at night, not unless one is very familiar with the people who live along there and with the nearby neighborhoods. Even in the middle of the day anyone perceived as an outsider is made to feel unwelcome, a stranger is frequently asked to explain one’s reason for walking down the street.

Fifteen years into the 21st Century there is a growing attitude that this situation needs to change, both from concerned citizens of the South End and from City officials. The general understanding is that South Pearl Street can only come back to life with private investment encouraged by steady government support. But that is not enough, that private investment has to respectful, a positive addition to the community and not another exploitative scam or money extracting operation that further degrades the street.

2nd Ward Council Member Vivian Kornegay And
Willie White Of AVillage

And so the latest private investment initiative is the construction of a new building that will host a Family Dollar, a national chain department store and grocery outlet. It took two years to bring this store to this desolate lot at the bottom of Second Avenue, located on the east side of the street which is mostly industrial. Neighborhood support, particularly from Joann Morton of the South End Neighborhood Association (SENA) and Second Ward Common Council Member Vivian Kornegay were vital to obtaining approvals from the City.

The first problem was that the lot was zoned Light Industrial, which meant that the Board of Zoning Appeals (ZBA) had to approve. The representatives of Family Dollar were under the impression that they only needed a variance, in other words an official exception to the zoning designation that would allow a retail outlet to be built in an industrial area. But after going through the process they were told that they needed a complete change of zoning and would have to reapply. That killed quite a few months.

In a recent presentation I heard Chris Spencer, the Directer of Planning for the City of Albany, declare that the current approvals process is bad, “it drives away developers.” Part of the problem with the current system, he said, is that the code is full of contradictory language and mostly says what is not allowed rather than what is wanted. This, I might add, suited the Old Boy kleptocrats of the last three administrations who could pretty much dictate their own preferences for development without having any hard and fast rules to break.

City Of Albany Planning Director Chris Spencer

The other problem with the current system, he told us, is that it is based on the separation of uses, that is, residences must be located exclusively inside this zone, commercial inside that zone, industrial in that one. Mr. Spencer did not add the obvious, that this suits suburban sprawl but is completely absurd when applied to older urban neighborhoods that are composed of mixed uses. In fact, this kind of boneheaded suburban type zoning has had a devastating effect on downtown neighborhoods such as this stretch of South Pearl Street.

The good news here is that the City is currently revising the zoning process, a massive undertaking called ReZone Albany. The idea is to establish “form-based zoning,” to lay out exactly what is wanted for a building built inside a particular zone, things like specific size, height, and distance from the street, but also allowing whatever mix of uses are traditional for each neighborhood. Special attention is paid to transition areas where zones meet, to “look at the edges to lessen tension,” as Mr. Spencer put it.

This revamping of zoning, which started last year, is an outgrowth of the Albany 2030 planning process. Like the bigger process ReZone has included public meetings to solicit input, but there hasn’t been much of a response from the public. On the other hand, the ReZone initiative could certainly be better advertised. Zoning may be awfully boring for most people but such local rules affect our daily lives more directly than things like presidential elections and Supreme Court decisions.

Project Managing Director Ken Brownell Makes A Statement, Mayor Sheehan And Willie White Listen

After submitting the inevitable State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) statement, the Family Dollar representatives had to go before the Historic Resources Commission (HRC.) Now, you might wonder how a desolate lot in a Light Industrial district would fall under their purview. There is currently a large garage type building being used for storage on the lot, and since for some reason the industrial lots and buildings on this side of the street happen to fall into the weird and illogical patchwork of historic districts, the HRC has final say over what goes there.

Plenty of developers and homeowners both big and small have complained over the years that the HRC has effectively stopped them from building and rebuilding inside these downtown historic districts. In past years the HRC has been used for that purpose by corrupt City officials and by loose cannon outfits like Historic Albany Foundation (HAF) to discourage development. The reasons for such behavior can be summed up as petty and personal without the slightest interest in promoting the good of the community.

In this case the HRC did manage to compel some positive changes to the design of 8300 square foot one story building so that it sits close to the sidewalk and places the parking lot to the north side of the building instead of in front. There will also be windows in front so that we don’t have a blank wall threatening the passersby. And of course the garage will be demolished, and the lot will be raised about six feet with clean fill and leveled off.

The Finished Building, Top Faces The Street,
Bottom Faces The Side Parking Lot,
Trees Are Totally Superfluous, Note The Bus Shelter

Finally it seems that the garage must undergo asbestos abatement before it is demolished because of the roof shingles. As a hazard to health this is a downright trivial problem, but State regulations require all materials containing asbestos to be removed by a licensed asbestos abatement company, which is a slow and expensive procedure. The roofing will end up in the Rapp Road Dump in the Pine Bush like everything else does, but procedures must be followed and construction of the building will not be able to start until later this year.

We had a ribbon cutting earlier this month, a low key affair attended by interested members of the community, various executives and project managers, City Planning Department employees who desperately needed the sunshine, and of course elected officials. There was one print reporter and a blogger but no TV. We had the obligatory mound of dirt so that a select group of important persons could put on white hardhats and use shovels spray painted gold so they could pretend to work for 30 seconds.

Mayor Sheehan gave a brief speech. “The South End is coming back,” she said. “This new construction is a symbol of hope. It starts with hope, it’s the job of the City to encourage hope.” The significance here is that in this part of the City we are still at the encouraging hope stage, or to put it another way, still developing pride in the neighborhood. This is not just platitudes, one thing that has been instrumental in Albany’s past decline has been an attitude among both the citizens of the City and outsiders that decline is inevitable.

Mayor Sheehan Remarks

I talked to the mayor for a few minutes, she told me the City has been following market studies that have confirmed what most downtown landlords know, that demand for apartments is tremendous and growing, even more than the demand for owner occupied houses. She told me the City is committed to planning for the construction of 100 to 200 new units per year for the next ten years, and so far has been exceeding that goal. But still, if you add up all the projects that are currently in the pipeline the City is only going to meet about 50 percent of demand.

I’ve heard repeatedly from City officials that the goal is to create mixed income communities downtown rather than what I would call Class Ghettos separating the rich, the poor and the middle classes as is common in the suburbs. The City’s role has been to jump start private investment of construction, according to Darren Scott of Albany Housing Authority (AHA) this investment by private entities has not yet happened on a large scale. Apparently there has to be more strategizing on how to go about reaching that “tipping point,” hopefully this new Family Dollar building is a step in that direction on South Pearl Street.

Ten years ago the City government was still interested only in promoting sprawl development in the western part of the City, a policy that went hand in hand with the policy of promoting decline in the downtown neighborhoods. Today we see a reversal of this anti-urban foolishness. Westward sprawl has crawled to a near stop thanks to citizen opposition, most notably because of the efforts of the environmental group Save the Pine Bush.

Finally Some Action: Agitating The Dirt

Now downtown neighborhood development is the priority. My theory has been that since the politicians can’t generate graft by promoting sprawl in the Pine Bush they have no choice but to collect their payoffs by rebuilding downtown. Well, so far I haven’t seen any evidence that Kathy Sheehan and her administration is stealing from the taxpayers, and I think it unlikely that she will slip back into traditional behavior in that regard.

The mayor isn’t perfect and she isn’t delivering any overnight miracles. But since she has taken office the fiscal problems are being confronted head on, the bureaucracy is becoming more efficient and more responsive, and the number of housing units is increasing. Now that they don’t have to deal with the Old Boy kleptocracy anymore, developers and business people are starting to move into Albany instead of moving out.

And most amazing of all, the population of the City of Albany is going up for the first time in over 50 years. We will be back over 100,000 residents in a year or so, and some say we are on track for 125,000 residents by the next census in 2020. I’ll say it again and again, if you want to invest in the future the City of Albany is the place right now. But hurry up if you want to buy in, the opportunities won’t last forever.

Ornamental Apple Tree Near My House That Same Morning

 

March 15, 2015

You’ve heard all the excuses from the management,
here’s why the in-house security failed

It was another riot at the Washington Avenue Armory in Albany, this time during a hip hop performance by an up and coming gansta rap group called Migos. That night You Tube was almost immediately loaded with phone videos of some of the mostly black concertgoers fighting and throwing around trash barrels and those big metal crowd-control barriers right out in the middle of the crowded floor. Meanwhile the performers egged on the rioters over the sound system, saying things like “Hit ‘im wit it, hit ‘im wit it, that’s gangsta my n—a, that’s real n—a, that’s how we do it!”

The riot resulted in numerous injuries, including six individuals suffering stab wounds (seven by some reports.) A young woman was badly beaten in the bathroom by a group of women while their male companions guarded the door, not for her purse as the local corporate media misreported, but for her apparently fashionable shoes. As of this writing the Albany Police, who were not consulted by Armory management prior to or during the show, have identified and arrested three of the rioters.

Inside The Washington Avenue Armory

The incident instantly reminded us locals of the infamous Foam Party Riot at the Armory in October of 2012. The difference was that the 2012 riot happened outside the building when the promoter of the event overbooked the show by at least twice the capacity of the venue, and the mostly white suburban kids and college students who couldn’t get inside attacked police and EMTs as if these first responders were responsible for their inconvenience. The management of The Armory was, of course, held responsible for allowing the promoters to get away with something like that, but the resulting changes to the Armory management in response to the incident turned out to be little more than cosmetic.

In both incidents the management of the Armory feigned surprise and tried to pass the blame, falsely claiming that they had provided adequate security. But according to my sources, mostly security professionals, the security for the 2015 Migos show was understaffed, underpaid and badly managed. These sources made it clear that the Armory management underprovided security as a matter of course, which is why the real pros refuse to work for the Armory and naturally did not work the Migos show.

Recent Publicity Photo Of Migos

It should go without saying that the Migos performers should be arrested and charged with inciting a riot, what they did that night at the Armory does not constitute Free Speech. But for some reason it looks like they won’t be held accountable. Perhaps there is fear by the authorities of getting embroiled in some kind of really stupid racial conflict, thus the authorities consider it easier to let these jerks leave town and tell them to not come back. Whatever the reason, the Migos performers have figured out how to start trouble and get paid handsomely for it.

That being said, the Armory management knew damn well what was going to happen. They’ve booked rap shows before, and besides, five minutes of Google would have shown them that this tendency to promote mindless violence is how Migos operates. In any case, Armory general manager Michael Corts and head of security Jim VanApeldorn have no excuse for not being properly prepared for the Migos show.

Washington Avenue Armory Head Of Security Jim VanApeldorn

Security head Jim VanApeldorn, who is also the head of the Albany Parking Bureau, is responsible for hiring security personnel for Armory events and for coordinating security arrangements with visiting performers. VanApeldorn was promoted to head of security immediately after the 2012 Foam Party Riot (which a participant to that event recently told me was not a foam party as the media claimed but a regular rave, whatever.) What has become clear in the past few weeks is that VanAppeldorn’s ascendancy to the head did not fix the problems with security, but actually appears to have made the problems worse.

Security jobs at venues like the Armory are, by necessity, part time. A few management and maintenance jobs at the Armory are full time, but most positions are only activated during events, most of which are held on weekends. Low key events, such as the Antiquarian Book Fair I attended there the morning after the 2012 riot, require no in-house security and if needed is provided by the event promoter.

Concertgoer Throwing A Crowd Control Barrier, Albany Migos Riot

Sporting events like basketball games require more security personnel, but for these the Armory characteristically uses casual hires. The real security pros tell me that the usual pay at the Armory is $75 a night, which is one of the two big reasons why they never work there. That was what the guards were paid the night of the Migos riot. As a result most of the Armory guards that night, except for VanApeldorn and his assistant, a fellow named Andy, were inexperienced young guys in their early 20s a few in their teens.

Not that youth is a problem, but I’m told that night VanApeldorn hired all the guards off the books and didn’t even keep records of who was working. Each guard was simply handed $75 cash at the end of the night which, I’m told, is the usual procedure. It also appears that he didn’t plan ahead to fill these positions, at the beginning of the show he was still scrambling for bodies and the show remained understaffed.

VanApeldorn was so disorganized that there weren’t enough SECURITY shirts to go around, the only thing that designates the guards as staff empowered to keep order. This became a serious problem during situations when unruly concertgoers would challenge their legitimacy during the show. This demonstrates that the Armory management did not have much concern for the safety of these guards.

Armory spokesperson Joe Bonilla laid out a bunch of spurious claims in an email that he issued to the local media. Quoted in the Hearst-owned Times Union:

During the Migos concert, the venue had 35 private security guards, five Albany police officers and four EMTs… The crowd was riled up because Migos was supposed to perform at 10:30 p.m., but the rappers did not go on stage until after midnight, Bonilla said. The Atlanta-based trio performed for 45 minutes…

January 31, 2015

All human beings are equal, there are no exceptions… I know that Martin would heartily agree no matter when he lived

It’s a cold dismal January here in the South End, dry with a lot less snow than last year. This Martin Luther King Day morning it was relatively warm, the temperature a hair above freezing. Once again I went out of my house in plenty of time to meet the marchers on their way to my neighborhood, but I underestimated that icy wind and had to keep my hands in my pockets, wishing I’d brought my gloves.

Lincoln Park In Dismal January

Actually I’d gone out an hour earlier at 10 AM to throw salt on the Morton Avenue sidewalk across the street from our Martin Luther King statue, the street is a slope that sits in shade and it was still sheer ice from the night before. On the Friday before the weekend I noticed a City crew clearing the snow and ice from around Martin’s memorial. Today on Monday I saw that the City had sent exactly one guy to scrape new ice from around the statue, he labored steadily.

City Guy Scrapes Ice

Okay, is everybody bored with this post already? The same old MLK Day post that I write every year? Well, I’m always fascinated that every single year a procession led by our leading local politicians, accompanied by various police in dress uniforms and of course the corporate media content providers all converge on my neighborhood. My neighborhood. Boy, that makes me feel like I live somewhere important.

Actually, one of the big reasons why I come out here to observe and photograph the procession and the speeches and The People singing and carrying signs is because I want everyone involved to know that someone in this neighborhood cares very much that the official New York State MLK Day observances terminate right here. That’s not the only reason, another is that I want a permanent online record of these visits to my neighborhood. Another is that hey, I like this chance to meet the elected and appointed authorities in my very own neighborhood, albeit briefly.

Albany Police officer Takes Down
The Barrier Across South Swan Street

While waiting for the marchers and enduring the cold breeze, I had a grim laugh watching cars pull up to the corner of Park Avenue and MLK Boulevard (which is what we call South Swan Street in the park.) The stop sign at this corner, you see, is set back about 20 feet or so from the actual spot where a car has to stop before safely proceeding into the intersection, which is at least ten feet past the crosswalk. This is because cars that park on MLK Boulevard block the view, only a crazy person would stop at the sign and then pull into the intersection without stopping.

About a month ago, I pulled up to this intersection in my truck, came to a complete stop, looked carefully, and then proceeded onto MLK Boulevard, only to be quickly pulled over by a cop. He was a rather short fresh-faced boy in a State Trooper uniform, obviously one of the Capital Cops who patrol the State buildings and for some reason have jurisdiction in the rest of the City. I told him quite honestly that I didn’t have the slightest idea why he had stopped me.

Standing next to my truck window, the boy was smiling so happily he looked like he might burst out giggling. He told me I hadn’t stopped at the intersection. I told him that I had. With enthusiasm he said, “You sailed past that stop sign at 11 miles an hour, you want to see?” Which I took to mean that the boy had been testing out some new surveillance gadget that morning and was thrilled with the results.

The Red Line Show Where Cars Normally Have To Stop To See Around Parked Cars, Apparently Confused By The Parked Police Car The Taxi Driver Stopped At The Crosswalk

I knew better than to argue with a cop, especially some unconfident kid carrying deadly weapons and a license to kill. Especially a kid who looked proud of himself for pulling a fast one. I decided later that day to make a major issue out of this. Within a few days I had a righteous blog essay written in my head, I was going take this to the Court Of Public Opinion and loudly irritate certain public officials.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I passed the written driving test when I was 16 years old, I know that the driver is supposed to stop twice, once at the stop sign and again where he has to stop. But who the hell does that? The cops certainly don’t do that. This was a technical violation that has nothing to do with safety, and I was ready to fight and expose what looked to me like an obvious Revenue Trap.

But a week later I got a letter in the mail from the City saying my “moving violation” was dismissed. It turns out the kid made a big mistake on the official violation form, he had scheduled my court date for this very MLK Day when the City courts are closed. Apparently that’s an automatic dismissal.

The Marchers Appear At The Crest Of The Hill

So on MLK Day, at the exact time when I was supposed to be sitting in court, I stood here at this same corner watching one car after another “sail past” the stop sign. But the Albany police officer sitting in his car did not seem in the least bit concerned since every driver stopped where they needed to. So much for my criminal career.

Which, standing on this corner, made me think of recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, where unarmed mobs of protestors confronted edgy cops riding military-issue battle wagons and brandishing the same heavy weaponry and body armor used to kill women and children in war zones like Afghanistan and Iraq. I suppose there’s a certain bravery in fighting with cops, but what was the point?

Instead, the protestors should have stuck to chasing down and hounding the elected and appointed officials, the top police brass, the local corporate media and other political authorities. I think that would have yielded better results, but what do I know. How would Dr. King have handled the Ferguson crisis?

The Marchers Appear On South Swan Street

When it was almost time for the marchers to appear, the Albany police officer that I waited with moved the barriers off South Swan Street, and instead used them to block Park Avenue. He told me that at almost the last minute he had gotten a call that the route had been changed for mysterious reasons. Sure enough, in a few minutes the procession appeared at the crest of the hill on South Swan Street and headed our way.

This was the first time I’d seen them take this route, which meant that the marchers had to walk up the steep hill on Madison Avenue for a little bit. It was, as marcher Assemblyman John McDonald pointed out to me after the event, a longer walk than the usual one. But after cresting the hill it was straight down for the marchers most of the way. I don’t believe the longer and somewhat more arduous route caused any medical emergencies.

The first thing I noticed was that we had two cops on horses leading the march behind the lead police car this year. Last year, the first year of mayor Kathy Sheehan’s reign, we had only one horse, which I was told by a police sergeant reflected the mayor’s concern with cost cutting. When Jerry Jennings was mayor we always had three horses no matter how dire the City’s financial condition. Perhaps this year’s two horses reflects cautious optimism by the new administration.

This Year’s Color Guard

So the marchers came by but they were strangely silent. Most years you can hear them singing We Shall Overcome long before they get to Lincoln Park. Instead we were treated to some preacher with a megaphone who was reciting the Our Father. Several other participants tried to get him to stop doing that, and eventually he shut up.

Banners And Homemade Signs

Another interesting difference from other years was that there was a very loose front line of elected officials. The former mayor always used this ceremony to show favor, if you were one of his In Crowd or a dignitary that outranked him you got to march shoulder to shoulder with him behind the color guard. That seems to have ended with Ms. Sheehan. While some of the elected and appointed officials grouped together, many were strung out all along the line of march almost to the end.

Carrying A Politically Incorrect Sign

One more interesting difference was that the collection of generic signs provided by the State and distributed to the marchers were missing. These signs would say things like “Equal Rights” or “Fair Housing” and were meant to be nostalgic and separate from ongoing realities. Last year I noted that the signs were getting a little tattered, and also noted that recent circumstances had started to make some of the bland messages on the signs relevant.

Instead what we had this year was a proliferation of homemade signs. A lot of them had quotes from Dr. King, there were pictures of the man and as usual there were some banners identifying the groups marching together. What was mostly missing was controversial or confrontational signs and banners. The only exception I spotted was a young lady carrying a pro-union sign, controversial because, as we all know, people who work for a living deserve no consideration or bargaining power and ought to be ground underfoot by the elites.

Every year I hope for some controversy, but I guess this march and ceremony is more about cooperation and solidarity than confrontation. But I can’t help but wonder what Dr. King would think about this yearly ritual if he were still with us. Would he disrupt it with a counter march, would he condemn it and avoid it, or would he see value in the ritual and approve?

The People Assembled Before The Memorial,
Listening To The Mayor

It was only as the marchers approached the statue that they finally broke into We Shall Overcome for a bit. That quickly ended as the common proles arranged themselves on the grass around the memorial. Meanwhile the politicians and other varieties of authorities crowded around the statue, while the police horses and color guard settled on the street behind the people.

The Politicians Assemble Before The People,
Mayor Sheehan at The Mic

Mayor Sheehan has turned out to be a top notch speechmaker, and like last year she took this opportunity to deliver an oration that held her listeners spellbound. Seriously, I was fascinated by the faces of her listeners, almost no one looked away from her as she spoke. She delivered it without notes, her theme was how we live in a time of great anxiety, and that anxiety can lead to positive changes.

Congressman Paul Tonko Reports To The People

Congressman Paul Tonko spoke after the mayor, he’s a good speechmaker himself but he’s met his match with Ms. Sheehan. His theme was more of a legislative report which revolved around social justice and opportunity. Basically he was doing what a Congressional legislator is supposed to do, report to The People what our government is up to.

Playing Taps For Martin

So two politicians spoke (three last year) and one reverend gave an invocation, followed by a live performance of Taps and it was over. People took their time drifting away, but as usual because of the cold they didn’t stick around too long. The politicians schmoozed a bit, the corporate media people took photos of the cute kids holding pictures of Dr. King, and that was it.

As I strolled back to my house I was surprised to see the mayor and our Congressman, along with several other notables, chatting with the cops at the corner Of Morton Avenue and MLK Boulevard. Both Ms. Sheehan and Mr. Tonko looked alarmed when I approached them, considering that I publicly support both of them I find that puzzling. But what the hey. I told each in turn as I passed them that I thought their speeches were excellent, both expressed pleasure at the sentiment and looked somewhat surprised. Huh.

Treasurer Darius Shahinfar, The Mayor’s Communications Director Dennis Gaffney, Congressman Paul Tonko and
The Mayor’s Chief Of Staff Matt Peter
Talk To The Cops On Morton Avenue

One can only speculate what Martin Luther King would be doing if he were around today. Of course he would be incredibly old, but I don’t mean that. I mean what if he were 39 years old, in the prime of life and accomplishment like when he was murdered by persons unknown, how would he handle the events of today.

The more I think about it, the more I realize the question is absurd. It has finally dawned on me that Dr. King was irrevocably a man of his times and to try to remove him from his own era and shoehorn him into ours is at best an exercise in self-deception. Do you really want to imagine him texting, or holding a cell phone next to his head while ignoring everyone around him?

In 1968, when Dr. King was shot down, America was at the height of its power and had not quite begun the tailspin decline that we are all too aware of today. National politicians still made sure to consult with the voters before selling them out, corporations and Wall Street manipulators were careful to not appear too greedy, and jobs paying living wages were plentiful. Most of our national wealth was carefully regulated and recycled back into our nation, thus insuring that there would be a slow but steady rising tide of prosperity for the majority.

Albany High School Basketball Players, They Were Supposedly Serving Hot Chocolate

In those days Dr. King and his collaborators demanded that the national prosperity be available to all, even to the lowest and most despised members of our society. If the 39 year old Dr. King were here with us in 2015, would that prime demand still be valid? Can we still be demanding a more fair distribution of wealth when the system has become rigged so that the worst possible parasites can siphon off our wealth and use that wealth to wage class war against the rest of us?

I think it much more than an intellectual exercise to ask these questions. And yet, just as we have frozen Dr. King in time, we have frozen his program in time and not updated the demands put forth by Dr. King and those who walked with him. Asking what the man would be doing today is not a casual question, it is one that demands careful analysis and an honest assessment of the problems involved with our national decline.

One thing I do know for sure. Between 1968 and 2015, if Dr. King’s life had spanned these years, he would have been pilloried and discredited by the corporate media. The nasty liars at FOX “News” and the snotty liars at NPR and all the other corporate media outfits would have hammered him relentlessly for daring to rise above his “station in life” and for insisting on the politically incorrect truth of universal equality.

 

January 9, 2015

The Legislature of Albany County takes a big step toward ineffectiveness and illegitimacy by reducing representation just a little bit

The Albany County Legislature, the ruling body of what arguably may be the most effective and fiscally sound County government in New York State, is getting all ready to reduce the number of its elected seats from 39 to 35. You might recall that last month the Legislature had been planning to reduce representation from 39 seats to 25, a reduction of 14 seats. But now in January it looks like the elimination of four seats is perilously close to becoming a done deal on the 16th of this month.

There are plenty of reasons why this institutional self-mutilation is a plan so terrible that it looks like pure stupidity. The corporate media, the propaganda arm of the Corporate Political Agenda, has been beating the drum for reduction of representation in local legislatures for years. Those people, along with certain local politicians, are delighted with this latest proposed reduction of local democracy, even if it is a smaller reduction than what they had hoped for. Of course they are delighted, both popular democracy and representative government are incompatible with the drive to establish corporate dictatorship at all levels of society.

Back in December the apparent motivation for this political self abuse was the desire to get out from under a lawsuit that is calling for the creation of one more minority-based voting district, but according to several lawyers who have testified at public hearings that won’t work. Reduction of seats will not make he lawsuit go away and the Legislature may be forced to seat another black person in their chamber whether they want to or not. But now in January it looks like the only motivation left for reduction of seats is the desire by certain politicians to gradually exclude the voting public from representation in County government.

My Neighborhood, Light January Snowstorm At Dawn

Last month I wrote a lovely seven page attack on the original proposal to reduce County seats to 25, but the political leadership fooled me and everybody else who believes in American Democracy. But suddenly, on the 29th of December, the Legislature voted down the original proposal and “sent it back to committee” apparently to die. We all thought the reduction proposal was effectively dead. My beautiful long rant was no longer relevant, or so I’d thought.

But the push to reduce representation didn’t die. The other day Legislator Doug Bullock alerted me to the latest sneaky plan to cut four seats, that it is likely to be pushed through the Legislature and voted on before this month is out. That’s Mr. Bullock doing what a Legislator is supposed to do, inform the public about power grabs by scheming officials. Power grabs like this one.

Martinsville Hill, Lincoln Park January Light Snow At Dawn

Sending the plan back to committee last month turned out to be a ruse to misdirect the voting public, it appears that the plan all along has been to eliminate four seats. Why only four? To put it simply, there are certain County Legislators who, shall we say, don’t automatically take orders from majority leader Frank Commisso Sr., who is the effective head of the Legislature. These troublemakers need to be ousted so that Commisso can conduct business as usual without objections.

Although I haven’t heard him say so, you can be sure that Mr. Bullock will be one of those Legislators who will have his seat eliminated. Doug has always been a troublemaker and has never quietly obeyed the majority leader. If it comes to this, it will be interesting to see which three other Legislators Commisso wants to get rid of most, which ones show him the least obedience.

The whole proposal last month to cut 14 seats was like a test of public response. If hardly anybody (other than the usual suspects who habitually go out in public to defend Democracy) objected to a massive reduction in December, well, even fewer people will object to reducing four seats sometime in January. The idea is to slip this by and turn it into a done deal and hope no one riots and burns down the majority leader’s house in the 15th ward of Albany.

Looking Up At ML King Boulevard, Lincoln Park, January, Snow, Dawn

If I haven’t been clear so far, let me explain the motivation for reducing seats in the County Legislature. The main point is to exclude the public from County government, even if just by a little bit.

The best summary I’ve seen so far of reasons for not reducing the size of the Legislature were put forth in a letter published in Metroland back on December 19. The letter was written by man about town, troublemaker and math teacher Tom Ellis, who is one of that dwindling breed, a committed defender of American Democracy and of the Bill of Rights. This list is not at all comprehensive, but Mr. Ellis has provided some of the more obvious reason why we need complete representation at the County level:

1. greater racial diversity;
2. legislators have smaller districts and are thus theoretically closer to voters;
3. easier for less wealthy candidates to get elected;
4. more representative of the public;
5. more legislators are available to serve on standing and ad hoc committees;
6. rural areas of the county are better represented;
7. decreases the power of party bosses and elites; and
8. reduces the likelihood bad legislation can be rushed through the legislature.

In addition Mr. Ellis added a ninth reason, perhaps the most important of all. He writes, “…Our society is becoming more complex with each passing year… A larger legislature has more collective expertise and can bring a more informed debate to new and challenging issues than a reduced-sized legislature.” No one person can effectively govern even a small local government effectively, government of a modern society of any size requires a lot of collaborators and needs constant oversight from the governed.

State Buildings Above The Bath House, Lincoln Park, January, Snow, Dawn

Dictatorial regimes fail to be effective because the dictator is a power bottleneck that stifles administration rather than governs. An excellent example is the 20 year reign of Jerry Jennings as the dictatorial mayor of the City of Albany, a time during which Albany neighborhoods disintegrated, jobs disappeared, the population steadily declined and the City was mismanaged into near bankruptcy. Jennings spent an inordinate amount of his 20 years using City resources to harass perceived political opponents so as to maintain his hold on power, that was his prime consideration as mayor.

Whatever one thinks of the new mayor Kathy Sheehan she is clearly not a dictator. Nor would current circumstances permit her to be a dictator if she tried to be one. Ms. Sheehan has to work with the same forces that rebelled and brought down Jennings, this includes a Common Council that does not automatically defer to authority like they did in the past. The current majority on the Common Council was popularly elected and hold no particular allegiance to either the mayor or to backroom power brokers.

But suppose, just suppose, that Ms. Sheehan wanted to seize control of the Common Council, what would be the most effective way for her to do that? Why, by reducing the the number of seats on the Common Council, from 15 to say 12, or 9, or better yet to 7 like the miserably unrepresentative Schenectady City Council. If you want to dictate policy, you can’t really do that if the voters continue to elect representatives who don’t always go along with the dictated agenda.

Tree, Lincoln Park, Dawn, Snow, January

That’s why we need Legislatures. These are the people we choose to watch over the hungry power brokers, to keep the scheming potential dictators in check, and to report back to the voters. We The People don’t have time to watch these bozos, we have other things to do. If our representation is taken away, or reduced a little bit now and a little bit later, then the dictators and power brokers can play with our money and our communities and we have no way to counter their power other than with extreme disruptive actions.

In the long run a Legislature with reduced representation will actually increase inefficiency. Reducing debate and concentrating power into a few hands vastly increases the likelihood that poor and disastrous decisions will be made in the back rooms. This is what I mean by a power bottleneck, all one dictatorial power broker can do is run in place to maintain his or her position, real economic development for the community is stifled and strangled before it can rattle their little power and money playpen.

Mr. Ellis managed to find and isolate the main arguments of the proponents of reducing representation, he discovered four. Well, at any rate, these are what the pro-corporate reductionists have been saying in public:

1. increase efficiency;
2. improve bipartisanship;
3. promote increased competition in elections; and
4. save money for taxpayers.

The first two, “increased efficiency” and ‘improved bipartisanship,” are doublespeak ways of saying, “eliminate debate of issues and proposals and limit input from the voters.” Of course dictatorship increases efficiency in the short run, there’s no one to object to the dictator. As for the third item, “increased competition in elections,” that’s simply putting a nice spin on the more truthful “force candidates to become beholden to big money.” Spin with a big smirk.

Lampost, Dawn, January, Snow, Lincoln Park

Really, the only argument worth considering is to “save money.” The Charter Review Commission’s skimpy report of last January said reducing the legislature from 39 to 25 members might save County taxpayers $400,000 a year. Maybe saving four hundred grand a year in a budget of more than half a billion dollars is a ridiculous reason to drastically reduce the size of the Legislature. But even if this is true, which it probably isn’t, is this a justification for excluding the public from government?

But wait, with the new proposal to eliminate only four seats this argument, really the only one, becomes even more idiotic. Using this unsupported savings of $400,000 as a guide, eliminating four seats will “save” a lousy $114,000. Funny how nobody has bothered to make and publish this simple calculation. So much for that justification.

You can be sure that our elected officials will find some way to instantly disappear this paltry savings, if it exists. It has always been a wonder to me that anybody still falls for that “save money in government" Austerity line. When was the last time saving money by cutting back services resulted in any sort of benefit to taxpayers? Has that ever happened? Every single time that we are handed this Austerity crap the essential services disappear, the alleged savings disappear and our taxes go up again as usual.

Schoolbus Picking Up Kids, My Neighborhood, January, Snow, Dawn

The League Of Women Voters of Albany County, once an active bastion of American Democracy, has deeply debased itself by enthusiastically supporting the original proposal to eliminate 14 seats in the County Legislature. Presumably they also support the reduction by four seats. President Lois Griffin says,

The League of Women Voters 0f Albany County (LWVAC) strongly supports reducing the number of legislators to the County Legislature. At present, Albany County has the highest number of legislators, but that does not mean we are most representative.
It does mean we are paying for inefficiency.

December 13, 2014

Suddenly the politicians and the corporate media notice that suburbanites use opiates

One year ago in December 2013 the local corporate media was aghast and screaming about an incident that happened in Clifton Park, the highest income suburb outside of Albany. Like all too many high income suburbs across the country, the Saratoga County township is a heavily subsidized wasteland of parking lots and sprawl populated mainly with blank, alienated children and distracted adults who ignore their kids as much as possible. That this incident was considered surprising by anyone is really the only surprising thing.

It seems that during school hours at Shenendehowa public high school in Clifton Park, a 17 year old student was accused of helping a 15 year old student use a hypodermic needle to inject heroin. The reports say the kids were seen exchanging pills near the lockers, another kid ratted out the stoners. The 15 year old admitted shooting up, school officials called the State Troopers and arrests of the kids were followed with public hand wringing.

As a result of this incident the local corporate media announced that heroin had “arrived” in the suburbs, like all of a sudden. Total bullcrap. Local suburban kids have been using heroin and prescribed opiates for decades. What makes this certainly nasty and high-profile incident significant was that it caused the sudden collapse of the local corporate media’s careful censorship of reports of widespread heroin use and arrests across the local suburbs of the Capital District.

Shenendehowa Student And Heroin User Daniel Lewis

One of the few local media sources that have been reporting on heroin use in the suburbs over the years is the reliable and decidedly non-corporate Altamont Enterprise, a venerable weekly newspaper that covers the Hilltowns and western suburbs of Albany County. Incidents such as the frequent heroin arrests at the Crossgates Mall parking lot have been consistently reported by the Enterprise, most often in the paper’s police blotter. Yet until recently these same stories, no matter how spectacular, simply did not appear in either the daily newspapers or on the TV or radio.

The very specific purpose of this careful censorship of suburban drug use was to maintain the illusion that heroin sales and use is a problem confined to urban communities such as Albany, Schenectady and Troy. The illusion was mostly successful for a long time, it fed into the widespread suburbanite prejudice against sustainable urban communities and against those of us who live in Cities. The censorship helped reinforce the suburbanite delusion of superiority, they’re clean living people while us urban dwellers are dirty and inferior.

Now, I have nothing against harmless delusions, but these particular delusions have an expensive social impact that falls directly on my shoulders, and upon those of my neighbors. Because these suburbanites have traditionally denied the existence of heroin and prescription opiate use in their municipalities, they don’t have the support services or really any way to deal with their own homegrown drug problem. What these suburbanites do routinely is to dump their heroin and alcohol addicts on the Cities, all too often on the South End of Albany where I live.

Adam Rappaport, His Mother’s Favorite Photo and His Mug Shot

Last month the Altamont Enterprise told the tragic backstory of 22 year old Adam Rappaport, who hung himself to death in Albany County Jail in October. A lifelong resident of Guilderland (a suburb in western Albany County) Mr. Rappaport became addicted to opiates while still in his teens. After he was hospitalized because of a snowboarding accident at 16 he was given basically an unlimited supply of prescription oxycodone to take home, a familiar story.

These opiate prescriptions, which doctors and medical centers hand out like door prizes these days, is probably the number one reason why heroin has become increasingly popular with younger people and become “a crisis.” It appears to be very easy to receive opiate prescriptions and to become addicted. Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of these legal opiate addicts.

Some people, a minority, really like the way opiates make them feel and keep wanting more, much the way a small but significant part of the population likes the drug alcohol and can’t get enough. Most opiate addicts that I’ve encountered lately appear to be content with the legal pills, either dozing about the house or sleepwalking through their days. But some seem to want a stronger feeling from their downers and gravitate toward stronger opiates like heroin, apparently Mr. Rappaport was one of those people.

Front Door Of The Albany City Mission On South Pearl Street

By September of this year Mr. Rappaport’s life situation had disintegrated alarmingly. He could no longer take care of himself properly, and various attempts to detox him had failed and he had become suicidal. At that point his only friend and supporter was his mother, who was trying to help him but was running out of options.

I can only have sympathy for his mother, no parent should ever have to go through such an ordeal. But what she did next, as I read the Enterprise account at my kitchen table, made me want to start flinging dinnerware around the room. I certainly started cursing. So what does a suburban mother do with a son who is a hopeless addict and a burden on society? From the Enterprise:

“He didn’t want to be a burden,” she said. “He had exhausted all of his options for living.” Through tears, she said, “I brought him to the city mission. I didn’t know what else to do… I wanted him to at least have a warm place to sleep and food. They were so welcoming and there was no judgment”… Unfortunately, she said, his detox did not last, and he went back to using heroin, getting high during the day before going to the Capital City Rescue Mission for the night.

November 30, 2014

Sometimes you get what you get when you get the internet

Well, it happens to the best and the worst of us. The mechanical hard drive on my trusty reliable ten year old Macbook Pro started making horrible noises, and now The Wife is talking about taking it to a specialist for data recovery. On my laptop is the oh so brilliant and excruciatingly long blog essay explaining the current political situation which I now can’t access and bring to a stunning conclusion for your reading enjoyment and edification. To tell the truth it kinda sucked anyway.

So here I’ll show you some photos I’ve recently taken, with a bit of narrative. I might’ve had more pictures to show but of course they’re all on my laptop. But I have a few available. This photo is the best one I’ve taken recently, it’s very nice.

Hornet’s Nest In Front Of My House

This sucker is hanging from the maple tree in front of my house. The Wife noticed it in passing like last week, but on early Thanksgiving afternoon a friend who had come by to help eat our turkey was all ecstatic about it. She had tried to take a photo with her phone but the nest came out as a dark blob because of the light behind it.

So I went outside with my camera and stood in a snow bank with the sun behind me to get this photo. It’s funny that we didn’t have a hornet problem during the warm months, I guess the inhabitants of the nest knew enough to stay away from the house and the humans. The Wife wanted me to take it down and bring it into the house, but she had no plans for it. We don’t need any more lovely works of natural beauty decaying in the corners of the house so it stays on the tree.

That snowy Thanksgiving morning The Wife had gone off to run in the Troy Turkey Trot 5K. Despite the not particularly severe snowstorm, which the corporate media shrilly hyped as “snowpocolypse,” the various Turkey Trot races attracted about four billion people and went off smoothly with no snow or ice obstructions on the roadways. Not a speck, according to The Wife. Indeed, the Turkey Trot authorities announced that the race would run as planned even before the snow started falling the night before.

Some Of The Wife’s Turkey Trot Medals

Most years that she runs The Wife gets a t-shirt and a medal. It’s like a non-confrontational alternative kindergarten, nobody loses and everybody is a winner. She’s collected a bunch of these medals over the years, which she hangs proudly on a mirror, and she wears the current one for a few days. Some of her collected medals are quite stately, but this year’s medal is about the silliest looking award for anything I’ve ever seen.

I usually go with her to the 5Ks to lend support as she plods. This race I let her go by herself because I wanted to get the turkey into the oven early and certainly didn’t want to put it in and let it burn down the house while I was standing on the side of the road in Troy freezing my sweet butt for the better part of an hour waiting for The Wife to trudge into view. I look forward to cooking and eating this turkey every year, it was 25.8 pounds and no way was it going to be ruined.

Every year we special order this bird in the summer from Homestead Farms out on Route 2 across the river on the other side of Brunswick, climbing the hill toward the Vermont border. Despite buying the best quality poultry from them for like forever, for some reason I can never remember the name of the poultry farm so I always call it The Chicken Ladies because it is mostly run by women. This turkey, like all their birds, had a short but happy hormone-less and antibiotic-less free-range life, and then the bird had one very bad day which was last Saturday. We went out to the farm to pick up the prepared bird late afternoon this past Sunday.

It’s Big, But Last Year’s Bird Was More Than 29 Pounds And Almost Didn’t Fit In The Oven

The reason I had abandoned The Running Wife that morning to cook a turkey was because my friend, who is a fine upstanding person who deserves better, earlier this year was forced to take a job with a certain large corporate retailer. If I mentioned on this blog which one she works for and what she does there she would probably come after me with an iron pipe. Despite hating every second of it she needs the job, which, as everyone ought to know, are in short supply.

So the corporate retailer decreed that she had to come in to work at 6 PM on Thanksgiving and work straight through to 6 AM without overtime. Usually on Thanksgiving she drives down to New Jersey for her annual visit to her elderly relatives who are not getting any younger or any healthier, and she was much distressed about that. So I hoped to ease her pain a bit by inviting her to share our meal, but that meant the bird had to go in the oven at 9 AM right after The Wife had to leave for Troy.

There should be a law that no one except a few essential service people should be forced to work on Thanksgiving, and any corporate executive who insists otherwise should simply be shot on sight. Anyone who shops for non-essential items on Thanksgiving should be thrown into solitary until after Christmas. My friend who had to work all night later reported that a fair number of customers showed up at her job in the evening while the snow was falling heavily, but between midnight and 6 AM almost no one showed up. I mean, what do people purchase at 5 AM other than coffee and maybe breakfast.

She showed up at our house on Thanksgiving about 1 PM shortly after The Wife got back, with her two teenage sons and a migraine headache. The 15 year old: “So when do we eat?” She was not looking forward to going to work at 6 PM, but I made sure that at least she wouldn’t descend to retail hell that evening with an empty stomach.

The Ornamental Apple Tree I Planted At The Corner Of Morton Avenue And South Swan Street Like 20 Years Ago,
Thanksgiving Morning

We always hear ad nauseam that “Black Friday” is the biggest shopping day of the year, but actually by sales it’s the fifth biggest shopping day and for the last few years the numbers have been declining. You wouldn’t know that from the corporate media, which pushes this falsehood because of the advertising sales bonanza that it gets. I strongly suspect that my friend and all the other grunt retail employees are forced to work overnight and on Thanksgiving so as to artificially boost the Black Friday sales numbers (which are usually calculated as “the weekend.”)

I shared this thought with my friend, she was not in the least bit comforted by it. By the next day she was pretty much shot through and gibbering. At the end of her rope and probably drooling into her lap she emailed me the following:

$10 Door busters. They don’t even really care what it is. Oh my God, I need that $10 door buster. What the f–k is it? Who cares? It’s $10! I need five

October 31, 2014

Fear, nastiness and dirty tricks sideline public discussion of the Albany City budget

When I was a kid, growing up in a semi-rural town in New York State, I was told by the adults that if you wanted the local volunteer fire department to show up in a timely fashion when your house is burning, then you’d better be on good terms with the fire guys. You’d better buy their raffle tickets every year, and the occasional donation of a case of beer was a good idea. Whatever you do, the elders let me know, you don’t make them angry at you because if you do, when you have to call them, precious minutes will tick by as they take their time on their way to your blazing home.

So I will start this by saying that the City of Albany Fire Department is by far the most efficient and effective fire fighting outfit that I have had the opportunity to witness. Over the years I have had to call the Albany FD several times, including one substantial fire caused by a roofer working on one of my buildings. On that occasion as on others, the Albany FD responded rapidly, worked very professionally and did a completely thorough job. I clutched my head and screamed as they swung axes and tore apart my roofline, but I knew that fire was totally extinguished.

The problems with the Albany FD begin when the fire fighters are not fighting fires. For example, by spreading fear and panic among South End citizens, the fire fighter’s union recently managed to divert public opinion away from the fact that FD personnel are receiving taxpayer money for work that they no longer perform, and FD personnel continue to receive unjustified overtime pay. But what bothers me the most was their cynical manipulation of my neighbors, actions which demonstrated a dangerous contempt for the City of Albany and for those of us who live here.

Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan Attempts To Start The Budget Presentation Meeting At Howe Library

This past October 15, City of Albany mayor Kathy Sheehan tried to conduct a presentation of the City budget at Howe Library, the South End’s beautiful “crown jewel” of the library system. This was one of eight presentations given by the mayor in different neighborhoods around the City, which will be capped by a ninth presentation at the Council of Albany Neighborhood Associations (CANA) on November 5 at the main library. This is an important partial fulfillment of the mayor’s pre-election promise to bring transparency to the City budget, which under her predecessors was wrapped in secrecy and hid questionable expenditures.

Of course I had to attend the Howe Library presentation, just to see what would happen. I was well aware that the the fire fighter’s union (officially called the Albany Permanent Professional Firefighter’s Association Local 2007) was up to their old tricks, dealing with impending contract negotiations by mobilizing their personal to publicly act in a aggressively threatening manner toward the City administration. At that point it was beginning to look like their tactics had taken a nasty turn beyond merely harassing City officials, so I knew this public meeting would be a raucous show.

But I was not prepared for this level of rudeness and general bad behavior. I watched as South End residents, whipped into a frenzy of ignorant fear by the fire fighter’s union, shouted down the mayor and refused to show her enough curtesy to let her talk about the budget. And through it all the FD employees stood in the back of the room, smiling smugly, pleased with their handiwork.

Fire Fighters Line The Back Wall Of The Meeting Room

It was disgusting to watch. There are times when it is appropriate to shout down government officials, to threaten them when they are failing at their duties to the people. This was not one of those times.

To be clear: I was deeply disgusted by both the actions of manipulative fire fighters and by the bad behavior of the South End residents who allowed themselves to be manipulated into acting like spoiled children, as if they were given permission to misbehave. The smirking fire fighters and misbehaving residents treated this meeting like it was a big game. It certainly was not some stupid game, we should all be glad to see the administration attempt to bring transparency to the traditionally secretive City budget.

Most Of Those Present Wanted To Listen

The majority of citizens present did not disrupt the meeting, but soon the people in the back of the room devolved into crowd frenzy and refused to stop shouting. Occasionally the fire guys would throw in catcalls. I watched several persons of the the type who regularly hang on the edges of the political scene get caught up in the excitement, yelling and jumping around happily without making much sense. The mayor was forced into silence and stood off to one side as several community leaders stood up and attempted to restore order.

The racial aspect must be commented upon. Every single fire fighter in the back of the room was white, almost all suburbanites. Most of the South End residents in the back of the room who disrupted the meeting were black, with one significant exception. Among these folks was a white woman who began disrupting the meeting with catcalls and shouts before the meeting even started. I can’t prove anything, but she looked to me like a classic planted agitator. I’ll be keeping an eye out for her in the future.

Fire Fighters Disrupt The Meeting With A Planned Walkout

About ten minutes after the mayor had started speaking, the majority of fire guys present suddenly staged a noisy walkout, obviously planned and obviously meant to show contempt for the City of Albany. The guys who walked out didn’t go very far, upon leaving the Howe Library meeting room they took up position lining the hallway outside the door. Later, when people were leaving after the meeting, the fire guys smirked at us as we passed and said, “Thanks for coming.” As if it was their meeting and their community.

The fire fighter’s union carefully prepared this encounter, it was a fine piece of media and social manipulation. Indeed it was rather scary how effective it was. You couldn’t pay a consultant to do a better job of spreading ignorance and fear. Some of these fire union guys should get jobs working for FOX “News” or for Republican congressional candidates, spreading misinformation about ebola or immigrants or Obamacare. I mean, their manipulations were masterful.

Mayor Sheehan Tries To Continue The Presentation, With Fire Chief Warren Abriel

The first thing the fire fighter’s union guys did, several weeks before the Howe Library meeting, was to feel out the community to see what techniques would work. I saw one of these probes at the October 1st Council of Albany Neighborhoods (CANA) meeting, where a couple of union guys gave a presentation to us neighborhood representatives. They told us the one thing we wanted to hear, that the fire fighter’s union wanted to develop closer ties with the neighborhoods. Naturally we were pleased to hear that.

They then told us some things that were not exactly true, such as that two thirds of the fire fighters live in the City of Albany. I was certainly impressed by that. After the meeting I learned the truth, that less than one quarter of the fire fighters live in our community, but if you add in all the office clerks, janitors and such then the two thirds figure is more or less accurate. Technically not a lie, merely misleading spin.

I should add that I’ve heard that several of the fire stations in the City really are community based, that most of the fire fighters in those stations actually live in the neighborhoods that they service. One of those, I’ve been told, is the firehouse on Delaware Avenue, you know, the lovely ornate building with the beavers on top. But most of the fire guys commute to Albany to work, and after their shifts go back to the suburbs to spend their salaries and pay taxes.

The Wonderful Incredible Delaware Avenue Firehouse

The two union guys at CANA mentioned to us that the mayor had proposed eliminating Ladder #1, a fire truck assigned to South Station at Morton Avenue and South Pearl Street. Seeing as I live up the street from South Station I was alarmed at hearing this, and asked for clarification. The guys were visibly pleased by my strong interest, but they were careful to not reveal the whole story about Ladder #1.

Later I was informed that Ladder #1 does not have a regular crew. Rather, it is manned entirely by fire fighters who are receiving overtime pay, 24 hours a day, no matter what time or day of the week they are working! It costs taxpayers an extra $1.2 million per year to pay this overtime. The two union guys at CANA kinda forgot to mention this very important detail.

A reasonable citizen who cheerfully pays taxes may wonder how and why such a ridiculously wasteful overtimed boondoggle came about. About four or five years ago our financially incompetent former mayor Jerry Jennings once again needed to balance the City budget, or at least give the appearance that he was doing so. Thus to save money he cut back the number of personnel in the FD, eliminating about 18 positions.

I recall hearing Jennings explain that he was eliminating those FD positions by attrition, that is, by not laying off anybody, but it was still strange how the fire fighter’s union didn’t raise a big stink at the time. It turns out that the former mayor enshrined this unnecessary overtime in the union contract. This gift from the unknowing taxpayers mollified the rank and file sufficiently, I’ll bet they all fought to get assigned to Ladder #1.

Mayor Sheehan Sidelined At Left As First Ward Common Council Member Dorcey Applyrs Tries To Restore Order

Along comes our new mayor Kathy Sheehan, who has been forced to wrestle with the massive budget deficit bequeathed to her by Jerry. Quite naturally Ms. Sheehan wanted to eliminate this waste of money, and quite naturally the FD guys want to keep their free ride on the backs of the taxpayers. What do they care if it rips off the community, most of them don’t live here.

According to Albany Fire Chief Warren Abriel, the department needs those 18 unfilled positions to stay fully staffed. But the sad fact is that with Jerry’s leftover crippling deficit there is no way that the City is going to hire another 18 fire fighters, not this year and probably not soon. Thus the mayor proposed sidelining this prohibitively expensive firetruck to help balance the budget.

Having tested the waters and found their handle, the fire fighter’s union paid for media advertisements that heavily implied that fire service was being curtailed in the South End. Plus the union guys started meeting with South End civic organizations, telling them their lives were in danger because of the mayor. There were a substantial number of people at that Howe Library meeting who seriously believed that the City was planning to close South Station.

South End Firehouse (“South Station”) At South Pearl Street And Morton Avenue

This was all pure horsecrap, but it worked. Many people in the South End still remain deeply suspicious of a City government that until recently followed a policy of neglect and repression of the South End, so they fell for it hook line and stinker. It never ceases to amaze me how easily people are led by advertisements in the corporate media as if those paid for ads were biblical word of law.

When I was questioning the union guys at CANA, I alluded to how until recently they used to do building code inspections. At the time I was puzzled by their reaction, they stared at me for about five seconds and then gave a cautious, noncommittal answer to my query. But in a moment they realized I didn’t know the true story, so they smiled and continued with their bullcrapping.

The true story is that the FD personnel are no longer doing building inspections, but according to their contract they must be paid for doing inspections as long as the current contract is in effect. They are being paid extra for doing nothing extra. A person who is well informed about these matters laid it out for me:

The 2015 City budget lists the "Code Stipend" totaling: $341,000. I believe that amount is divided equally among the firefighters. If the department was fully staffed at 245 firefighters, that would be $1392 per firefighter. Buildings and Regulatory Compliance does the code inspections now. Their eight code inspectors get paid $33,825 apiece or $270,600. So, the firefighters stipend is even more than the code inspectors make in toto. Combined, we are paying $611,600 for code inspections.

September 30, 2014

The Blogger rants: the hardline corporatist governor of New York State is not getting my vote this year and it’s time for us to fight and defeat ersatz Democrats like him along with their corporate sponsors

The children repeat the crimes of their fathers precisely because they feel morally superior to them. -Rene Girard

Yes, I’m going to join with all the other commenters and pile myself on top of New York State governor Andrew Cuomo, now that everybody understands the nature of his biggest weakness. His strong win in the September 9 Democratic Primary was a resounding defeat. The thing is, this race was closely watched across the country because it convincingly demonstrated that a new something that is actually very old and powerful is rising among the electorate. Meanwhile, the corporate establishment, represented by Andrew Cuomo, is terrified.

Cuomo racked up a 59.92 percent vote total against an unknown challenger named Zephyr Teachout, who had no political experience and no money and who only managed 33.08 percent. But suddenly even the corporate media is writing Cuomo’s political obituary, stunned by the emerging political reality that they don’t like one bit. It appears that a significant number of voters are beginning to realize that we are being systematically looted to death by corporate traitors, and the voters are starting to identify the politicians responsible.

And it has become blaringly obvious that Andrew Cuomo has been making a serious political error by pandering to the radical right fringe when he should have been accommodating the majority center. Instead he chose to smirkingly dismiss the Liberal mainstream majority voters as irrelevant. Thus ends the carefully crafted illusion that Andrew is a master of politics who learned from the errors of his father, former New York governor Mario Cuomo.

Ungracious Andrew Cuomo (With Sash) Pointedly Ignores His Primary Opponent Zephyr Teachout (Left) At A Parade In NYC

The first interesting thing is that this last Democratic gubernatorial Primary was purely an issue driven election. Most elections are about competency, that is, the ability of the candidates to handle the office and represent the interests of society as a whole. For the majority of voters in most elections, issues take a back seat to competency, how candidates handle the issues during the campaign is usually seen as an indication of their overall abilities.

Voters did not have to consider competency (not anyone I talked to around here) because no one believed that Zephyr Teachout had any chance of winning and becoming governor. Thus voters could compare Ms. Teachout’s middle-of-the-road common sense American positions with Cuomo’s extreme radical corporatism without worrying about her political experience as compared to his. I swear I detected a sense of uncommon freedom among voters in this election, a sense that they could express their true thoughts at the voting station for once instead of biting their lips and choosing the lesser of two evils.

Zephyr Teachout Logo Made By An Enthusiastic Admirer

It would be easy to dismiss Ms. Teachout’s stunning results as purely a referendum against Cuomo himself, and that’s sorta kinda how the corporate media is spinning it, an electoral reaction to Andrew’s abrasive personality. Well, you know there was some of that, although that wasn’t a major reason that anyone I talked to filled in the box on the ballot for her and not him. But for most Democratic voters who voted for her, personality was at most secondary to Ms. Teachout’s firm opposition to the creeping scourge of corporatism embodied by Andrew Cuomo.

At this moment there is no mistaking the rising tide of anti-corporatism unless you close your eyes, put your hands over your ears and chant La La La. For instance, you might recall from last June how House Majority Leader and rising media star Eric Cantor went down in spectacular flames in a Republican Primary in Virginia to an unknown college professor named David Brat. Incumbent Cantor spent 24 times as much money as Brat, $5.7 million to $238,000. Apparently money wasn’t the deciding factor in this election… or was it?

The corporate media, always quick to coverup uncomfortable truths, attributed the Virginia upset to the issue of immigration reform, specifically, Cantor wasn’t radical enough, but that explanation didn’t quite make sense. Their other big line was that Cantor didn’t campaign hard enough, which is ridiculous. So that leaves the question, how did Brat win with no money?

Eric Cantor And David Brat

It appears that the grassroots Re-pub electorate was galvanized by anger at Wall Street and corporate looting. Our crusty old friend Ralph Nader explained that Brat ran as an “anti-corporate conservative:”

Repeatedly, Brat said he was for "free enterprise" but against "crony capitalist programs that benefit the rich and powerful." David Brat pointed out that Cantor and the Republican establishment have "been paying way too much attention to Wall Street and not enough to Main Street." Brat supported "the end of bulk phone and email data collection by the NSA" and other government agencies on constitutional grounds. Professor Brat attacked the Wall Street investment bankers who nearly "broke the financial system," adding the applause line: "these guys should have gone to jail. Instead of going to jail, where did they go? They went to Eric Cantor’s Rolodex." An advocate of ethical capitalism, with religious-Christian overtones, Mr. Brat went after the deal-making in Washington, such as Cantor’s close relationships with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.

September 9, 2014

Paddling the Hudson, resurrecting local history and forgotten technology, an electric boat named Sol and a big march in NY City to bring attention to Climate Change policy

We didn’t know what to expect so we had to go see it for ourselves. I’d heard that some folks were planning to launch paper boats into the Hudson River at Troy, and that they intended to paddle those boats all the way to New York City, some 160 miles. Since The Wife and I like to throw our boats into the river at every opportunity we figured we had to go see what this was all about.

But paper boats? I had this absurd image in my mind of a schoolkid’s folded paper boat made out of a giant piece of notebook paper occupied by a cartoonish figure singing yo ho ho. Instead what we discovered was some surprising mostly forgotten local history that involved an everyday material that we now take for granted, and a serious attempt to reproduce lost technology. And more importantly, we found ourselves involved with the opening stages of an impending uprising over what is perhaps the most important issue of our times, Climate Change.

Saturday Morning Troy Farmer’s Market At 9:30 AM

So on the Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend, we arrived at the Troy Farmer’s Market in the streets of downtown Troy a little after 9 AM to catch the activities around the boat launch. This is far and away the premier farmer’s market of the region, a proven economic generator for the City. Early is the best time to go there, after 10 AM when the weather is good, like this day, the market gets crowded with bodies and by Noon it gets absolutely packed.

By the way, if you haven’t ever been to the Troy Farmer’s Market you’re missing a great opportunity to buy high quality food directly from the farmers or makers, much of it organic or natural. It’s like a weekly street fair complete with entertainment, held year round. In the cold months it moves into the mostly empty Troy Atrium, a ridiculous useless building except when it hosts the Farmer’s Market.

Mysterious Procession Emerges From A Side Street

The parade started late, of course, just before 10 AM we noticed a procession emerging from a side street. Led by a mysterious figure in robes and wearing a big paper mache mask, a group of mostly youthful folks carried one of the paper boats that they had built like a coffin through the market. A group in the front solemnly tooted on plastic bottles with the bottoms cut off, making a sound both oddly comical and serious at the same time.

We eventually discovered that we were witnessing an “art and activism” project called SeaChange, which sports the slogan, We All Live Downstream. The sponsors are the Climate Change activism organization 350.org, and a Brooklyn based organization called Mare Liberum (The Free Seas) which advocates for and promotes maker projects such as this paper boat journey that bring people more in contact with our neglected waterways. A long trip like this has plenty of logistical problems that need resources that only solid sponsors can provide.

They Carried The Boat Like A Coffin Through The Crowded Market

The ultimate point of this journey, estimated to take two and a half weeks, is to draw attention to what some are already calling the biggest Climate Change rally ever, scheduled for New York City on Sunday, September 21. Of course we’ll see how that goes, but it sounds like it is shaping up to be a major national event, with activities running from Thursday through Monday. Even at this early date organizers are predicting a quarter million participants, perhaps much more.

Some of the examples I’ve heard. A major activist network in Chicago is planning to show up en masse and hold four days of events. Several groups in San Francisco have reserved an entire Amtrak train to bring people to New York. And locally Citizen Action of Albany has reserved ten busses, although I hear that right now in early September they have plenty of room.

They Solemnly Tooted Their Plastic Jugs

It sounds like the big activist event of the season. The significance of this march through Manhattan is that it will represent the emergence of a whole new wave of activism by the Millennial generation, or rather their re-emergence after the brutal suppression of the Occupy movement in the Autumn of 2011. All the old timer usual suspect activists are showing up in force, but like with Occupy we are seeing these elders move to the back seat while the kids do the driving.

So the paper boat procession moved through the farmer’s market just about when it was getting packed with bodies. But those shoppers stood aside, solemnly watching and snapping photos, most of them wondering what this could be. A young lady midway through the procession repeatedly called out, “Paper boats! Paper boats!” which I’m sure didn’t clarify one bit.

Wrestling A Boat At The Troy Municipal Dock: Not At All User-Friendly But They Made it Work

Eventually we emerged on the north side of the farmer’s market (which is quite huge) and made our way down to the Dinosaur Barbecue on the waterfront. Sure enough, there is a municipal boat dock there, accessed through a narrow usually locked gate onto a stairway which leads down to a narrow dock. A poor design all around, obviously created by someone who never actually launched or even sat in a boat.

The Tale Of Building One Of The Boats Told With A Sharpie Under The Shellac

Finally I got to see the paper boats up close, six of them laid out on the grass. I found out that the bodies are constructed of eight sheets of acid free paper, each folded so that the hulls have sixteen layers of paper. Between each layer of paper is a thick layer of shellac. The frames are wood, I don’t know what kind but I think is bamboo.

Sadly, Duct Tape Did Not Help The Injured Paper Boat

The boats are much lighter than the equivalent sized wooden boats, but much more fragile. One of the boats lying in the grass had a nasty dent in the bottom near the bow, it seems the boat ran aground hard during a test run the night before. The guy who built it was industriously applying duct tape to the bottom, but he didn’t sound too hopeful that this would keep the boat afloat.

In the last decades of the 19th Century the City of Troy was, believe it or not, the world center for the manufacture of paper boats. They were invented by a fellow named George Waters while working in his father Elisha’s box factory. The new invention attracted a lot of interest, so by 1867 Elisha Waters and Son ran a large paper boat building factory at 271 River Street.

Elisha Waters And Son Paper Boat Factory At 271 River Street in Troy, Circa 1875

This whole enterprise sounds very odd to us today because paper is such a common throwaway item and considered flimsy. But in the late 1800s machine manufactured paper was a new wonder material that was being applied experimentally to a range of products. For instance, Waters and Son built paper domes for buildings, including a dome for the Lusk Observatory at West Point. A concern down in Hudson NY made train car wheels from paper encased in metal plates, these eventually became standard on Pullman train cars.

I was told that a major effort was made to discern the lost secrets of paper boat building that were lost when Waters and Son went out of business when their factory burned down in 1901. It seems that Mare Liberum spent 3 years on this discovery project. Of course nothing can test these secrets as well as throwing the boats in the water and seeing how well they hold up.

Inventor Of The Paper Boat George Waters And His Father Elisha

One thing I discovered is that Waters and Son used a higher quality of paper than we have available today, either manufactured from recycled linen (rags!) or, better yet, from hemp. Today, mostly for stupid social and political reasons, high quality hemp paper is unavailable. The boat builders of 2014 have to make do with wood pulp paper, which is inferior to hemp and linen in every way and much less sustainable. But no one recycles rags anymore. And you can’t get high from smoking wood, and that’s all that matters.

The Long Story-Telling Canvas Strip

Before launching the boats we had a ceremony, everyone in a circle. After a minimal amount of talking and some singing, we passed along hand to hand a strip of canvas that was about eight inches wide and what, maybe a thousand feet long. I’m guessing here. The long strip more or less represented the Hudson River in both space and time, painted with representations of farming, industry, Cityscapes, natural beauty and polluted landscapes, all in one long depiction.

Finally the boats were moved down to the dock, maneuvering them through the stupid gate and down the stairs. The paper boats were not alone, they were accompanied by seven or eight conventional paddle boats, ranging from a common Old Town canoe to a Hornbeck kayak made of kevlar. Some of this escort was going only a short ways, but some were planning to go the whole way to New York City.

Flotilla Ready To Launch

Five of the paper boats floated just fine, but that one boat that had the accident the night before immediately started sinking as soon as it was dropped off the dock. It seems the duct tape didn’t work too well. Last I heard the boat was undergoing repairs, which involves drying time, and will join the rest when and if it can be made seaworthy.

Quite sensibly the open paddle boats were accompanied by a motorized support craft, but what a special boat. This was Sol, hailing from Speculator New York at Indian Lake in the Adirondack Mountains. Sol is a 27 foot electric boat powered completely by the sun, the kind of technology that should have first appeared at least 30 years ago and by now should be commonplace.

Sol was eerily quiet, even quieter than a sailboat because it didn’t drag the wind. It has a cruising speed of five knots, it can go faster but high speeds quickly run down the batteries. It doesn’t need constant sunshine to run, with the batteries fully charged the craft could go for days with overcast skies.

Click to read more about Sol and her builder.

Sun Powered Electric Boat Sol Takes Off

But Sol did not follow the flotilla all the way to NYC. The following weekend at the 15th annual Tugboat Roundup at the City of Waterford Marina (19 miles north of Albany) we were surprised to see Sol tied up next to another boat. It turned out that Sol followed the flotilla for four days downriver as far as Hudson/Catskill, then turned over support duties to another craft.

The Flotilla Finally launches From Troy Just Before Noon

They finally launched the boats around 11:30 or so, a tight schedule was not a priority. The Wife and I did a little shopping at the farmer’s market, then drove our car back to Albany. After lollygagging a bit we threw our own boats on top of the car and drove down to the boat launch on the north side of Albany, planning to meet the flotilla.

The Wife and I threw in our boats and headed north sometime before 2 PM. It looked like the two of us were the entire Albany delegation coming out to meet the boats. The participant’s plan was to spend the first night in Albany, first holding some sort of assembly at the Corning Preserve amphitheater, followed by a presentation and tour of the South End neighborhoods affected by the explosive oil trains. But we had no interest in any of that out-of-the-water stuff.

Heading North After 2PM Toward The I-90 Bridge, We’re About To Hit A Shallow Sandbar Dead Ahead

The tide was still going out against us when we launched our boats, my kayak and The Wife’s canoe, plus we headed into a strong wind. But it wasn’t bad going, the Hudson has quirks but is mostly predictable and usually easy to navigate in a small boat. We paddled past the I-90 Bridge taking our time, expecting to travel for another hour.

The Leading Boats Approach Us

We were just past the I-90 bridge. Suddenly, to our surprise, The Wife spotted the lead boats of the flotilla coming toward us. Paddling steady but not too hard, the flotilla did Troy to Albany in only three hours. Nice.

Naturally, as soon as we met the flotilla the tide turned, so now we were all battling the tide going in the other direction as we headed south toward Albany. We had a little rough water, but nothing too bad. From around Kingston and going south the river starts to resemble the ocean more and more, with whitecap waves and strong currents and a slight salt tang in the air. No wonder back in 1609 Henry Hudson thought he might have found the Northwest Passage, the river doesn’t obviously look like a river to a boater until you get up around Albany.

Sol Floated By Lazily Like Cleopatra’s Barge

This would be a matter of concern to the paper boats over the next few weeks. According to the passenger owner operators, the boats held up well for the three hour journey from Troy, no problems. I did note that at the waterlines of all five boats that the light brown color had absolutely leached out of the hulls, turned to a bleached-out looking off white. Apparently this was expected and not considered a problem.

This is one of those little things that I think indicated that the builders had not quite divined all the lost secrets of Waters and Son paper boats, such as the best kind of coating. I’ve read that different kinds of shellac and other similar coatings are all porous to some extant, some more than others. It looks like what they used might be a little too porous if it leaches out color like that, which may limit the long-term integrity of the
boats.

The Paper Boats Held Up Well, But Note The Bleaching At The Waterline

It’s very possible that old shellac coating is unavailable today and perhaps even dangerous to use because of toxicity. I did have a brainstorm while paddling beside the boats. Back in the day pitch pine tar, the sap of pitch pine trees like we have in our Pine Bush ecosystem in western Albany, was considered the best coating for ocean sailing ships, far superior to petroleum pitch. Perhaps pitch pine tar could be refined enough to coat paper like shellac, which might make these boats formidable?

Just a crazy thought. While we were heading north to meet the boats, we encountered a massive sandbar that had been revealed by the low tide that we hadn’t encountered before. The sand and gravel was inches below the waterline, sure enough I grounded my kayak at one point. That couldn’t hurt my old tub, with the appropriate curses I pushed off the sand and continued on my way.

Yes Indeed it’s A Dog’s Life

But remembering from that morning the paper boat that was fubar after running aground, I figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to paddle ahead of the flotilla and direct the boats around the hidden sandbar. It wouldn’t do to lose some or all of the boats on the very first day to something like that. Everyone made a wide detour at my bidding and all was well, I’m thinking sandbars like that one might be the biggest danger these paper boats will face during the rest of the journey.

The flotilla made a quick stop on a bank in North Albany, presumably to stretch their legs and let the dogs run. Yes, we had several sea dogs in the boats. After maybe 15 minutes everyone launched again. We went right past the boat launch and to the final destination, the floating docks set out by the amphitheater at the Corning preserve.

We Left Them At The Corning Preserve Amphitheater Dock

Having reached their destination, The Wife and I were done escorting the boats. We waved goodbye and headed back to the boat launch. I understand they got going fairly early the next morning, and last I heard they were still heading south with all the paper boats intact. It looks like they’ll make it in plenty of time for the Climate Change rally in NYC.

August 24, 2014

Either we find the money and spend the political capital to fix the Beaverkill storm drain line, or the river will rise up out of the ground and drown us again and again

Tuesday, August 5, the City of Albany learned in a most spectacular and disastrous manner what happens when our civic leaders neglect the drainage system under our feet. The Beaverkill River, buried under the streets, pointedly ignored by successive City governments, forced to carry raw sewage and confined to pipes that have been allowed to disintegrate and cave in, rose up from the Earth like a monstrous avenging angel and for a few hours taught the City the consequences of infrastructure neglect.

But immediately after the disaster it became clear that the lesson was wasted. Mayor Kathy Sheehan, who certainly knows better, all but declared that this was a once in a lifetime event, and City officials echoed her refusal to acknowledge the cause of this flood. And the people of Albany, misinformed by our elected officials and by the corporate media, appear to be continuing to accept this unacceptable and dangerous situation that caused the flood. But massive flooding will happen again and again along the Beaverkill storm drain line, and no amount of denial will make the problem go away.

Tree Down On Catherine Street

So there I was Tuesday evening around 8:30 PM at the cabin overlooking Great Lake Sacandaga, happily sitting down to a late meal when the phone call came in. Our friend Eddie, who was watching our house back in Albany and feeding the cats informed us that the City had just been hit with a flooding disaster caused by a heavy thunderstorm. And it seems that the disaster had impacted our house in the South End, like, three different ways.

“One of the trees from that house across the street fell down and is blocking Catherine Street and brought down the wires from the pole but it just brushed up against your house,” she said. “Roads are blocked with water, trees are down and we saw floating cars, we had to take the long way around to get here. Water was pouring through your upstairs ceiling and down the back stairway, the downstairs kitchen is soaked. It’s still dripping from the ceiling upstairs. We’ve just about cleaned it up.”

Eddie has this manner of compacting relevant information into concise reports, particularly during crises and emergencies. (The “we” refers to herself and her daughter, who is often mistaken for her sister.) Fortunately none of the downed wires along Catherinewere power lines, just phone and cable.

She then phoned again about five minutes after that first call to tell us that our cellar was flooded from one end to the other. Questioning her closely as she splashed through the cellar water, I was able to determine that the overloaded City sewer system had backed up rainwater into our house. Again. Therein lies the story.

Wednesday, 9AM: The City Had Cleared A Path Through Catherine Street So Suburban Commuters Could Drive Through

Since there was nothing I could do that Tuesday night I grumbled a lot, swallowed supper and went to bed, not sleeping well with an upset stomach. The next morning I skipped breakfast and drove into Albany, arriving at about nine. Considering what Albany went through the night before, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of visible damage. Around my neighborhood I could see some washed out dirt and gravel in a few spots and some fallen tree branches, the same aftermath as any severe summer thunderstorm.

It was like nothing unusual had happened. One certainly would have that impression from the embarrassingly lame corporate media reports of the flood which were (predictably) mostly concerned with how suburban commuters were inconvenienced by the flooding, punctuated with the usual anti-Albany slant. The night before the TV and online newspapers were flashing images of drowning cars and declaring Albany a complete loss, but by Wednesday morning they were back to celebrities and Ebola panic like hardly anything locally disastrous had happened.

But fortunately All Over Albany (AOA) published photos sent to them by their readers, so we have a permanent record of the enormity of this short flood. What that photographic record shows, clear to anyone who has followed the history, is that we can’t fault the occasional heavy storms or blame the problem on Global Warming. The problem is that the storm drains and sewers of the City of Albany have been denied repair and upgrading by our City government for so long that today they can no longer reliably perform the function for which they were built.

After The Flood, Beaverkill Manhole In Washington Park

The most serious and widespread flooding was caused by the spectacular failure of the storm drain line that concerns me the most, The Beaverkill. This major line, which is supposed to be strictly a street drain, runs through my neighborhood and often stinks of raw sewage. I’ve written about The Beaverkill before, let me remind you of the route that it runs through the City, and show you how it caused the greatest damage to our City.

The Beaverkill is actually a river that was buried in the 1800s. Approaching downtown Albany from the west, it runs through a big pipe underneath Elberon Place, although many years ago when I was working on a couple of houses along Elberon, I observed that if you dug about 18 inches into the cellar floors of the houses there was watery mud. In other words, during normal times The Beaverkill under Elberon is not confined to the pipe.

So take a look at this photo of Elberon Place during the flood, courtesy of AOA. The Tuesday Evening Flood made it pretty clear that the pipe under the street is not adequate for the job:

The Beaverkill Owns Elberon Place For A Few Hours

From Elberon Place The Beaverkill runs into Washington Park and becomes exposed as Washington Park Lake. One could say that the lake is The Beaverkill. The lake, of course, overflowed causing serious damage to the landscaping and lakeside amenities:

Washington Park Lakehouse Flooded

Washington Park Lake becomes an underground river again, draining into a pipe that crosses Madison Avenue at New Scotland Avenue. The river runs directly underneath the low part of New Scotland, and at the intersection where that road starts to climb uphill to Albany Medical Center, the pipe-bound river makes an abrupt left and travels under Myrtle Avenue. This low part of New Scotland was flooded:

Lower New Scotland Avenue Near Madison

This Park South neighborhood is the source of sewage that has been increasingly directed into the Beaverkill by the massive redevelopment oriented around Albany Med. Although the redevelopment project has been greatly increasing the population density of the neighborhood with offices and apartments, there has been no effective work done to increase the capacity of the pipes carrying away wastewater from these new buildings and from the ever-expanding hospital.

And it goes without saying that no new sewer lines have been built for these new sewer users. Instead what we have is a greater reliance on the existing sewer lines running through the neighborhood, which weren’t able to handle the demand before the redevelopment. But now there’s a whole lot of new toilets flushing poop and piss into these inadequate Park South sewers, and all that human waste has to go somewhere.

That somewhere is the Beaverkill storm drain line. Downtown Albany has a Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) system, which is supposed to use the sewer lines as a backup in case of heavy rains like what we just experienced. But in practice, and particularly with the Beaverkill, the storm drain ends up acting as a sewage overflow. The opening paragraph of the Wikipedia on CSOs sums up the problem nicely:

A combined sewer is a type of sewer system that collects sanitary sewage and stormwater runoff in a single pipe system. Combined sewers can cause serious water pollution problems due to combined sewer overflows, which are caused by large variations in flow between dry and wet weather. This type of sewer design is no longer used in building new communities, but many older cities continue to operate combined sewers.

July 22, 2014

An expose: The oil trains are even more dangerous than we thought but they don’t have to be dangerous at all, Global is planning to try to hide the trains, and a vigil for the victims of Lac Magantic

The oil trains passing through Albany don’t have to be explosive, they don’t have to be bombs that will eventually blow up again, and they don’t have to be packed with poisonous gas. But the oil corporations that are loading the trains with Bakken crude oil are turning the rail cars into bombs. Why? In the name of the Holy Bottom Line, the psychopathic America-haters who run the oil extraction corporations in North Dakota are refusing to make their product safe before running the oil car bombs past our homes.

It’s been known since the beginning of modern oil extraction back in the 1800s that one does not transport crude oil in a car or through a pipeline without first removing the light gases from the crude, explosive gases such as propane, ethane and butane. But that’s only part of the story. These train cars running through downtown Albany on their way to the Port are heavily loaded with a substance known as hydrogen sulfide, which is not only explosive but is also extremely toxic and extremely corrosive. So far the high concentration of hydrogen sulfide has been kept secret.

It appears that the frackers who have been extracting this oil from North Dakota have misidentified the nature of their product. So that they don’t have to cut their profits a bit to make their product safe enough to travel, they’ve told the American people that the oil in these tank cars is something that it is not, that it is a cleaner, less dangerous kind of oil. Even worse, the oil producers are not taking the necessary steps to make their oil safe enough to transport. In short, they have been lying to us.

Vigil For The Victims Of Lac Magantic On South Pearl Street In Albany With Train Oil Car Bombs Slowly Passing Behind

This past July 6 was the first anniversary of the rail explosion that destroyed the downtown of Lac Magantic, a lakeside town in Quebec which is a mere 22 miles from the US border. At 1:15 in the morning, when most everyone was asleep, an unattended 74 car train of oil cars somehow started rolling downhill by itself at top speed and derailed. The cars full of unrefined crude crumpled up against each other, and it is thought that sparks from the colliding metal tankers ignited the escaping gases resulting in what surviving eyewitnesses described as “ a river of fire” and “a tsunami of fire.”

47 people died in that fireball, many caught sleeping in their own beds. Or rather, the partial remains of 42 people have been found and their identities confirmed. Several of these individuals were so shredded that the remaining pieces of their bodies were identified only by painstaking genetic analysis, which took several months. The other five victims were so thoroughly obliterated by the fireball that no trace of their bodies have ever been found. They were simply vaporized.

Lac Magantic Explosion Fireball, July 6, 2013:
Yes, It Could Happen In Albany

The strangest thing about the blast was that there were hardly any wounded. Only a few victims suffered from burns or were partially asphyxiated by the deadly smoke that billowed from the burning tank cars. Those who came in contact with the explosion and survived were few. According to The Toronto Star:

Back at the hospital, reinforcements from neighbouring medical centres were standing by, ready to rush to Lac-Mégantic to treat what they expected would be dozens of injured residents. Hospital authorities were also ready to evacuate all their patients in case the wind shifted and blew the black, toxic smoke in their direction. But then nothing happened. The wind blew the smoke in the opposite direction and no patients with any of the serious burns and other injuries that might have been expected arrived at the emergency room. …One Red Cross volunteer who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media put it bluntly: “You have to understand: there are no wounded. They’re all dead.”

June 22, 2014

A classic tale of teenage delinquency performed outdoors, a visit to Art On Lark and more Shakespeare In The Park to come starting July 18

The first Saturday in June was sunny and warm, a day for the kind of light, genteel outdoor activities that urban communities like the City of Albany do best. At ten in the morning the sky still looked threatening when The Wife and I walked over to check out Art On Lark, the art-themed festival on Lark Street that has become an annual June event. But by afternoon the sun was blazing in a blue sky with puffy clouds when we caught an outdoor production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in Lincoln Park.

We couldn’t miss seeing a Shakespeare play put on practically across the street from our house in our beautiful park. I can’t recall ever hearing about a play being performed in Lincoln Park, so at the very least we had to dig our portable chairs out of the closet and walk over to show our support for the production. To our surprise and delight the whole performance was done quite well by a well-prepared cast of young thespians, who handled the acting with confidence for an audience of only about 50 people.

And what could be more entertaining than this timeless story of delinquent teenagers, underage sex, drug use and of course, the ever popular pointless violence and multiple murders. It’s full of great pointers for kids, such as how much fun it is to run around with swords and stab each other. And of course the great message of the tale (Spoiler Alert!) is that the most noble and important thing one can do in life is to die stupidly over a case of teenage lust and to leave a trail of bodies in your wake.

Pointless Violence In Lincoln Park: The First Swordfight Of
Romeo And Juliet

This performance, the second of five over two weekends, was produced by Steamer No. 10 Theater, the well-established theater company operating out of a converted firehouse at The Point, the triangle shaped bit of land located a ways uptown where Madison and Western Avenues meet. The chosen spot for the performance, the hillside between the still-vacant Sunshine School building and Martin Luther King Boulevard, worked very well with the stage located downhill from the audience. The executive director of Steamer No. 10, Rick Chesser, was very much in charge of the production and acted as emcee.

Rick Chesser Of Steamer No. 10 Makes The Introduction

I have to admit that when we saw the excessive youth of the cast we became alarmed, thinking we might be about to see a glorified elementary school play rather than a serious acting performance. Indeed the opening chorus was recited by some really little kids, but they handled it well. The main parts were performed by much older kids, or perhaps some of the cast was older than high school age. Perhaps. In any case, it’s a play about out-of-control teenagers, so a young cast made perfect sense.

The Opening Recitation

Romeo was played by Miles Keefe, and Juliet by Annie Crisafuli. As the story goes, Romeo, a 17 year old street thug who is quite handy with a sword, crashes a party with his bros where he meets 13 year old Juliet, and they hit it off immediately. As we have all heard, teenage pregnancy is a multi-generational problem. By my calculation, Juliet’s mom, Lady Capulet was all of 26 years old herself.

"You Kiss By The Book."

Romeo’s two main bros are a relatively reasonable fellow named Benvolio (played by Sean Baldwin) who likes to party but tries his best to be a helpful friend to Romeo. The other bro is Mercutio, who in this production was played by a female, Anna Dempf, a most extraordinary bit of casting. And yes, they dared to alter The Bard’s sacred poetry to refer to the character as “she.”

Benvolio And Mercutio Complain That Romeo Seems Distracted and Doesn’t Want To Party

I found this interesting description of the character Mercutio in a high school English class crib sheet called Spark Notes:

Mercutio overflows with imagination, wit, and, at times, a strange, biting satire and brooding fervor. Mercutio loves wordplay, especially sexual double entendres. He can be quite hotheaded, and hates people who are affected, pretentious, or obsessed with the latest fashions. He finds Romeo’s romanticized ideas about love tiresome, and tries to convince Romeo to view love as a simple matter of sexual appetite.

May 26, 2014

Will the owners of the proposed South End casino keep their promises to hire City residents, and will they promise to not sue the City to have their taxes lowered? No and no.

*UPDATE* David Flaum withdraws the Exit 23 casino proposal, an analysis of the withdrawal and what it means to Albany

I’m still horrified and disgusted by this casino proposal for the South End. But since I last wrote about it, the discussion around this casino, like the recent discussion around the Global tar sands oil heaters being imposed upon the Port of Albany, has been conducted in public among the citizens of Albany with the local politicians cast in the uncomfortable role of arbiters. That’s a lot different than the way it used to be, when all the development deals happened in a back room and the only way the public could participate was by filing lawsuits against the City.

It is precisely because the casino discussion has become public that we are hearing passionate support for the proposal from a significant number of the people of the South End and from some of the people of other downtown neighborhoods. These folks want this casino to be built in their backyard because they want jobs, the supposedly good jobs and opportunities that the developers are promising. I have yet to hear one single person say that they want this casino because they want to gamble.

Jobs and opportunity. That is very hard to argue against. Past City governments have so thoroughly destroyed the South End that many of the people who live here- the economic survivors- are ready and willing to jump at any substantial sounding promise of opportunity and advancement. But there is a growing suspicion that the people who are pushing this casino down our throats, Rochester speculator and Cuomo campaign donor David Flaum along with the boys from Off Track Betting (OTB) are making a big load of fabulous promises that they have no intention of keeping.

Developer David Flaum Pitches His Casino To The Public At
Giffen School

I wasn’t going to write any more about the stupid casino proposal, I’d said what I’d said. What got me on about the casino again was an article written by a fellow named Peter Van Buren, a 24 year veteran of the US State Department who managed development in Iraq after the US attack and became disgusted with what he saw there. His essay is about how the poverty caused by corporate exploitation in America is getting worse, and as part of his eyewitness descriptions is his take on the once thriving casinos of Atlantic City:

Trump Plaza, a monument to excess and hubris created by a man once admired as a business magician and talked about as a possible presidential candidate, is now a catalog of decay. The pillows in the rooms smell of sweat, the corners of doors are chipped, many areas need a new coat of paint, and most of the bars and restaurants resemble the former Greyhound bus terminal a few blocks away. People covered with the street gravy that marks the homeless wander the casino, itself tawdry and too dimly lit to inspire fun. There were just too many people who were clearly carrying everything they owned around in a backpack.

April 30, 2014

Visiting the second largest waterfall in New York State during a rare moment when the falls are actually falling

The last Sunday in April The Wife and I went to see Cohoes Falls, which I’d heard was running at full blast. Most of the time the falls are not there, just some interesting cliffs with a trickle of water here and there. But because of the long winter with a heavy snowpack we have a chance this spring to see the falls as they once were, as they ought to be.

Cohoes Falls Seen From The City Of Cohoes, April 2014

The Falls are about 90 feet at the highest point and about 1000 feet wide, not as big as Niagara Falls but impressive just the same. The falls stretch from behind Harmony Mills in the City of Cohoes over to the cliffs of the Town of Waterford on the other side of the Mohawk River. The best observation point is in Cohoes, that’s where we went to look.

Cohoes Falls Observation Park In Cohoes

Historically, the beauty of the cascading falls has taken a back seat to the demands of navigation and industry. Back in 1831 the City of Cohoes built a dam behind the falls to divert water to power the nearby clothing and cotton mills. Later, in the 20th century, the mills closed and the diverted water was used instead for power generation. Further upstream some of that water that once went over the falls is diverted to fill the locks of the Barge Canal.

Early settlers and explorers to this region travelled by river, after gazing in wonder at the marvelous falls they would then begin cursing as they hauled their boats and cargoes laboriously around the obstruction. Thus we have had canals to circumvent the falls since the early 1800s. Today it takes six locks of the current Barge Canal to traverse around the falls by boat.

The Water Diverted From The Falls In The "Power Canal"

Thus it has been a long time since the water of Cohoes Falls fell free and unobstructed all year round. Most of the water that’s supposed to go over the falls goes to the waterway that snakes around the falls, which is now called the “power canal.” That water is no longer used to power the long-defunct mills, but for decades was not used at all as the power plant sat idle and rusting.

The Power Plant And The Falls

For much of the second half of the 20th century, the power plant was owned by the then regional power monopoly, Niagara-Mohawk. The Niagara-Mohawk Corporation was dedicated to shutting down their hydro-electric plants, and they didn’t care about the negative effects an idle power plant had on a small community like Cohoes. At one point Niagara-Mohawk even tried to fill the main building of the power plant with concrete, which would have prevented anybody from ever renovating or building a new power generating plant.

There were good reasons why Niagara-Mohawk was eaten by a much bigger foreign corporation called National Grid, which did the sensible thing and let the power plant go. Throughout the first decade of this century there was then a series of court battles between the local Green Island Power Authority and the Brookfield Renewable Corporation of Quebec over who got to own and operate the plant. Naturally the US Court of Appeals sided with the bigger corporation, and now Brookfield has renovated the plant and in 2011 brought it back to life.

The Observation Park

Then mayor of Cohoes John McDonald (now State Assembly Member) hammered out an agreement with Brookfield to renovate the walking areas around the plant to be visitor friendly. This was to be part of Mr. McDonald’s push to turn the nearby empty hulking Harmony Mills buildings into apartments. The agreement was made back in 2006 when Brookfield was uncertain about their chances of winning the court battles, I’m happy to report that the corporation kept their promises.

The Short Walking Trail

There’s a short walking trail that leads from the observation park to the back of Harmony Mills. On one side of the path is a chain-link fence so that visitors don’t go tumbling down the sheer cliff, on the other side is a series of backyards. It’s very nice, but it would be nicer still if the City of Cohoes would occasionally pick up the trash that has accumulated at the last bend of the walk.

Back Of Harmony Mills Apartments

We came out at the back of Harmony Mills. The backyard is now a parking lot with one story garages that made me think of old fashioned military bunkers for some reason. The newly renovated high-end apartments are quite popular with “young professionals” who commute elsewhere to work. The successful renovation of the Harmony Mills buildings is the reason why this past decade Cohoes registered its first increase in population since the 1930s, which is when Harmony Mills closed, never to reopen.

Harmony Mills Roofline

Harmony Mills and the nearby housing built for mill workers gives this part of Cohoes the feel of an English industrial town of past centuries. Of course, it looks like an old English industrial town but without the grinding poverty and the deadly coal dust and smoke clogging the air. Come to think of it, because the mills were powered by water there probably wasn’t much air pollution around here back in the day, just the poverty.

Backyards Of Cohoes

For a century and a half upstate New York was a leading industrial region that maintained hundreds of manufacturing plants that used our abundant cascading waterways as a power source. Visitors can still look at the now closed water tunnels that provided water to the waterwheels that were located inside the mill buildings. From those waterwheels long leather belts that could be engaged when needed ran all the way up to the top floors of the buildings, these belts turned the shafts of the machines that were used for manufacturing.

In the late 1800s Adirondack Park was created because of a political alliance between conservationists and leading mill owners. The owners of mills such as these, you see, came to understand that the water that powered their mills, which came from the mountains of the north, had to be protected and kept flowing or they would be out of business. The courts agreed that the needs of the mill owners was greater than the needs of tree cutters in the mountains, thus the largest State park in the country was created and designated “forever wild” so as to keep the mills running.

Mohawk River And The Cliffs Of Waterford Past Cohoes Falls

There’s a walkway bridge across the power canal that looks like it was once a rail trestle. Unfortunately, despite all the visitors arriving after us to see Cohoes Falls while it is still running, the walkway was closed. A sign on it said it would be opened on May 5, which is the day the State canal system officially opens. Since no boats come down the power canal, does that make sense?

The Old Turbine Blade, Now A Monument At
The Power Plant Gates

I’m very glad to see the hydroelectric plant running again, and I’m glad it did not succumb to corporate plots to destroy it. It seems to me that our waterways are a resource that is underutilized, not just neglected for travel and shipping but also as a source of power that is mostly ignored. So I pose the question, could our waterways be used to once again to power manufacturing plants, a power source that is independent of the grid and does not burn fossil fuel? Why not bring back the industrial waterwheel?

 

April 8, 2014

Our radical corporatist governor attacks the South End to
please a big campaign donor

Consider this the first big test of the political skills of the new mayor of Albany and the integrity of the new Common Council. A Rochester developer named Flaum, who contributed some $100,000 to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s election campaign through his outfit “Republicans For Cuomo,” breezed into town last month and proposed saddling Albany with a $300+ million casino. And yes, this guy wants to put this crap in the South End, not far from my house.

The casino is supposed to be 17,000 square feet, a temple of scam that exploits the widespread mental disorder known as gambling. Like many casinos this proposal includes, as an afterthought, a “waterslide park” an “equestrian centre” and a “retail mall” all of which they call a “resort.” If casinos like Turning Stone near Syracuse can be used as a template, then this “resort” will basically consist of hotel space and parking for gamblers surrounded by a lot of monoculture lawn that is regularly dosed with toxic chemicals that will dribble into the Normanskill, and that’s pretty much it.

I am sorry to report that our new mayor Kathy Sheehan apparently directed Andrew’s campaign donor to the South End, and I’m hearing that the new Common Council is amenable to this boondoggle. If this attack on the South End had happened under her predecessor in the office of mayor then I would automatically assume that this guy Flaum was passing around envelopes bulging with cash. But instead it looks like mayor Sheehan is being strongarmed into playing along with this proposal by Andrew Cuomo, and it’s quite possible that she simply has no choice but to play along.

Casino Promoter Governor Andrew Cuomo

So, is building casinos in a gradually failing national and local economy, one where more and more people have less and less money, a good idea anywhere? The short answer is a resounding no. A recent article in Bloomberg Business Week makes this very, very clear:

Casino revenue fell in February for the sixth consecutive month in the four largest Midwest gambling states… Even in Las Vegas sales are down 12 percent so far this year. On March 25, International Game Technology (IGT), the world’s largest slot machine maker, said it would reduce its global workforce by 7 percent, or 350 people, citing a decrease in its North American gambling operations… The company, which collects a share of money bet on some of its leased machines, reported an 8 percent sales decline in that business in the quarter ended in December.

February 28, 2014

The Wife allows the Hearst Times Union to attack affordable healthcare and make a fool out of her

I’ll start with the facts. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, The Wife and I are enjoying more health insurance coverage this year than we did last year. And this year we are paying less money for that expanded coverage, a lower monthly premium.

Those are the facts. But if you happened to have read the news story about The Wife (Lynne Jackson) that appeared on the front page of the paper edition of the Hearst Times Union on February 2nd, an article featured prominently online, then you would think that she is a victim whining about a heartless government that is destroying this nation by offering affordable healthcare. To put it plainly, the Times Union managers and the content provider who wrote the article misreported the facts to suit the corporate ideology dictated by their owners at Hearst.

The dead tree front page edition of the Times Union sported the headline, “A Solo Journey Through Network, one woman’s experience shows setbacks, frustration with online market.” That was yellow enough. But online the headline was, “Albany Woman’s Misadventures With Obamacare.” That online headline reveals the intent of the deceptive article.

The Wife In Her Home Office Showing Paperwork
To The Content Providers

This is why I refer to the Albany Times Union as “The Hearst Rag.” The ideological deceptions begin with these two headlines, which have absolutely nothing to do with the original story that The Wife told to the Hearst content provider. The content of the article demonstrates convincingly that the Hearst Times Union is not interested in reporting news, its main purpose is to disguise corporatist propaganda as information and feed it to an all too trusting public.

As if that wasn’t bad enough. The Hearst article immediately popped up on some rad righty websites devoted to “proving” that affordable health care is bad and that Obamacare “doesn’t work.” It sure looks to me like the ultimate purpose of manipulating my wife like that was to provide politically correct content for the rad righty echo chamber.

I really, really don’t like to see my wife manipulated and taken advantage of like that. Call me a macho jerk if it pleases you, but as her husband I have an obligation to defend her honor. If some snotty self-important buttheads urinate on my wife for laughs and for obnoxious ideological reasons, then you can be sure that I am not going to smile and let it pass.

Rex Smith, Longtime Manager (Editor) Of The Hearst times Union

The biggest falsehoods in the Hearst article were placed in the fifth paragraph, which is the part of a news article that the reader is most likely to focus upon and retain in the memory. Indeed, over the next few days when various people asked me about the article, they mostly referred to the false “facts” in that fifth paragraph:

A sole proprietor — she [Lynne Jackson, The Wife] runs her own computer consulting business and has no employees — she was not allowed to keep her previous insurance plan because it was a group contract. Language in the federal Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, prohibited her from continuing to get group rates for insurance through a business group, such as a chamber of commerce. She had to find a new plan, at pricier individual rates.

February 9, 2014

The new City government marches to my neighborhood, discovering Pete Seeger’s important connection to Dr. King, the remaking of Nelson Mandela as a cartoon and a moral sermon from Dr. King

If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.
-Abraham Lincoln, 1838

January 13, 2014

The City of Albany inaugurates a new government and things will never again be the same, thankfully

On New Year’s Day The Wife and I made a very special point of attending the inauguration of our new mayor, Kathy Sheehan, of the Treasurer, Auditor and Common Council president and of the fifteen members of the Common Council. Seven of those Council members are newly elected freshmen, several of whom had defeated incumbents. We’ve been waiting for this day for a long time, indeed The Wife was practically hopping up and down for the past week in anticipation. No way we were going to miss this.

Kathy Sheehan’s First Press Conference As Mayor
(click on photo for larger size)

Because of anticipated unprecedented attendance, the inauguration was moved at the last minute from City Hall to Kiernan Plaza at 575 Broadway. We had never been inside this incredibly beautiful historic building which used to be the Albany train station, called Albany Union Station. At its peak in the mid-twentieth century it received 121 trains per day. The station was decommissioned in 1968 when the passenger trains were foolishly relocated across the river, since then the building has been woefully underused.

Kiernan Plaza, The Former Albany Union Railroad Station

The Inauguration was scheduled to begin at 10:30 AM, so we decided to get there early and arrived at quarter to ten. But the damn doors were locked, so we joined the crowd of mere citizens stamping their feet in the cold and complaining, some bitterly. While we waited several participants in the ceremony arrived and several people in the crowd told them to enter by the side door around the corner.

Kiernan Plaza Interior

At 10 AM they finally let us in, and what a magnificent interior. Like, jaw dropping. The center of the building is open and rises up three stories or so, with marble floors and glass-enclosed balconies and gilded decorations and big mechanical clocks and giant chandeliers. Undoubtedly this was the main waiting area for trains.

In Front Of The Media Platform

Because of our early arrival The Wife was able to grab us some good seats (which, as she predicted, I did not use) in the middle of the sitting area in front of the media platform. Soon plenty more seats were set up in back, but still weren’t enough for all the attendees and a good sized crowd stood in back and on the sides. After the ceremony started I looked back and noticed that almost the entire gigantic hall was filled with people.

By the way, there was no obvious visible security other than honor guards, no unconstitutional checkpoints and searches like we’ve had to put up with at City Hall since 1999, no cops scowling at the crowd. It would have been a great opportunity for Al Qaida or some teabagger to massacre the local government, but the terrorists must have gotten the date wrong and didn’t show up. I hope we see the bogus Security Theater withdrawn from our taxpayer-funded City Hall in the coming months.

Master Of Ceremonies Congressman Paul Tonko

Our Congressional representative Paul Tonko was the master of ceremonies, a job he handled skillfully and with ease. In an era when the typical Congress creature is a blithering corporate whore, Mr. Tonko stands out for his integrity and his straightforward manner, and also for his ability to declaim passionately and convincingly on the important social issues which affect his constituents. He was an excellent choice to lead the ceremony, and the respect for him by the participants was evident.

American Legion North Albany Presents Colors

But first the American Legion of North Albany brought in the US flag and the NY State flag, and the Pledge of Allegiance was recited, led by the City of Albany Girl Scouts. Of course the entire crowd stood at attention and the most proper decorum was observed by all. I’m always fascinated by such rituals, this was an extraordinary example of heartfelt public devotion.

Arielle King Of Albany Singing The National Anthem

Next a young lady from Albany named Arielle King sang the national anthem, and holy cow she was good. More often than not at these sorts of things somebody massacres the awful tune and everybody tries not to wince, but this time everyone I talked to or that I overheard agreed that she was fabulous. While she sang I was delighted by some of her phrasings of the tired old lines and of her ease of execution, beautiful. You’ll be hearing more of Arielle King and her singing, remember you read it here first.

Common Council President Carolyn McLaughlin Sworn In By Judge Randolph Treece

After the invocation by Reverend Dr. Damone Johnson of Metropolitan Baptist Church in the Arbor Hill neighborhood, we got down to business. Carolyn McLaughlin was sworn in as Common Council president by Judge Randall Treece. Ms. McLaughlin received a respectful standing ovation after being sworn in for the mostly ceremonial but influential post.

12 Of The Common Council Members Being Sworn In, 3 More Off Camera To The Right

Next the Common Council members were sworn in en masse by Ms. McLaughlin. Realizing that my little camera was not catching three members on the end, including the two members most important to me, I quickly repositioned myself and managed to catch our newly elected 1st Ward member Dorcey Applyrs, and most importantly our own new 2nd Ward member Vivian Kornegay. Both looked like they were praying.

Vivian Kornegay And Dorcey Applyrs, Resplendent In White

Ms. Kornegay and Ms. Applyrs were two of the seven new members, both won hard bitter Primary campaigns this past September to be here today. Ms. Applyrs’ won a surprisingly close three-way battle to take retiring Dominick Calsolaro’s seat, and Ms. Kornegay edged out a hard and nasty fight against an incumbent by a mere 19 votes. An incumbent, I should add, that almost everyone was glad to see gone.

Dominick Calsolaro Standing Outside Earlier Waiting To Get Inside Like The Rest Of Us Nobodies

A word about Dominick. For twelve years he was the advocate of good government and fiscal responsibility, at first the only member of the Council to do so. As such he was outgoing mayor Jerry Jennings‘ nemesis, His political opposite, and in this role Mr. Calsolaro had to take a lot of abuse from Jennings and His minions.

Back at the beginning of this century no one was supposed to mention in public serious problems such as the vacant building crisis, the decaying tax base caused by political corruption, the fiscal and environmental nightmare Rapp Road Dump, civil liberties and inequality to name a few, not to mention more mundane issues such as sidewalk repair and snow removal in the neighborhoods. Now thanks to Dominick all of these are visible and on the table. So I guess it’s fitting that Dominick go out the door with Jerry Jennings, but it sure was strange to see him sitting in the audience like the rest of us mere taxpayers.

Jerry Jennings (Center) Watches From The Side

But what about Jerry? The now former mayor of Albany sat off to the side with the Girl Scouts and our State representatives (Senator Breslin, Assembly members McDonald and Fahy) as part of the dignitaries who congratulated the newly sworn-in as they stepped off the stage. Several times I glanced over and saw that He looked more than pensive, He looked downright sad. I can only speculate about what thoughts were running through His head as He sat there watching the City pass out of His hands.

Dorcey Applyrs (1sr Ward) Signs The Book, City Clerk Nala Woodard And Carolyn McLaughlin Preside

It was time for the inaugurated Common Council members to sign The Book, the quaintly old fashioned official register of elected officials. In past years Jennings jealously guarded The Book during inaugurations, literally holding it as the newly inaugurated elected official signed. In this way the former mayor symbolically conveyed power to the signing official, sort of like the transmission of grace by a priest.

Vivian Kornegay (2nd Ward) Signs, Her Husband Edward Behind

The Common Council members signed in order, beginning with Dorcey Applyrs in the 1st Ward, and Vivian Kornegay of the 2nd after her. I’m only showing photos of the new members here.

Former Albany Police Officer Kelly Kimbrough (4th Ward) Signs

It’s the nature of elective politics that strange opposites often sit together, that is, when elective politics works like it’s supposed to. In the 4th Ward former Albany police officer Kelly Kimbrough easily captured the seat held by retiring Barbara Smith, who endorsed him early on. I’m told that Mr. Kimbrough, a rare Albany officer who lives in the neighborhood that he patrolled, has always been popular and well regarded by the voters, this in a part of town where the police are particularly regarded with suspicion.

Mark Robinson (5th Ward) Congratulated By Carolyn McLaughlin After Signing

Next door in the 5th Ward Mark Robinson was the winner in a four way Primary race that included the incumbent, who came in third. Mr. Robinson’s victory was greeted with horror by many outside of the 5th, he was once known as a notorious drug lord, part of a family that, among other things, operated a crack house on Elizabeth Street in the South End during the era of police denial of service. He was convicted of felonious sale of marijuana, served a stiff sentence in prison and was released early on good behavior, having served his time.

After release he turned to renovating vacant buildings in his old neighborhood, and has reportedly become a well-liked and respectable citizen. He can be rather elusive, several times I’ve tried to approach him at political functions to ask for an interview, and at this one he again disappeared before I could catch him. I’ll try again in a month or so. Meanwhile, for the next four years he will be seated next to former police officer Kimbrough in the Common Council chambers, which may be interesting.

Jack Flynn (8th Ward) With His Daughters After Signing

Hardly anyone seems to know much about Jack Flynn, who handily captured the 8th Ward seat vacated by John Rosenzweig. Mr. Flynn was the Democratic Party deputy ward leader under Rosenzweig, so he is not considered by most as a reformer or as an independent minded representative. But who knows? The only other thing I know about him is that he works as an “election education specialist” at the Albany County Board of Elections.

Former School Board Member Judy Doesschate (9th Ward) Signs

Former schools board member Judy Doesschate is the new representative for the 9th Ward. I had a chance at the end of the ceremony to ask retiring Council member James Sano why he waited until three days before the end of the petitioning period to announce that he did not intend to run. He told me that it was because certain of his family members who are in extreme bad health made him reluctantly decide at the last minute to withdraw. His action irritated a lot of people who thought Mr. Sano was attempting to guarantee his seat to Ms. Doesschate’s opponent. It was a frantic three days for Ms. Doesschate collecting signatures, but she prevailed in the Primary by a large margin.

Judd Krasher (11th Ward) With His Mom And
Carolyn McLaughlin

Judd Krasher absolutely hammered his incumbent opponent in the Primary, which shocked a lot of people who thought it would be close. In retrospect those shocked people should have realized that Mr. Krasher has a lot of behind the scenes experience running winning campaigns which he applied expertly to unseating a controversial and thus vulnerable incumbent. But during the Primary campaign he gave the strong impression that he intended to represent his 11th Ward rather than push his own agenda, which the voters responded to eagerly.

Auditor Lief Engstrom And Wife Erin

And now it was time for the rest of the City wide officials to swear, the first being the City’s first Auditor Leif Engstrom, beginning his second term. Now, we are still not too sure exactly what the Auditor is supposed to do, after one term the job is still begging for definition. What we do know is that the auditor is supposed to issue reports on City finances and resources, and Mr. Engstrom is the person who is writing reports and defining the job. Perhaps now with a new mayor he will be able to do that with greater effect.

Mr. Engstrom, true to form, gave a long speech about the condition of City finances that left a lot of people stunned, partly because it was such a long speech but mostly because it was very critical of the City’s financial condition. “Controversial” was the word I heard. Jerry had to sit there and listen to Mr. Engstrom pretty much condemn the financial practices of His 20 year administration.

Even if the major problems are quickly resolved, said Mr. Engstrom, “Our City will still face infrastructure needs greater than our tax base can support.” He then got big applause when he said that the solution was that a greater share of our taxes must be returned to the City from the State and from the Feds. Mr. Engstrom also emphasized his independence from other City officials, that autonomy was critical to his job.

Treasurer Darius Shahinfar Signs With Wife And Albany County Legislator Noelle Kinsch And Their Kids

Our new Treasurer Darius Shahinfar gave a shorter speech, it has always been his position that the key to solving the City’s financial crisis is to encourage growth of business in the City. Of course the total solution is a combination of both. Albany needs to be subsidized at the same rate as the surrounding suburbs, and we need to foster business growth, AND we need to provide attractive housing so that taxpayers will want to live and pay taxes in the community where they work.

All three of these ideas found synthesis about twenty minutes later in Kathy Sheehan’s post inaugural speech. Indeed, Mr. Engstrom, Mr. Shahinfar and Ms. Sheehan entered the political scene as allies. Of course, four years ago Mr. Shahinfar and Mr. Engstrom fought a close Primary race to be the first Auditor, but now Mr. Shahinfar has found his position and there is absolutely no bad blood between them. And it should be mentioned that Albany County Family Court Judge Margaret Walsh swore in all three officials, a sign of personal cooperation between all three.

Lt. Governor Robert Duffy Gives The Keynote, With Paul Tonko, Judge Randolph Treece and Darius Shahinfar

Governor Andrew Cuomo was busy at that exact moment attending the inauguration of Bill DiBlasio down in New York City. But as a sign of the governor’s favor we got the second best, Lt. Governor Robert Duffy as the keynote speaker. This was definitely a big score for our new mayor, I don’t believe Jerry Jennings ever managed such a high State official at any of His five inaugurations. (For those who don’t know, the Lt. Governor in NY State has almost identical functions to the federal vice president and is elected the same way.)

Andrew Cuomo is a hard-line corporatist, imposing corporate run casinos on the State, turning the areas around colleges into tax-free zones but only for corporations, funneling cash and favors to large corporations and financial parasites, etc. But he is also a very astute politician. So it is interesting that he made a point to attend the inauguration of a NYC mayor who swept into office on a campaign promise to tax the rich and hold corporate predators to account for their crimes.

It is also interesting that he sent the State’s number two Mr. Duffy to attend the inauguration of Kathy Sheehan, perhaps this is a sign of respect from the Governor for the new mayor. The mayor of Albany and the Governor have always had a special relationship, for no other reason than that they can both sit in their respective offices and practically spit on each other. As the Occupy encampment in the Autumn of 2011 demonstrated dramatically, City Hall and the Capital are intertwined. But we will soon learn how well Ms. Sheehan handles that relationship.

Standing Ovation As Kathy Sheehan Is Introduced

After Mr. Tonko delivered a rousing ovation to introduce the new mayor, and as Ms. Sheehan rose from her seat to the podium the entire hall stood and applauded. Much has been made of the fact that she is the City’s first female mayor, but I swear Ms. Sheehan has got to be the shortest mayor this City has had since the Dutch planted Fort Orange in the South End mud in 1609. When crowds press in around her she absolutely disappears from view.

In those intense few moments when Judge Walsh administered the oath of office I just couldn’t get a decent photo. The people on the stage pressed in and suddenly I was getting elbowed by all sorts of people with cameras. I tried to maneuver but all I could photograph was some backs of heads.

The Back Of Kathy Sheehan’s Head, Judge Walsh’s Hair And Hands, And More Of Auditor Engstrom Than I Want To Look At

But then everyone settled down and the new mayor gave her speech. The key part was this:

As we begin 2014, our structural deficit stands at more than $16 million and our rainy day fund will be depleted by the end of the year. Vacant, blighted and abandoned buildings mar far too many of our once vibrant, diverse and historic neighborhoods. One in four of our residents live at or below the poverty level, and many more struggle to support their families. And property taxes are so high that many families and businesses simply cannot afford to locate here.

December 8, 2013

Looking around his own neighborhood the blogger sees the crisis for himself all too clearly

A couple of months ago I was giving a short presentation at a Council of Albany Neighborhoods (CANA) meeting. At the end of it I commented to the crowd that the last vacant house in my immediate neighborhood was finally being fixed up and would soon be occupied. Boy, you should have seen the looks of amazement and envy on the faces of most of the other neighborhood representatives, if only they could say something like that about their neighborhoods!

Well, the very next day I took a good hard look at the house next door to mine and realized, to my horror, that it had gone vacant. I could see that not only was nobody renting the two flats in the building, but from the lack of recent activity that the owner had not been preparing the building to show tenants. That’s what I get for bragging, I guess.

In the next week or so I did some further looking around and realized that some more houses on my street had recently quietly gone vacant. Furthermore, just before the November election, as The Wife and I were handing out campaign literature, we were startled to discover many more vacant houses in the surrounding neighborhoods. It is clear that the Vacant Housing Crisis, that great national destroyer of American Cities, has not abated one bit.

The Newly Vacant House Next door

A few weeks ago I called up the owner of the building next door, who lives about an hour’s drive away from here west of Schenectady. I knew he had been having problems taking care of his rental properties, which were scattered all across the Capital District. This is a common mistake of would-be property owners, you really need to live close to your properties. The farther you have to travel the less you will be able to take care of your investments.

The other big mistake that he was making was that he was treating his collection of scattered properties as a second job. That works if you own, say, one house in your neighborhood that you can walk to when water starts shooting out of the bathroom wall at two in the morning. And most importantly, if you have to look at your property every time you walk out of your house, then you most certainly will find the time to make the building look decent and you will fill the apartments with tolerable neighbors.

I also knew that the owner, whom I will call George, had not been paying his taxes or his bank mortgage payments. If you don’t pay your bills for a while, the debt accumulates until it is unmanageable. His solution has been to abandon his buildings, let the bank and the authorities take possession of the properties and remove his responsibility.

I said, “Why don’t you try to sell it?” He said, “I would but I couldn’t get out of the sale the money I had put into it.” I knew that to be true, he had made another common mistake. He had taken out loans to buy the house at an inflated price, but had let it fall into such deplorable shape that if he managed to sell it he could barely get half of what he owed.

Lincoln Park Last April, Looking Toward My Street. Why Couldn’t A Responsible Landlord Attract Good Tenants To My Neighborhood?

George is a hands-on guy, but he had no idea how to make these apartments attractive, which is essential if you want good steady tenants who will be willing to pay decent rents. He was not very realistic about this, for example he once had the nerve to blame the mulch pile in my back yard for his inability to rent his apartments. Like, it had nothing to do with all the cracks in the plaster walls and the permanent pool of water on the flat roof that several times a year drains through the kitchen ceilings? (Instead of solving the roof drainage problem he rebuilt both of the kitchens twice!)

His solution to what he sees as purely a personal financial problem is to walk away from the property. “That way,” George explained, “I won’t have to pay off the mortgage.” I’m sure his credit is shot and he still owes a pile of taxes, so I don’t think he has thought this all the way through. But without a doubt abandonment is a sure-fire way to eliminate owing a bank mortgage.

It didn’t really surprise me to hear from him that he had given up trying. “Yes,” he offered without my prompting, “I was a bad landlord, and I failed.” I’d seen enough of his management style to agree wholeheartedly, but I decided to not say that out loud. Instead I clenched my teeth and replied that landlording was not a job for everyone and terminated the call. What’s the use.

Dorothy’s House

Across the street from my house another vacancy has developed this past month. A 91 year old lady named Dorothy, who had been living in her house for something like 50 years, finally had to be moved to a “supportive living facility.” She had been having various elderly health problems and had to be watched closely, but I’m told by her relatives that she is quite happy in the communal place. And her little dog, who always barked hello at me when I walked past the house, has been adopted by relatives and is being well taken care of.

That just leaves the house. Fortunately her brother, a man in his 70s, has taken responsibility for the house and is planning to sell it as soon as possible. In the past few weeks he has contracted to have the house cleared of her many now unwanted possessions, I’ve watched the guys load up the junk trucks with everything including carpets. Most of it was of little value, but some of the lower income folks in my neighborhood watched wistfully as her old but serviceable furniture was thrown unceremoniously into the trucks.

Her brother is looking to make the house attractive as possible to a buyer, notably he is having her old furnace replaced. The furnace in there is an old coal burner converted to gas. I grew up in a house with one of those that ran on fuel oil, made of cast iron with a sealed door in front where one used to have to shovel coal. Such devices are terribly inefficient, I would guess that her winter power bills, of which she occasionally complained, were ridiculously high.

Lincoln Park Last May, Seen From My Street

Her brother is well-meaning and I am very glad that he is taking responsibility for this building, which otherwise is in pretty good shape. But he is a suburbanite, from Brunswick across the Hudson River, and he has the typical suburbanite attitude toward the City of Albany. While talking to him I caught a few references from him about “Dorothy insisted on living around here” and that he wanted to get rid of the house so that he “didn’t have to be caught around here at night.”

Thus I made a special point of explaining to him that The Wife and I have lived across the street since the 1980s, that Dorothy had been an excellent neighbor, and that I hoped to see the house occupied by an owner or at least owned by a responsible landlord who lived nearby and would take care of the property. I told him the neighborhood had gone downhill in the 1990s but for the last ten years or so had been improving greatly. I also explained that I had invested heavily in this neighborhood and owned a number of rental properties around the corner on Morton Avenue, and thus was very interested in seeing the neighborhood continue to improve.

He listened to me carefully, and I hope he understands that the person to whom he sells the house very much matters to his sister’s longtime neighbors. I can’t cure his suburbanite attitudes, but hopefully he understands that we neighbors are real people just like him and his sister, and not just a bunch of horrible animals living in a horrible place where nothing matters, which is how suburbanites see us here in Albany. I guess we’ll find out.

Building At South Swan And Morton Avenue, Sold For An Unexpectedly High Price, Recently Abandoned Building In Background At Right

A few days later I heard that a building three doors down from my house, a three unit brick building facing out on Morton Avenue toward the park, had been sold for a hefty price. The former owner, a retired guy who had originally planned to live in the building but changed his mind, had taken care of the building and had put in plenty of improvements. I had no complaints about him, when problems arose or his tenants turned out to be problematic he was right there on top of the problems.

A couple of months ago he told me he was putting the building up for sale. He mentioned the price and I looked at him with surprise and said, “That’s all? I’d expect you to sell it for more.” He looked back at me with surprise and said that the real estate agent had basically told him that if he was serious about selling it then he really couldn’t expect more than that price. Yep. That’s one way how real estate agents, who are mostly suburbanites, do their part to downgrade the City of Albany. I hear this stuff all the time.

Well sure enough it only took him about a month to sell the building, and I hear he ended up getting about $40 thousand more than he had originally been told that he could expect. For the last week I’ve been seeing that the new owner, whom I’m hearing from her contractors is quite wealthy, has been making all sorts of improvements to the building. I will have to be sure to tell this to Dorothy’s brother the next time I see him.

Oh, and by the way, the building that George abandoned is right next door behind this brick building.

The Republican’s House, Now Vacant

Elderly people forced to leave their homes because of age infirmities has always been a leading cause of houses going vacant in Albany. Up the street on the same side as my home is a house with a plaque that says it was built in 1870. It sits on a small rise that back in the 1830s was the embankment for the DeWitt-Clinton railroad, one of the first passenger railroads ever built. Another house two doors down from it may originally have been a train station.

This 1870 house is now vacant. It was the home of a fellow whom I referred to as The Republican along with his wife, this because for many years he and his wife were the only registered Republicans in the neighborhood. He was a retired railroad worker who had achieved a low management position. He carried his bottom rung management attitude into retirement, a couple of times I heard cops refer to him as “the mayor of South Swan Street.”

Shortly after I moved into my house he rang my bell, and proceed to inform me that I needed to mow my lawn and trim my bushes. I thanked him for his interest. After that he haughtily informed me several more times that I should do this or that to my yard and to my house. After it became clear that I was going to do whatever I wanted in my own good time, he became angry and went on the warpath. Story of my life folks, happens to me over and over. I have no idea why I attract such people, I just do.

Once Possibly An 1830s Railroad Station, This House Was Vacant For Over 15 Years Before it Was Renovated By An Entrepreneur And Is Now Occupied

Not long after that I caught The Republican’s wife on my property stealing the flowers off my purple lilac bush, I asked her what she was doing. Looking down her nose at me, she informed me that the former owner of my house let her take flowers all the time. I was about to say well, okay then, but before I could speak she turned around theatrically, stuck her nose up at a 45 degree angle, and stalked off awkwardly just like that with the stolen flowers in her hands. She never spoke directly to me again.

The Republican would repeatedly tell my neighbors that I was the blight of the neighborhood, and more than once waved his hand in my direction and loudly proclaimed with a sneer, “These people don’t care.” That’s me, These People. If I forgot to move my vehicles for the street sweeper he would call the police, and whenever because of that The Wife’s car or my truck got a ticket he would come up close to my face and laugh. Several times I caught him deliberately piling snow up around my truck if I’d parked it near his house.

Lincoln Park This Past October, Looking Toward My Street

In short, he and his wife behaved like typical Republicans. But in the early 1990s he suddenly quit picking on me when word got around the neighborhood that I was buying some of the nearby houses. You see, in his mind I was fair game for abuse until I became a multiple property owner, that is, had become socially elevated above him. After that he and his wife just carefully avoided me, but they continued to throw me nasty looks right up to the end.

As their old age infirmities mounted, it seemed like every few days for like a year the City EMTs were being called to their house, sirens and lights and fire ladder trucks and ambulances blocking the street. Of course they were opposed to “government handouts” but selfishly availed themselves of those services for themselves when they needed them.

I certainly don’t miss having these nasty jerks as neighbors, yet I will say that these jerks kept their house in perfect shape. But naturally the house began to look shabby as they aged, and now that the jerk owners are gone it looks vacant and run down. I have no idea what is going to happen to the house, but I suspect that his relatives or whoever else ends up disposing of the house are not going to care one bit about the neighborhood.

Former Commercial Laundry And Later Demolition Company At The End Of The Street, Now Vacant

At the end of the street, which is a dead end, is a one story commercial building. Old timers remember it as a contract laundry business that cleaned mostly diapers, but of course went out of business as cloth diapers were replaced with unbiodegradable disposables. When I first moved into the neighborhood it was occupied by an outfit called Ritz Trucking, later called A Ritz Trucking. They were the first of several concerns that ran big trucks up and down our street at all hours and they expected the neighborhood to accommodate them without complaint.

For years Ritz had the exclusive contract for City demolitions. Many, many times we watched the Ritz trucks pull out of their yard behind the building and parade down our street at exactly 9 PM on Friday nights, on their way to demolish some historic and irreplaceable City of Albany buildings through the middle of the night. This was mighty lucrative for Ritz working at night like that, but as we all know our City leaders wouldn’t waste taxpayer money so conspicuously unless they had a spurious political reason.

City Hall had Ritz sneak out on Friday night so as to avoid criticism from both the media and especially from housing preservation advocates. By the time the light of Saturday morning dawned another one or more of Albany’s treasures had been transformed into a worthless pile of rubble. Just as importantly, because it was the weekend, and because this was before the internet, the news of another disgusting middle of the night demolition would not make it into the corporate media and most people wouldn’t find out about the destructive attack until weeks or even months after it happened.

Historic Knitting Factory Block On South Pearl Street Destroyed In The Middle Of The Night By DiTonno, Saturday Morning, February 2008

Favored by Jerry Jennings and therefore rolling in dough, Bill Ritz, the owner of the demolition company, had big plans for my neighborhood. He wanted to buy all the houses at the end of my street, tear them down and use the land to park his trucks and expand his business. He had, to put it mildly, deep contempt for my neighbors.

In 1990 Bill Ritz managed to buy the house at 226 South Swan Street next to his headquarters in the former laundry and promptly evicted the tenants. He then let the house at 226 undergo what we call Demolition By Neglect, that is, encourage the building to disintegrate until it gets so bad that the City and the neighbors demand that it be torn down. It’s an old trick. The tudor houses owned by Picotte Real Estate nearby on Holland Avenue are currently undergoing this sleazy process, which I reported on back in 2009.

One Of The Picotte-Owned Houses On Holland Avenue Undergoing Demolition By Neglect

Ritz’s immediate plan was to buy the house next to it at 224, get an automatic zoning change from Jennings’ Board of Zoning Appeals, and get permission from His Majesty to tear down both 226 and 224. But the owner of 224 refused to sell to Ritz. Eventually A Ritz lost the City contract (perhaps because Jennings wanted to stop His sneaky middle of the night demolitions from being observed and broadcast across the City by me and The Wife, heh) and some time after that Bill Ritz dropped dead of a heart attack. I must say that I did not shed any tears at his sudden demise.

I heard that all the property passed to Ritz’ son who had no interest in hanging on to it. The commercial building that fronts on South Swan Street has been vacant for a while, although for the last few years the yard and the building annex in back has been rented by some sort of sketchy auto shop. I can’t tell you who currently owns the vacant commercial building fronting on South Swan, there was a tediously complicated land deal that fell through and last I heard the ownership was in limbo. One of these days I’ll look into it further.

Resurrected House At 226

But the good news is that after sitting vacant and rotting for some 23 years, the house at 226 was bought earlier this year by a fellow who is renovating it on weekends and occasionally on evenings. He has stabilized the outside and, sad to say, has completely gutted the inside. Too bad, you can’t replace those plaster walls. But then I don’t know what shape they were in, it’s possible that they were past saving.

It was this house that caused me to make my wildly inaccurate statement about vacant houses disappearing in my neighborhood at the CANA meeting. In 2011 some creeps tried to steal the copper out of the house, but the neighbors called the police and to my astonishment the police responded and caught them in the act. I’d also heard that the roof had finally begun to leak, that usually means the end of the entire structure. I fully expected this house would soon be demolished, but here it is coming back to life.

This is how the Vacant Building Crisis looks just on my two block long street. There are several more houses on my street that look like they are heading towards going vacant, including one that goes vacant on and off again. I’m not even discussing the buildings located immediately behind my street on either side, and I’m not talking about the ones we discovered downhill on Morton Avenue. Certainly these buildings go through a cycle of vacancy and occupancy, but there is an alarm point where the large number of vacancies threaten to take over the neighborhood and destroy it.

The new regime of Mayor-elect Kathy Sheehan that is moving into Albany City Hall on January 1st will inherit a long list of serious problems to untangle and solve, all of them either generated by or made intolerably worse by the outgoing regime of Jerry Jennings. This entire tangle of problems is usually expressed simply as The Budget, mostly because no matter how you define a problem in our City it eventually translates into money being disbursed by the City government. There’s a lot of disagreement over which problem ranks first above the others, but everyone seems to agree that The Budget is a mess that needs radical measures to be repaired.

Kathy Sheehan, Flanked By Congressman Paul Tonko And Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Slams Jerry Jennings’ Final Proposed Budget For Albany, August 2013

To permanently solve the problems with The Budget we must first solve the problems in the real world. It’s not enough to merely fiddle with The Budget, which is merely a reflection of those problems. That is what the outgoing regime has mostly done for the past 20 years. The new mayor is known as a numbers person and the voting public expects her to make the numbers work. But she is going to have to do a lot more than fiddle with The Budget.

If Mayor Sheehan can solve this problem of vacant buildings then the City’s budget will eventually become automatically solvent, almost like magic. Basically, if you fill the vacant houses with taxpayers, then the City can collect revenue from the taxpayers. And since taxpayers have to eat and take care of other needs, a local retail sector will arise to service their needs, and retail outlets pay taxes too. Problem solved. But how?

First she has to bring the vacant buildings back on line. Ms. Sheehan has said flatly that she can fix the City’s pathetic Code Enforcement in three months, currently Albany spends about 30 percent of what other Cities of similar size spend on code enforcement. That’s the first step. But then what? What happens next? I hope we get a chance to see her implement a solution soon, because time has already run out and the Vacant Building Crisis is destroying our community.

November 17, 2013

The blogger rejects everybody else’s opinions and calls for a simple, sensible solution to the gun crisis

An astonishingly large number of Americans currently believe that the biggest defect of the Bill of Rights is the Second Amendment, the one about guns. Some people don’t like the amendment and are embarrassed by it, and as a result are shy about supporting the Bill of Rights. Meanwhile, others say the Second Amendment is the only important part of the Bill of Rights, and that the rest of the Bill of Rights doesn’t matter.

Well, I’m here to tell you that both attitudes are nonsense. Some forty years of relentless propaganda by the corporate media has transformed the issue of gun ownership into an either or issue, either you claim that the Second Amendment guarantees universal free and easy gun ownership for all, or you reject the Second and believe all guns should be confiscated and banned. There is absolutely no middle ground allowed anywhere in America today.

Poorly Attended NRA Gun Rights Rally At The Altamont Fairgrounds, August 24 2013: Not A Mass Movement

As a result of this carefully maintained disinformation campaign, the vast majority of the people in this country have their heads so bent out of shape that they are incapable of thinking their way out of this artificial impasse. Until We The People understand that we’ve been made stupid by corporate propaganda then the gun ownership issue will continue to spiral out of control. And the longer that the corporate elite continue to use the Second Amendment as a wedge issue to pit Americans against each other, the closer we come to the establishment of a corporate dictatorship.

To begin, we’ve all heard this common aphorism uttered in support of unlimited gun ownership, “The Second Amendment protects all of our other rights.” The thinking behind this is that an armed populace can raise their guns against persons representing government if that government sends those persons to try to take away, say, our right to a fair trial or confiscate our property. Because of this possibility, they say, the government has not dared to shut down the rest of the Bill of Rights and enslave us.

Here’s what’s wrong with that. Anyone who’s been around the block a few times can tell you that if things have disintegrated to the point where the only option left is to pull out the guns and start shooting, well, the game has been over and done for some time. It’s too late, We The People have already lost. The smart thing would have been to not let things get that bad, not sit and wait in the dark for the final shootout.

Bored Security Guards, Altamont Fairgrounds NRA Rally,
August 24 2013

So here’s what I plan to say from now on to anybody who feeds me that line about guns and freedom. “You say the Second Amendment protects all the other rights? You’ve got it backwards.” The real truth of the matter is this:

The rest of the Bill of Rights protects your right to own and carry firearms.

For example, how do you intend to hold onto your guns if the Fourth Amendment is completely negated and the authorities can walk into your house anytime and seize your possessions without a public court warrant? How can you dare to use your firearms if you can be placed in custody on the decree of anonymous bureaucrats, detained indefinitely on secret orders, then find yourself on trial for violating secret “laws” and convicted with secret “evidence” that not even your lawyer is allowed to examine?

When the authorities can get away with such behavior then they are not going to be impressed by a few guns raised by sweaty uncertain hands. A few hastily assembled bands of fat white guys who are used to having everything done for them are not going to last 30 seconds against well-armed police, let alone the military. The only thing those guns will do is provide the authorities with a ready excuse to slaughter those fat white guys.

Albany NY Police Search Cars For Guns After A Fatal Shooting, Ontario Street, December 2012

(Now, if the radical gun advocates talked about using their guns to shoot billionaires or the top executives of corporations to defend our elected government and our Constitution, then I would have to give them my respect. But all they ever talk about is shooting cops in support of arrogant corporate thieves. Thus the gun nuts receive my deep contempt because they threaten to violently support traitors.)

Indeed, an unlimited proliferation of guns will provide the authorities with an unlimited excuse to search and seize and detain without restraint. After all, if everyone is afraid of everybody else because you never know who is packing a loaded weapon, then who but a few dingalings would object to the imposition of order by a corporate dictatorship? That cry for order at any cost, my friends, is how dictatorships get established and how they get popular support. In other words:

Unlimited unregulated proliferation of guns leads inevitably to corporate dictatorship.

This is why certain persons and certain authorities want all of us to carry guns. Make no mistake about it folks. A loaded gun in every pocket and an automatic weapon in every closet is a situation designed to generate social chaos and a subsequent economic breakdown. Universal unregulated guns is a slow motion version of the neocon Shock Doctrine in action. Artificially created disorder and destruction precedes planned conquest and enslavement. It’s a very old trick.

Anti-Gun Violence Rally, Sherman Street, Albany NY,
January 2013

Lately I’ve run into to more and more people who say that privately owned guns should simply be banned outright and confiscated. Alarmed by the prospect of universal gun ownership, and horrified by the plain fact that a few years from now gun deaths in the United States are on track to exceed automobile deaths, these well-meaning folks strongly feel that allowing private guns to remain legal is absurd. The answer, they feel, is simple, outlaw all guns and gun deaths will almost disappear.

Unfortunately things are not that simple. I hear this sort of thing all the time because I live in a small City, an urban environment. In my daily life as with most everyone I deal with on a regular basis, owning guns are not necessary unless one of us intends to do something criminal, like rob a market or murder somebody. Here in downtown Albany NY firearms of any sort are at best a dangerous nuisance that one is better off not having.

But firearms are useful and necessary tools if one lives on a farm or in open country. Guns are used for pest control, for acquiring food and for defense against dangerous animals. Using a firearm is usually the most humane way to slaughter farm animals such as pigs or cows. And very importantly, in places where law enforcement is distant and as a result slow to respond, a gun can be the only defense against dangerous human predators.

Selecting A Pig to Slaughter: That’s How It’s Done

All of this may sound specious and worthy of eye-rolling to the typical urban dweller, but these are real and serious concerns to anyone who does not enjoy convenient urban or suburban conveniences. For persons who live off the land in some way, one needs to be self sufficient as much as possible. A gun, or rather several working firearms are at the center of self-sufficiency and thus are key to survival.

The one gun matter that transcends locality is recreational hunting. Every autumn a small army of hunters outfit themselves at their own expense and pay the government for the privilege of trekking out into the woods and shooting one or two deer or other animals such as turkeys. Recreational hunters come from all over, from the City, the suburbs and the country. Hunting is possible because hunters, wherever they live, have easy access to hunting rifles.

Corn Damaged By Deer (Purdue University)

Whatever one thinks of the practice, it is an indisputable fact that for many species such as deer there is no longer any sort of check upon population growth other than hunters. Deer are destructive animals that will literally strip bare forest areas and thoroughly destroy landscaped areas such as parks and suburban lawns. If left unchecked, overpopulations of starving animals will, for example, invade our farmlands and make a serious dent in our food supply.

If guns are banned outright and hunting becomes rare, then in a few years a number of species of animals will become numerous and out of control, and they will invade human habitations and wreak destruction even in the Cities. Without these volunteer recreational hunters the State would eventually be forced to hire and outfit an army of deputies to constantly comb the woods and keep the deer populations in check, and we taxpayers would have to foot the certainly substantial bill. This is the price we pay for civilization, natural management is often not pretty.

Dumbass Dick Cheney

If we are going to be realistic, then we have to consider one more very practical point. As much as I hate to agree with someone as morally depraved and as close to pure evil that an alleged human being can get, Dick Cheney is absolutely right. Americans will never willingly give up their guns. At least not in my lifetime, or for several more after mine.

Outlawing private ownership of guns in itself will be a nightmare of civil disrupting proportions. There will be resistance, ham handed and ineffective to be sure, but it will be deep and wide. It won’t take long for gun ownership to go underground and turn revolutionary, and with new sorts of technology such as 3D printing gun manufacture will surely follow.

The problem is that in order to enforce a private gun ban effectively, the government will need to acquire extraordinary and unconstitutional powers of search and seizure. That is, the military or the militarized police will have to regularly search house to house for banned weapons, which means the police will have to be granted unlimited powers of entry and confiscation. In other words, the Fourth Amendment has to be formally or at least effectively repealed. (And yes, we are halfway there.)

Albany And NYS Police Searching A House On Dana Avenue, 2012

So we can see that a ban against private ownership of guns will create the same kind of problems that universal private gun ownership will create. Banning privately owned guns outright will paradoxically result in a universal proliferation of guns. The end result will be just as bad as universal unregulated gun ownership. In other words:

Outlawing all guns is as harmful as having all guns unregulated

In one scenario violent chaos generates universal confiscation followed by corporate dictatorship, in the other scenario universal confiscation generates violent chaos followed by corporate dictatorship. And that is why we have been given an either/or choice with no alternatives, because either choice leads to the same corporate enslavement. I think this is deliberate manipulation, but if you don’t think so it doesn’t matter. It all leads to the same disaster.

And one last sticky little consideration. What exactly does it mean to ban private ownership of guns, what do we mean by “private?” You know that means that you and me and Joe Jerk who lives down the street won’t be able to own guns, but what about corporations and their loyal personnel? After all, corporations are “legally” considered individuals and therefore enjoy all the rights and privileges that are due to every American Citizen equally.

Blackwater XE Corporation Mercenaries Train At Their Private Military Base In North Carolina

Unless you’re a lazy TV ideologue or some other kind of pro-corporate pseudo-libertarian, then you know as well as I do that corporations have all of our rights and none of our personal responsibilities. A private ban on guns will not apply to private corporations. Major corporations will be able to buy, sell and stockpile guns as much as they want while you and I will not have these privileges.

With no restraint by the Bill of Rights, these corporations will use their guns at will against you and me, and soon they will assume the law enforcement privileges that are today still reserved for the police by the Constitution. No matter how it comes about, a ban on private guns will be one more transfer of power from the American People to the corporations. Like it or not, the narrow set of choices that have been presented to us by the corporate media brings us the reality of a dictatorship by the corporations.

SNUG Anti-Gun Violence Rally, Morton Avenue And Elizabeth Street, In Response To A Nearby Non-Fatal Shooting,
November 2013

What will life in America be like when guns are completely unregulated, when anyone who wants to can carry and use a firearm? To learn what happens to a society with unregulated guns, you don’t have to go to a war zone or use your imagination, just take a look at the inner Cities of America. Here in Albany all you have to do is look at downtown sacrifice zone neighborhoods such as Arbor Hill or the South End.

(I’ll confine myself to discussing the South End where I live.) For the last two decades of the 20th Century and the first decade of the 21st, the South End functioned, in effect, as a model Neocon Laboratory, just as Baghdad did some ten years ago after the unprovoked US attack and invasion. Like most inner Cities of America, the South End was the end result of the simple minded pseudo-libertarian attitudes glorified in Ayn Rand novels.

Government services were gradually withdrawn from the South End, this became a strict policy after mayor Jerry Jennings assumed office in 1995. Basic infrastructure repair such as fixing streets and sidewalks and sewers, which had gradually decreased throughout the second half of the 20th Century, came to a complete halt. Instead, the City government engaged in periodic bouts of destruction such as wrecking entire blocks of houses, privatizing public amenities and denying basic teaching materials to our South End schools.

Albany Police Chief Steven Krokoff Ended Denial Of Service

Perhaps the worst aspect of this neocon laboratory experiment was strict Police Denial of Service. This is a familiar story in all too many inner Cities in America. We here in Albany are fortunate that Police Chief Krokoff defied Jennings and publicly ended the police war against the citizens of Albany in January of 2010. Most other American Cities have not been as fortunate.

In practice Denial of Service meant that a small number of irresponsible persons were allowed to acquire handguns and use them at will against the rest of the South End community without much fear of reprisal by the police. Occasionally the police would mount military type raids against the South End, conducting an incursion and pullout as if they were invading a foreign country. But between these raids against us Denial of Service remained the policy, and as a result the criminal activities of the handful of gun toting “gangbangers” (for lack of a better word) were effectively protected by the police.

As countless observers have noted, the gangbangers of the South End and of most inner Cities are almost invariably underclass young black men. The unspoken rule has always been, the gangbangers can shoot each other or prey on other black and/or underclass people but they are not allowed to shoot at white middle class people or use their guns outside the neocon laboratories, the sacrifice zones. Such actions would almost guarantee reprisals.

The results of this great neocon experiment, withdrawal of government services combined with careful maintenance of armed thugs can be seen all throughout the South End. Abandoned houses, heaving sidewalks, empty lots and poverty. The few larger business, such as slumlording, street-level drug dealing and charter schools have been entirely exploitative, designed to suck out the remaining wealth or use the community as a funnel for government money.

Make no mistake about it folks. Unregulated gun ownership imposed upon the entire nation will ghettoize every corner of this country just like it did to the South End. When every American community is saddled with a small number of gun-toting thugs that are protected by a corporate controlled government, then eventually every single suburb and urban neighborhood will resemble the worst inner City ghettoes of today.

When (and if) all this comes to pass, then the mild, meek and gunshy majority of Americans will desperately call for military type intervention into their neighborhoods to restore order. Freedom of movement and association mean nothing if you are afraid to step outside. Freedom of speech and the right to fair trial are useless if the worst sorts of people are allowed by the authorities to rule your community with their guns.

So that’s the future that the corporations want for you and me. But believe it or not there really is a very simple solution to this problem of what to do about guns in America. In fact it is ridiculously simple. Once you clear away the pro and con ideologies that are making everybody stupid the solution becomes obvious.

Dick Metcalf, Fired For Political Incorrectness

Recently a fellow named Dick Metcalf wrote a short piece for his column in the magazine Guns and Ammo, a periodical which represents the radical unregulated gun lobbyists and advocates. (Read the entire column here.) His argument made plain sense, and it also got him fired from the magazine, along with the editor who allowed such heresy into print. From the article:

I also receive bags of mail every year, much of it from readers who… typically argued (I’m paraphrasing) that “The Second Amendment is all the authority we need to carry [guns] anywhere we want to” or “The government doesn’t have the right to tell me whether I’m qualified to carry a gun.” I wondered whether whose same people believed that just anybody should be able to buy a vehicle and take it out on public roadways without any kind of driver’s training, test or license.

I understand that driving a car is not a right protected by the Constitution, but to me the basic principle is the same. I firmly believe that all US citizens have a right to keep and bear arms, but I do not believe they have a right use them irresponsibly. And I do believe their fellow citizens, by the specific language of the Second Amendment have an equal right to enact regulatory laws requiring them to undergo adequate training and preparation for the responsibility of bearing arms.

I’ve seen too many examples of unsafe behavior on too many shooting ranges to believe otherwise. And we’ve all read too many accounts of legally armed individuals dealing with the consequences of not being properly trained or prepared when confronted with a bad situation.

October 12, 2013

The blogger is out of patience with America’s internal enemies, and suggests that the entire federal government be hauled before a grand jury

After being all too reasonable for most of my adult life I’m through with coddling these nasty freaks. Like they say, I’m done. These so-called “Republicans” are nothing but a bunch of spoiled brats who whine and complain, bluster and threaten and throw tantrums if the rest of us don’t serve their whims. I say that we patriotic Americans have coddled these immature traitorous scum for way too long, and it’s time we subjected them to some of the discipline that they secretly crave.

Because reasonable people have continuously yielded to these brats and not held them personally accountable for their actions, these Teabag Dittohead Re-pubs think the world owes them everything and that they can get away with anything. Look at the Democrats, how they follow behind these snotty children and concede and compromise until they appear almost indistinguishable from them. Typical Re-pub politicos are so uncompromisingly bratty, that they make that extreme right-wing radical corporatist Barack Obama look like a reasonable defender of the Bill of Rights. Which he most certainly is not.

It’s time to stop being reasonable with unreasonable children. If we let these irresponsible babies continue to dictate to us then we will continue to lose everything, our security, our livelihoods and eventually our very lives. The rest of us need to get together and agree on a way to hold these Re-pubs personally responsible for their anti-American behavior, and if necessary we need to administer harsh discipline or at the very least kick them out of this country so they can enjoy the government of a place like China.

House Speaker John Boehner

Let’s be honest and straightforward. The ultimate goal of the so-called “Republican” Party is to overthrow our elected government and establish a corporate dictatorship. That is what they mean when they say, “We want to drown the government in a bathtub.” And according to available observable evidence, the disorder that precedes dictatorship is the purpose of this current Re-pub shutdown of the government, supposedly over the Affordable Care Act.

Like all spoiled brats, deep down inside these Re-pubs desperately want someone, anyone to assume a fatherly demeanor and spank their fat bottoms until they cry. They are perpetual 8 year olds who are too immature to handle freedom. That is why they crave the discipline of dictatorship, that is why they are constantly obstructing progress and trying to shut down our Constitutional elected government.

It did not surprise me one bit to hear reports that these radical right wing corporate Teabag Dittohead America-haters have found a new hero in the virtual dictator of Russia, Vladimir Putin. Of course, Putin is exactly the kind of stern dominant father-figure that these perpetual eight year olds desperately crave. Actually he’s just another self-serving dictator and kleptocrat who enjoys no accountability, but these Re-pubs only care about image and have little use for reality. Besides, these selfish babies admire kleptocrats.

Teabagger Role Model And Hero Vladimir Putin

Now, if these Re-pub brats were accustomed to doing things for themselves then they would all pack up and move to Russia or China or some other country controlled by a monopoly corporation. Those corporate societies, if you follow the Teabagger “philosophy,” are paradises. But because these brats only know how to complain, they spend their time trying to shut down our government and destroy our economy. Why make for yourself and do something useful when you can make problems for everybody by manipulating other people to do for you?

But because deep down all that these Re-pub brats want is for someone to slap their snotty faces and tell them to shut up, they want to bring Vladimir Putin to America. They want Stern Father to micromanage their lives, tell them what to think, where to live and even who they should sleep with. Ask them to make a choice and they throw a tantrum, give them an opportunity that involves work and they demand that someone else make the effort for them.

These Re-pubs don’t understand democracy and representative government, how could they? Whether they are conscious of it or not, and the biggest and loudest of them most certainly are, the desired end-result of all their activities, their imagined utopia, is the establishment of a corporate dictatorship over the United States. Make no mistake about it, Re-pubs want to overthrow the Constitution and above all obliterate the Bill of Rights from human memory.

In other words, Re-pubs are traitors, their agenda is to transform our entire country into a vast outdoor prison. Republicans are a social cancer, a potentially fatal disease that must be treated aggressively if our nation wants to survive. And BTW, Democrats who behave like Re-pubs are part of the same cancer.

That’s Pretty Much What Happened

The Constitution, or rather respect for the document, is the reason why our nation has prospered spectacularly. What makes the Constitution so effective is that it is powered by the Bill of Rights. It is no exaggeration to say that our wealth and power as well as our freedom rests entirely upon the Bill of Rights.

When it is respected and adhered to, the Bill of Rights guarantees that the leaders of our society are answerable to the wants and needs of The People whom they serve. When it is not respected the leaders quickly turn into privileged parasites who look down their noses and consider The People to be nothing more than sources of income. From that point of view it is only natural that these elite parasites would want to control and micromanage these sources of income, The People.

That is the motivation behind government oppression. That is why our nation’s borders have been militarized, that is why we have armed checkpoints at the entrances of public buildings and in airports, that is why civil police have been turning into paramilitary assault squads. This is the reason why federal courts and judges are no longer independent, why judicial decisions are made in secret by bureaucrats just like such things are done routinely in North Korea.

Teabagger’s Imagined Paradise

Our elected leaders, both Re-pubs and their obedient Democrats, are discarding the Bill of Rights so that they can protect profits, but for whom? On whose behalf? It’s not like the old days when politicians both petty and fat accepted envelopes stuffed with bills under the table from local fat cats. They don’t have to accept bribes from Little People like you and me anymore, that was always a risky thing to do.

Today’s politicians still accept bribes alright, perhaps more than ever before. But now the bribes come from the billionaire owners of corporations who have no loyalty for or respect for the Constitution. They issue paychecks to those politicians who in turn do as they are told. Meanwhile the handful of politicians who don’t take orders from corporatist billionaires are condemned to fight to hold on to their positions.

As far as the billionaire owners of these corporations are concerned, the Bill of Rights allows the source of their income to compete with them. And that, from their point of view, is absurd. Understand that point. The persons who run corporations consider the American People to be competition. Freedom cuts into their profits. Therefore the competition’s ability to compete must be eliminated. Therefore, the Bill of Rights must be destroyed.

"If Elected I Promise To Defend The 4th Amendment, Protect The Middle Class And Close Guantanamo."

Today’s elected officials, at best, act as buffers between the billionaire corporate owners and the despised American Citizens. These Buffering Officials are divided into two main factions, each reflecting a difference of opinion among their owners about how best to manage the despised citizens. This difference of opinion guides and rules both the Democratic and Radical Re-pub Parties.

The first faction, which is most of the Democrats and includes Barack Obama, believes that it is important to keep the despised citizens relatively healthy and happy so that they can continue to provide income for the owners and not raise much of a fuss. But not too healthy and happy, not so that We The People can have enough money and political power to become competitive again with the billionaires. And they certainly don’t want any of us to feel secure, if they can keep us isolated and feeling nervous then it’s a lot easier to manage us.

The other faction, identified with the Teabag Dittohead Re-pubs, does not think about preserving the future at all. Unlike the relatively conservative Democrats, the radical Gop politicos want to immediately destroy the US economy, overthrow the government and cause widespread chaos and impoverishment across the nation as quickly as possible. This, these scumballs believe, will rapidly deliver maximum profits to the billionaires by allowing their corporations to loot and pillage the American landscape until there is nothing left worth stealing.

Charles And David Koch Hate America

If you are naive enough to consider that to be untrue, consider the plain fact that this current Government Shutdown has been planned by these traitors for months. From the Boston Globe:

To many Americans, the shutdown came out of nowhere. But interviews with a wide array of “conservatives” show that the confrontation that precipitated the crisis was the outgrowth of a long-running effort to undo the law since its passage in 2010 — waged by a galaxy of “conservative” groups with more money, organized tactics, and interconnections than is commonly known… The billionaire Koch brothers, Charles and David, have been deeply involved with financing the overall effort. A group linked to the Kochs, Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, disbursed more than $200 million in 2012 to nonprofit organizations involved in the fight.

September 20, 2013

Public attention spurs a planning initiative for Albany’s coast, but first take care of the long-neglected problems

The government of the City of Albany wants to “transform the waterfront,” make it “more user friendly” and “connect the waterfront to the surrounding neighborhoods.” All well and good, I’m all for it, it’s about time they got serious about the reason Albany exists. The 20th Century policy of ignoring the river is one of the root causes of the economic decline of our community.

But what good is prettying up the waterfront if the elaborate and expensive flood control system for the Hudson River no longer functions as originally intended? If every few years the proposed marina is wrecked by flooding and the new parking lots disappear under a foot of PCB-riddled mud, then why bother? And why did Albany County just pay $1.2 million taxpayer dollars and agree to pay a million dollars a year from now on to the managers of the flood control system if that system no longer functions and is effectively worthless to us?

And why are the City planners talking about locating restaurants almost on top of the spot where raw untreated sewage pours into the river? Isn’t that rather unhealthy, like what you would expect in the Third World, and wouldn’t tourists find the odor and floating mats of poop uninviting? I get the distinct impression that I’m annoying a lot of people by asking these questions.

Firedancer At The Weekly Tuesday Night Spinjam At The Albany Waterfront Amphitheater

Back in February I wandered into the main library on Washington Avenue to join about a hundred people who had shown up for a public meeting sponsored by the City of Albany Planning Department. The planners, you see, had managed to procure some grants so they could hold these sessions and inform us taxpayers about their Local Waterfront Revitalization Program (immediately christened the LWRP) which will, we were told, transform the Hudson River shoreline into a user-friendly and accessible asset to the City of Albany. And of course the planners were asking for some constructive input from us folks, that’s pretty much a condition of the grants.

Given my longtime interest in the subject several people urged me to attend. This was actually the second meeting, I’d blown off the first because, well, for years the City has held all kinds of public planning meetings that are very nice and optimistic about the future and make everybody feel like part of the process but never result in any noticeable improvements. But I was told that things had changed, the Planning Department was serious and interest in the waterfront was at an all time high.

Getting public input is always dicey. For instance, when an attendee at this meeting suggested that access to the waterfront could be vastly improved by tearing down Interstate 787 and replacing it with a boulevard, the whole place erupted into applause. That’s not what the City officials wanted to hear. And of course Old Loudmouth here had a few annoying things to say during both parts of the meeting, about the waterfront plan and about the old problem of flooding.

The Old Problem Of Flooding: South Pearl Street, 1913

The plan, which at the time was in its infancy, called for what looked to me like a grab bag of minor improvements, heavy on tourism and recreation with just a few nods toward sustainable economic development. Notably, there wasn’t much real talk about infrastructure. So I raised my hand and Planning Department director Doug Melnick clenched his teeth and called on me.

I told the group that it was all very nice to talk about marinas and parking lots (always with the parking) and the establishment of a “waterfront restaurant row” along the South End part of the waterfront. But before we even begin to talk about these things, I asked, shouldn’t we first take care of the raw sewage that pours out of the “Big C” pipe into the river? Wouldn’t the existence of that raw sewage, the odor and floating mats of human poop defeat any and all plans to make the waterfront user friendly?

Everyone looked at me stunned, like I had just announced that the mayor had rabies and was on his way to the library to bite us all. The Big C is the Combined Overflow, a big concrete pipe which is located under the U-Haul building parking lot and serves as the mouth of the buried Beaverkill River. As I’ve discovered and have mentioned often on this blog, the buried Beaverkill is the drain for Washington Park Lake and the raw sewage that pours out of it originates in the Park South neighborhood, quite possibly from Albany Medical Center.

The Big C Earlier This Summer

According to tests conducted by various governments and by environmental groups, the water just past the Big C shows an enormous and regionally unique spike in dissolved poop (fecal coliform) and is a tremendous breeding area for the bacteria that lives inside your large intestine (enterococcus.) It seems to me that if you encourage more human contact with this highly contaminated water then you are increasing the risk of some unthinkable Third World sewage disease like cholera or typhus infecting the unwary.

To the credit of the City planners, even though they were all cringing as I spoke, they openly acknowledged the existence of the problem. This meeting last February marked the first time that any government official has admitted anything to me about the Big C. For example, when I started railing about this problem some four years ago, the Capital District Regional Planning Commission (CDRPC,) the group that coordinates planning initiatives for our region, refused to admit that the buried pipe that carries the Beaverkill existed. It wasn’t even on their maps.

Washington Park Lake: The Beaverkill Before It Collects Sewage

I’m here to tell you that if a taxpayer like me or like you complains long enough about a serious public problem and the authorities are in no position to kill you, then sooner or later the authorities will take steps to deal with the problem just to shut you up. Sure enough, last month I learned by email from my outgoing Common Council member Dominick Calsolaro that:

It is my understanding that the EPA [Feds] and DEC [State] are requiring us [Albany] to put into the Combined Sewer Overflow Intermunicipal Proposal, that is already slated to cost $110 million, an additional $15 million specifically for the Big C. I also heard some of the other member municipal governments are balking at sharing this additional $15 million and that the City/County may have to eat the whole cost.

August 29, 2013

The Democratic Primary on September 10 is the real election in the City of Albany while the November election is usually a rubberstamp, here is a guide to the Democratic candidates

It’s a long article, and I don’t want anybody to teal deer it, so jump to the race you want to know about by clicking on the appropriate line:

The Mayor: End of the shadow government
First Ward: Dorcey Applyrs, Andres Rivera and a guy who can’t spell his own name
Second Ward: Vivian Kornegay, Lester has got to go
Third Ward: Ron Bailey whether you want him or not
Fourth Ward: A real Albany cop
Fifth Ward: Jackie J-C, a truck driver and a druglord
Sixth Ward: Richard rules, nothing to see here
Seventh Ward: Cathy Fahey meets Tim Carney
Eighth Ward: Jack and Lenny, what a choice
Ninth Ward: Judy Doesschate and a guy named Terrence
Tenth Ward: Leah Golby and Owuse Anane
Eleventh Ward: Anton encounters Judd Krasher
Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth Ward: A free ride for Uptown
Fifteenth Ward: Welcome to Commissoville
President, Treasurer, Auditor: Well, the Treasurer is a contest

The Mayor

When outgoing mayor Jerry Jennings announced at the end of May that He was not going to run for a sixth term, Kathy Sheehan instantly lost her hard-earned status as the up and coming reform-minded dissident underdog. Within two days she became the de facto mayor elect endorsed by the Democratic Party. And in the eyes of many, particularly young voters and black voters, she instantly became The Establishment.

Kathy Sheehan After Receiving The Endorsement Of The Albany County Democratic Committee

To those of us who have fought that seemingly unassailable Old Boy establishment for decades and lately have been supporting Ms. Sheehan’s run for mayor, this sudden end to the Jennings Machine seems exceedingly strange and is a bit difficult to get used to. But from what I’ve been seeing, for the average voter in Albany who only thinks about politics around election time, there will merely be a change of heads at the top. As far as most people are concerned, the only significant change is that our next mayor is going to be a woman.

Ms. Sheehan’s only serious rival in the Democratic Primary that will take place on September 10 is Corey Ellis. You may recall that Mr. Ellis ran a miserable and unconvincing campaign against Jerry Jennings in 2009, yet he still managed to pull in 44 percent of the vote. From the mutters and grumbles that I listened to after that 2009 Primary it seems that the vast majority of that 44 percent vote was not for Mr. Ellis, but against Jerry Jennings.

To underscore that point, a Sienna College poll taken at the end of this past July put Ms. Sheehan ahead of Mr. Ellis at 54 to 23 percent. That’s quite a drop for a candidate with wide name recognition. Clearly when presented with a strong alternative to Jennings, a large chunk of the electorate is ready to leave both Jerry Jennings and Mr. Ellis behind.

Corey Ellis After The Endorsement Went To Kathy Sheehan

But one thing I’ve observed from conversations with young people under the age of thirty is that Ms. Sheehan is not seen by them as a political game-changer who has successfully upended the old boy incumbent. Rather many of them see her as just another clueless Baby Boomer. As far as many young voters are concerned the Baby Boomers have to be removed from our government if we want to find solutions to our problems.

I have to say that I was taken aback by this attitude when I first picked up on it, but I shouldn’t have been. Informed and politically minded youth have been horrified by the sheer magnitude of Baby Boomer Barack Obama’s betrayal of the Bill of Rights and his slavish pandering to corporate parasites. The young put Obama into office with their enthusiastic support, the lesson the young seem to have taken from his betrayal is to not trust promises made by the individuals of Obama’s generation.

And don’t think for a moment that the attack on the Occupy Albany encampment shortly before Christmas 2011 has been forgotten. The camp was destroyed by the ruling Baby Boomers, Jerry Jennings, NY State governor Andrew Cuomo and ultimately coordinated by the Boomer in the White House. It was the non-Boomers who hesitated to attack, such as police chief Steven Krokoff and District Attorney David Soares, who is still getting flak for his refusal to persecute Occupy with bogus prosecutions.

Jerry Jennings In June Announcing His Retirement

From what I hear, the prevailing thought among the young is that, like Jerry Jennings and like Barack Obama, the moment Ms. Sheehan gets into the executive position she will become just another monster obsessed with power. Well, I’m here to tell you that not all Baby Boomers are self-hating liars filled with contempt for their neighbors. Most of us are, but a significant minority of us do not fit the stereotype.

Kathy Sheehan is not a career politician, she entered politics later in her life after a private career because she was tired of the ridiculous mismanagement of the City of Albany by the old kleptocracy. These past four years she has totally reformed the Albany Treasurer’s office into a profitable enterprise without mass layoffs in the department. Her rapid reforms of the Treasurer’s office were her own initiative, they did not come from some Old Boy shadow government chain of command.

It is precisely Ms. Sheehan’s refusal to obey or even acknowledge that Old Boy chain of command that identifies her as not a typical Baby Boomer. This venerable chain of command, which goes back unbroken to the 1920s, is a shadow government that manipulates the City elected government and despises the Albany voters. As anyone who wants to look can observe, over the years that shadow government has systematically transformed Albany from a vital hub into a bankrupt backwater.

Historical Marker On South Pearl Street

As of January 1st the 80 year old shadow government will simply disappear from City Hall. Little pieces of it will linger in certain wards, most notably way uptown in the 15th ward which is still completely controlled by the Commissos. But I don’t see another oppressive kleptocracy seizing control of the entire City in the foreseeable future, the potential for such a coup is no longer there.

One central criticism of Ms. Sheehan has emerged, originating from several directions. There is a suspicion of her background as an executive in a small medical corporation (Intermagnetics in Colonie) that her administrative skills, which were so successful in a corporation, will be disastrous when applied to City government. At least, that appears to be the thought, I don‘t hear it expressed that clearly. Mostly I hear something more like, “She worked for a corporation, she must be bad.”

I have two things to say to that. First, the political success of corporations these last thirty years has been due to their ability to capture resources and exploit talented persons such as Ms. Sheehan. But corporations are doomed to failure because they are merely money collecting operations, for example the corporation Ms. Sheehan worked so hard to revive was simply eaten by a bigger corporation. Ms. Sheehan has been careful to say nothing about that one way or the other, but I would guess it was disappointing for her to see all her work destroyed like that.

Magnetic Coil (Right) For Medical Imaging Made By Intermagnetics

The vast majority of administrative talent among the Baby Boomers has mostly gone to the corporations, that is where the career advancements and good salaries have been. Government hasn’t been attracting the talent, that’s for sure. Certainly not Albany. Here we have with Kathy Sheehan some of that top talent that’s been wasted on enriching corporations. Instead, why don’t we let some of that administrative talent reform our elected government.

Second, from what I’ve seen and heard Kathy Sheehan is deeply concerned about the stagnant disordered condition of the City of Albany, and she feels that if she has the ability to put it right then she has an obligation to try to do so. That’s why she’s running for mayor. That is certainly not the thinking of a career politician, that’s more in line with the attitude of neighborhood activists I’ve known. And yes, as hard as it might be for some people to believe, she is a Baby Boomer who cares about more than just herself.

But please understand that all this praise does not mean that I think that Mayor Kathy Sheehan will be making all the right decisions all the time. I for one will be cutting her a lot of slack as she gets accustomed to her new job, but only to a point. If she shows any signs of ignoring the will of the voters then as far as I’m concerned the honeymoon will be over big time.

One detail emerged back in July that is filling me with alarm. From several candidate forums it became clear that neither Ms. Sheehan nor Mr. Ellis are opposed to burning Albany’s garbage. Seriously. They both appear to consider incinerating waste, thus turning recyclable materials into air pollution and generating unusable toxic ash that will probably be dumped onto the Pine Bush, is a viable option to consider for Albany’s future.

On Top Of The Rapp Road Dump

I know Ms. Sheehan looks at the garbage issue primarily as a money matter, perhaps she is thinking that if burning garbage is most cost effective for the City than it ought to be considered. I can tell you that if the coming Sheehan administration wants to incinerate all those recyclables that I now so carefully separate then I will be totally on the warpath. And I will not be fighting alone.

One more thing about incineration. Earlier this year I cornered Ms. Sheehan and asked her about the latest incineration plant proposal for the Hudson riverfront (which is currently supposed to be sited on the Rensselaer side across from the South End.) I asked her about the possibility that the Rapp Road “Landfill” in the Pine Bush will be mined to feed this incinerator. After all, state-of-the-art incinerators cost almost as much as nuke plants and have insatiable appetites, and all that food has to come from somewhere to justify their enormous cost.

Ms. Sheehan’s reply to what I admit was a leading question was interesting. “I don’t see that happening,” she told me. “Mining the Rapp Road Dump will create more environmental problems than it would solve.” The more I think about that, the more I realize what a precisely specific non-specific answer that was. Whatever Ms. Sheehan’s background, it looks like she has the practiced political skills to be an effective mayor.

First Ward

Because of the last census adjustments The Wife and I have been surgically removed from the 1st Ward, which is annoying. I mean, the neighbors across the street from us are still in the 1st. And the neighbors diagonally across our intersection are in the 7th. It is easy to see that the redistricting committee was committed to tearing my neighborhood to little pieces.

Since this decision to butcher my neighborhood was made long before Jerry Jennings decided to quit, I can only assume that the original idea was to remove two of Dominick Calsolaro’s biggest supporters from his ward. After closely observing some of the outrageous political machinations after the 2000 census, I am very aware that redistricting in Albany is a very dirty process. So unless proven otherwise, we can assume that the 2010 census redistricting process was designed to divide neighborhoods.

Dorcey Applyrs And Her "Loving Husband Don"

But as I’ve reported earlier this year, Dominick is retiring at the end of the year and is strongly supporting political newcomer Dorcey Applyrs to take his Common Council seat. Ms. Applyrs has a strong public health background which she has worked to apply to the community, particularly with our youth. Dominick has said that he is confident leaving his seat to her, that is some serious substantial praise.

Ms. Applyrs puts two items out front, the first is public health, which is the focus of her training and background. Specifically she is calling for "promoting the use of public parks, promoting health and nutrition, organizing ward-wide health events, and supporting SNUG legislation to decrease gun violence." As a legislator she intends to "support initiatives and legislation to improve the overall health status of residents in the First Ward."

The other main item is actually a logical extension of public health, she favors economic development by promoting local small businesses. Toward this end she says "I will work with businesses to develop strategies to increase and sustain consumer purchasing; assess the economic development needs of residents; promote workforce development; and support legislation that will provide tax incentives for first time homeowners." When you see such specifics laid out on a campaign site then you know the candidate is ready to start working on day one.

Andres Rivera (With Regina Goodbee) Announces His Candidacy In April

Of course, with a wide open seat, Ms. Applyrs is facing no less than two challengers. The more substantial of the two is a fellow named Andres Rivera Jr, a former addiction counselor who works as part of the staff of longtime Assemblyman Felix Ortiz. Following the lead of Mr. Ortiz, who also appears to be his mentor, Mr. Rivera is also executive director of Somos el Futuro, a lobbying group that promotes the interests of Puerto Rican and Hispanic interests in the state.

Mr. Rivera came to Albany in 2005 from The Bronx, currently he lives on Corlear Street not far from Second Avenue. It is certainly good to see a representative of the up and coming Hispanic community vying for office, even though that community has not yet demonstrated a substantial presence in City elections so far. That will change in coming years, particularly in the South End where we are seeing more Hispanic people who are taking advantage of the housing opportunities here to settle.

From his associations I’m seeing that Mr. Rivera was probably recruited to run by Jerry Jennings before His Majesty made His decision at the end of May to not run for reelection. To lose a powerful sponsor like that is a blow that does not seem to have deterred Mr. Rivera. On the other hand, having sought out Jennings as a sponsor calls into question his ability to fairly represent the constituents of the First Ward.

Albany Observer reported by tweet that Mr. Rivera was caught collecting signatures for his qualifying petitions several days early. Assuming that’s true, this is a very bad demonstration of his personal integrity. As a legislative aide Mr. Rivera knows better, for him collecting signatures early would not be an error but would be a deliberate flouting of the law.

Scott Mannarino

The third candidate is Jennings’ choice from four years ago, the laughable Scott Mannarino, whose qualifying petitions this year were originally tossed out because, among other things, he spelled his own name wrong. But Mannarino hired a lawyer who somehow persuaded a judge to force the board of elections to accept those sad petitions. His lawyer was none other than the notorious drunken wife-beater and virulent anti-voting activist John Sweeney, who BTW used to be a Republican congressman. All I can say is Mannarino will be known by the people with whom he associates.

Oh BTW, Andres Rivera is the candidate endorsed by the completely out of touch 1st Ward Democratic Committee, the same committee run by Ward leader Regina Goodbee that endorsed Mannarino in 2009. As far as I know, Ms. Applyrs and Mr. Calsolaro didn’t even ask the Committee for an endorsement. Why bother and who cares anymore?

Second Ward

The Wife and I now reside in the 2nd Ward, which is represented on the Common Council by the notorious Jennings minion and all-round embarrassment Lester Freeman. He is being challenged by Vivian Kornegay, who is one of the founders (along with Willie White) of the South End advocacy organization AVillage, and is also deeply involved with the SNUG anti-violence program.

First, let’s talk about the incumbent. Lester Freeman does not believe that the City government should provide services in return for our taxes. During his four years on the Council, he has called for the closure of the Albany Public Library system including the closure of Howe Library, opposed a resolution supporting a restriction on the sale of automatic weapon magazines, and earlier this year vehemently opposed a measure demanding that the Albany Convention Authority pay the City some half a million in back taxes that it has neglected to pay.

Lester Freeman Talks While Carolyn McLaughlin Listens

And Lester does not like public community centers in his Ward. Most notoriously, Lester’s greatest accomplishment during his four years in office has been to help force the closure of Bathhouse #2, the South End’s venerable indoor swimming pool. It is no exaggeration to say that Jennings could not have pulled off this closure without Lester. It was because of Lester that the Common Council was one vote short of overriding His Majesty’s veto of funding the bathhouse. Thanks a lot Lester.

Lester Freeman shamelessly panders to power. Apparently this is because he has grandiose visions of a shining career in politics. Witness his 2011 run for Albany County legislature and his insistence that he could serve both bodies at the same time with no conflict of interest. And let’s not forget his short but splashy pretend run for US Congress, during which he declared himself to be a “conservative,” whatever that is.

I’m told that Lester has the highest absentee rate on the Common Council. Indeed, early on I discovered for myself that during moments of crisis he disappears, he can’t be contacted by phone, email or even by banging on his door. This is one Common Council member who is never there for his constituents, apparently because he doesn’t give a damn about the problems of the South End.

Vivian Kornegay (With Carolyn McLaughlin And Willie White) Announces Her Run In Front Of The
Ruins Of Bathhouse #2

Vivian Kornegay is soft spoken, she doesn’t have a voice for stump speeches and you often have to listen carefully to catch her words. However, she is the kind of person that you find yourself wanting to catch all the words. The more you listen to this 52 year old woman the more you realize that she’s on top of the community issues and has a good idea what needs to be done about them.

Shortly after Ms. Kornegay announced her run for the Common Council in April, The Wife and I invited her to our house for a chat. We only had an hour together so we couldn’t go into too much detail. But both of us were impressed not just with her general grasp of the issues but with the firmness of her convictions.

As an outreach coordinator for SNUG, her job has been to knock on doors and coax people into coming out of their houses immediately following a violent incident in their neighborhood. The purpose of doing this, which has proven amazingly effective both here and in big Cities like Chicago, is to encourage people to overcome the fear and isolation that allows criminals to thrive on the streets. But encouraging people to come outside also makes the politicians feel threatened, which is why they don’t really like SNUG and keep trying to defund the organization.

That was our main impression, that her work with SNUG and with AVillage has been all about organizing community members to confront the issues and confront the policymakers. And this, she told us, is why she is looking to hold elected office, so she can do this sort of work more effectively.

Sure, we hear career politicians talk that talk all the time but from them it’s just talk, community involvement is the last thing they want to see. But Ms. Kornegay is not a politician, nor is she looking for a powerful political sponsor. She is someone who is coming into politics late in life because she wants to fix problems in her community, just like Dominick Calsolaro and Kathy Sheehan did.

Vivian Kornegay In Front Of Bathhouse #2

The downside to Ms. Kornegay, a big problem, is that even though she has worked for many years on social issues in the South End she currently does not live in the 2nd Ward. When I asked her about this, to my amazement she told me that she doesn’t see that as a problem. By law, she told me, “I have until January to find a place to reside in the district.”

That’s the sort of thing you hear from someone who has never run for office. Although she has gotten a lot of help and support, including an enthusiastic endorsement from Common Council President Carolyn McLaughlin, Ms. Kornegay has been hobbled by her lack of campaigning experience. I think her lack of residency in the Ward has muted some of her expected support, I know I have strong reservations about this matter.

But much of her support comes from a general desire to pry Lester Freeman out of the Common Council seat. Unlike Lester, Ms. Kornegay has a solid, independent personality and is accustomed to working to solve the problems faced by the citizens of the 2nd Ward. Willie White, who has known her for 35 years, says, “Vivian is someone who does what she says she is going to do.” That alone makes her a much better choice than the incumbent.

Third Ward

Ron Bailey is far and away the biggest political force in the 3rd Ward, which covers the north end of downtown and the north side of Central Avenue. He is the Common Council member and the Ward leader and a Democratic Committee member, you could pretty much say that he is the Democratic Party in the 3rd. He got his start in 3rd Ward politics by inheritance, he took over his mother’s Committee seat when she fell ill.

Mr. Bailey has always been a loyal Party functionary, which means that for the four years that he has been in office he has always followed Jerry Jennings. Back in 2009 when over in my part of town the 1st Ward defied Jennings and the Party to endorse the re-election of Dominick Calsolaro, it was Ron Bailey who was sent to the 1st to oversee a less than proper revote of the endorsement. As a result the official 1st Ward Committee endorsement was switched from the popular two term incumbent to the pathetic Scott Mannarino.

Ron Bailey

This is why the once powerful Democratic Committee has become irrelevant in many parts of the City. But in the 3rd Ward Mr. Bailey is the Committee, and thus he personally controls the electoral resources that are available for the official candidate. That by itself makes it very difficult for a challenger.

One good thing I will say about Mr. Bailey is that he has worked to connect with the growing Muslim community which is partly in his Ward. Populated along both sides of lower Central Avenue, the Albany Muslims are a hodgepodge of poor and working class folks from countries around the world. The Wife was delighted to see him come out for some of her rallies in support of Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hussein, and he has developed a relationship with the Masjid As-Salam, the storefront mosque on Central Avenue.

Back in 2009, the 3rd Ward Common Council seat was wide open after being vacated by Corey Ellis, who was running for mayor. Ron Bailey and Lisa Feaster fought for the seat, but Mr. Bailey turned out to have the greater experience at political maneuvering. The big moment was at the end of petitioning in July, when Mr. Bailey pulled a very impressive media coup that left Ms. Feaster dangling.

In 2009, with two days left to gather signatures, Mr. Bailey announced that someone had smashed a window of his car and stolen his qualifying petitions, and he heavily implied that Ms. Feaster was responsible. The corporate media, which apparently didn’t like Ms. Feaster’s progressive stand on the issues, loudly repeated Mr. Bailey’s baseless accusation. Ms. Feaster responded with a series of incoherent sputters and duhs, which the corporate media easily parlayed into a virtual admission of guilt.

Lisa Feaster attempted to repeat her run this year, but it seems that Ron Bailey challenged her qualifying petitions and knocked her off the ballot over some minor procedural technicalities. It seems that she still does not know how to find her way around the incumbent. So it looks like four more years of Ron Bailey, I wonder who he will follow when Jennings is gone.

*UPDATE*

The Wife pointed out that maybe Lisa Feaster ought to have hired Scott Mannarino’s lawyer John Sweeney. She figures that if that drunken wife-beating Republican could get the board of elections to accept petitions from a guy who can’t even spell his own name then surely he could have gotten Ms. Feaster on the ballot.

Fourth Ward

Barbara Smith, the respectable college professor, is stepping down after two terms. This past spring I asked her if she was planning to run for another office. She turned to me with an agitated expression and almost shouted, “No! I’m not going through all that again!” Well, like the rest of us, she’s not getting any younger.

Ms. Smith has enthusiastically endorsed an Albany police officer, Kelly Kimbrough. I was amazed to learn of the existence of an Albany cop who not only lives in the City of Albany, but lives in Arbor Hill and sends his four kids to the Albany public schools. In addition, as the Community Services Officer for some 11 years he gained the respect of the community, this in a part of town where respect for the police is small to nonexistent.

Mr. Kimbrough’s approach to public office is a police officer’s, he is concerned with public safety which, to be sure, is major concern for the 4th Ward. In addition to looking to expand after school sports and cultural activities for the kids, he is looking toward “making our streets safer for students to walk to and from school.” He’s been involved with planning National Night Out in Albany, is a vice chair of the Police Athletic League, created a neighborhood watch in the 4th Ward and is a board member of Trinity Alliance.

Kelly Kimbrough Hugs Barbara Smith

I have little to argue with there. Ms. Smith has been deeply involved with all sorts of public health and civil rights issues in the 4th and beyond, but she has always approached these things with an academic detachment. Mr. Kimbrough is clearly a down to earth hands dirty kind of guy, concerned with many of the same issues but from a totally different direction. We will probably get to see the effectiveness of his approach.

Mr. Kimbrough is opposed by Democratic Ward leader Clifton Dixon, who isn’t running much of a campaign. On August 26 he posted a graphic on his Facebook page, “Don’t Quit” with the letters “Do” and “it” emphasized. But a candidate who who even alludes to quitting a few weeks before election day is clearly already lost. Please note the irrelevancy of the Committee in this Ward.

Fifth Ward

Jackie Jenkins-Cox is the incumbent for the Common Council seat serving her first term. Like so many City of Albany public office holders she works for a downstate politician, as a director of operations for a State senator. Before that she was a longtime City Hall employee, eventually moving on to the Water Department and a two year term on the school board.

Jackie Jenkins-Cox

Perhaps because she worked in City Hall for so long she has not been confrontational in her role as representative. Rather her emphasis has been with “building relationships and communication with City Hall” and other City departments. Admittedly there is much merit to “educating homeowners” and building bridges, and her personal emphasis has always been on opportunities for the kids and early education.

A burly guy named Sam Coleman is challenging her, he is a neighborhood activist who is endorsed by the Robert F. Kennedy Club. He’s the president of the the West End Neighborhood Association, involved with the Arbor Hill Development Corporation and is a member of the Democratic Committee. I’m delighted to report that Mr. Coleman is a truck driver, someone who actually works for a living. If I lived in the 5th I’d probably vote for him simply for that reason.

A third candidate is a former druglord who was given early release from prison, Mark Robinson. Some of us can’t forget the Robinson Family crackhouse on Elizabeth Street, and how the Albany police refused to shut it down, effectively protecting the operation (that is, until neighborhood activists brought in the State.) Robinson has been very visible lately and is a supporter of Corey Ellis for mayor.

Sixth Ward

Richard Conti is well-liked by his constituents and is not being challenged in the Primary. That is not to say that he does not have some issues. But as far as his Center Square constituents are concerned, his advocacy for the things that affect them the most, such as the parking permit plan which was finally instituted this year, keep them plenty satisfied with his performance in office.

Seventh Ward

Cathy Fahey is going for her third term for Common Council. She is well known in the lively and economically vibrant Delaware neighborhood, regularly connected with the Delaware Neighborhood Association and the Delaware Avenue Merchant’s Association. When there is a special meeting in the neighborhood or a planning or a zoning hearing of any interest to her constituents, she is likely to be right there in front listening carefully.

Four years ago Ms. Fahey seemed to be hesitant about running again, it seemed she wasn’t sure if she wanted to put in the time required for the job. Of course the Common Council is more than a part time job, particularly in her neighborhood it’s a vocation that eats up evenings and Saturdays with meeting and greeting and meeting again. Personally I couldn’t put up with it night after night, but then I’m quite antisocial.

Cathy Fahey At The ML King Statue In January (With Pat Fahy)

It seems that this time Ms. Fahey is very much into it, perhaps she has grown accustomed to her role as representative. Possibly her day job working for newly elected Assembly member Pat Fahy (no relation!) has energized her enough to believe once again that holding public office can make a difference. In any case her constituents seem very pleased with her visibility and advocacy, that is what counts.

My only problem with Ms. Fahey is her stubborn insistence on supporting the practice of importing garbage to dump onto the Rapp Road “Landfill” in the Pine Bush. No amount of arguing or explaining will get her to acknowledge that there is something very wrong with that failed business model and that it needs to be reconfigured. After Kathy Sheehan takes over the mayor’s office there will be major changes in Garbage Policy, it will be interesting to see how Ms. Fahey reconfigures her stance.

Her opponent, Tim Carney, rang my doorbell one day when I was home, even though my house is not in the 7th Ward. He was accompanied by none other than Lester Freeman, who, as soon as I answered the door, realized their error and developed a painful look on his face. But to be fair, it was an easy mistake to make, the 2010 census redistricting committee was careful to divide the street I live on into three different Wards, one of which happens to be the 7th. Mr. Carney gave me campaign literature anyway.

Mr. Carney seems to be running an old fashioned campaign, heavy on lawn signs and ringing doorbells, probably the only candidate without a Facebook page. About the only clear position from him that I’ve been able to find is a criticism of the incumbent’s financial disclosure form, which is about as interesting to the average voter as last year’s bus schedule. In any case, Mr. Carney has a hard hill to climb if he wants to defeat Ms. Fahey.

Eighth Ward

John Rosenzweig is quitting, it’s unlikely that anyone will miss him. Probably his most notable moment was when Albany Community Television (ACT) started following around Council members with a $99 camera and posting the videos. At the next opportunity Rosenzweig angrily introduced a motion to outlaw filming at Common Council meetings, that was quietly shelved in committee before it garnered too much attention. (That was also the beginning of Albany cable TV access, over which the politicians have some control.)

The 8th Ward is important, in 2009 it produced 1997 votes for the Democratic Primary, more than any other ward. This was originally the home of Jerry Jennings before He became mayor and moved His residence to the City line at the end of New Scotland Avenue. The 8th is also where Kathy Sheehan lives, presumably she will continue to live there after January.

Jack Flynn and Leonard Ricchiuti

Jack Flynn is a deputy Ward leader and of course is endorsed by the Committee. He works as an “election education specialist” at the Albany County Board of Elections, which immediately makes me wonder about conflict of interest. I would be glad to tell you all about him if I could, but other than his associations with the Party there’s nothing that I can find.

Lenny Ricchiuti, you may recall, is a retired Albany police sergeant who lost a bizarre campaign in 2009 against Carolyn McLaughlin for Common Council president. The biggest criticism he received during that race was that he could count on one hand how many times he’d even set foot in the Council chambers, with fingers to spare. I guess the executive director of Albany PAL has taken that criticism to heart and decided that he ought to get some experience as a member of the Council before he presumes to lead it.

In short, the Ward with the most Primary voters has some of the least notable Common Council candidates. At least it’s a race and not a virtual appointment. Again, it should be interesting which politician or political boss or corporation the winner of this race decides to follow. I’m guessing that neither will be following the will of the people.

Ninth Ward

James Sano had been dropping hints that he might not run again, but there he was petitioning like he was planning to run forever. But exactly three days before the end of the petitioning period I received an email from former school board member Judy Doesschate that Mr. Sano had suddenly announced that he was quitting, and that she needed help to gather signatures, like really fast.

Why Mr. Sano did this has been a matter of speculation. If he wanted a wide open battle for his seat he should have announced that he would quit before petitioning, if he wanted a successor appointed by the Committee then he should have waited to announce after the petitioning period was closed. One theory was that he was planning to drop out later so that former Albany cop James Miller could be appointed, but Miller lives in the suburbs and probably decided he didn’t want to move to Albany. But who knows.

Judy Doesschate Outside Her House

Well, somehow Judy Doesschate managed to collect enough signatures in three days to get on the ballot. Of course her petitions were accepted, I’m sure her husband, City Court judge Tom Keefe, sat down and proofread the petitions before she submitted them. Back in the day before Judge Keefe was a judge he was the go-to guy for petitioning law and petitioning procedure for progressive campaigns. It wasn’t likely that he would allow his wife to submit a petition without a signature or a number or whatever.

Back when she served on the school board, for a while as president, Ms. Doesschate was a fierce defender of public education against degradations by the Jennings administration and the siphoning of tax monies by the so-called “Charter” schools. I’ve known Ms. Doesschate for almost three decades, she has always impressed me as strong willed and independent. A lawyer by profession, she is also a bit of a geek when it comes to policy details, I’ve always known her to be well informed.

But also a fellow named Terrence Ward managed to gather enough signatures in those three days, so despite the procedural silliness by Mr. Sano we have a race. I see Mr. Ward grew up in Albany, was a school basketball player, and he works for the State legislature. A couple of years ago he and his family were part of a Hearst Times Union series “Healthy Challenge,” where the corporate newspaper follows three families and monitors how well they meet a series of “fitness goals.”

From His Facebook Page, Terrence Ward With Jerry Jennings

That’s about all I can tell you about him. But on Mr. Ward’s Facebook page I see he is heavily supported by Jerry Jennings. Well, as far as I’m concerned, that makes him poisonous.

Here in the 9th for one more time, probably the last time, we have a Primary contest between a Progressive and a Jennings Minion. Politics in this City used to be simple, you were either one of us or one of them. I wonder what I’m going to write about now that the Old Boy machine era is about to end.

Tenth Ward

Probably the number one issue for first term incumbent Leah Golby is pedestrian and bicycle safety. This focus leads directly into planning and public safety issues, and sure enough a quick glance over her Facebook page confirms her deep interest in these subjects. This is particularly relevant to the 10th Ward, which is a mixture of established residential neighborhoods and student ghetto encompassing Pine Hills on both sides of upper Madison Avenue along with parts of Park South, and is undergoing major changes.

Ms. Golby takes her job seriously, keeping in touch with the neighborhood and working to solve problems. Her downside is that she can be rather cold and standoffish. And as I discovered, she can be quite judgmental of people without taking time to assess the agendas of the persons who are feeding her rumors. Still, if she is available and working for her constituents then that’s all that matters.

Leah Golby And Owusu Anane

Owuse Anane is a 24 year old University of Albany graduate, and is the vice chair of the NY State Young Democrats of Color. He was born and raised in Brooklyn and his parents are immigrants from Ghana. He admires Corey Ellis, recently saying about the mayoral candidate, “You hear his story and it inspires you do to more.”

Mr. Anane appears to be articulate and personable. He meets the incumbent on transportation issues, saying things like “Our neighborhood is at the forefront of promoting alternative transportation in this City, and I believe we can go further.” He is much concerned about the vacant housing crisis, calling for “incentives for responsible landlords” and looking for “unorthodox community-based solutions to the problem of abandoned homes.” Unfortunately, he is not very specific about what these solutions might be.

So we have two candidates, both calling for a “walkable, bikeable community” in the 10th Ward. This is very encouraging. We see the influence of the strong neighborhood associations on the politics of the ward, the politicians are by necessity responsive to the needs and wants of the residents. The bad old dictatorial politics of the 20th century are disappearing, may they never return to our neighborhoods.

Eleventh Ward

In 2009 Anton Konev prevailed in a four way race after his main challenger, Luke Gucker, received a well publicized smackdown from Albany County Executive Dan McCoy, who loudly accused Mr. Gucker of being unpatriotic. After that Mr. Konev, a native of Russia who arrived in the United States when he was 15, cruised to a solid win. I’ve been told that Mr. Konev was also helped by the presence of a Russian immigrant community in his Ward.

Anton Konev

Mr. Konev has certainly made his presence known on the Common Council. Over the last four years I’ve heard some of his colleagues describe him as grandstanding, looking for attention at any cost, a disruptor, an obstructor, and I’ve even heard them call him crazy. In the past I’ve written that I thought he was quite sane, but I’m forced to admit that he is too much wrapped up in himself… which really is the definition of crazy.

I’m not overly concerned with his call for prayers to be recited before every Common Council meeting, that’s one of those subtle things that betray a lack of understanding of American values that one expects from televangelists and Republican politicians. I am more bothered by his constant call to reduce the size of the Common Council, thus reducing voter participation. While such a position probably plays well with bigger politicians and power brokers, it seems to indicate that Mr. Konev wants to isolate the government from the people. In other words, he has corporatist tendencies.

Judd Krasher

Judd Krasher is the challenger. He was Leah Golby’s campaign manager for her successful 2009 race, and since then has participated in a number of progressive campaigns. He is a neighborhood activist, a member of the Democratic Committee, and a member of the Albany County Young Democrats. In 2012 the Robert F. Kennedy Democratic Club gave him their Next Generation Progressive of the Year award.

Mr. Krasher, who is in his mid-twenties, wants to “make Albany a 21st century City.” The way to do this, he tells us, is by renewing the neighborhoods and making them “safe and walkable.” He is concerned with the burden of taxes, but the way to raise revenues is to expand the tax base by attracting new businesses and dealing with the vacant building crisis, not by constantly raising taxes like Jerry Jennings has.

A couple of interesting details, both candidates work as legislative staffers. And both were redistricted out of the ward, but of course both plan to move back in before January.

Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Wards

Michael O’Brien, Dan Herring and Joe Igoe are so totally entrenched in these uptown Wards that nobody wants to challenge them. Except that Herring and Igoe are facing challenges in November from Republicans, which is a minor party that I understand is popular in places like Alabama and North Korea. Basically, the Uptown Mafia is intact and these guys are getting a free ride. Again. Wonder who will lead them after January 1st?

Fifteenth Ward

Frank Commisso Jr. owes his seat to Dad, who is the boss of the Albany County Legislature and operates a 15th Ward political machine that has always been independent of downtown Albany. No one living in that Ward who is in their right mind is going to challenge that machine, so Mr. Commisso also gets a free ride.

Frank Commisso Jr.

But as his Dad once told me, “the kid has a mind of his own.” The Wife has been talking to Mr. Commisso Jr. lately, it seems that he understands civil liberties issues and is much concerned about the NSA scandal spying on Americans and the breakdown of the justice system which has become an acute crisis on the federal level. Mr. Commisso is a smart guy and may have learned from his defeat in his recent campaign for the State Legislature. I still say he is a guy to watch.

Common Council President

Carolyn McLaughlin seems to have settled into the job, the other Council members treat her with respect and she runs a tight ship. Her challenger is John Marsalais, who most everybody liked when he was City Clerk. I don’t see him mounting a strong challenge, it looks like Ms. Mclaughlin is a shoo-in for reelection.

Treasurer

I’ve written about this race back in June, here it is again:

Darius Shahinfar has yet to hold public office, but has worked in various levels of government in his career. He recently told Metroland that the City needs “a technological overhaul,” and about the City’s financial crisis he said “We can’t tax our way out of it, we can’t just make spending cuts to get out of it. We’ve got to bring in new business.” On the downside he seems enamored of the idea of combining and thus eliminating police departments and school districts, which makes sense to a bookkeeper but these days tends to repel voters who are tired of having local access to services eliminated in the name of cost cutting.

Gary Domalewicz’ official biography on the Albany County Legislature site is full of startling negatives, sponsoring legislation “imposing residency restrictions,” “approving GPS tracking” “initiated a law requiring fingerprint and background checks” “eliminating parole” ”outlawing body piercing for minors” “mandatory testing” and “requiring price posting.”. This is not to say that a few of these are not useful or necessary restrictions, but I can’t help but notice the dominant tendency toward curtailing rights in his legislative career. I don’t see much building or improvement, just restrictions.

August 7, 2013

The Wife, otherwise known as Lynne Jackson, carries petitions across New York State by foot on a Journey For Justice to call for a reversal of the bad decision that put Yassin Aref in prison

This is a very long article so it’s in three parts, jump to the section you want to read:
Part 1: Why The Wife Walked
Part 2: The Journey For Justice Day By Day
Part 3: The Chances For Success

Part 1 Why The Wife Walked

The Wife doesn’t want you to forget about Yassin Aref. You may recall that he is a Kurdish refugee who was at one time the Imam of the Masjid As-Salam (Mosque of Peace) which is a storefront at 276 Central Avenue, the main center of worship for the growing Muslim community in Albany. You may also recall that in 2004 while he was the Imam at this mosque Mr. Aref along with a fellow named Mohammed Hossain, who owned a pizza shop nearby at 4 Central Avenue, were arrested and charged with that all-embracing bugaboo called “terrorism” and in 2007 both were sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.

If you have been following the case you will also recall that absolutely no evidence has ever been presented that either of these men have ever so much as contemplated conducting a “terrorist act” let alone plan to carry out one. Let me repeat that so it sinks in: no evidence whatsoever. During the jury trial, the secret police from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) told federal Judge Thomas McAvoy, who presided over the trial, that they had “secret evidence” that these two men were involved in terrorist plots, but that evidence could not be presented to the jurors or to the defense because of “national security.”

Yassin Aref With His Family,
Children Alaa, Sahah, Ayah, Azzam And Wife Zuhur During
Their First Contact Visit In Marion Illinois, 2011

It was because of the word of these FBI bureaucrats, presenting hearsay with no corroboration, that these men were sent to prison and separated from their families. This happened in the United States of America in the 21st Century. And we the people, the dumb foolish easily led people, allowed this to happen. It will happen again, and when the National Security Agency (NSA) has collected enough of our personal data, we the foolish people will be the next targets of the FBI lies.

After repeated requests for documents pertaining to this fantastical “evidence,” the FBI itself earlier this year revealed that early on in it’s “investigation” it made a mistaken identity of Mr. Aref, whom they originally thought was another guy (who may have been a real terrorist) and who is now long deceased. This new evidence strongly indicates that even after realizing that they made a mistake, the FBI bureaucrats went ahead and falsely asserted that Mr. Aref was this other guy, pretending that he committed serious crimes that they called “terrorism.”

In other words, the FBI bureaucrats in Albany walked into a courtroom and committed perjury, a felony, and no one can call them to account for their crime because they are The Secret Police, and they are above the law.

The Wife Leads A March For Aref And Hossain, Albany 2009

About two months ago The Wife started talking about this crazy notion in her head. Mr. Aref’s (pro bono) lawyers in Albany have filed a motion based on this new evidence, called a 2255 in legalese, to free Mr. Aref from serving the last five and a half years of his unjust 15 year sentence. In accordance with federal rules, the 2255 motion was to be filed with the judge who presided over the original trial, Thomas McAvoy.

Judge McAvoy’s office is at the federal courthouse in Binghamton, which is 133 miles southwest of Albany. It seems that The Wife wanted to walk the entire length of Route 7 to Binghamton to deliver the lawsuit. That’s right, walk. With her feet. Nevermind that she had never done anything like that before, she decided that she had good reasons to try. And you know what? She did it, or rather she made it most of the way.

In January of 2011 The Wife experienced a life changing incident. A Muslim man named Muhammad stabbed her in the chest with a knife, tearing out a chunk of her right breast. Then, while she lay prone, he jabbed her repeatedly in her right armpit. Although she eventually recovered from the incident she still bears the marks of the knife.

Dr. Muhammad Abu Hena

The slashing took place at Albany Medical Center. Dr. Muhammad Abu Hena performed a lumpectomy, removing a tumor from her breast, and having discovered that the cancer had begun to move into the first two lymph nodes in her armpit he made the decision, as he told me in the surgery waiting room after the operation, to remove all of the lymph nodes in her armpit, which turned out to be 19 in all. This was a reasonable precaution, once cancer moves into the lymph system it is impossible to eradicate.

Now, I am a person who does not automatically trust doctors and surgeons in particular, over the years I’ve seen too many medical practitioners who like to generate business for themselves. I spoke with Dr. Hena and looked him over carefully and decided that this was someone that I could trust, I could leave The Wife in his hands and I could be sure his decisions would be the best for her. Believe me, if I’d had any doubts about Dr. Hena I would have raised a vicious stink and demanded that another guy cut up my spouse.

Later that year another doctor, a standard issue white guy, systematically poisoned her within an inch of her life. After that a doctor from India irradiated her like a turnip headed for the supermarket. All in all 2011 was a lousy year for her. But all this slashing and poisoning and irradiating greatly renewed her faith in Western medicine. After catching breast cancer, a popular disease that affects one in eight women, she found that the system was very much geared to keeping her alive and healthy.

After Starting Chemotherapy, The Wife Loses Her Waist-Length Hair, March 2011

This was also the first time in her life that she was forced to confront the fact of her own mortality, at age 59 her time is running out. Here she was wondering what to do with her remaining life, what is important? What can she do to use her time to the greatest advantage?

I usually support her projects and notions without much fuss, but I have to say that at first I tried to get her to reconsider this idea of all this walking. She clearly did not know what she was getting into, she had never done anything remotely like this. She’s a total wimp. When she stubs her toe she cries like a baby, when she scrapes her knee she’s ready to check into a hospital.

But she started to give this walking idea serious consideration, and she started talking to experienced long-distance walkers who told her of what the human body is capable and what to expect on the road. Most importantly she started practicing by taking long walks in Albany, for example walking from our house in the South End to Stuyvesant Plaza out in the suburbs and back, about 11 miles. Slowly, reluctantly, I became sorta kinda convinced that she could pull it off, like okay maybe we’ll see. Like that.

The Wife Coming In Dead Last At A 5K, Lincoln Park 2012

Immediately she ran into a problem, she had nothing to carry to Binghamton. Federal lawsuits are no longer dead tree instruments that are carried in one’s hands to be delivered, they are now filed electronically like tax forms. Even if she carried a pile of paper all that distance it would have been meaningless, the clerks at the federal building in Binghamton would throw it back in her face and tell her to get lost.

So she came up with the better idea of carrying a petition to Judge McAvoy, calling for him to right this wrong and free Mr. Aref. In just a few weeks she managed to collect a total of 1715 signatures, both paper and electronic. Most of the paper signatures were collected in Albany, but many of the electronic signatures came from around the country and a few from around the world. Among the electronic signatures I did not spot a single negative or sarcastic comment, the vast majority expressed horror that something like this could happen in the United States.

As soon as she started asking, all kinds of people offered to help her with her journey. People were amazingly enthusiastic. You see, she had no intention of walking alone and unnoticed, she wanted people to walk with her, she needed someone to drive a support car each day to carry her baggage and take care of her needs, and she needed a place to sleep every night. She spent a solid two weeks making arrangements for the walk, she hardly had time to practice walking or do some work so we could pay some bills.

Patriot Edward Snowden

Part of this popular enthusiasm came from good timing. Good decent Americans have been appalled by the classified documents revealed by that patriot Edward Snowden, particularly how the National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting data on American citizens, apparently in anticipation of conducting a war of terror against the American people. Many people have been frustrated by these revelations, what can a patriotic American do to counter this grave threat to our remaining freedom?

Along comes The Wife who was actually doing something, a symbolic publicity stunt to be sure, but an outrageous non-violent act that brings attention to a specific injustice perpetuated by a broken federal system of justice and educates one and all about the more general assault on our Bill of Rights by an out-of-control secret police. I noted that with her walk she was unintentionally riding the crest of a wave, these issues at the beginning of summer were very much on everyone’s minds. The days when secret bureaucrats and corporatist politicians could simply utter the word “terrorism” and ruin lives are coming to an end, hopefully for good.

Routes 7 And 30A Near Schoharie NY

There was one other thing, the walking. Nobody walks between cities and towns anymore, why kill ten days walking to Binghamton when you can drive there in two and a half hours? As The Wife herself repeatedly put it, “I must be nuts to do this.”

I think that most people, way in the back of their minds, have this notion that someday for some reason they too will park their cars and go for long walks like our ancestors did routinely. Of course most people will never do something like that, but along comes The Wife. Not only was she Doing Something about creeping corporate fascism, here she was turning the fantasy of hardcore walking into a real event.

I insisted on driving her along Route 7 to Binghamton so we could both scout out the route and anticipate problems, we made two trips. Back in the 1970s I did good bit of hitchhiking around the country and quite a bit in New York State, anyone who’s ever done that knows that hitching rides long distance involves plenty of walking on the road. I had much advice to give her about how to keep going.

Route 7 (Red Line, Close To Interstate 88) Albany To Binghamton, 133 Miles

My main concern was safety, to stay alert and how not to get run over by a vehicle. I learned that the biggest concern is entering and leaving towns and villages, that is precisely where one is most likely to get run over and killed. In a town one has sidewalks and out in the country there are usually good shoulders to walk on and plenty of visibility, but in those transition areas there are often no clear areas to walk, and the vehicular traffic is often unpredictable because the drivers tend to be impatient. That’s for starters.

But I hadn’t done any of that kind of walking for like 30 years and I’d forgotten about a few things that could have saved her a lot of problems. In fact I’m still kicking myself for not remembering these details that mean little or nothing unless you are walking down a hot pavement in the middle of hot summer wondering how far is the next town. It was some of these forgotten little details that almost derailed the whole project near the end of her journey.

Let me give you some of the highlights of her ten day journey, seen from my viewpoint. The Wife kept a daily online journal of her walk, so you can follow her view which she updated faithfully every evening. (Unfortunately the blog is on WordPress which is full of weird glitches particularly when you hit the links, but it makes compelling reading.)

Part 2 The Journey For Justice Day By Day

Day 0, Friday July 13

On the eve of her departure, The Wife and her co-conspirators held a meeting and panel discussion at the next door annex of Masjid As-Salam on Central Avenue. I didn’t count heads but well over a hundred people attended, probably closer to 150. The speakers were attorney Kathy Manley, who is the author of the 2255 motion, Albany Common Council Member Dominick Calsolaro, President of the mosque Shamshad Ahmed, and of course The Wife. Jeanne Finley, who did a great job handling publicity and press releases for The Journey For Justice, acted as MC.

Outside Masjid As-Salam

The crowd was a mixture of people from the community and members of the mosque. The majority of seats were occupied by the visitors from the community, and the majority of people standing against the wall or seated in the back of the hall were from the mosque. I’m not sure what that meant if anything, I merely note it. Also the corporate media was in attendance with their content providers and equipment getting in the way.

The entire crowd was very attentive. Of particular note was the impassioned speech given by Kathy Manley. I hope that someone saved her speech for posterity because it was the most succinct and strongly worded encapsulation of the legal details of the case and the circumstances surrounding it that I’ve heard.

Presentation Inside Masjid As-Salam

Later, two hats were passed around the room, one for contributions to the Project SALAM and the other to help defray The Wife’s expenses on her journey. Both hats returned literally overflowing with cash. Members of the mosque were particularly supportive in this way, and most of the members gladly signed the petitions. It sure looks to me like the carefully constructed political wall of fear and misunderstanding is crumbling into dust here in Albany.

Afterwards much of the crowd went outside to march a short distance to the Pine Hills Library, which tomorrow morning would be the official start of The Wife’s walk.

Day 1, Saturday

The Wife got started late about 10:30 AM, a sizable crowd of about 30 people went along with her for at least part of the way. This included a group of Muslim teenagers, all of whom were immigrants from West Africa, brought along by Democracy Now! producer Hany Massoud and his wife Aysha Hoda. The kids only walked for a few hours because this walk is happening in the middle of Ramadan, the holy month when during the daylight hours a Muslim is expected to not consume any food or water. This makes any strenuous activity rough, I’m amazed these kids walked as far as they did.

The African Kids, With Aysha Hoda 2nd From Right

For the start of this journey she walked west on Route 20 (Western Avenue) about 11 miles to Dunnsville Road, her destination for the day. She had each day meticulously planned and posted online so anyone could find her on the road. No secrets here. Any given day she was sure to be somewhere between points A and B, plus the schedule gave her a clear goal to follow each day.

The Journey For Justice Officially Begins

Basically it took her two days to leave the suburbs that surround Albany. After reaching her goal for this first day day she stayed at a house in suburban Colonie where her host and hostess threw a party attended by a fair number of local activists, The Wife of course was the guest of honor. But she did not party all night, she was tired enough to get to bed by 10:00.

Day 2, Sunday

A number of people joined her, most notably Mr. Fred Childs who presented to her a fabulous retractable walking stick. This she found very useful and was extremely grateful for the gift. Starting late at 8:40 it was already getting hot. But in the next few days it was going to get a whole lot hotter, a record breaking heat wave. That’s July in New York State for you.

Mr. Fred Childs

Most people are at most dimly aware that the roads west from Albany are a long slow climb in elevation. When you’re driving a car it doesn’t matter, but when you walk it’s a major effort, and The Wife appeared to be amazed by the magnitude of this discovery. But what really slowed her down was that some of the people walking with her were overwhelmed by the long hill, it sounds like they were discovering for themselves that what The Wife was doing was a lot more than a tiptoe through the tulips.

To be fair, some of the eight people walking with her that day included Fatima Hossain, wife of Mr. Aref’s co-defendant Mohammed Hossain, and two of her sons. Again, how anyone fasting for Ramadan could walk in that heat even a short distance is beyond me. While the 2255 motion is not about Mr. Hossain, clearly if the motion for Mr. Aref is successful then the circumstances of the case can be applied directly to Mr. Hossain, who is much older than Mr. Aref and reportedly is in very poor health.

Mohammed Hossain at His Arrest and Fatima Hossain

So The Wife didn’t quite reach her goal, the junction of Routes 7 and 30 in Esperance, she stopped three and a half miles short of her goal. You see, she had to stop walking at 2 PM so that she could make a presentation of the Aref case to a group called Peacemakers of Schoharie County. She described them as “an amazing group” and venerable, having been formed back during the War Against Vietnam and still going strong.

When The Wife first proposed this walk a few people expressed concern that she would be captured by half-human redneck teabaggers somewhere along a deserted stretch of Route 7 and hogtied to the back of a pickup truck never to be heard from again. Or deliberately run over by a drunken dittohead. This shows how much we’ve been taught to fear and hate each other, that so many of us assume that if we dare get out of our cars for even a moment, then the dread Other will use that as an opportunity to kill us.

The Wife found the opposite on this journey, regular folks that she met were helpful and in fact were delighted that she was undertaking this walk, most having heard about her on the news. And she found that the entire route was absolutely riddled with peace activists. After all this was part of the idea, to bring together people who normally would not meet each other. This is a very powerful thing to do.

Day 3, Monday

This was the beginning of the extreme record breaking heat wave, she sure picked a lousy week to walk for hours on a pavement. The air temperature was about 95 degrees fahrenheit, and add about 20 degrees to the pavement itself. So she started walking before 7 AM, but she wished she could have started earlier at dawn.

The River Known As Schoharie Creek Near Central Bridge In The Morning (Photo Lynne Jackson)

Still, she made good time. Her designated supporters for the day followed her in the support car and made sure she was cool enough and had plenty of fluids. But by 11:30 the heat was so intense that she was forced to take a siesta. So she called her host from the night before, who brought her back so she could take a midday nap.

She got going again around 4:30 and arrived in Cobleskill at 8 PM. Despite everything she had made up for lost time and was back on schedule. it was starting to look like she might be able to finish the walk.

Day 4, Tuesday

Today she got started in downtown Cobleskill at exactly 5:22 AM, pretty much the crack of dawn. In the morning’s relative cool, walking by herself, she made good time and soon found herself out in picturesque farm country.

Dawn In Cobleskill

As a surprise I drove down to check her out, I found her around ten minutes to 7. She looked good, and the heat wasn’t too bad. Yet. And the scenery was magnificent. It looked like she was having a grand time walking down the road, I hoped that would continue.

The support car found her around 8 AM having breakfast in a little burg called Richmondville. Later she was joined by Fred Childs, who made good time as he walked with her. At this point she was enjoying herself “immensely” despite the heat, and she had no trouble making her goal for the day.

Several other people joined her that day, and she made every one of them put on a safety vest like the road workers wear. Of course she couldn’t force her supporters to practice safety, some of them insisted on walking in the road and some simply did not stay alert to the traffic, but happily nobody got killed. Route 7 is no longer used much for long distance traveling, not since 4-lane Rt. 88 was built up in the hills, which runs parallel to Rt. 7. Almost all vehicular traffic was local, that contributed to overall safety of the walkers.

She was interviewed by a Binghamton radio station on her phone as she walked along. She got a lot of coverage in the local media both in Albany and Binghamton, and also along the route. She even got some international coverage, for example I spotted a blurb that appeared in the Times of India. But other than Democracy Now! no US national media picked it up. Naturally the corporate media wasn’t allowed to mention it. Of course.

West Of Cobleskill, 6:50 AM

At the end of the day some of the peace activists spirited her away to Cooperstown, which, as we discovered while preparing the trip, is closely tied to the sizable college town of Oneonta, which lay ahead for The Wife on Route 7. The two towns are about 22 miles apart, they share their economies and such things as newspapers. For most people Cooperstown means baseball, but for the Wife both towns were hotbeds of Quakers, peace activists and anti-fracking advocates.

In Cooperstown she presented to only about a dozen people in a hot, stuffy church. As usual everyone listened to her with rapt attention, but after she was done and had answered a few questions everyone was glad to get out of the place. Unyielding extreme heat had become the prevailing characteristic of this journey.

Day 5, Wednesday

The burning heat continued. Unfortunately The Wife got a late start after lingering over breakfast with her hosts and talking talking talking. Things had been going well up to this point, too well perhaps. Somehow she managed to keep going until about 1PM, but it was rough for her. Not being able to walk through the middle of the day was becoming a big problem.

This is probably when her blister began to develop. As a rule the Wife is not terribly aware of her body, when she starts to feel physical distress it usually means the problem has become acute. If she had noticed the blister on this day then this would have been the time to deal with it, but she didn’t and it got worse.

Early in the morning when she was walking by herself, a little dog dashed across the highway and starting following her and barking, probably having never seen a pedestrian before. Worried that the critter would get hit by a car, she told it to go home, but when it didn’t pay any attention she started screaming at it. The poor thing was stunned. It stopped barking and stood by the road watching her walk away. If that little dog is out there I’d like to apologize to it on her behalf, the heat and the stress were starting to take a toll on her.

The Wife was starting to fall behind her schedule. She isn’t very fast to begin with and because of the intense heat it was impossible for her to slog through the hottest part of the day. A fair crowd joined her for that day, which of course tended to slow her down more. But she was glad to have walking companions.

Max Calls The Cows

One of her walking companions was Max Grieshaber, the artist who created the nifty giant banners that always appear at these Muslim Solidarity rallies. Max is a man of many talents which are too numerous to list here, but this day The Wife watched Max regard a small herd of cows critically. He then made a low murmuring sound, and suddenly all the cows obediently (and apparently happily) responded to his call and walked up to greet him, switching their tails and lowing.

A couple of guys from Philadelphia, Joe Piette and Mike Ehling, arrived in the afternoon when she was having her siesta. The Wife knows them from working with them on another outrageous miscarriage of justice from their locality in which she is very interested. She went out on the road with them again around 5:30 PM. But, she reported to me, as the evening progressed they ran into a big swarm of biting insects and they were forced to quit early at 7:30 to escape being eaten alive.

Day 6, Thursday

She got an early start a little after dawn accompanied by the guys from Philadelphia, starting where she left off the day before at a glorified intersection called Cooperstown Junction. The countryside was wonderful to look at, but she was complaining again about bugs biting her more vulnerable spots. The Susquehanna River runs close to Route 7, I guess that spot has a nearby swamp that breeds lots of nasty bugs.

Heading For Oneonta

I called her later that morning, as she walked she told me for the first time that she had discovered the blister on her foot and that it was beginning to bother her. Suddenly I had a thought and asked her where it was located. It turned out to be on her right foot, on the right side of her heel.

Aw jeez I could have slapped myself for forgetting. The Wife, you see, walked exclusively on the left side of the road so as to be facing traffic, that way she could see if an oncoming vehicle is about to swerve toward her and she would be able to take evasive action. I told her to stay alert and always be ready to dive head first to her left, off the road and over the guard rail if there was one. Better to scrape yourself up or bust a bone than to be hit straight on by a car traveling at 70 miles per hour.

What I forgot to tell her was that unlike a sidewalk, the shoulder that she was walking on was sloped, this is so water will run off the road. The problem is that when you are walking on the shoulder for hours – for days – after a while your right leg feels shorter than your left and your whole body starts to feel uneven. Sure enough where her right heel was pounding against the pavement it was chafing against her shoe, and that chafing was turning serious.

I told her the one way to avoid problems with the sloped shoulder was to take any opportunity to move off the shoulder and walk on any surface that she could find that was flat or sloped in the other direction. It just so happened that as we talked there was a flat grassy strip running alongside the shoulder that she was walking on, and she moved over to it. Sure enough she reported immediately relief, which I found heartening.

Finding A Sidewalk Upon Entering Oneonta

Soon she escaped the bugs and she reported that the countryside was gorgeous. Several more supporters joined her, and she approached Oneonta, which as we had anticipated turned out to be very difficult to enter by foot. As she wrote on her daily blog, “The shoulders narrowed, and deteriorated. We often had to walk between a guard rail and the road, on crumbling asphalt. It is very pedestrian unfriendly.”

Transportation planners do not bother to connect towns and cities to the countryside so that pedestrians or bicyclists can easily enter or leave the settled areas. One is required to ride in a motorized vehicle. Certainly that’s because almost no one walks such distances anymore, but I’m inclined to think that for the last 60 years or so there has been a deliberate effort to isolate town and country from each other, a consequence of the anti-urban agenda that has been a characteristic political notion of all too many influential people.

This separation of town and country is one of many subtle things in our present day American society that are keeping people isolated from each other, things that effectively divide most of us into little groups. As many political observers over many years have observed, these divisions between groups make it easy for government to control and manipulate people. So one of the unanticipated consequences of The Wife’s journey down Route 7 was to demonstrate the existence of these subtle barriers constructed around towns and cities, and she was piercing these barriers by walking through them.

Talking To The Quakers In Oneonta

Oneonta is a fair sized town that has what looks like a flourishing economy, and it is the largest settlement on the road between Albany and Binghamton. At Noon she gave another presentation, this time to about 15 of the local Quakers. This time there was a lively discussion, most of these folks were unaware of how badly the federal justice system is broken and how decent people are beginning to suffer as a result.

In the evening she walked as far as a campground on the west side of Oneonta, but again she had to quit early because of all the bugs that were eating her alive. I guess that’s a consequence of walking alongside the Susquehanna River in high summer. That, along with the plain fact that she is one of those people who attract bugs, they have a marked preference for her tender flesh and tasty bodily fluids.

Day 7, Friday

The Wife got going early enough at 5:45, she reported that it was a beautiful morning with no bugs. There was some cooling fog which made her concerned about visibility on the road. So she attached one of those blinking red lights for bicycles on the top of her walking stick. That would have made a great photo, The Wife walking through the fog like some exotic wayfarer with a magic lighted staff traversing Middle Earth.

West Of Oneonta In The Morning (Photos For This Day By Mari)

After the fog lifted and the heat started to settle in she still continued to make good time. Her supporters for that day turned out to be very helpful, they understood that they were there to keep Her on the road and moving. In that way she covered nine miles before Noon, stopping finally at Wells Bridge, which is about 22 miles west of Oneonta.

But the blister on her foot had gotten a whole lot worse. She consulted several people by phone, and the next thing you know she was sitting in the emergency room at Fox Hospital in Oneonta. This turned out to be her siesta, she spent the bulk of 3 hours napping on an exam table in an air conditioned room, which was fine with her.

Eventually a doctor named Cade looked at her foot and told her it wasn’t infected like she feared, but it had gotten to the point where it was filling up with blood. He pronounced judgement: stay off it. Try not to do any heavy walking. Uh oh.

Along Route 7

She decided she’d better stop for the day, even though she had fallen quite a bit behind schedule. She still thought that if she gave her foot a rest she might be okay, but as we all soon found out her foot was already fubar for the near future. The events of the next day would prove that decisively.

If you don’t take care of a blister when it first forms, draining the pus and drying it out, it becomes an open sore that can easily become infected. Again I was kicking myself for not explaining blisters to her, but in my defense I have to say that I’ve never thought much about blisters because I rarely got them, and when I did I took care of them immediately. I forgot about the Wife’s capacity for ignoring her own body.

In the evening I drove down to Otego to join The Wife at the home of Stu Anderson for the tail end of a dinner party. The house, she told me, was easy to find. It was right in the middle of Otego on Rt. 7 which serves as the main drag of the small but lively town. The yard was decorated with anti-fracking signs and on one side was a rendition on plywood of NY State governor Andrew Cuomo sporting devil’s horns. “You can’t miss it,” she said.

Anti-Fracking Sign In Otego

Many of the peace activists that she encountered along Rt. 7 have been diverted from stopping war and waging peace by the issue of fracking, which lately has become a dire issue for many of the locals. Indeed I saw a lot of mostly homemade anti-fracking signs along her route and only a few mostly professionally manufactured pro-fracking signs. In nearby Pennsylvania fracking had been allowed to proceed and here on the New York side of the border I heard a tone of angry desperation at the immanence of the problem.

Apparently there is a fair amount of natural gas (methane) in the shale under the ground, and a number of hit-and-run speculators have been hot to get at it and make a quick buck. I did not run into a single person down that way, activist or otherwise, who does not fully understand that fracking will pollute their groundwater beyond redemption and will ruin their landscape. Because of the oil operations in North Dakota, our country will continue to have a glut of gas for the foreseeable future. So fracking for gas in New York State is unnecessary, plain and simple.

So I found the house in Otego with no problem, but when I pulled up the first thing I noticed was all the cars parked in front with kayaks on top. It seems that The Wife’s co-conspirators had a plan to get her off her feet for one day and help her make up for lost time so she could finish her journey in time for the big rally and press conference they had scheduled in Binghamton on Tuesday.

Day 8, Saturday

The plan was to put The Wife in her canoe into the Susquehanna River for a nice quiet paddle downstream accompanied by a flotilla of kayaks. I asked if this was cheating, and I was told no, “it’s like walking with her hands.” Oh, okay, whatever. So I drove down from Albany with our boats on top of the car, arriving the night before so we could get an early start.

At ten to seven five of us put into the river at Wells Bridge, four kayaks and The Wife in her canoe. She was escorted by me, Kathy Manley, Steve Downs and a young woman named Mari who was paddling a kayak for the first time. Mari had walked with The Wife on Thursday when the heat and the blister were starting to drag her down, she reported that Mari was a very energetic and helpful companion on that day.

I was not impressed with the Susquehanna at first, it seemed a little too narrow and shallow for my taste at that point. But once we got going about a mile the river got deeper, wider and a lot faster, and we kept encountering rapids which I was not used to. I have to say that I greatly underestimated the Susquehanna, and as a result both The Wife and I paid the consequences.

View Of The Susquehanna River At Bainbridge Where We Paddled, With Deceptively Calm High Water

To make a long story short, we were paddling just fine through and around the rapids as the river got wider and swifter. It was at a bend in the river at what turned out to be the town of Sidney, about 35 miles from Binghamton, that we got in trouble. It was a classic case of a person getting into trouble and the would-be rescuers getting into the same trouble and nearly drowning.

What happened is that Mari, the paddling neophyte, got caught in a fallen tree in the water at an inside bend of the river. The Wife, not suspecting that the local currents were dangerous, headed toward the tree to rescue Mari and ended up dumped into the water unable to move because of the current. When i heard her scream I unthinkingly (and stupidly) headed in to rescue her and also ended up dumped in the water unable to move. Glad we were both wearing our life vests.

After surfacing I struggled my way out of the current by moving toward the shore, minus my glasses and my camera. The Wife was very embarrassed that I had to rescue her by pulling her out of the water with my paddle, in fact she was quite ashamed. (If you are interested in a detailed description of “The Incident At Sidney” I wrote a long detailed description of the entire scary and subsequently ridiculous episode here.)

The Tree At Sidney That Undid Us On The Following Tuesday

(One thing I will mention is that because I lost my camera I have no pictures of this trip, which is too bad because the scenery was spectacular. But when we returned to Albany on Tuesday I insisted on stopping in Sidney to thank our rescuers, and I took a picture of the tree that had undone us. We looked down into the river wide eyed, due to thunderstorms the water had risen tremendously since Saturday and had become positively deadly.)

One important detail of this fiasco is that the Wife carried the precious folder full of petitions in the bottom of her canoe, and after she got dumped into the water the folder started to float away downstream! Fortunately Steve Downs managed to rescue the folder, the petitions had gotten wet but were salvageable. Unfortunately The Wife’s beloved canoe had been smashed against the tree by my kayak and could no longer float.

Petitions Being Sorted Out And Dried

After this “Incident At Sidney” Mari had had enough fun in the sun and left for the day. So eventually the four of us got back into our boats, The Wife into the kayak that Mari had been using, and we continued downriver to our planned destination, the little burg Afton. There we were met by The Wife’s host for the evening who was sitting on a rock at our landing spot trying out his new camera on us as we approached at about 3:30. We’d traveled some 25 miles.

But the Wife was exhausted. It turned out that sitting all curled up with the outsides of her heels scraping against the inside walls of the boat was a very bad thing for her blister. She reported that it was hurting and felt like it would burst, which she was told by several medical people would be a very bad thing. It was now quite apparent that she could not walk anymore and could not complete the last 25 miles of the journey.

Day 9, Sunday

So now The Wife needed to recruit a substitute walker, and an excellent stand-in was found immediately. Jack Gilroy is one of the foremost peace activists from the Binghamton area. A man in his late 70s, he is an experienced walker for whom 25 miles over two days was no problem at all.

As a teenager Mr. Gilroy enlisted in the Navy, but when he heard about the War Against Vietnam he asked for a discharge so he could join the Army and serve his country better, fighting for freedom. But after serving honorably, he came to realize the terrible disconnect between the propaganda that the government and the defense corporations were serving to the American public, and the cold hard realities of what he and the rest of the military were doing on the ground in Vietnam. After completing his service in Nam he went through a period of soul searching and decided that it was his duty to oppose those policies in a firm but nonviolent fashion.

As a leading member of School of the Americas Watch, the citizen’s organization that monitors and by simply making their presence known threatens and terrifies the perpetrators of endless senseless war, he has been tossed into federal prison more times than he can remember, usually for things like refusing to disperse or for deliberately stepping over a line painted on the pavement. One federal sentence was for six months, and he has endured solitary confinement and other unreasonable punishments despite always being a model prisoner.

The Shirking Wife Poses With Jack Gilroy (Right, Holding Petitions) And Jim Clune Of Binghamton Who Walked With Him

Whatever you think of Mr. Gilroy you have to respect him. In his youth he served his country as faithfully as he could, and since then he has routinely put his body on the line to oppose the obvious errors committed by his country, a man of strong principles. He has a good idea of what Yassin Aref is going through, two days of carrying petitions calling for his release was a small thing for Mr. Gilroy.

Meanwhile The Wife lazed around living it up riding in the support car. She told me that Mr. Gilroy had an impressive way of focusing on his task of walking, he faced forward and marched along not stopping to chat or admire the scenery. In this way he covered 13 miles in 5 hours, which the The Wife, who is slow, plodding and easily distracted, found very inspiring.

The Wife gave a presentation at a mosque in nearby Johnson City, which by the way is not far from where she grew up. That evening a wish of hers was fulfilled, her hosts for the night served her speedies, which is a kind of shishkabob endemic to the area. Meanwhile, she could barely hobble around.

Day 10, Monday

Like I said, Jack Gilroy does not fool around. He started walking at 6:30 AM and finished up in downtown Binghamton before Noon. The heat hardly bothered him and the only service he required while walking was a little water. Meanwhile The Wife lazed about living the high life, which she had suddenly come to appreciate.

The Wife Gives Another Interview

Before the walking journey started, The Wife and I drove down to Binghamton twice to find an acceptable walking route into Binghamton. The problem is that about ten miles east of Binghamton Route 7 merges with Interstate 88 which doesn’t allow pedestrians. The best walking route we could find was through a maze of back roads, and even these roads had quite a few treacherous stretches.

No problem for Mr. Gilroy, he just moved along and didn’t linger anywhere long enough to get nailed by a speeding sedan. But this was what I’ve been talking about, it’s difficult and dangerous to walk a mere ten miles from open countryside to the settled areas of Binghamton. Not only does this carefully constructed road barrier isolate town from country, surely this prevailing “limited access highway” serves as a brake on economic development of the eastern end of the Binghamton area.

So with a little help from her new friends The Wife’s Journey for Justice was now over. She spent the evening lolling about giving interviews and fussing over the right way to bandage her foot.

Day 11, Tuesday

In the morning I drove down to Binghamton bringing Dominick Calsolaro, he’s the Albany Common Council member who back in 2010 sponsored the groundbreaking resolution in Albany calling on the US Justice Department to review the convictions of Muslims who were “preemptively prosecuted” without the due process guaranteed under the Bill of Rights. Dominick has always been strong on defending civil rights, I don’t recall meeting or even hearing of another current elected official who has been willing to risk his or her political reputation to defend American freedom in that way.

Dominick Calsolaro Waiting By The Sports Stadium On Henry Street

Dominick had also joined The Wife on Wednesday to talk to the Oneonta Quakers as well as having participated in the kickoff events for the walk in Albany. He and I were part of a caravan of Albanians who planned to gather in front of the Federal Building at 15 Henry Street in downtown Binghamton. This secretive public building is where Judge McAvoy holds forth, this is where the petitions were to be delivered.

We were the first to arrive at the meeting spot on Henry Street next to a sports stadium about a quarter mile from the Federal Building. Eventually the Albany people started arriving, and the local Binghamton peace activists and other local concerned citizens joined us. Early on it even looked like the Albanians were going to outnumber the locals.

Jack Gilroy Pushes The Blister-Footed Wife, Steve Downs And Yassin Aref March Alongside

I got to meet Jack Gilroy and I had a chance to thank him for carrying the load of petitions for my defective spousette. Finally The Wife arrived looking happy and rested despite gimping along on her nasty blister, which true to form she treated like a major life-threatening illness. Someone produced a wheelchair, and we all marched up Henry Street with Mr. Gilroy pushing The Wife in the chair like she was some kind of casualty of the wars.

In front of 15 Henry Street a small group of about 40 people gathered around a portable podium provided by outspoken peace activist Father Tim Tougher, who had also provided copying and binding services for the petitions at his church before the event. (The petitions were still somewhat damaged from the river.) Steve Downs acted as MC, speeches were made. Of course The Wife was the center of attention, although she quite correctly shared the spotlight with Mr. Gilroy, who characteristically gave a stunning set of remarks condemning the failures and excesses of the American Empire.

Still Sitting, The Wife Watches Steve Downs MC

It’s important to note that Mr. Gilroy’s remarks were quite relevant to the case at hand. It was because the federal government needed “terrorists” to justify their wars against Iraq and Afghanistan that Mr. Aref and Mr. Hossain were perjured into prison. Lacking an enemy Dick Cheney and Barack Obama have had to manufacture scary bogey men, and damn the Bill of Rights in pursuit of global conquest.

Among the attendees from Albany was Yassin Aref’s 17 year old daughter Ala, and Mohammed Hossain’s wife Fatima with their 7 year old daughter Helema. Ala and Fatima were in Muslim garb, Fatima is conservative and only exposes her eyes to male barbarians such as myself. In addition several other Muslim women were present who wore less conservative dress who covered themselves much more than the average non-Muslim American woman.

The local corporate media was in full attendance, and as was true of this entire journey their reports were favorable. Even FOX News, both here and in Albany presented tolerably accurate reports to their viewers. It looked to me like the Murdoch-owned affiliates were caught between condemning grassroots “liberals” and condemning the US government. They couldn’t decide who to smear so they were forced to produce relatively straight copy.

Jack Gilroy Forcefully Condemns The Excesses of The American Empire

That was the thing about The Wife’s crazy adventure, it was so out of the ordinary that the media could not afford to ignore it. But as quite a few people have observed, there is a lot of uneasiness about the Aref and Hossain case among media employees as well as regular folks who follow the news. In Albany a surprisingly large number of people are aware that Mr. Aref and Mr. Hossain were perjured into prison, and that the case would interest people 133 miles away in Binghamton shows how much this abortion of justice still resonates.

Perhaps most importantly for the success of this project is the fact that The Wife has developed the ability to gab about her favorite cause on cue in a personable and compelling manner. The Albany media workers learned a long time ago that they could count on her to produce instant broadcastable content back when she acted as volunteer spokesperson for the environmental organization Save The Pine Bush. Decades of public speaking about sand dunes and karner blue butterflies has prepared her to discuss civil liberties issues in a manner that literally everybody who listens to her finds compelling.

The security guards and cops who conduct illegal search and seizure inside the doors of the Federal Building came outside to make sure we didn’t move off the sidewalk and come in contact with THEIR steps and THEIR property. (Apparently the federal government no longer belongs to us taxpayers.) I was not the only one who noted the variety of cops that quietly hovered on the outer perimeter of the block, but during the speeches they kept back and behaved themselves.

The Wife Talks To The Media

So when all the ceremonies and speeches were done and The Wife had chatted up the rapt reporters (and forgotten about the wheelchair that she was supposed to occupy) she gathered together a small contingent which included the daughters of the unjustly perjured men and marched up the steps of the building with the petitions. Naturally the guards created problems, not letting The Wife carry in her walking stick and at first refusing to let the two Muslim girls inside because they didn’t have “proper” photo ID. Seriously, they tried to do that with a 7 year old girl.

The Wife “stood her ground” and with TV cameras hovering anxiously outside the guards decided they’d better make an exception just this once and let them in. Once inside they found the court clerk and handed her the petitions for Judge McAvoy. It’s likely the smiling woman dumped the petitions directly into a garbage bin, or perhaps she sent them to a special department that copied all the signatories onto a “terrorism” watch list. But now the journey was done, the petitions had been officially received by our dysfunctional paranoid federal government.

Marching Up The Steps

Now, when The Wife and her escort were inside the outer doors negotiating with the goons I slipped inside and snapped a quick photo, or tried to. Unfortunately my usual camera was sitting in the mud of the Susquehanna River at Sidney, and this old camera that I was using surprised me by flashing. Oops. The guards all starting hollering at me to stop taking pictures because such things are verboten inside a stronghold of the Reich.

So I smiled my most idiotic smile and apologized and quickly ducked outside. But a few minutes later this “court officer” (a glorified security guard) came out and demanded that I delete the photograph from my camera. I did not say, like hell I will. Instead I told him politely but firmly that I would do no such thing unless he could present me with a warrant from a judge. The police cannot stop a citizen from photographing a public building nor can they seize a camera without evidence of criminal wrongdoing, and a security guard certainly cannot order anybody to do anything.

I was right and he was wrong, and it quickly became evident that he knew it. But he persisted with a raft of phony arguments (“I didn’t give you permission to take my picture so you have to delete it.” etc.) Pretty soon cops started encircling the group, slowly moving in even though they clearly didn’t know what was going on. It was starting to look, well, ridiculous in the extreme.

Halima And Kathy Manley Play With The Wife’s Abandoned Wheelchair

Joe Lombardo from Albany quickly jumped to my defense and argued at the guy, and as he argued I called to Kathy Manley, and she took over the arguing. Several more people joined the arguing, including The Wife who had by now emerged from the building. By this time the cops had figured out what was going down and had started to back off, but the guy wouldn’t quit.

So Joe suggested that I take a walk, and he and I strolled back to the sports stadium where I parked my car. I half expected them to follow me with sirens and drawn guns, but of course they didn’t and I escaped intact. I’m sorry to say that due to the flash the photo is absolutely worthless, but here it is because they told me to not put it on the internet.

Part 3 The Chances For Success

The purpose of this “Journey For Justice” was to raise popular awareness of a gross failure by the federal justice system and bring people together, but what about the case itself? Would The Wife’s walk have any impact on the judge’s decision? Would that impact be positive or negative or none at all?

Most people don’t realize that all judges, whether they are duly elected or appointed like Judge Thomas McAvoy was, are politicians like any other public office holder. As such they are subject to the same major restraint on their behavior and actions as any other politician, they are answerable to the public. Any politician who does not consider him or herself accountable to the public is corrupt and is a liability to the community at large, the same holds true for judges.

Attorney Kathy Manley, who wrote the 2255 motion for Mr. Aref, has repeatedly said that in her experience she considers judge Thomas McAvoy to be a fair minded individual, “one of the better judges” for a lawyer to be in front of. She has been saying that his decision in the Aref and Hussein cases were an aberration, that his decision was tainted by the interference of the FBI with their unconstitutional “secret evidence.” Combining perjury by the secret police with political pressure from the Cheney-Bush White House to produce “terrorists” at any cost forced him to make a bad decision based on no evidence.

Cops On The Binghamton Courthouse Steps Watch The Press Conference

Is that true? McAvoy was recommended for his judgeship by one of the most blatantly corrupt politicians of the 20th century, former NY Senator Alphonse D’Amato, and was appointed by that architect of America’s decline, senile Ronald Reagan. Personally I find it hard to believe that a judge with such associations in his background could be fair minded. Rather I would expect him to have no firm concept of an independent judiciary and that he would be politically disposed toward taking orders from politicians bigger than himself.

The ultimate point of walking these petitions to Binghamton is to make Judge McAvoy aware that he is being watched and monitored by the highest of all authorities, the public. It is also meant to make the judge aware that a large and growing segment of the public understands that his original decision to send these innocent men to prison is a serious error on his part. Unless he is hiding in a basement playing online games day and night, there is no way that he cannot have noted the publicity and the growing awareness of the issues around his bad decision.

The publicity generated by The Wife provides the judge with an opportunity to save face and repair his original mistake. He can now consider that he was given false information by the FBI, either intentionally by them or unintentionally. The key here is that the information that determined his decision has now been proven to be untrue.

Cops Up Henry Street Watch

But why would a judge in the first place even admit hearsay “secret evidence” into his courtroom that he did not even allow to be shown to the jury or to the defense? It is because of the so-called “Patriot” Act that judicial decisions have effectively been removed from the courtroom and handed over to anonymous government bureaucrats of the secret police. And because of the “Patriot” Act these bureaucrats operate in complete secrecy, wielding ultimate authority over citizen and immigrant alike with no oversight.

I say that anonymous bureaucrats have no right to judge anyone. That is how judicial decisions are made in North Korea and in the People’s Republic of China. That is how judgements are made inside Exxon-Mobil, Monsanto and Halliburton. This is not how judicial decisions are made in the United States of America.

Back in 2007 the general public was still captivated by the spectral bugaboo “terrorism” and was willing to disavow American rights and freedom to accommodate the backroom bureaucrats of the FBI. Such captivation depends heavily upon a constant barrage of propaganda by a monolithic corporate media. But since 2007 the internet has provided strong competition to the corporate media, in 2013 the corporate political information filters can no longer bamboozle the majority of Americans.

Cop Across The Street Watches

In 2007 most people still foolishly regarded the FBI as incorruptible defenders of freedom, Eliot Ness and his associates fighting the forces of pure evil. By 2013 much of the public is now aware of what the FBI really is, a gang of out-of-control secret police who despise the Bill of Rights and are actively working for the imposition of corporate dictatorship upon our nation. More accurate information has caused the shift in public opinion, it is this ability to exchange information on the net that makes The Wife’s walk possible and effective.

A further point, one that few people have caught onto yet, is that federal judges are quietly disappearing into the cloud of secrecy that is effectively ruining the legitimacy of our federal government. For example, one cannot find a photo of Judge McAvoy anywhere online. Supposedly this is to protect judges from “terrorism,” but the real reason is to anonymize them so that the public cannot hold them personally responsible for their actions.

It is very possible that Judge Thomas McAvoy will wimp out and whine that the blatantly unconstitutional “Patriot” Act has tied his hands and that he has no choice but to take orders from the perjuring FBI bureaucrats and reject the 2255 motion. Back in 2007 when he admitted secret hearsay evidence into his courtroom, Judge McAvoy was effectively refusing to defend the independent judiciary that is one of the pillars of American democracy, some say the backbone. If he refused to take a stand for judicial independence back then, why would he do so now?

As a sitting judge his duty is to defend the independence of his court, we can only hope that he has learned to understand that he is personally responsible for his own actions.

Judge McAvoy is a public figure, and as such his reputation depends upon public perception of his abilities to carry out that public office. It remains to be seen if he has enough self-worth and personal responsibility to render this 2255 motion a fair and just decision. Whether he likes it or not, the judge is being judged. That’s what The Wife’s walk was all about.

Lynne Jackson, In Front Of 15 Henry Street, Is Pleased With The Success Of Her Walk

 

July 11, 2013

A boat trip across Skaneateles Lake to search for fossil corals and cool off a little

On the shores of Skaneateles Lake in the Finger Lakes region of Western New York is a spot along the water’s edge where one can find fossil staghorn corals. The spot is well known by geologists but not by too many other people, a good place to find evidence of the sort of life that covered this part of New York when it was under the ocean about 400 million years ago during the Devonian Era. Somehow a big bed of coral got covered up, was preserved, and today the fossil corals literally fall out of the shale cliffs that rise straight up from the water.

The spot, called the Staghorn Cliffs, are accessible only by small boat, and it was a hot, hot Saturday in July. So to deal with the heat and to have an adventure the Wife and I decided to take our personal watercraft to Skaneateles Lake and see if we could locate the cliffs and do some fossil hunting. Weatherwise we absolutely lucked out this rainy year, the sky was partly cloudy and we encountered absolutely no thunderstorms for the entire day.

An Idealized Version Of Fossil Hunting At Staghorn Point (From Sci-ence)

Right now there’s not a lot of information out there about the Staghorn Cliffs, so how did I hear about them? I haven’t been reading any geology textbooks, but I do read a lot of comics. Yes, I’m not ashamed to admit that I search out online comics, buy comic books and the main reason that I subscribe to a daily dead tree newspaper is because every morning I absolutely study the comic page.

From reading this one particular online comic and the narrative that went with it I learned enough about the site to be able to track down the location of the cliffs. But very quickly I realized that this odd bit of information was rare, for instance it took me a good half hour of online search to discover the exact location of the Staghorn Cliffs. I found that all descriptions of the site are quite vague and directions to the site are nonexistent.

In principle this is a good thing, the last thing we need is an endless succession of tourists like us showing up with buckets and carting off all the fossils. So perhaps I should protect the site right here on the blog by perpetuating the vagueness in my description. And perhaps I should have protected the site by not seeking out the site and searching for fossils and bringing them home with me.

Skaneateles Lake In The Morning

Well, I discovered that the door is closing on uncontrolled access to the site. The cliffs and the land behind it became a protected preserve in 2011, administered by the Finger Lakes Land Trust. So far there is no land access to any part of the preserve, but there are plans to eventually provide public access and create protection of the cliffs from damage and random over-exploitation.

As for my taking of a few fossils, I want everybody to know that we merely collected what fell on the ground. Bits of shale, you see, fall out of the cliffs and collect as gravel at the base of the cliffs. Left alone the shale gravel are pounded by the water, quickly eroding and slowly drifting further out into the lake.

I did not bring excavating equipment and we did not dig into the cliffs. I want everyone to know that. I realize we were very privileged to have this chance to search for these treasures, the least I could do is show some respect.

Helderberg Escarpment

I worked out this rationalization a while back. About ten years ago we attended a three day wedding at a resort located along the Helderberg Escarpment in western Albany County. As part of the festivities I followed a group of about thirty young, healthy skinny people across the face of the escarpment and later crawled with them on my belly through a cavern. These skinny kids kept calling me the Old Fat Guy and were duly impressed that I was able to keep up with them and didn’t complain.

The big thing I brought away from this wedding expedition is that peer pressure will indeed induce me to do things I normally wouldn’t do. (I also learned caver rule number one is never fart in a cave. You hold it in, or spelunk by yourself.) I still to this day do not understand how I edged along a two foot wide ledge so high up and didn’t one bit fear slipping on the crumbled stone beneath my feet to tumble down the sheer cliff to certain death.

As it turned out, the crumbled stones on that ledge that we were shuffling along were fossilized snail shells that had fallen out of the cliff! Thousands of them! The line of people clinging to the cliff’s edge came to a halt and everyone began to argue. Was it okay to collect the fossil snails, remove them from the site, or does an ecologically minded steward of the land leave such things alone for natural forces to act upon them? We formed two factions, no one was moving off the cliff face until this was settled.

The Wife’s Fossil Snails From The Helderberg Escarpment

I decided right there that I was going to bring The Wife (who was back at the resort soaking in the swimming pool) a rock containing fossil snails as a present. So beginning at a point of expediency I vigorously supported the argument that the snails beneath our feet were in the process of falling down the cliff and being destroyed, so to carry a few down the cliff was merely a variation on nature. Besides, someone else pointed out, we were causing much more damage to the fossils and to the cliff itself by shuffling along the ledge, and someone else pointed out that we couldn’t carry off too many snails anyway.

Expediency is a great ideology, it allows you to do just about any damn thing you want. The final point of justification is that in both cases I had to work to collect these fossils. For the Helderberg snail that I grabbed I had to climb up a cliff and step carefully along a high ledge, and for us to find the staghorn coral we had to paddle about forty minutes across a lake and clamber up unto a narrow pile of gravel. We didn’t buy these fossils, they were EARNED.

Leaving Sevey’s Boatyard

Skaneateles Lake is 16 miles long north to south, but only one and a half miles at the widest part. This presented a problem, the State public boat launch is on the north end of the lake at the Village of Skaneateles while the Staghorn Cliffs are near the southern end. No way we were going to paddle round trip some 25 miles or so, this was supposed to be fun.

But four or five miles of paddling round trip we could handle. The Staghorn Cliffs are on the east side of the lake, we found a boatyard located on the west side across and a little ways north. When we called Sevey’s Boatyard the day before they told us no problem if we wanted to leave our car and launch our boats, they asked for a small fee that we could pay “on the honor system.”

So from almost deserted mostly unpopulated lakeside Route 41A I drove the car with boats on top cautiously down a curvy one lane terrific steep grade to the shore. We eventually discovered that much of the shoreline of the lake was choked with fancy mcmansions, almost none of which announced their presence up on the highway. There’s a lot of serious money around there, I guess they want to keep out riffraff like us.

We Paddled Slowly Past The Cliffs Admiring Them . . .

We managed to launch a little before 9AM, at that time besides us we saw only a few small bass boats on the lake trolling their lines for trout and bullock. Skaneateles is considered the cleanest of the Finger Lakes, supplying drinking water for several municipalities including Syracuse. So I don’t understand why motorized pleasure craft are allowed on the lake, these speedboats and ski-dos always leave a trail of oily foam in their wake that us slow boaters can see all too well.

But whatever, it was too early in the day for the power boats so we had a nice quiet lake to ourselves. The open water was a greenish color which appeared to deepen as the day proceeded. I’ve seen this with other lakes in upstate New York. When the weather is cool the water is so clear you can often see to the bottom, but in warm weather like this algae grows suspended in the liquid, the warmer the weather the greener the water.

The lake is maybe three quarters of a mile wide at that point, after crossing we found the Staghorn Cliffs to be closer than I expected. In fact we paddled slowly past the cliffs admiring them but eventually we realized that we were approaching the southern end of the lake and there were no more cliffs to be seen. That worked as a positive identification, so we confidently paddled back to the cliffs and looked for a place to land the boats.

High Water, No Place To Land

We prepared for this adventure pretty well but I’d forgotten one thing, the high water. Right now every body of water in upstate New York is filled to capacity and more. Flooding has been rampant everywhere. Driving the night before, I was forced to slow down to 40 mph on the Thruway and almost had to pull over several times because of the torrential thunder storms. There was another big downpour in the evening as we were having dinner at a restaurant.

Because of all the rain everything was soaked. At every part of the lake that we saw, large quantities of water noisily tumbled down cliffs and squeezed out of the rocks. This was very nice to look at, but when we arrived at the cliffs we couldn’t find anyplace to land. The location for our planned activity was mostly underwater. This miscalculation was a big problem, but fortunately was not fatal to our purpose.

In the online comic account that I’d read, the author and his daughter had spent their day walking on a gravel ledge inspecting the stones for fossil coral. At this point I remembered that the account was from 2011, which you may recall was a dry year in this part of the world. Suddenly it looked like we had come all this way for nothing, well, a nice day paddling but we weren’t going to find any fossils.

The Wife Found A Gravel Ledge

Then to my amazement I saw that The Wife, who is usually a wimp about such things, had found a pile of gravel above the water about four feet wide and had managed to get her canoe up on it. Turns out she really had to pee, she was already sitting in the water by the time I had managed to pull my kayak up on the pile. This was hardly ideal for fossil hunting but would have to do.

Still, this limited our search area. We could walk in the water no problem as we picked our way along the cliffs. But I quickly realized that it was useless to pull rocks out of the water, the soft shale eroded quickly and any fossils that they may have displayed were gone. So the best place to look was among the freshly fallen stone that was right at the base of the cliffs where we landed.

The Wife, true to form, quickly became bored with this activity. “I thought the fossils would be lying on the ground ready to be picked up!” she complained. She left the searching to me while she hung out admiring the flowers growing out of the cliffs and waded around in the water.

My Not Very Impressive Staghorn Coral Finds

The teal deer version of this story is yes, I found exactly one small mostly complete staghorn coral fossil and several bigger cross section staghorns and some impressions. I also found some very nice brachiopods, which back in the Devonian were underwater animals that looked like plants rooted in the ground, similar to present day sea lilies. I was hoping for more interesting finds but hey, under the circumstances we did pretty good.

A Few Nice Brachiopods

The best hunting spot I found was right next to my kayak, this is where I found the small staghorn. The trick, I discovered, was to find a large shard of shale the size of my hand and encourage it to split along the already existing fractures by applying a little pressure with my fingers. I know, I’m walking the ethical line here that I drew for myself, but I didn’t pull anything from the cliff and I didn’t break any rocks that weren’t already on the verge of breaking.

The base of the cliff is composed of solid slabs of shale, but above the base and as high up as we could see the cliff is composed of small shards of shale pressed together. On one part of the cliff these shards are glued together with very soft sedimentary rock that I could see was melting from all the wet. In other sections of the cliff the bits of shale are crushed together cleanly in a mass.

I’m guessing this was originally a 400 million year old gravel pit that got buried and got crushed along with whatever else had fallen into the pit. The cliff was very porous, water oozed out of the crushed stones to drip down the cliff face. At about the middle of the cliffs was a spectacular waterfall that almost looked artificial, like in somebody’s garden.

Shale Gravel Glued With Sedimentary Rock Dripping Water

Like I mentioned, the lakeshore is lined with fancy expensive mcmansions. Almost every accessible spot, no matter how steep, had been turned into private property and developed. On either side of the cliffs north and south the endless string of summer “homes” began again, I don’t recall seeing any large empty lots except right here at the cliffs.

I’m guessing that the Staghorn cliffs had not been developed because they were considered too unstable to build on. But considering all the valuable upscale real estate along the shore, you know it was a matter of time before someone tried to build on the cliffs. So it is a good thing that the Staghorn Cliffs along with the land behind them has become a dedicated preserve protected from the encroaching rich people.

Staghorn Cliffs

In the early afternoon the weather held up pretty good and the damn speedboats came out. Personally I don’t understand the appeal of zipping back forth in a motorized boat with no destination in mind, making noise churning the water and leaving a trail of oil. It’s like driving a car, I mean, don’t people do enough of that.

Paddling a boat is to a speedboat what being a pedestrian is to an auto. Speeding down the road in a car the passengers completely miss everything along the road that isn’t big or identified with brief signage. In addition the drivers of cars can’t see anything but the road, their minds are occupied with steering the car and the unoccupied parts of their brains are too small to appreciate anything anyway.

The same with speedboats, you miss all the interesting things and your range of travel is limited to open water. For example you can’t get too close to the Staghorn cliffs in a speedboat, the gravel would tear up the hull and mangle the propeller. Driving a speedboat you miss seeing the lake, the only thing you experience is the speedboat itself. I guess that’s the idea.

Waterfall, Staghorn Cliffs

Well, the best time to use our paddle boats is the morning when we have the lake to ourselves, and now it was well into afternoon. We pulled our boats off the gravel ledge and paddled back to the boatyard, battling the waves of the speedboats tearing past us. Don’t get me wrong, the return trip was quite pleasant. But it was clearly time to return with our little bag of fossils and call it a day.

Petition Delivery Service: Starting July 12 The Wife is going to WALK from Albany to Binghamton, N.Y. to deliver a petition to a federal judge. That’s right, she is going to walk the entire way along Route 7 to support a motion to release former Albany Imam Yassin Aref from federal prison. Mr. Aref, you may recall, was handed a 15 year sentence even though there was absolutely no evidence presented in the courtroom that he ever intended to commit any crime or "act of terrorism.". Now new evidence has surfaced that the out-of-control FBI Secret Police mistakenly identified Mr. Aref as another person (who is now deceased) but chose to commit perjury rather than admit their serious mistake. To read about The Wife’s projected ten day journey go here, and if you would like to electronically sign the petition that she is going to carry to Binghamton go here.

June 30, 2013

The Port of Albany has quietly become an important link in the flow of oil from North Dakota to the East Coast

In the last few years the Port of Albany in the South End has become very busy. For decades, particularly for most of the twenty years of outgoing mayor Jerry Jennings’ reign, the Port languished, the dockside equipment rusting and becoming outdated while the docks and warehouses were allowed to rot. Once a major employer in the South End, the Port became a mostly unused backwater and the nearby South Pearl Street neighborhoods disintegrated terribly as a result.

But in the last four years there have been some big national developments that have made the Port an important player in the transport and distribution of domestically produced oil. While the current boom is nothing like forty or fifty years ago when hundreds of South End workers unloaded the banana boats from South America for good wages, the oil boom appears to be utilizing the Port to almost it’s fullest capacity. For better or worse, our Port is an economic beneficiary of the massive oil fracking boom in North Dakota.

The Two Big Cranes At The Port Of Albany

Wait, you haven’t heard about any of this? Well, don’t feel bad, most folks around these parts haven’t because the media hardly mentions it. Since 2009 the amount of oil coming out the Bakken Field of North Dakota is so great that some experts are expecting the total yield of the field to eventually surpass Saudi Arabia. Of course it’s an open secret that the Saudi oil is running out, but some expect North Dakota to become “the new Saudi Arabia.”

Others beg to differ, but even these critics are forced to admit that at least for the next decade or so the Bakken Field is and will continue to be one of the most productive oil fields in the world. It is so productive that the United States has become an oil exporter again, even though for years to come we will continue to import foreign oil as the oil corporations dictate. And natural gas, which occurs naturally with oil deposits, will continue to be overproduced by this field for the foreseeable future.

Bakken Field Oil Worker, North Dakota

But the most important detail is that the oil coming out of the Bakken Field is sweet crude, the highest quality oil which contains the lowest amount of sulfur and thus needs the least refining. In this it is comparable to Saudi and Iraqi oil in quality and profitability. In contrast the Caspian Sea oil from central Asia, for example, is low grade and sulfurous, requiring more energy to process.

It has been said that the reason our country is conducting a long and costly war against Afghanistan is to secure US access to that Caspian Sea oil. Perhaps the reason President Obama is finally winding down that stupid war is because the Bakken field of North Dakota means that the oil corporations no longer need that dirty low grade Caspian oil to stay profitable. Perhaps all that sweet crude being loaded down at the Port of Albany is finally bringing that war to an end. Maybe.

Canadian-Pacific Freight Train Hauling Empty 96 Oil Tank Cars North From Albany Heading For Canada In January

There is much talk about building pipelines to carry this oil, but right now only about 17 percent of this crude oil is being shipped out of North Dakota by pipeline. The reason, as Reuters News Service put it, “The production surge from Bakken… took the energy services and transport industry by surprise leading to a lag in the right infrastructure to transport crude.” Right now about 75 percent of that oil is being transported by railroad, much if not most of it to the East Coast and Gulf Coast refineries.

The problem is that there are currently no oil pipelines that run from North Dakota to New Jersey and Philadelphia, nor are there likely to be any built soon. Rail is more expensive than pipelines, but is much less expensive for bulk items like crude oil than transport by truck, which is fabulously expensive and wasteful. So it turns out that one of the most important railroad “pipelines” out of North Dakota heads East to the refineries of New Jersey.

But that rail route is through Canada via the Canadian-Pacific Railroad. This makes sense since the Bakken Field is close to the Canadian border, thus the route is shorter than to run a pipe south of Chicago and idirectly east. But since February US train routes are also being used to transport oil directly south of Chicago to the East Coast.

Newly Constructed Oil Storage Tanks At The Port Of Albany, Photo From 2010

The Canadian trains don’t run all the way to New Jersey and Philadelphia, they come to a halt at the Port of Albany. Here in the South End the trains unload their cargo into circular oil tanks located along the water’s edge. Giant double-hulled tank barges load up with the oil at these tanks, and those barges are hauled by tug down the Hudson River to the coastal refineries.

The reason for unloading in Albany? It appears that the least expensive way to approach the East Coast refineries is by water, since most of the refineries have been sited on the Atlantic coast to receive oil imported from overseas. From Albany it’s a straight run with deep water and no obstructions on down to the Atlantic Ocean.

I’ve wondered why oil is not being sent by rail from North Dakota to say, Green Bay, Wisconsin to be shipped across the Great Lakes. I can’t find any solid data, but it seems that Canadian-Pacific rail is faster and more efficient than that inland water route, thus less expensive. It’s also quite possible that the locks between the Great Lakes are too small for the big oil barges being used, it turns out the bigger the barge the cheaper the transport. I’ve read that makes a difference and determines the route.

The Wife Complains Bitterly As She Hauls Her Canoe Across Accumulated Debris At The Albany Boat Launch

Last Sunday morning The Wife and I threw our boats into the Hudson at the boat launch in North Albany for the first time this year. Usually we’re out in our boats (her canoe and my kayak) no later than early May, but the weather this year has been so cold and rainy. Last weekend was the first time the temperature of the water in the Hudson went over 70 degrees F, two weeks earlier it was still in the upper 50s.

We were extremely annoyed to find that the City of Albany, here at the beginning of summer, had completely stopped clearing the City’s only boat launch of accumulated debris. I strongly suspect this is because of the demise of the “Albany Duck” amphibious tourist boat that was owned and operated by a former old boy police chief. The filthy noisy diesel “Duck” used the launch heavily, often pushing aside other boaters as it madly kept to it’s schedule. Apparently now that this politically favored private business is kaput the City government sees no reason to clear crap off the ramp.

Our destination was downstream to the Port of Albany so we could see the oil boom for ourselves, but first we stopped to check out the “Big C” (Combined Overflow) storm drain discharge pipe that juts out from under the U-Haul parking lot on the South End waterfront. Regular readers of this blog may recall that this pipe discharges into the Hudson raw sewage that originates from the area around Albany Medical Center. Sometimes floating mats of human poop drift downstream from the Big C and accumulate in front of the fishing deck at Island Creek Park.

The Big C Pipe, Note The State-Issued Green SPDES Permit Top And Center

That morning we didn’t see any poop, and the sewage stink was not as bad as the last time we checked this past fall. No doubt this was because of all the heavy rains which have diluted the sewage, usually we see floating poop after a dry spell is broken by a heavy downpour. Of course the City has not tried to deal with the problem, but earlier this year for the first time I heard employees of the Albany Planning Department openly acknowledge that there is a problem. That’s progress.

We noticed one change, the Big C now sports a green SPDES permit (usually pronounced “speedies”) which is an acronym for State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. Basically, the State of New York has now acknowledged that the Big C exists and needs to be regulated. Hopefully that also means the State is officially aware that the pipe discharges raw untreated sewage into the Hudson River. This is also progress.

Tank Barge Loading Oil At The Port Of Albany

Paddling our boats downstream toward the Port the water was choppy. The river was swollen from the recent rains and at the same time the tide was coming in moving upstream. This caused contrary wave actions as the surface upstream flow clashed with the downstream undercurrent. It took us a bit of work to reach the Port.

Immediately at the north end of the Port we found what we were looking for. The past few years I’ve noticed more and more oil loading stations being built dockside by an outfit called Global, and also on the other side of the river along Renssalaer. A great big oil barge was docked at the first station, we pulled up and tmet a gentleman who leaned over the rail to talk to us as we battled to remain stationary in the currents.

He told us that this tank barge was owned by Global, and that at full capacity it carried 4.5 million gallons of Bakken crude! But it was truly a barge, it had no engine that allowed it to run independently, we could see that it was coupled with a tugboat. I also noted that it had no name, just a set of identifying letters and numbers.

The Gentleman On The Tank Barge

He told us that he was one of the crew of two for the barge, and that he lived on it and spent most of his time on board. His main job is to maintain the equipment, watching over it to make sure it functions as intended and to do repairs as necessary. It certainly seemed like a solitary life, it appeared that he didn’t get much chance to chat with people.

The most interesting thing he told us was that this high grade oil was full of sand from the fracking process. “That’s why they don’t use a pipeline to transport it,” he said, “it would tear up the pipe.” Yes, it was high grade sweet crude, but the sand played havoc with metal parts. That’s why he was there to watch over the equipment constantly as it was being used.

Later this raised some questions in my mind, like where exactly did this sand come from. He seemed to indicate that the oil was sandy because of the nature of the rock layers from which the oil was extracted, but I wonder if it was because of the fracking technique. It was the development of this new technique that has made it economically possible to access the North Dakota oil starting in 2009.

First, frack fluid is pumped into small fissures no wider than a centimeter. This fluid has been described as a cocktail of water and toxic chemicals and is yellowish with the consistency of snot. After the fluid widens the fissures, a mixture of water and fine sand is pumped into the fissures, which forces out the oil and natural gas.

Halliburton Says Their Clean Stim Fracking Fluid Provides "Breakthrough Environmental Benefits"

The big problem with fracking, as everybody except industry spokespeople acknowledge, is that the frack fluids have a tendency to seep into water tables, thus permanently poisoning drinking water in the ground. I think that in the near future we will be hearing about how wide stretches of North Dakota will (or already have) become virtually uninhabitable because of the lack of local potable water. That’s a sad shame but there’s really nothing we here in Albany or anybody else can do about that.

As the gentleman on the barge pointed out to us, we are an oil consuming society. Most of everything we own today, he reminded us, from clothes to computers are made of oil, and it would be impossible to meet the demand with “natural” materials like cotton and wood. “And there’s oil from upstream floating on that river that you’re paddling,” he added. We quickly told him that we very aware of that fact. Oh yeah.

Eventually he started talking politics. He felt that this country may be headed for a civil war, “not like the last one,” and I agreed that was quite possible. But then he started talking about how the UN would be used to fight against the American people, and he told us he believed that “the American military would never open fire on their own people.” Then he mentioned how much he liked 2008 vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. I begged to differ on these points and he decided to end the conversation.

Bakken Oil Field In North Dakota, Rig And Flare Burning Off Natural Gas

I mentioned earlier that the Bakken fields of North Dakota are also yielding enormous quantities of natural gas, about a quarter of which is being burned off in flares. Between the burning gas and the lights of a vast series of settlements that continue to spring up practically overnight, the middle of North Dakota is lit up as brightly and as widely as Chicago or Los Angeles. You can now see the Bakken field from outer space.

So there is absolutely no need to practice fracking and poison the groundwater in upstate New York. The line that fracking for natural gas in New York “is necessary to meet America’s growing energy needs” is a plain and simple lie. We New Yorkers don’t need to add to the national gas glut, therefore we have no reason to poison our water and destroy our landscape so a few corporatist sleazebags can make a quick buck.

We here in upstate New York can’t do anything about fracking elsewhere, in North Dakota that’s a done deal. But there is no reason why we can’t have pride in our own communities and outlaw fracking. We may as well reap some of the economic benefits of the destruction of large parts of North Dakota, but we don’t have to make ourselves suffer by fracking ourselves.

A "Man Camp" Trailer Housing For Oil Workers, Williston North Dakota, Monthly Rent $4000

One of the interesting side effects of this glut of gas and oil is there is no longer much need to build or continue to operate coal burning power plants or nuclear power plants in America. Indeed we are seeing existing plants close, and despite encouragement from the federal government we aren’t seeing new coal and nuke plants being built. Why pollute with dirty coal or deal with nuclear waste when gas and oil are cheap and plentiful?

The federal government and the corporations are doing everything they can to keep the consumer price of oil and gas high so as to provide a big profit for the corporate elites. Admittedly these high prices make these newly accessible reserves of oil and gas profitable enough to keep up with the cost of extraction and transport. But anyone can see that the price of gasoline at the pump and the price of natural gas for the home are both slowly dropping.

This is happening because the demand for oil and natural gas in the US is steadily dropping, there are a number of reasons for this. One is a stagnant economy caused by the Great Recession that began in 2008, another is that energy efficiency, such as gas mileage for autos and power consumption by appliances such as computers and lightbulbs has dropped tremendously in recent years. Most important of all, a small but growing percentage of our energy needs are being met by solar and wind generators. These last of course are the future.

Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant Burning, March 2011: Still Emitting Radiation Today

But meanwhile the energy needs of the rest of the world are growing tremendously, particularly in places like China where most of our manufacturing is taking place. Oil, gas and coal are in demand around the world like never before, and Earth’s climate is suffering tremendously as a result. The good news is that in the wake of Fukushima and Chernobyl the world seems to be shying away from nuke plants, hopefully that will continue.

But before we Americans start to congratulate ourselves we need to remember that our 300 million people still consume about half of the world’s energy. Despite our incremental improvements the vast majority of that consumed energy remains fossil fuel. China and India may be getting bigger but they are still nowhere near as fat and wasteful as we are.

I was pleased to see that the rest of the Port of Albany was looking very busy. In past years the southern third of the Port looked derelict and unused, but now I see that the very end was being used for loading scrap metal. There is a big scrap metal operation directly across the river in Rensselaer, presumably this smaller operation on the Albany side is overflow from that.

Scrap Metal Recycling, Across The River In Rensselaer

The transport of oil has become the biggest activity in the Port, but we can see that grain, which used to be the biggest mainstay, is still being moved at the Port. I’ve heard that in the future more grain may be moved through the Port on the way to foreign shores in the future, but that depends on a lot of factors such as geopolitics and the continued viability of US food production. In any case the Port is running out of room, there may be no place for grain transport to expand.

But today we could see from our vantage point at the water line that the transference of oil to barges on the Hudson River was being done in a clean and careful manner. We did not see any leakage, in fact we’ve never seen any actual oil at all. This is not like thirty years ago, when I recall reading in the local papers that there was so much spilled oil in the ground at the Port of Albany that the Port Commission was considering installing an oil well. Nothing came of that, but I wonder about that spilled oil. Is it still there, is it quietly leaking into the river?

The other important detail is that the Global oil barges are double hulled. All we need is one breached hull with a massive spill and large parts of the Hudson will be devastated and will not clean up for decades. Confronted with reality, the public along the Hudson Valley may very well be so appalled by the pollution that the rail and barge oil pipeline will be moved away from Albany and there go the economic benefits to this region.

The Tug Kathleen Turecamo, Now Busy Hauling Oil Barges For Global

It’s not likely that this oil transport route is going to be replaced by an oil pipeline in the near future. I can’t imagine the construction of an east/west pipeline that swings south of Chicago toward New Jersey, the proposal would be fought to a standstill in a dozen different places along the route. I seriously doubt the pipeline would ever make it past Minneapolis.

I’m not convinced by the opinion of that gentleman on the barge that the Bakken oil is too sandy to transport by pipeline because, like I mentioned, some 17 percent of that oil is indeed being transported by pipe. But if he is right then piping sandy oil is a huge mistake that will create more and more environmental problems as the metal in the pipes disintegrate from the sand, which makes government approval of Bakken field pipelines a bad business for the nation.

Port Of Albany Seen From Across The Hudson River

But really, are the economic benefits of this oil transport to Albany all that great? I have to confess that I don’t know and I have no idea where to look for such data if it exists. I suspect this is one of those Time Will Tell sort of things, we will see if this flow of oil through the South End will bring us some prosperity or bring us problems or do nothing notable for us. But I have to say I’m glad to see that the Port of Albany is busy.

May 11, 2013

A new college building is dedicated in my neighborhood, and Jerry Jennings may have a flukey idea to replace the unwanted Convention Center

If you only want to read about Mayor Jennings’ plans for reelection, jump to here.

*UPDATE* Jerry Jennings will not run again!

These groundbreakings and dedications are getting more and more frequent in the South End, so much so that down this way these politician lovefests are becoming ordinary. Okay, this one really is a big deal. They are building a college in my neighborhood, about a five minute walk from my house on the other side of Lincoln Park. For real.

They’re calling it the Capital South Campus Center, or CSCC. Both Hudson Valley Community College (HVCC) and Schenectady County Community College (SCCC) will offer classes in the new building for two and four year degrees. In addition the building will have a daycare center available for students, along with several community service organizations. Also significantly, the State University (SUNY) administration will have an office presence in the building.

Albany Politicians Agitate The Mound Of Dirt At The "Groundbreaking" For The New Capital South Campus Center, May 2, 2013

Actually, the ground was already plenty broken, this was more properly a dedication ceremony. From attending plenty of meetings over the years (some of which I was not welcome to attend but did anyway) I can tell you that planning for this goes back many years, and the decision to bring college level education to the South End goes back to 2007. It has taken that long to make this building project a reality, and the process has been incredibly complicated.

So how important is this project? One of the most notable speakers at this event was Jaime Forero, Director of the Albany Field Office for the US Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD.) Mr. Forero made it clear that he was standing in for HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, who had come to Albany the week before to observe the project (among other things) but could not make it to the May 2nd event due to scheduling conflicts.

Jaime Forerro, Regional Director Of HUD

“This unique project is a model and an example for the nation,” Mr. Forero said in an understated manner. “This has gotten the attention of HUD Secretary Donovan and he is watching it closely.” Mr. Forero was introduced as “the money man,” he wryly noted “Everyone loves the guy with the money.” He made sure to praise President Obama for directing federal cash toward such urban revitalization.

Actually the money was awarded almost two years ago, it’s what got the project off the ground and happening. The amount on the giant cardboard check on an easel was relatively piddling, $4,983,822.00 drawn from HUD’s Capital Fund, one of only ten such grants awarded competitively nationwide. Compared to the trillions that the President has happily given corporate parasites like Goldman Sachs this comparatively small amount is almost embarrassing, but at least some federal cash is being invested in something useful for a change.

The guy who finagled the cash out of the feds is of course Steve Longo, the director of Albany Housing Authority (AHA). Mr. Longo is well-known among housing administrators for his innovative work in cobbling together funding out of small grants for projects such as this. When Mr. Forero referred to this project as a model, he was referring as much to Mr. Longo’s innovative grant management techniques as to the actual college building itself.

Steve Longo, With Albany County Executive Dan McCoy, Common Council Members Dominick Calsolaro And Barbara Smith

The idea for a downtown Albany community college in the South End came from community meetings initiated by AHA, discussions which resulted in a 2007 planning document called Capital South Plan: SEGway To The Future. The unfortunate phrase “Capital South” was invented by a downstate consultant hired to prepare the plan, the idea was that the name “South End” has negative connotations and needs to be “rebranded.” Whatever. The silly name games aside, the plan has a lot of good ideas that build on the traditional strengths of the South End, and is currently serving as the blueprint for redevelopment of our neighborhoods.

The hired consultants told the City government that my neighbors wanted two things, housing (fix the vacant buildings) and access to higher learning. (They also told the consultants they wanted a supermarket and more local retail, but somehow that got forgotten.) To everyone’s amazement, unlike so many other plans produced by hired consultants over the decades, the City has actually been trying to satisfy these two demands.

The Ground Behind The Tent Was Already Very Broken

The finding that my neighbors wanted a community college was a surprise to the City government, but not too me. I’ve seen how the young folks around here often try to get a better eduction so they can get ahead. But lack of a good job means not enough time or money to attend a full four years at an expensive university, so the good practical alternative is to take courses at a community college.

But the closest community college is HVCC across the river in Troy, a 20 minute car drive with no traffic and more than twice as long by bus. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched young folks in my neighborhood juggle several low paying jobs and family obligations and at the same time try to handle the regular commute to HVCC. More often then not, the first time their clunker of a car breaks down or their spouse’s job schedule forces them to watch the kids they drop out of school.

After all, food, shelter and family come first, education is the most expendable, especially since lengthy commuting is a luxury best handled by rich people with time to waste. Inevitably after dropping out of classes that are too far away to handle, these folks feel like utter failures. I have always considered commuting to be a perverse and unreasonable requirement for any economic class, I am very glad that I live and work in an urban neighborhood and don’t have to commute in order to survive.

Crowd Attending The Groundbreaking

The surprising thing to me is how many other people have come to agree with my opinion on this matter. My neighbors, community activists and even local government officials seem to understand how distance makes educational progress practicably unattainable for many of the citizens of the South End. Like they say, location is everything. That’s because accessibility to resources is the key to success.

As for the housing crisis, the Albany City government certainly didn’t need to pay a consultant a quarter million dollars to find out that people wanted a reversal of the City’s longstanding policy of encouraging downtown neighborhoods to disintegrate. Nor should it have been a revelation that us regular folks put great value on having walkable, bikeable and economically diverse neighborhoods. But I guess when us citizens offer our two cents we ought to act like downstate consultants and charge top dollar for our opinion, we’ll get better results.

Snarky comments aside, to my surprise it seems that the City was listening and starting to look for solutions to the problems that it had created. I won’t go into all the political reasons for this change of attitude, I’ve gone on enough about all that on this blog. Suffice to say that public community activism has grown exponentially in the South End, and as a result the unnecessarily poor condition of our neighborhoods has turned into an acute political embarrassment for our elected officials.

Some Of The Politicians: Mayor Jerry Jennings, Common Council President Carolyn McLaughlin, Dan McCoy, Dominick Calsolaro, Common council Member Barbara Smith, Assembly Member John McDonald, Treasurer and Mayoral Candidate Kathy Sheehan, Senator Neil Breslin

Of course, when you get a dedication like this for something that everyone wants and is also approved of by the big boys in the federal government, you are guaranteed to get every politician in the vicinity to show up and be seen by the media. And that’s what happened, all the locals were there. Plus in the big crowd watching the ceremonies was just about every single person who has or had something to do with the project.

But funny thing, none of the TV stations were there. The only cameras I saw were the personal ones and a few in-house setups. Jordan from the Hearst Times Union was there, but because he was the only corporate media worker present his story that appeared in his newspaper was short on details and buried. Once again this blogger was an important part of the media event by default.

I didn’t see that any big news worthy events happened that morning that would have diverted the attention of the corporate TV, no big fires, planes hijacked by right wing terrorists crashing into the Corning Tower or anything like that. So where were the corporate content providers? Why were all these politicians left in a vacuum by the corporate media, on a sunny weekday at an event where free food was being served?

One can only conclude that the corporate media managers decided to bury this story of positive development of the South End. Yes, they will send their cameras to a dedication for a subsidized housing project, that sort of thing feeds into suburbanite prejudices toward the South End. But the development of a center for higher learning that is going to put my neighborhood on the map? I guess that has to be pointedly ignored.

Joann Morton, President Of The South End Neighborhood Association Praises The Project

The big wonder is that all these colleges are suddenly very interested in having a presence in the South End for the first time. In fact, several colleges were falling all over each other to get into the building, and I understand that the ones that didn’t get in are watching this whole thing very closely. Last year there were even stories going around about how the planned building was already too small and how there might be no room for the service organizations and daycare.

There was no chance of that happening, these funding packages always come with provisions that certain community services be provided with the project, so room for them had to be found. The daycare is the most important of these services, as one speaker noted “you leave your child on the second floor in good hands and attend classes on the third floor.” This is a recognition that having to watch the kids has been one of the biggest reasons why South End students have dropped out of college.

I suspect that eventually these other community organizations that have little to do with higher learning, such as Senior Services, will be moved out of the building as soon as the funding requirement timetables are met. I mean, Meals On Wheels can be anywhere. But the daycare, that’s not going anywhere. That is very much part of the school.

YouthBuild Kids Are Learning Construction skills With This Project

Over the past year I’ve been hearing about the negotiations to bring the colleges into the building. The details as they happened were confusing, but I do understand that community colleges are compensated for tuition costs by the county in which they are holding classes. This is how tuitions are kept low at local colleges, and yes our local taxes go to pay for affordable higher education for my neighbors. Fine with me.

From the explanations that I’d heard, originally this project was to be a vehicle primarily for HVCC, which would have allowed HVCC to collect money from Albany County in addition to Rensellaer County where they are located. But HVCC started arguing with Albany County, holding out for more money. The County balked, and for a while there was noise that the beginning of construction might be delayed until a settlement was reached.

But then several other colleges came nosing around looking for that Albany County money, most notably Schenectady County Community College (SCCC.) I also heard rumors about Sage Colleges and SUNY Albany and even Saint Rose showing genuine interest, they probably were and probably still are. How exactly this matter was resolved is a mystery to me, but with so much competitive interest in the project the Albany County politicians were in a good position to negotiate.

Some More Of The Crowd, City Of Albany Commissioner Of Planning and Development Mike Yevoli Next To Pole

In the end, HVCC was forced to settle for a reasonable funding package from Albany County. Plus, now they have to split the building with SCCC, which is currently undergoing an aggressive expansion policy, building dorms in Scotia for their students and offering a wider curriculum. I suspect that if HVCC had not tried to strongarm extra cash out of Albany County then they could have had the whole thing to themselves.

But wait a minute, what’s going on here, why would all the colleges be so hot on entering the South End and establishing a presence? Usually we see money making operations such as colleges, big established churches and the Capital District YMCA looking for reasons to scale down services or exit the City of Albany altogether. These big institutions head for the suburbs where they can feed off the big consumer dollars and the really massive government subsidies that are found in the suburbs.

In addition, the residents of the South End have one of the lowest average and mean incomes in the region and has among the highest number of high school dropouts. The attraction of county tuition subsidies aside, what makes us attractive to colleges all of a sudden? Why would these colleges want to bring higher education to a place where students are low income and undereducated, thus unattractive?

The Giffen Public School Outreach Community Choir Performs Their School Song

Well, registration of new students is declining at all colleges, and from what I understand small local colleges are feeling this problem the hardest. Competition for new students is acute for all but the most prestigious big schools. The experts are saying that over the next decade this problem for existing schools is only going to get worse, which leads me to believe that affordable higher education may all but disappear as local colleges go out of business.

Part of the problem is demographic, there are simply fewer 18 year olds looking to enter college after high school than, say, five years ago. But a big factor is the ongoing effects of the Great Recession. As low income and working class people are squeezed more and more by rising corporate taxation they have fewer resources to spend on luxuries such as attending college.

The community colleges, which draw heavily from a lower local income base for their student population, are the hardest hit. Therefore these local colleges need to scramble and innovate to keep their tuition rolls up as well as their income. That is why CSCC is coming along at exactly the right time and attracting so much interest, the established colleges need to tap our mostly untapped South End market. They can’t afford to turn their noses up at us, not anymore.

Current Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings

The usual thing here is that City of Albany mayor Jerry Jennings presides over the ceremonies and is the most visible center of attention, and all the other dignitaries praise Him as the savior of the City. Indeed He was scheduled on the agenda in the third speaking spot right after the general introductions, and was introduced by Common Council President Carolyn McLaughlin as “Albany’s biggest booster,” about which I will let pass and say nothing.

But there was so much going on that His Majesty was mostly sidelined after His remarks. Normally He would have remained the center of attention but somehow He seemed disengaged, and in the end He became all but invisible. The biggest and most gratifying perk of being the mayor is that you get to be the center of attention, but somehow that wasn’t happening here.

As of this writing Jennings has not announced if He is going to be running for another term as mayor. Unsubstantiated rumors flew around the crowd that He was going to announce His reelection at this event, which was unlikely because that would have been pretty crass. Another version had Him announcing later that day, which wouldn’t have made much sense either. Of course neither happened.

Current CDPHP Building On Patroon Creek Road, Which May Be Abandoned

A more substantial rumor about Jennings’ reelection plans has popped up in the last few weeks, substantial because I’ve heard it from several elected officials. It seems that the HMO called Capital District Physicians Health Plan (CDPHP) has been applying for a loan from the City Industrial Development Agency for plans to build an eight story office building that will supposedly employ 1500 people. Basically, they’ll be abandoning their current headquarters out on Patroon Creek Road inside the City of Albany and instead move to downtown.

The rumor? That the office building will be built on the site of the proposed unwanted Convention Center here in the South End. The plan is for Jennings to make a big splash with His reelection announcement by simultaneously announcing the relocation of CDPHP from one part of Albany to another. It would also serve as His solution to the problem of how to deal with the increasingly embarrassing boondoggle Convention Center that is almost certainly not going to get built but is still sucking taxpayer cash at an alarming rate.

Now, why would CDPHP want to move across town and build a new building? The answer is simple. According to Treasurer and mayoral candidate Kathy Sheehan, the ten year tax abatements for the Patroon Creek building are pretty much running out. In order for the HMO to continue to avoid paying their fair share of property taxes to the City they have to move into a new building and collect a whole new set of abatements.

Culinary Students From Abrookin Vocational Tech Center Feed The Atendees

As for the 1500 jobs that they will bring to the South End, those are all taken. CDPHP will merely be moving existing employees across town, bringing a whole new pile of suburban commuters arriving downtown daily by car and leaving their emissions in our neighborhoods. And it is unlikely that very many of these suburbanite employees are going to relocate their residences to downtown Albany and start paying taxes to the City because lack of housing in downtown is one of the key unanswered problems of the 20 year Jennings administration.

So it looks like Jennings did His old back room handshake with the corporate principals and gave them another low or no tax deal if they do what He wants. I’m sure it will play well in the media as an announcement, the incumbent mayor as a forthright leader bringing jobs and development etc. if you don’t think about it too much Well, a massive office building surrounded by a sea of parking lots that pays no taxes is an improvement over the current Con Center proposal. But not much of one.

The only problem with this scheme is timing. It appears that this whole thing is so flukey that constructing a cross town move while keeping the IDA loans and tax abatements legal is quite complicated. Oh it can be done, but apparently not fast enough to coincide with Jennings’ reelection announcement. He’s not fool enough to announce a deal that might blow up in His face because it was not finalized at the time that He announced.

Dan McCoy And Jerry Jennings Listen To Joann Morton

Who knows, perhaps this is why it is the middle of May and He hasn’t announced His intentions yet. The beginning of June is His drop-dead deadline because that’s when petitioning starts for candidates seeking office. At this time it’s starting to look like He has decided not to run again but is concealing His decision until the last possible second. Then again, like I said, who knows.

Besides Kathy Sheehan, who was present at this groundbreaking but was not invited to grab a gold-painted shovel and agitate the ceremonial mound of dirt, there are two other declared candidates for mayor at this moment. One is the main 2009 challenger Corey Ellis, who is running again with no money, fewer supporters than last time and still no public persona. The other candidate is a fellow named Marlin Anderson, who wears great shoes and can often be quite entertaining with his sarcasm and attitude, but can’t be called a serious candidate.

So unless Jerry Jennings makes a reelection announcement before the end of this month then we can pretty much count on Kathy Sheehan being our next mayor. But if He announces a rerun Ms. Sheehan is in an excellent position to beat Him. This is the first serious challenge to His job since Jack McEneny ran against Him in 1997 and He may not be up to it. Maybe that’s what’s going through His head right now.

CSCC Groundbreaking, May 2, 2013

But out on the edge of Lincoln Park on a beautiful spring day with the flowering trees blooming and the community garden across the street coming back to life, it was almost like business as usual. But not quite. Better educational opportunities are coming to the South End, and for that to happen a lot of things had slip out of the current mayor’s control. But even if He is not in complete control anymore Jerry Jennings was still at the center of attention at this event, and in the end that’s what counts.

 

April 21, 2013

An offhand comment sets the blogger ranting about the Bill of Rights and the prescient observations of Alexis DeTocqueville

Some weeks ago I was in the company of two Albany elected officials, one of whom I particularly respect and get along with well. (Yes, there are a few.) They introduced me to a third person, giving the usual “He writes a blog” which serves also as a warning to the unwary. Then the friendlier elected official, the one I get along with well, told the third party that I was “a radical.”

Puzzled, I said, “That’s not true, I consider myself a centrist.” Both officials looked at me with raised eyebrows and then glanced at each other. Then they both nodded at the third party. “He’s a radical,” they both said.

Well slap me silly and call me Betty. Where does that come from?

Radical Liberals Engaged In Violent Action

Nasty people say all kinds of things about me behind my back, I’ve learned to accept it as part of my lot in life. In contrast, these two elected officials were being upfront and honest with their assessment of me, so I can’t complain about their behavior. The two officials, or one of them at least, may have actually meant it as a sort of compliment. I don’t really know, all I’m left with here is the word and what it means to someone who hears it.

My understanding of the word “radical” is that it means I want to attack the root of society and thus destroy it… for some reason or other. As Wikipedia puts it, “radicalism denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary means and changing value systems in fundamental ways.” To that I say no no no no and no. The absolute last thing I want to do is uproot and overthrow the society in which I live, for plenty of reasons but mainly because I don’t want to live with the consequences of revolutionary actions.

I consider myself a true liberal and a true conservative at one and the same time, I guess that’s why I call myself a centrist. I support the United States Constitution as a model or at the very least as a starting point for the best possible kind of government for human beings. Above all I believe that the Bill of Rights is not only the binding legal engine that powers the US Constitution, but also serves as a general guide to the best conduct of human affairs.

US Constitution With No Bill Of Rights

I also consider it self-evident that if we remove the Bill of Rights or allow it to die, the US Constitution becomes an empty and worthless mockery of government. A car without an engine, no matter how polished and well maintained, is just a useless hunk of metal taking up a parking space. Every time a part of the Bill of Rights is repealed or simply discarded by the persons in charge of my government, I feel a great deal of distress for my nation and fear for my own personal future.

Somehow, during the course of my lifetime, fervent loyalty to the foundation principles of our nation (and of our empire) has disappeared from mainstream public consciousness. These days rare persons such as myself who profess such outmoded patriotism have become branded nutjobs and outsiders. My point of view, which as basic american liberalism can accurately be called true conservatism, is now readily labeled “radicalism.” How the hell did that happen?

Back in 2004 I participated in a public protest out on McCarty Avenue in Albany across the street from the fortress headquarters of the secret police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI.) It was a quite respectable demonstration, among the participants we had some elected officials, a bunch of lawyers, the director of the NYCLU along with a fair sampling of the local peace and justice groups. We were protesting the then perpetration of unconstitutional legislation such as the so-called “Patriot” Act and other pending acts of anti-american obnoxiousness that effectively allow the federal government to arbitrarily declare martial law anytime it wants.

The Blogger On McCarty Avenue, 2004

So I stood there in the mud (typical Albany in the South End, no sidewalk) off by myself facing the blank, threatening walls of the FBI holding a homemade sign, “Bill Of Rights, Now And Forever.” I thought, that’s about as uncontroversial as anyone can get. I mean what could be more patriotic, right?

Then something astonishing happened, or rather, astonishing to me. A white working class fellow in a not-so-new sedan slowed down to read my sign. He then shook his head at me vigorously No. And he drove off angrily peeling rubber, leaving me with my jaw literally hanging.

Up to that point in my life I had never imagined that an American could be opposed to the Constitution of the United States and still call him or herself an American. At the time I decided the fellow must be mentally ill or stupid, and I’m sure he watched a lot of TV and couldn’t think for himself. But since then I’ve learned to my horror that this particular stupid craziness, this opposition to the Bill of Rights itself, has actually gone mainstream and become acceptable!

Somehow my own personal support for the Bill of Rights has become a fringe notion, so politically incorrect that I’ve become a “radical.” Our entire society seems to be rejecting the basis of our rights and freedoms. All three branches of our federal government are riddled with people who are opposed to the Bill of Rights, some of them openly, proud of their anti-americanism. Has anyone else noticed besides me?

Albany Demonstration In Support Of The Bill Of Rights, McCarty Avenue 2004

Consider this. When the Republican Teabaggers took control of the House of Representatives in 2011, one of the first things they did was try to repeal the 14th Amendment, which among other things guarantees the rights of citizenship to women and Black people. Seriously. They tried to take citizenship away from women. In 2011.

The Supreme Court is dominated by the activist judge Antonin Scalia, who calls the Bill of Rights “an afterthought.” And don’t get me started on President Obama, who has done more to curtail the Bill of Rights than any other president in history.

When I look at Obama, or at Scalia, or at that profoundly stupid teabagger Rand Paul or his sleazy comrade Paul Ryan, or at corporate propagandists like Bill O’Reilly and Michelle Bachman, or for that matter at Neo-Nazi white supremacists… when I look at any of these people I see the same person, they’re all a bunch of corporatists. That’s right, I have trouble distinguishing between President Obama and a white supremacist.

All of these people, each in their own way and in their own fashion, are working to shut down the Bill of Rights and replace our representative government with a corporate dictatorship. They all have differences in style and slightly different motives, but all are working for the same shutdown of freedom and prosperity and the imposition of corporatism throughout every corner of our society. As far as I’m concerned these corporatists are the real radicals who are “attacking the root of society.”

Alexis DeTocqueville

I’ve seen the rise of corporatism and the retreat of american liberalism during my lifetime but I still don’t understand why it happened. Not completely, not so I can explain it to myself in a few words. How did the enemies of the Bill of Rights take over our government? How did hating the philosophical foundation of our nation become politically correct? Why do we put up with it? What is wrong with us?

Lately I’ve been reading Alexis DeTocqueville, the aristocratic Frenchman who observed our young nation on assignment from his government. Despite his elite social status somehow he had the ability to see exactly what we were and what we would become. Indeed he was sympathetic to the young country that he was observing, and he was treated like an honored celebrity everywhere he visited.

No doubt much of what he wrote about the United States back in the 1830s seemed at the time abstract and esoteric. But to us moderns there is nothing puzzling in what he wrote, somehow without imagining automobiles, atomic bombs, or the debilitating effects of the corporate media the man saw precisely the sort of people we Americans would become by 2013.

Reading DeTocqueville is like looking into an unforgiving mirror, it is unsettling. This passage from Part 2 of his great work Democracy In America, composed after a long and thorough tour of our nation around 1831, describes the future causes of our present national self-betrayal better than I ever could. So rather than bore you with my opinion I present his prescient observations.

To begin with he repeatedly made the observation that Americans, like his fellow Frenchmen, value equality more than they value their freedom! Let that one sink in for a moment, what was true in the 1830s is perhaps more true today and explains a lot of things. With that in mind, he understood that Americans would eventually sacrifice their freedom in an attempt to maintain equality at all costs. Now let that one sink in. From Democracy In America:

I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest. His children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind; as for the rest of his fellow citizens, he is close to them but he sees them not. He touches them, but he feels them not; he exists but in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.

March 31, 2013

The introduction of Dorcey Applyrs, a rumination on representational politics and discovering the
Plumeri Complex near my house

Damn that Dominick, how can he do this. He’s been the best thing politically that has happened to the the City of Albany during these long, torturous years of the Jennings administration, the guy who got elected to the Common Council in 2001 and immediately became the only politician in the City that the public trusted and considered honest. Now after twelve years of public service he plans to retire from politics.

That’s right folks, Dominick Calsolaro is not running for a fourth term on the Common Council, and he’s not running for another office. He’s still the same guy who entered politics because he was tired of tripping over the heaving sidewalks on Second Avenue when he walked his dog in the morning. But thanks in large part to his work, the political landscape in Albany has cracked apart like a neglected sidewalk and is about ready to be replaced by something better.

Dominick Calsolaro And His Very Understanding Wife Mary

But let’s face it, he’s twelve years older than he used to be. This past last Wednesday in March Dominick held what I guess you would call a press conference in the parking lot of the new Plumeri Sports complex on Frisbee Avenue. The weather, which has been rather dicey lately, turned out to be the best one could have expected, sunshine and upper 40s F. When someone complained about the cold, I heard Dominick reply, “It’s Spring, I expected today would be in the 60s!”

The purpose of this event was not to conduct a funeral service for the man, we weren’t gathered there to drop him in a six foot hole dug overnight in the playing fields. He’s still our Common Council representative until the end of the year. But I guess he wanted to end the speculation.

Remember, this is the guy who promised to serve only two terms on the Council. A bit later, when he was giving his prepared remarks, he mentioned that he believed that when politicians stay in office too long they “tend to get too comfortable and become stale.” Suddenly he looked up from his notes, remembering the half dozen or so career politicians standing behind him. “Present company excepted, of course,” he added unconvincingly.

Standing Behind Dominick Calsolaro: Sheriff Craig Apple, Luci McKnight, Candidate Dorcey Applyrs, Carolyn McLaughlin, Neil Breslin, Kathy Sheehan, Cathy Fahy, Don Applyrs, Richard Conti, Barbara Smith

But more important than discussing his own retirement from elected politics, Dominick wanted to introduce to the Ward and to the City the person he considered his successor on the Council, Dorcey Applyrs. For most of us present, including the media, this truly was an introduction because we were seeing her and hearing her speak for the first time. It turned out to be a good introduction, everyone I talked to afterwards was impressed with her remarks and with her strong character.

Dominick is already impressed with her. As he said in his remarks:

The decision to not seek re-election was made easier for me after I met Dorcey Applyrs. We spent much time together discussing the issues affecting the First Ward and the whole city. I talked to people who knew her, both in her professional and in her academic life. The more I found out about Dorcey, the more comfortable I became with my decision not to run for a fourth term. I firmly believe that Dorcey has the energy, passion and commitment for working on ways to solve the issues that negatively impact the quality-of-life of the citizens of Albany.

March 14, 2013

The mayor stubbornly pushes
His money-draining boondoggle by any means at hand

Albany mayor Jerry Jennings showed up this year as he almost always does at the February Council of Albany Neighborhood Associations (CANA) meeting at the main library. This annual visit with the NAs has always been the only time the public can meet His Majesty face to face and ask questions unfiltered by middlemen. Only His AM radio show comes close, but like all electronic media programs the radio show provides plenty of room for an experienced public official to duck and hide.

There’s not much room in the library to hide from the CANA representatives. So in His remarks Jennings talked about economic development, mentioning His buddy Andrew in the Governor’s office. Then we heard He wants Andrew to give the City more funding for education, that is, verbally attaching Himself to the education funding initiative just launched by newly elected State Assemblymember Pat Fahy. And then He mentioned that infernal unending boondoggle, the Albany Convention Center.

“I told the State economic people,” he said without preamble, “that I don’t want a casino in the Convention Center unless the City of Albany gets a big cut of revenue. I think 50 percent is reasonable. They just looked at me like I was crazy.”

Wait, what? He wants a what in where?

Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings In The South End

For everyone who hasn’t been following this, Jennings has been hotter than hot to build a Convention Center in the South End next to the downtown area since His first mayoral campaign in 1994. The proposed site is mostly a wasteland of parking lots that only occasionally get used, a testament to the glut of parking spaces in this City. But not all is wasteland, the site contains our miserable little bus station and what is probably the oldest complete building in Albany, 48 Hudson Ave.

The Albany Convention Center Authority (ACCA) was officially established in 2004 and immediately became a patronage black hole into which millions of dollars of public funds routinely disappear. There have been State grants of cash, an on again off again Albany County hotel tax, and City of Albany taxpayer funded assistances that are too numerous to enumerate. And even though the proposed Con Center keeps getting scaled down and as time goes on becomes less likely to be built, the ACCA continues to absorb tax money at an alarming rate and continues to produce nothing worthwhile.

After a decade it has become more than obvious that it doesn’t matter to our City leaders if the Con Center gets built or not. Politicians, you see, express power with money. Whoever gets to distribute money is the puppeteer who pulls the strings. Like all too many Authorities in this State, the ACCA is first and foremost a money funnel, a vehicle for patronage. Only incidentally is it a means to an end.

Promotional Photo From Saratoga Casino Website

At the CANA meeting my jaw slowly dropped as I started to comprehend what He was saying. “We need to compete with casinos proposed for nearby communities,” he continued. “There’s one proposed for Springfield in western Massachusetts, we don’t want to lose out on that revenue.” We don’t? Later, several people mentioned to me that it was funny that He forgot to mention the operating casino in Saratoga Springs, which is a mere 35 miles from Albany. Among other attractions, that casino has 1700 slot machines.

This is not the first time Jennings has mentioned this casino in the Con Center idea, he floated it almost casually back in 2011. But this is starting to sound serious. Could this be because the Con Center idea itself is on the rocks and needs a jump start, like a rusted minivan washed up on the shore? Could it be that Andrew himself, who is promoting the casino idea statewide, has suggested it to Jennings?

Governor Andrew Cuomo Announcing His Support For Non-Indian Casinos, Albany 2011

I could start ranting here, about how the multiplying legal gambling venues are in sharp competition with each other for a shrinking gambling dollar, and how some traditional gambling centers like Atlantic City in New Jersey are literally falling to ruin. Even in the best of times casinos have usually proven to be economic development failures for the municipalities in which they are located, at least as bad as convention centers. As real income continues to shrink for poor and middle class people due to corporate looting, we can expect to see less and less disposable income directed toward gambling.

As for the alleged economic benefits to the rest of the community provided by gambling centers, the term “collateral damage” is more accurate. As has been widely noted in Saratoga Spa during horse racing season, visiting gamblers spend their cash on betting, fast food, cheap lodging and almost nothing else. Meanwhile, other retail businesses suffer through the season. I don’t think Albany retailers deserve such abuse.

And let’s not forget that government sponsored gambling is effectively a tax. Sure, it’s a voluntary tax, but it is directed at the bottom third of society, toward the people who are least able to afford another flat tax. And please don’t tell me that rich people will be flocking to Albany to gamble. This is a scheme to further impoverish the lower income locals, which makes a casino another impediment to economic development.

Current Convention Center Proposal:
Blank Walls And Wasted Space

When the original Con Center plans were unveiled in 2004, almost every elected official jumped forward in front of the cameras to endorse the project. And why not? They all wanted a piece of the action. Almost no public official went on record opposed to the plan, no one wanted to be cut out of the patronage.

The corporate media was enthusiastic, they treated it like it was a done deal. Albany representatives Jack McEneny and Ron Canestrari, two of the most powerful members of the NY State Assembly at the time, were publicly enthusiastic. And most importantly, then governor George Pataki endorsed the idea, which means the proposal had the support of Republican Party boss Senator Joe Bruno. It seemed impossible to oppose and it sounded like cash was about to flow like water.

Well, nine years later there’s still a sea of lightly used parking lots around the bus station but the political landscape has changed severely. We’ve had three governors since Pataki, and Joe Bruno has fallen from his throne, spending his retirement years fighting to stay out of prison. All three governors have struggled to deal with a State budget that does not have cash to spare for speculative boondoggles.

Albany Convention Center Site In 2007

As of the beginning of this year, Jack McEneny and Ron Canestrari retired from their Assembly seats and have been replaced by Pat Fahy and John McDonald, respectively. Both freshman representatives have had to deal with political realities in order to get elected. And one big reality is that while the old boy politicians and the corporate media want to impose the Con Center on the South End of Albany, almost none of their constituents want it. At least, not as it has been designed and presented.

The Con Center site is in John McDonald’s newly outlined district, and he also happens to be my representative. The next night after the February CANA meeting I caught him at the monthly Delaware Avenue Neighborhood Association (DANA) meeting at the Delaware Avenue library branch. At least 50 people packed into that meeting room including a half dozen elected officials. DANA is a very lively and active NA.

Mr. McDonald told us that he is opposed to a casino in the Convention Center, “a very bad idea.” The entire room erupted into sustained applause and cheering. I quickly looked around and it looked to me like the approval was unanimous. I expect that the half dozen elected officials attending also took note.

John McDonald In My Neighborhood On ML King Day

During his campaign this past election I heard Mr. McDonald express support for the Con Center during a public forum. I was not pleased to hear this, my opinion of him at the time dropped a few more notches. That, coupled with his vague and nonexistent positions on the issues during the campaign made me deeply suspicious of him, along with a much repeated story that he is some kind of right wing anti-government teabagger. I’d even been told that by several elected officials.

But since his election to the 108th Assembly District (effectively the Democratic Primary in September) the former mayor of the City of Cohoes has shown none of this sort of reactionary behavior, at least not that I’ve seen so far. For instance, he told the Delaware crowd that he is working closely with colleague Pat Fahy of the 109th Assembly district on an issue close to her heart, equitable funding for education available for inner cities. He explained that as a mayor he became very aware of this problem.

“Now, I don’t want to say anything bad about charter schools,” he said cautiously, referring to those private for-profit schools that subsist exclusively on taxes. “Some 20 percent of kids in Albany attend charter schools, but about 45 percent of State aid to education in Albany goes to the charters. I think this is grossly unfair and needs to be changed.” If the man was a teabagger he certainly wouldn’t have brought up this expensive inequity, in fact he would have denied it existed.

Harmony Mills In Cohoes, A Derelict Factory Building Converted To High End Apartments

After the meeting I cornered him and asked him about the Convention Center, I say I had to ambush him. At some public function a few months earlier Jack McEneny warned Mr. McDonald to avoid talking to me, actually right in front of me with his back turned, making faces at Mr. McDonald while the new Assembly member grinned uneasily at both of us. Jack was never too subtle at that sort of thing, The Wife could teach him a thing or two about effective public signaling.

His back literally against the coatrack on the wall, Mr. McDonald took a deep breath and repeated to me his support for the Convention Center but, he added, he wanted to see a different design. “This is an opportunity to construct an urban center, mixed use with amenities and opportunities for small businesses,” he said. “And housing should be part of the design. You can’t collect taxes from the taxpayers unless the taxpayers have someplace to live.”

I was so delighted I shook his hand, and said, “You know how long I’ve been waiting to hear an elected official say that?” (About 20 years.) Indeed, during his time as mayor of Cohoes, that City added thousands of housing units, both high end and low income. As a result, with the last census Cohoes had a population increase of 5 percent, the first rise since 1930. Imagine that happening in Albany.

Pat Fahy In My Neighborhood On ML King Day

As for Pat Fahy, who took over what more or less used to be Jack McEneny’s district in Albany and some of the western suburbs, she told me that a convention center “has to be part of a comprehensive plan or it won’t work.” That is, it won’t bring in any jobs or revenue to the City. She also wants to see “ a transportation hub remain a piece of this as well,” something which so far gets talked about but doesn’t ever seem to get included in any of the actual proposals.

As for a casino, Ms. Fahy is “somewhat skeptical of the economic developments and job generating merits in the long term.” Only somewhat? But she doesn’t think a casino fits in with any sort of comprehensive plan. “Hard to imagine casinos in Albany ever being a part of this and I do not see how this would help,” she said. I suspect that Jennings wishes He had gotten things moving before the two old boys McEneny and Canestrari retired from the Assembly.

Mayoral Candidate Kathy Sheehan

Okay, even announced mayoral candidate Kathy Sheehan has expressed support for the Convention Center, arguing that there is a desperate need for a large meeting space in downtown Albany. At the public meeting several months ago where I heard her say this, I challenged her by pointing out that the current proposal is not designed to benefit the community, and that it would take a major redesign to turn it into something that would benefit the taxpayers. (I hope the commenters who accused me of “hero worshipping” Ms. Sheehan take note of that.)

But Ms. Sheehan, like Mr. McDonald, understands that Albany desperately needs housing so that it can stay, or rather become solvent. Even Jerry Jennings has been forced to give lip service to the concept, even hinting to the crowd at CANA that He’d like to have a more urban friendly Con Center with housing units. But that was clearly balderdash, I haven’t heard that He has ordered a massive redesign of the basic suburban playground concept to be more neighborhood usable and friendly. Nor will we.

And that’s His Majesty’s big problem, the ACCA has not produced anything tangible, good or bad. The authority has absorbed tens of millions of taxpayer dollars paying salaries to itself, commissioning studies and buying plots of land. While it would be perfect for the politicians if this money funneling machine could be left to run indefinitely, the public has become impatient. In fact, an awful lot of people I’ve been talking to lately think that the Con Center is a dead issue.

It’s not dead, but top level political support for the thing has dissipated with both time and the effects of public opinion. Not only has the Con Center lost both Assembly supporters, but Senator Neil Breslin, an early supporter, has become very quiet about it lately. A decade ago Mr. Breslin pushed through the State Senate several key bills establishing the authority. It’s hard to tell where he is right now, but his enthusiasm seems to be gone.

Convention Center Site, March 2013, Tuesday At Noon

Meanwhile Albany treads water. Other than a few dozen new high end units downtown, and the recent Albany Housing Authority initiatives which are excellent but so far are mostly replacement housing, the Albany City government can’t quite grasp the connection between housing and tax revenue. All we ever hear from mayor Jennings is how we need more State aid to balance His budget. And how we need a Convention Center.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has made numerous Con Center funding promises to Jennings, including most famously during his inaugural address in 2011. $75 million was originally promised in 2005 by former governor Pataki. $10 million of that promise was handed over in 2008, you know that bit of pocket change has long been frittered away. That leaves $65 million in promises, hardly enough to erect parking garages for the suburbanites.

The original grandiose proposal quickly ballooned up to $400 million, mind you that was in 2004 dollars. Today’s more scaled down proposal is a mere $220 million in 2013 dollars, but this past October Jennings admitted to the corporate lobbying group Albany-Colonie Chamber of Commerce that it was “unrealistic for us to think that the State is going to free up a quarter of a billion dollars." Reportedly His comments caused alarm and despair among the salaried employees of the ACCA.

The Sad And Pathetic Albany Bus Station At The Con Center Site

So today we are hearing about further “scaling back” and “bringing in private partners” to get something going that people can see. But it still doesn’t seem to be occurring to His Majesty that a convention center could only be useful and profitable if it is part and center of an urban community integrated into the existing neighborhoods. This is something we have desperately needed for a long time, something that could conceivably be sold to developers who would want to see a return on their investments.

Really is this rocket science? I suppose if the State was backing the project then speculators would flock to the project and cover it like maggots on a carcass no matter what it was. But those days of unlimited local government largesse are over. The corporations have moved our jobs to China, and locally the taxpayers are running out of places to live, so there are fewer taxpayers paying less taxes all the time.

If Jennings wants responsible investors to converge on the project, a convention center is not enough. Convention centers by themselves are proven money pits that never pay for themselves, just look at Jim Coyne’s “Times Union Center” a few blocks away. Us taxpayers will never stop subsidizing that thing, and the currently proposed Con Center will be the same thing. We will never stop paying for it.

The word is out that a whole new proposal for the Con Center is going to be unveiled in the next few weeks. We may or may not hear about a casino proposal, and we may very well see a few chimerical “urban amenities” thrown in to quiet the local taxpayers. I seriously doubt that it will be anything more than the same blank walls turned toward the City neighborhoods and the same quick auto ramps connected to the highways leading in and out of town so nobody who visits the Con Center has to look at the run-down neighborhoods of Albany.

Jerry Jennings Voting In 2009

At the end of mayor Jennings’ presentation at the CANA meeting, after he had answered questions and was trying to exit, I shot up my hand and shouted, “Mr. Jennings!” He froze, looked at me with surprise. “When will we find out,” I asked Him, “if you are going to run for another term?”

I have a habit of doing that to mayoral candidates. Several waves of alarum passed over His face in quick succession, and He automatically quipped, “What, are you the press?”

Well, yeah. Several CANA representatives laughed and shook their heads, “That’s Dan” I heard someone say. I waited patiently for His answer as did everyone else. Finally, with a mighty grimace, He said, “You’ll find out when everybody else does.”

Fair enough. As of right now no one knows if Jerry Jennings is preparing for one more term, or if He is merely scrambling to shore up His legacy. I don’t think even He is sure at this point.

But one thing I know for sure. if anybody wants to see Jerry Jennings’ mightiest accomplishment, just head out Washington Avenue Extension or drive the Thruway west and look up in the sky. That mountain of garbage, almost all of which is imported from outside of Albany, is the Rapp Road “Landfill.” When Jennings is gone to Florida, when the Convention Center proposal has receded into an embarrassing memory, that mountain will still be there, reminding us of the mayor who left us such a mess.

 

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February 27, 2013

As Section 8 housing subsidies disappear, the dynamic director of Albany Housing Authority takes some unnecessary steps to
save money

The following is a much expanded version of a letter that I sent to Mr. Longo at Albany Housing Authority, which administers the Section 8 housing assistance program for the City of Albany.

Mr. Steven Longo
Executive Director, Albany Housing Authority (AHA)

I am addressing you in your capacity as Director of the agency that administers the Section 8 housing subsidy program for the City of Albany. I would not bother you otherwise, I know how much you detest me personally, even to the point that you can hardly stand to look at me when we meet. Of course I am used to this attitude that is a mixture of disgust, anger and fear from City officials who serve at the pleasure of Mayor Jerry Jennings, fortunately I am well used to it and it doesn’t bother me in the least.

Despite this I think very well of you Mr. Longo. I am particularly impressed with your housing and rehabilitation initiatives here in the South End and in Arbor Hill. Your innovative work has quite literally transformed my neighborhood for the better, for which I am very grateful, and I see your work as the centerpiece of what is turning out to be an economic revival of the entire South End. I am amazed at how you juggle complex funding issues and politics, yet you are managing to produce such a quantity of concrete results.

I’m sure that going public with this letter of complaint is not going to induce you to like me any better, I’m sure this is the last thing you want to see. But I think that my relatively petty complaints concerning the administration of the Section 8 program here in Albany are indicative of bigger issues that need to be addressed publicly. At least I am fairly sure that this public letter will not cause you to detest me any more than you have, human beings have limits.

Newly Renovated And Newly Built Houses
On Lower Morton Avenue

I have a friend who is extremely critical of the Section 8 program. She is a single mother of three teenagers and works half a dozen jobs to make ends meet. While she is not above applying (unsuccessfully this year) for programs such as the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP) to help pay her power bills, she has long given up even trying to get on programs like Section 8.

“Why is it I have to work all these jobs,” she screamed at me, “and I see all these people who get assistance? Why do all these people with Section 8 have money to spend on themselves and I have to go hungry to feed my kids?” Occasionally that’s been true. “That’s the problem with the economy, all these people who don’t work.”

Steve Longo

Since I get tired of being screamed at rather quickly these days, I didn’t bring up the matter of her misplaced pride. Instead I said, “It’s not the shrinking subsidies to poor people that are killing us, the problem with our economy is the way the corporate rich are sucking our wealth out of the country at a fantastic rate. Sure we give hundreds of millions to the poor, some of whom don’t deserve it, but we give trillions to the rich who deserve none of it. It’s like comparing a dustball to a garbage dump.

“I’d rather give subsidies to poor folks,” I continued, “because that money rises up to the middle class before the rich get it. “Trickle Down” is a sick joke. The money we give to the rich and to the corporations just leaves this country and never comes back. You’re angry at poor folks with subsidies because you can see them, but you don’t get mad about the real serious problem because the layabout rich are not visible to you.”

Well, she didn’t lower her voice. “Look,” she hollered, “all I know is that I’m working all the time and I see all these people who don’t have to. I’ve had a total of six hours of sleep in the last four days. I should quit working all the time and let the government pay my bills. I’m getting ready to lose it!” You can’t argue with some people.

Eagle Court Apartments, No Longer A Hellhole

I did not remind my screaming friend (I’m really getting tired of “friends” who scream at me, I really am) that Section 8 does not pay anybody’s entire housing cost, it’s a “supplement.” In other words, it makes up the difference between the tenant’s income and the cost of the apartment, sort of a stopgap to compensate for inflation and the effects of a “robust housing market.”

For the most part Section 8 is provided to the working poor, that is, those whose hourly wages or salaries cannot keep up with the price of adequate housing for themselves and for their families. But in many cases there are disabled people who, through no fault of their own, cannot afford housing with their Social Security or Disability payments. Because of their disabilities they cannot work, yet such folks have a guaranteed base income, so why should they become homeless? There is every reason to let disabled people have access to Section 8.

So instead of working poor and disabled people dying on the street or packing homeless shelters, because of Section 8 they are occupying dwellings, paying taxes (yes the poor pay a lot of taxes, proportionately more than the rich do) and buying necessities and the occasional small luxury. Most of the money that they pay for these things, such as food and shelter and drugs both legal and illegal, ends up in the hands of middle class people. So in other words, Section 8 ultimately is a middle class subsidy, keeping the middle class working and thus solvent.

Houses Built On The Site Of The Old Jared-Holt Wax Factory, Perhaps Mr. Longo’s Most Significant Success So Far

The problem is that the Federal money available for Section 8 has been shrinking quite a bit these last ten years. Six or seven years ago, if a person like my screaming friend wanted to swallow her pride and apply for Section 8 she would have been placed on a waiting list of three years or more. But today there is no waiting list, people are not being added to the Section 8 rolls, they are being removed at every opportunity.

And those who are already receiving Section 8 are seeing their subsidies diminish. I have exactly three Section 8 tenants in my apartments, all of them severely disabled. Every year each of these tenants “comes up for an annual review.” This invariable means that I will receive a letter in the mail announcing that their monthly subsidy will be lowered by X amount, usually ten to twenty dollars per month. The tenant will also receive this letter and is expected to make up this loss with their own other income.

Make no mistake about it, these annual losses of income have impacted my three disabled tenants severely. So far they have been able to tolerate these losses and maintain their tenancies, that is, continue to pay the rent and eat, but considering the rate of inflation I wonder for how much longer. I am not looking forward to playing the role of the evil landlord and throwing disabled people out on the street.

90 Morton Avenue, Next To Eagle Court

At the same time that I receive these yearly letters that reduce the income of my Section 8 tenants, AHA conducts inspections of their apartments to see if the landlord is maintaining the apartments properly. These inspections are separate from the City of Albany inspections, which are supposed to be conducted every 30 months but in practice less often than that and not universally. AHA is much more diligent about standards, I have never known them to miss an annual inspection.

Okay, here’s what happened. On January 24 AHA conducted an annual inspection of one of my apartments, which for a long time has been occupied by a sight impaired woman whom we shall call Jane Smith. When I first rented the apartment to Ms. Smith she had enough sight left to hold down a job, but the onset of macular degeneration has eventually left her almost helplessly blind. We often joke that she suffers from CSS, can’t see shit. Still, thanks to assistance from the government she manages to take care of herself and get by.

The AHA Section 8 inspector was fine with my maintenance of the apartment, everything in working order. But, he informed me, he had some housekeeping issues with the tenant. This, he clearly informed me, was purely a matter between Ms. Smith and AHA, she would be required to carry out the resolution of the housekeeping problem. It had nothing to do with me.

"Phase III" Construction Ready To Start Behind
The Jared-Holt Houses

This housekeeping issue was not a general problem, actually Ms. Smith keeps the apartment surprisingly neat for a single woman who can’t see what she’s doing. What bothered the inspector was that Ms. Smith is a heavy smoker, and she characteristically confines her smoking to the kitchen. As a result the ceiling and walls of the kitchen had yellowed with tobacco residue and there was some dust hanging from the ceiling in one corner.

Admittedly this was kinda nasty looking, it took her years to achieve this mess and let’s not discuss what all those cigarettes have done to contribute to her poor health. I mean, it’s not like she has a lot to do with her time. Basically the inspector told me that the cigarette residue needed to be removed from the ceiling and walls and the paint repaired, and again he emphasized that this was solely the tenant’s responsibility.

I even asked him, this isn’t like one of those bogus City of Albany housekeeping citations, is it? You see, the City code inspectors issue these citations to the tenants for poor housekeeping, usually for piling up flammables such as paper, and supposedly it’s purely the tenant’s responsibility to deal with the problem. But if the tenant does not comply, the City will not issue a Certificate of Occupancy (CO) for the apartment and therefore the landlord will be required by law to evict the tenant immediately at his own expense. The Section 8 inspector indicated that AHA would not withhold the Section 8 payment for the following month.

I informed Ms. Smith (who wasn’t present for the inspection) that Section 8 was on her back to clean the crap off her kitchen ceiling, and that she would be hearing from them. She said, “Surely they don’t expect a woman with osteoporosis and anemia (not to mention CSS) to climb a stepladder? Who do I sue when I fall off?” I suggested that she bring up this question with AHA when they contact her, and that she should demand that they provide some sort of assistance to complete the assigned task.

Houses On Catherine Street Near Schuyler Mansion

Weeks passed, the January 24th inspection faded from my consciousness. On the 13th of February I received and opened a letter from AHA and read the following:

…The inspection FAILED for the following reasons:

Kitchen walls require cleaning. (Tenant Responsible)
Kitchen walls and ceiling requires painting. (Tenant Responsible)

A re-inspection has been scheduled for this unit. The date and time for the re-inspection is listed below. Failure of the tenant or landlord to comply with this inspection will result in a failure. All repairs must be made in the unit by the specified date and time. Failure to do so WILL result in the ABATEMENT of all payments from this agency…

Please note: PAYMENTS FOR THE ABATEMENT PERIOD WILL NOT BE MADE RETROACTIVE. PAYMENT WILL ONLY BEGIN ONCE THE AUTHORITY HAS CONFIRMED THAT ALL REPAIRS HAVE BEEN COMPLETED.

DATE: February 20, 2013
TIME: 11:30 AM to 11:40 AM

January 30, 2013

This year’s Martin Luther King march to my neighborhood in honor of the great victim of gun violence, and the recent virtual murder of Dr. King’s spiritual heir Aaron Swartz by federal authorities

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death… There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from re-ordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Riverside Church NYC, April 4, 1967

December 29, 2012

Kathy Sheehan announces her run for mayor of Albany, another challenger hovers and the Treasurer’s office is now wide open

The presidential elections are barely over and already the City of Albany is gearing up for a mayoral election. If you don’t want to know about it then too bad. Unless you hide in a box for the next nine months or so, you will hear about it. So you might as well pay attention and you might as well register as a Democrat if you want your vote to count.

I’m talking about the September 2013 Democratic Party Primary, which in the City of Albany and lately in the surrounding suburbs is almost always the deciding election, the November general election being merely a rubber stamp. Once upon a time back in the day the Primary voters always obediently voted for Old Boy Democrats. Occasionally a “dissident Democrat” would challenge the Old Boys and even more rarely win, but that was at most an aberration.

Not any longer. These days a majority of the Democratic Primary voters are a select well-informed and independent group. As we clearly saw this past September, the best way for a candidate to win the Primary with voters like these is to demonstrate competence and a fair mastery of the pressing issues. The candidates in this last Primary who relied on vague slogans and negative attacks were rejected by this select group, and we can expect the same in 2013.

Kathy Sheehan Announces Her Candidacy For Mayor Of Albany, Washington Park, Nov. 17, 2012

The big news on the mayoral front is that City of Albany Treasurer Kathy Sheehan has announced that she is running for mayor. This was not what you would call a surprise to anyone who follows this sort of thing, Ms. Sheehan’s intentions have been common knowledge in political circles for about a year. I would say that she made her official announcement at the earliest possible opportunity, that is, shortly after the presidential elections.

She chose a sunny Saturday afternoon November 17 in front of the Moses statue in Washington Park to announce. I thought that was pretty risky expecting the weather to cooperate like that, but it did. Ms. Sheehan is generally anything but a risk taker, but I suppose if you plan for all the things that you can plan for then it makes the occasional calculated risk plausible. Anyway, she had an indoor venue reserved downtown just in case.

From what I saw and from the photos that I took I would guess that about 250 people came out for the announcement. Some of the same old activists and political junkies were there, but most of the crowd was composed of people that I did not know. If you consider that the people who attend these sort of things are the people who care enough to show up, then this looked like a very good start for her campaign.

Kathy Sheehan Waits For The Applause To Subside

Right near the beginning of her remarks she declared, “Let me make one thing clear. I’m not running against anyone – I’m running for mayor. And with your support I will win.” In fact this was the first thing she said to the crowd after the cheering had subsided after she made the official “I’m Kathy Sheehan and I’m here to announce that I’m running for mayor” statement.

I heard that. For much too long the City has been divided into two camps, those who support the current mayor and those who want to get rid of Him. Not since 1997 have the voters been presented with a convincing alternative to the incumbent, a challenger who can win and who at the very least is capable of running the City. This was certainly true during the last mayoral race in 2009, when two challengers emerged who bumbled and fought with each other and whose campaigns eventually collapsed in penniless ennui, first one then the other.

Ms. Sheehan’s 2013 candidacy is, as they say, a game changer. In her short time as Treasurer she has transformed the office from an embarrassingly old fashioned tool of corruption into an efficient 21st century operation that all of a sudden produces new significant revenue for the City. And she did this without mass layoffs, rather she brought in new managers and shifted longterm employees to other positions without cutting salaries.

One might ask, why wasn’t this done before? I would answer, we’ve never had anyone run the department who thought like this before, and we’ve never had a Treasurer who was strong willed enough to defy the Old Boy political machine. As a long suffering taxpayer, I’d like to see this kind of benign efficiency spread to all departments of City government, and I’d like to see it done as soon as possible.

Kathy Sheehan And Husband Bob Sheehan

But the problems of Albany City government go beyond mere inefficiently run departments. The structural problem is that the departments have no way to communicate with each other except in a limited fashion through the department heads, but mostly the departments must communicate through the executive, the mayor. In current business parlance, each department is stuck in it’s own “silo,” which makes cooperative planning across Albany City government impossible.

As for why we are saddled with this leftover 19th Century model, it is not by accident but it is most certainly by design. Isolation is a form of top down control, if all communication must pass through the mayor’s office then the mayor makes all the interdepartmental decisions and retains total control of everybody and everything inside City Hall. Stifling interdepartmental communication is also a way of preventing alliances from forming that might end up challenging the power at the top.

The Crowd Listens Carefully To Kathy

Kathy Sheehan addressed this issue succinctly in her announcement speech in Washington Park. She cited her experience as a vice president and general counsel (she has a degree from Albany Law) at Intermagnetics, a medical device manufacturer:

When I came to City Hall three years ago, it reminded me of the company I started working for back in 1996. Intermagnetics was a pretty good business, located just up the road in Latham. The problem was we were stuck. We weren’t growing and we were losing out to our competitors. We had a culture that resisted change and wasn’t accountable. When something went wrong, everyone blamed somebody else — some other department.

So I became part of a new leadership team and together, we completely transformed the business by breaking down barriers between departments, empowering our employees and creating a Boundaryless Culture — no more excuses, no more walls, just hard work and a strong drive to deliver excellence every day. I’ve used that experience to professionalize the Treasurer’s office, make property tax collections more efficient and implement collection systems that are accountable and fair to everyone.

December 2, 2012

The 2012 presidential election may have been salvaged by a coalition of online patriots

There are so many local things I ought to be talking about. I’ve even started writing about them. This is, after all, supposed to be a local blog. But I’m still thinking about the presidential election this past November 6.

Yeah sure, for the past three weeks all these high paid important pundits have said all kinds of this that and the other and we’re all tired of hearing it. But a lot of people seem to have been left with a funny feeling about the election, like something important happened that didn’t get explained, something under the surface. I sure felt that way.

Photo That Accompanied President Obama’s Nov. 6 Victory Tweet

We’ve been hearing a lot of chatter from the corporate media about The Demographic Shift. They keep telling us that the White People, if you exclude Hispanics in that category, have statistically been reduced to the status of the major minority. That is the reason, the paid pundits tell us, why that social climber Mitt Romney and that nasty peckerhead teabagger Paul Ryan lost to the incumbent’s brilliantly conducted campaign that “reached out” to the non-white minorities.

Whatever. The truth is that a lot of the White People in this country, such as me, ceased to think of White as “normal” a long time ago. As a famous comedian pointed out, Mr. Obama fits the accepted standard template of a White Person almost precisely, while his lily white challengers came off looking like a bizarre freak show. “If you want a white president,” said Chris Rock, “I’ve got a polo-wearing, Hawaii living, home beer brewing, league bowling guy for you.”

But shortly after the election I heard about something utterly extraordinary… could it be true? Did a group of hackers swoop down at the precise right moment and set things right, thus allowing the majority to assert itself in the voting booth? Was The Empire saved from destroying itself by a voluntary association of true patriots?

Does Barack Obama owe his re-election to Anonymous?

Spokesperson From Anonymous Delivers A Pre-Election Warning To Karl Rove

About a week before the November 6 election Anonymous issued a video warning to Republican Party Boss Karl Rove. “We are watching you, we know that you will attempt to rig the election.” The spokesperson in the video then declared that “If we catch you we will turn over all of the data to the appropriate officials in the hopes that you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

I’m sure that Rove was less than impressed with the threat of informing the authorities of his scheme to subvert the voting tallies on Election Day. After all, he is the authorities. True, back in 2008 his vote rigging scheme was exposed and stopped by court order a day before the presidential election, but he was never prosecuted. (Personally, I think he should have been executed for treason with a bullet to the head – after a fair trial of course. Not kidding about that.)

But consider that neither the extreme right-wing Democrats nor the Anti-American Republicans have ever done anything on a federal level to combat electronic vote rigging. Ever. That’s the consequence of having a one party system in this country, the two subsidiaries of the Ruling Party are not allowed to seriously compete with each other. As a result neither branch of the ruling party can challenge fundamental corruption by the other.

Now, is what I’m about to tell you a conspiracy theory or an elaborate hoax concocted by a bunch of jokers? Maybe. We’ll probably never quite know for sure. But I’ll just say that this account is not only very, very plausible, it’s the only explanation that fits the available observable facts.

Boss Rove Still In Denial Late In The Day (11:43 EST)

We all remember what happened late in the evening on November 6 around 11:13 PM. Karl Rove, live and on the air in Rupert Murdoch’s FOX “News” studios had a complete meltdown. It seems that FOX was the very last corporate network to call the State of Ohio for Mr. Obama, a call which more than clinched the victory for the President. In response Rove displayed what could only be described as a hissy fit, declaring that a batch of uncounted votes from the southern precincts of Ohio would suddenly change the predicted result. Say what?

It was close to midnight when Mitt Romney finally emerged from hiding to face the world and give a less than gracious concession speech between clenched teeth. Paul Ryan reportedly wandered about shellshocked. Both of their Stepford spouses blubbered conspicuously, not with despair but with what looked to me like rage.

In the next few days it became well known that all of the top Gops and their corporate sponsors were absolutely open mouth shocked by Romney and Ryan’s failure to win. Cyberspace was choked with comments and videos from devastated Republican Party voters who had picked up on that top of the heap confidence. All this certainty in the outcome despite pre-election polling that showed the President leading handily, or at least slightly ahead. Disappointment, yes, but why would anyone be shocked and surprised?

The Phony Brooks Brothers Media Riot In 2000, Numbers In Photo ID Re-pub Politicians And Paid Staffers Demanding Florida Stop Counting Votes. Why? To Buy Time? For What?

Funny thing about that. Independent minded people with long memories will recall that the top Gops displayed the same sort of confidence in the outcome on Election Day in 2004 and again back in 2000. Late in the day after the polls closed they confidently declared that a batch of mysteriously uncounted votes would turn up in certain key “battleground” states that would favor the Re-pub candidate, Dubya. By golly these votes appeared exactly as they said they would, and in 2000 and 2004 those bad boys smirked their way into the White House and hardly anyone complained.

In 2008 we found out how the vote total fraud worked in 2004. The vote totals from most of Ohio’s voting precincts were transmitted over the web to the Secretary of State’s office in Columbus to be tabulated. Supposedly this transmission over the web was secure from hackers, but there was nothing in place to prevent a partisan like Rove from diverting the transmission into a fraudulent server.

Rove had set up an alleged “back-up system” for electronic vote counting after the polls closed, run by a supposedly private contractor called Govtech Solutions LLC, which in turn contracted for Smartech Corp. of Tennessee. Well sure enough there was a brief outage during the vote count, GovTech came on line and soon all those favorable votes appeared and tipped Ohio into the Re-pub column. Very simple classic vote manipulation gone cyber.

In 2004 this received zero coverage from the corporate media. But a group of outraged voters from Ohio sued in Federal court citing the RICO criminal conspiracy statute, a case called King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell. It seems that GovTech was owned by Rove’s personal IT guru, a fellow named Michael Connell. It was, as a lawyer put it, “an outrageous conflict of interest,” to put it mildly.

Michael Connell’s Plane That "Ran Out Of Gas."

The complex case dragged on for three years, but the upshot is that on the day before Election Day 2008 US District Judge Solomon Oliver agreed and ordered the “backup system” be taken offline for the next day election. Mr. Connell gave the star testimony, from a later interview it appears that after a lot of soul searching he decided that rigging elections was not the best way to get into heaven. From McClatchy newspapers:

A 2004 election-night computer architecture map for Blackwell’s office appears to suggest that as many as 51 of Ohio’s 88 counties periodically sent their results to the secretary of state’s office… SMARTech appears to have had the ability to intercept election returns before they were publicly disclosed… Connell’s appearance, on the eve of the 2008 presidential election, culminated weeks of jockeying over his testimony, amid unsubstantiated allegations that he’s been subjected to threats of retaliation if he tells all he knows.

November 7, 2012

Trying to imagine Beaver Park 100 years ago and martinizing the South End

The day before Hurricane Sandy was supposed to hit the region, I walked across the street to Lincoln Park and took pictures of the leaves before they all fell before the threatened high winds and rain. Of course Sandy hardly bothered us in Albany, meanwhile New York City 150 miles away ended up struggling with the damage. After the Climate Change Hurricane Made Worse By The Full Moon had passed us by, most of the leaves in the park were still clinging to the trees.

The leaf colors this year have been less than spectacular, that’s because of all of the warm nights that we’ve been having. Yeah, sure, I’ve posted photos of Lincoln Park Autumn leaves other years that were much nicer than these. But hey, the park looked so nice that day and the sky looked so ominous, I just had to use a few pixels.

Lincoln Park, Late October 2012

After the hurricane had missed us I went over to the park to take more photos, but this time I had with me some 100 plus year old postcards in my pocket. These were tourist souvenirs of Beaver Park, the original name of Lincoln Park, a name which reflected the Beaverkill which which still runs underneath the park. It seems the kill was buried because if was an overused depository of industrial waste, to this day it still carries raw sewage from further uptown which dumps into the Hudson River.

But I wasn’t concerned about that. I thought I’d try to figure out where the postcard photos were taken way so long ago, how had the park changed in more than 100 years? I’d been puzzling out these locations and sure enough I found them, all three of them. Yay! This one was puzzling:

First Postcard, "A Scene In Beaver Park, Albany, N.Y."
(Click on photo for detail)

The Wife thought it looked like water in the background, indeed this picture feels like a lakeside park. But that background is the hills of Troy on the other side of the Hudson. After walking about the park with an air of farsighted concentration, I realized there could be only one place for the photo. Sure enough I found it, but so much had changed:

The Postcard View Today

Check it out, the same walkway from before the First World War. I am willing to make a small wager that it has not been repaired the entire time, note the disintegration of the concrete, especially at right. This neglect of footpaths is typical in Lincoln Park and the South End in general, but you have to admit they made concrete to last in those days.

But you can’t see the hills of Troy anymore. The trees are all different, and the Sunshine School pretty much ruins the view. My back was almost to the fence of the tennis courts, were the courts there 100 years ago? I was standing in the same spot as a long dead and forgotten photographer, the confirmation that this is the correct spot is barely visible at the far left of both pictures, the James Hall building.

The James Hall building

In 1841 James Hall was appointed the first NY State Paleontologist, he lived in a small mansion facing Delaware Avenue that stood where the tennis courts are. The southwest section of the present day park was his yard, after he died in 1898 the mansion was demolished and the yard became the cornerstone of the new Beaver Park. This 1852 outbuilding was his office and workshop, there he made his groundbreaking discoveries and stored geologic specimens.

Sometime in the mid 20th Century the for the time typically squat ugly Sunshine School building was built and attached to the Hall workshop. Right now the whole structure is abandoned, supposedly it will house the Boy’s And Girl’s Club which is being evicted from another disposable mid 20th Century building a little ways up Delaware Avenue, but I see no signs of renovation activity here. I was distressed to see how the Hall workshop is being neglected, there is currently a smashed window right above the entrance.

Incidentally, both the Sunshine School and nearby Thomas O’Brien elementary school were built illegally on public park land. Someone with too much time and money could file a lawsuit and force the City to demolish both 20th Century buildings and restore the affected parkland. And that would also restore the view.

Postcard "Beaver Park, Albany N.Y." (click on picture for detail)

This one should have been easy, there’s only one place this postcard photo could have been taken. Sure enough, this is the corner of Eagle Street and Morton Avenue down the hill from the last postcard:

Eagle Street At Morton Avenue Today

I took my photo standing on the sidewalk. The postcard photographer stood at the third floor or roof of either the original 90 Morton Avenue or 86 Morton apartment buildings behind me. I didn’t try to get into one of the buildings, I can only imagine how the postcard man pushed his way into one of these residences with his load of photography equipment and set up his shot at some window, while the family stood by solemnly impressed by the sudden appearance of all that advanced technology in their home.

Initially I was thrown off by the disappearance of the very prominent and apparently brand new storm drain in the foreground of the postcard. I mean, for a while I couldn’t imagine that anyone would remove a storm drain, especially a street corner on a hill. But sure enough, look at the the curve of the road in my photo, plus that is definitely the eastern end of the low lying playing fields, the bowl.

All of the houses visible on the other side of the park in the postcard were demolished in the late 1960s. Then governor Nelson Rockefeller, so the story goes, wanted to impress a certain Princess Beatrice of Belgium who on a visit was less than impressed with the tatty appearance of Albany. So Rocky (with the willing compliance of Albany mayor Erastus Corning III) leveled some 96 acres of South End neighborhoods and planted the State Plaza.

Today the white marble building housing the State museum and library looms over the scene, this is where the current State Paleontologist, Dr. Ed Landing, has his offices and presides over the fabulous State fossil and mineral collection. I wish I could say that he lives in the Hall workshop (or the tennis courts) in Lincoln Park, but no, he and his lovely wife own a very nice house located uptown. Sad to say, the signs indicate that Dr. Landing’s venerable job may very well be eliminated when he retires, and no doubt the State fossil collection will be privatized and scattered.

Postcard "A View In Beaver Park, Albany, N.Y."
(click on picture for details)

This postcard is of a spot very familiar to me because it is visible from the front porch of my house. If you are standing today on ML King Boulevard (South Swan Street in the park) facing this scene, then the ML King monument is to your left. I would guess that this wide pavement originally served as a main entrance to the upper part of Beaver Park.

This photo was impossible for me to take. For starters, it appears that the postcard photographer used a wide angle lens, perhaps a “panoramic” camera. My little toy camera couldn’t match that. And it appears that the photo was taken from a high platform set up on the sidewalk across the street. Wasn’t gonna do that.

The Old Entrance To The Park Today

This was the best I could do, but you can see that it’s the same scene. The paved entrance is wider and appears to have moved to the left. The paths leading into the park from the entrance have also shifted. Some of the network of footpaths visible in the postcard were removed, those that remain are also probably the original concrete, which also is slowly breaking up.

I was amazed to discover that the exotic looking droopy tree, very prominent in the postcard, is still alive and healthy! I forget what these are called, there’s several in both Lincoln and Washington Parks. In my photo you can see it at right, not so prominent anymore. Here’s a close up:

The Exotic Droopy Tree Today

I’m delighted that this old thing is still living, I’m beginning to think it deserves special attention. I’m not sure what exactly, or why it should be honored. After all, it probably survived intact because it stopped standing out as other nearby trees matured. All I can say is that I have more fondness and respect for venerable urban trees like this than I have for most people.

These three postcards are actually not rare, they often show up in the Albany bins of postcard dealers at old book and ephemera shows. Beaver Park was officially opened in July, 1900, this progressive project was hailed as the first public playground in the City. Judging from the number of postcards in circulation and the comments written on many, in the first two decades of the 20th Century Beaver Park was very much a must-see tourist hotspot.

Beaver Park was cobbled together from various land tracts, the western part between Delaware Avenue and ML King Boulevard was the first part. Leading the effort to create the park was the Mother’s Club, which had acquired the Hall property and ceded it to the City. The Mother’s Club is still with us, today they call themselves the Women’s Club of Albany.

House In My Neighborhood Moved From The Park

The house in the photo above was originally located in the present day park along Morton Avenue between South Swan Street and Oneida Terrace. It was one of several houses along there, probably moved in the last few years of the 19th Century. This was told to me by one of the now deceased elderly residents of my neighborhood (born 1909) who in turn heard about it from her elders who watched the move.

The original plans called for expanding Beaver Park further down Morton Avenue. However, less than one block away at Hawk Street there was a crowded community called Martinville, which is usually identified as an “Irish shanty town.” The lack of surviving detail about the community, which was inhabited for at least 50 years, gives me the impression that polite people considered it a visible embarrassment that needed to be obliterated and forgotten.

Suicide Hill By S. Hawk Street, Former Site Of Martinville

I look at Suicide Hill (ominously named by kids sledding in winter snow) and can hardly imagine what it looked like around 1900. The slopes must have been covered with shacks spewing smoke, dogs constantly barking and above it all the mangled shouts of lower class Irish brogue. The community and its inhabitants must have offended the much more refined residents that had moved into the fine upper middle class houses on upper Morton Avenue that had been built around 1880.

The agreed upon civic solution to Martinville was Urban Removal (“urban renewal”) the recurring notion that if you tear down the buildings then the undesirables who live in the buildings magically go away. In 1910 Martinville was “demolished” to make way for the new addition to the park. There does not seem to have been much concern for the suddenly homeless residents or for their dwellings.

Former Site Of Martinville

I wonder how the poor Irish families reacted to the notice of eviction from their slum. Was there violence, did they rise up in rebellion? Of course they would have been too poor and too uneducated to use legal channels, and probably no one with means intervened on their behalf. I would speculate that none of the Irish families had title to the land, this would have made the 1910 eviction order simple to carry out.

No doubt most of the evicted Irish probably settled nearby in the South End, where else would they have gone? Yet by the 1930s the Irish of the South End managed to take political control of the entire City via the ballot box. I wonder how much the memory of the demolition of Martinville kept the old time Irish politically united for most of the rest of the 20th Century. In any case there were no more mass evictions for “urban renewal” in the South End until Rockefeller built the State Plaza starting in the late 1960s.

Martin Gestures Toward The Ghost Slum Of Martinville

So Beaver Park was first built from a spirit of benevolence with the highest motives, to beautify a prominent part of the City of Albany and provide a safe place for children to play. But then the desire to expand the park was reason enough to apply the strongest kind of power politics to a nearby community of Irish undesirables. I would not be surprised to discover that one of the driving motives behind the creation of the park was to provide a compelling excuse to obliterate Martinville.

I look at the lovely grassy slopes of Lincoln Park that were once covered with “Irish shanties” and I can’t help but think of all the South End empty lots where buildings once stood. You see, whenever our City of Albany officials tear down another venerable South End building, often in the middle of the night like thieves, the site of the disappeared building is carefully graded and often planted with grass. Indeed our City government has been trying to Martinize the entire South End for decades.

Would I rather have a slum “shanty town” in my neighborhood instead of a public park? Of course not, I’m grateful that we have our park, but consider this. If our civic leaders had not demolished Martinville in 1910 and planted grass on the site, what would my neighborhood be like in 2012, better or worse? Try as I might I can’t even begin to imagine.

Lincoln Park, Autumn 2012

I’m writing this paragraph the day after Election Day, yesterday our tottering empire dodged a fatal bullet. Somehow a pair of vicious yahoos hellbent on martinizing the entire United States was prevented from seizing power. I’m not completely sure why the barbarians were turned back at the gates but okay I’m relieved. Now that the big bullet has missed us we Americans can go back to dodging all the little ones.

 

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October 28, 2012

One last chance: an appeal to younger voters to save
The Empire from destroying itself

Once again, the political party that controls our country is putting up two candidates for the office of President of the United States. Both the incumbent and the challenger are hardline corporate socialists, both believe that our republic should be replaced by a corporate dictatorship and all traces of democracy suppressed. Thus it should come as no surprise that both candidates are Baby Boomers.

But there is a world of difference between the candidates themselves. Judging by his actions while in office, President Barack Obama of the Democratic half of The Ruling Party believes that the transition to a corporate socialist society (that is, socialism exclusively for corporations) should be done incrementally and as slowly as possible. As far as I can tell, this comes from a sincere desire by the man to cause as little disruption as possible to the lives of ordinary Americans, while at the same time working to provide a steady long lasting income to the corporate owners of The Ruling Party.

In sharp contrast, challenger Mitt Romney of the Republican half of The Ruling Party has made it very clear that he wants to apply what he calls “creative destruction” to the United States. His plan is to initiate chaos and conflict across the nation as soon as possible so as to quickly and brutally impose the corporate dictatorship for the fastest possible profit for the corporate owners. Through “creative destruction” he made Bain Capital a leading holding corporation, this is his plan for the rest of us.

Two Flavors Of Corporatist: Smart And Dumb

First, I’ll get to the point. The Party has given us two choices to lead The Empire. Whether or not we like having so few options, and I certainly do not like choosing between two flavors of corporatist, we have to face the ugly reality before us and make a decision that we can best live with. Otherwise the decision will be made for us by the worst sorts of moneyed elites.

The 2012 presidential election will be decided by the young voters, many of the same 18 to 30 year old citizens who came out in record numbers in 2008 and gave Barack Obama a sweeping mandate to save the country, and then were deeply disappointed by him. If only a large minority of these younger citizens bother to vote this year, then Mr. Obama will win. If this year they all refuse to vote, then Romney will ooze into the White House. It’s that simple.

If today’s youth refuse to vote then history will be repeating itself. Their Baby Boomer elders, large numbers of them, simply refused to vote. Ever. This generational attitude started after the 1968 election and continued until about the middle of the last decade. As we can see from the state of our country today, this widespread Baby Boomer anti-voting attitude has been devastating.

Threatening To Behave Like Their Parents

Off and on over the past few decades I would try to get some of my fellow Baby Boomers to register to vote, but all too often they would sneer at me and say dumb things like, “I don’t have time in my life for politics” or “They don’t give me the choices I want” or my favorite, “I vote with my career so I don’t have to.” Always excuses for being irresponsible, so typical of the Me Generation. And so proud of their mindless stupidity. Are their children and grandchildren any smarter?

I have a message for the youth of today. Don’t be stupid like your parents and grandparents. You guys are smarter, or you can be smarter if you want to be. If you refuse to vote then you are voting against your own future, just like your Baby Boomer elders did. Only this time, unlike them, you will reap the consequences.

I have been a harsh critic of Barack Obama since before he was elected to the White House. Unlike so many others, I was not shocked and disillusioned by his actions during his first term. Back in 2008, despite all the hype and nonsense, I could clearly see that Mr. Obama is an extreme right winger who first and foremost serves the irresponsible corporate elite.

But despite having a realistic attitude I was stunned by Mr. Obama’s shockingly audacious pro-corporate opportunism, particularly his massive bailout of foreign financial parasites like Goldman Sachs and AIG. Also I have been horrified by his blatantly unconstitutional expansion of “emergency” martial law legislation, which has caused a permanent ache of terror in the pit of my gut. One cannot help but conclude that the ultimate goal of these two policy crimes is the forced extraction of our remaining wealth so as to to further enrich America’s foreign corporate enemies.

Nor was I prepared for the sheer scale of his military adventurism around the globe. For example, how many Americans are aware that right now our country is in the early stages of mounting a military invasion of Mali in West Africa? Drones that we paid for with our tax dollars soon will be dropping bombs on dry dusty villages in the Sahara desert, teaching another remote helpless community to hate the United States and wish for our destruction. Doesn’t that make your chest swell with patriotic pride?

Malians Demonstrate Against US And French Military Intervention, Oct.18

Yet despite these enormous policy crimes Mr. Obama has done some significant things that directly benefit our nation, that do not directly benefit the corporate elite. It is these smaller scale domestic subsidies and policies that cleanly separate Mr. Obama from his designated challenger and also from his aristocratic nitwit predecessor George W. Bush. And it is these little bones thrown at the taxpaying public that has earned him the laughably false “epithet” of (human) socialist.

Take health care for example. There is only one permanent solution to this corporate induced crisis, eliminate the unnecessary parasitic corporate middlemen responsible for the crisis. This he did not do. But despite my anger over Mr. Obama’s failure to bring the US up to First World standards, I grudgingly admit that Obamacare does indeed lay the groundwork for the slow creation of a useful, affordable, universal single payer healthcare system. In fact, here in New York State there is a strong movement in that direction, we can only hope that we succeed.

Possibly the most significant and long lasting achievement of the Obama administration will turn out to be the resumption of basic research into solar power collectors. More than thirty years ago Ronnie Reagan famously killed all government support for solar, thus deliberately condemning The United States to dependency on foreign oil and on the corporate parasites. It may turn out to be too little too late, but Mr. Obama’s very promising research initiatives are laying the groundwork for freeing our nation from foreign and corporate dominance.

Local And State Politicians Congratulate Each Other For Receiving Obamamoney, At The Corner Of Morton And Delaware Avenues, April 2009

Then there was the relatively small domestic “stimulus package” at the beginning of his first term, what a friend of mine insisted on calling “Obamamoney.” This program funneled federal cash directly to local communities all across the country, delivered and spent almost instantly so as to minimize stealing by local politicians. This method appears to have kept the process honest, despite the many millions of dollars involved. I’ve heard very few reports of stimulus cash ending up lost and never found.

The downside of this Obamamoney program was that most of the cash appears to have been spent on less than vital things. For instance, here in the City of Albany the vast majority of the money was wasted repaving roadways that lead to the suburbs. While it certainly is nice to drive on a fresh macadam surface when I go buy heroin in Guilderland or patronize prostitutes in a Colonie trailer park, I do feel there were more important things around here that needed cash.

But at least that was something. Most of our national wealth continues to be wasted on corporate parasites who transfer their humungous welfare payments to foreign banks or to China, wealth that will never come back home. But at least the President returned a small part back to the taxpayers. Clearly Mr. Obama understands that you have to occasionally feed the magic goose if you want the bird to continue to lay golden eggs.

Challenger Mitt Romney has an entirely different approach to handling the magic goose. He could best be described as an arrogant welfare queen flaunting his sense of entitlement. He firmly believes that his penchant for ruining things and picking valuables from the rubble makes him the cleverest boy in the country and thus qualified to lead. His only virtue is that he is sometimes honest about his radical corporate socialism, although he hasn’t been lately.

In the classic Grimm fairy tale, Romney is the ideological equivalent of the farmer’s wife. He believes that if he kills the goose and cuts it open then he will be able to collect all of those golden eggs at once. Of course, all that is left is a dead goose and no more gold eggs, but we’re not supposed to think that far ahead.

Romney has always run his personal corporation Bain Capital exactly like that, killing the golden egg producers, then selling the carcasses to China and pocketing the cash. Make no mistake about it, for Mitt Romney the United States is one big gigantic magic goose and Romney for sure is salivating at the thought that he might be in a position to murder the bird. Why? Because he wants to sell that big bird carcass now.

Freeport Ohio: Mitt Romney Shipped Their Jobs To China And Forced Them To Train Their Chinese Replacements

There is so much wrong about Mitt Romney that the rational mind seizes up at the thought of sorting out all of his faults. His public career is the classic case of the CEO who has gone into politics, a petty dictator attempting a takeover of the competition. More to the point, he is a 65 year old spoiled brat Baby Boomer who wants everything for himself and he wants it now and he doesn’t give a damn about anybody else.

But like any spoiled brat Romney is basically very spineless, a wimp. Brats do not look much past their own whims, everybody else in the world exists to serve his or her wants and desires. After all, if you always get your way by manipulating others then you really never learn to deal with true adversity and you always end up caving in to bigger manipulators.

One clear example of what I’m talking about, one of many. In the recent crisis in Libya, some local warlord attacked the US consulate in the City of Benghazi (not the embassy in Tripoli) and killed four diplomatic employees. The cover distraction for the attack was religious outrage over an amateurish anti-Muslim video that some freak uploaded to Youtube.

Consulate In Benghazi, Libya After The Attack

As countless corporate media pundits have pointed out, Romney’s response to this tragic minor crisis was to attack the President with a series of false accusations while the crisis was happening, firing crap from a cannon just to see where it splatters. It never seems to have occurred to Romney that his lies and posturings amounted to a seditious attack against the United States. To me it looked like he made a miscalculation, he appears to have forgotten that the public expected him to include the appearance of loyalty to “his” country as part of his attack routine.

Yet Romney’s stupid and seditious behavior earned the approval of some of the wealthiest billionaires on the planet. These persons, such as the notorious Koch Brothers and gambling kingpin Sheldon Adelsen to name a few, have consistently used their vast wealth to try to overthrow the US Constitution and obliterate popular sovereignty. These rich boys are sponsoring Romney with their cash and he has consistently been their obedient servant.

Around the world people are observing Mitt Romney and the Republican half of the US ruling party with a mixture of puzzlement and horror. What, they wonder, is his appeal to the American voter? Why would anyone other than utter and complete fools support such a dangerous boy? Is there something wrong with Americans?

Australian Deputy PM Wayne Swan: “Let’s be blunt and acknowledge the biggest threat to the world’s biggest economy are the cranks and crazies that have taken over a part of the Republican Party.”

The answer, I think, is that on a very basic level Romney encapsulates and broadcasts all the worst characteristics of the Me Generation. He lionizes greed, he doesn’t give a damn about anybody other than himself and he positively oozes self-contempt. Baby Boomers instinctively identify with Romney, and they are currently the largest voting block in this country. As harsh as that sounds, it’s the sad truth.

So, you might point out, isn’t Barack Obama also a Baby Boomer, and doesn’t he therefore have the same failings as Romney? Well not really, anyone can see that the President does not behave like a typical Baby Boomer. He is steady, competent, very intelligent, and displays not a trace of self-contempt.

There are good reasons why Mr. Obama does not act like a member of his own generation. For one thing, the man spent a good part of his early years living outside of this country, during that time he was not shaped and suffocated by the selfishness and closed mindedness of his generation.

Perhaps more importantly, living in a foreign country young Barack formed his worldview without being trapped inside the US corporate media like his peers were. Thus unlike most members of his generation, including Romney, he is capable of separating fact from prevailing fantasy. And let’s not forget that his politically incorrect skin color makes him permanently different from the majority of the Boomers.

Teabagger Paul Ryan With His Characteristic Head Tilt

Paul Ryan is Romney’s vice presidential mate, this year’s Sarah Palin. He is as ditzy as Palin but much more dangerous because a) he is apparently male and thus perceived as more important, and b) unlike Palin he has taken the time to memorize lots of impressive factoids and numbers which make him sound smart. His stated plan for the rest of us is to completely stop returning taxes to the American people and instead send our wealth directly to corporate foreigners.

He could best be described as a nasty little peckerhead. He could also accurately be called a liar, which was a word used widely to describe him after his speech at the Republican convention. And lying is a manner of expressing contempt. Ryan’s political philosophy, as best as I can understand, is to espouse “conservative” Christian values while at the same time he is guided by his beloved icon, the atheist Ayn Rand. If elected he will be the first atheist vice president, but of course he doesn’t have the cojones to admit that.

In short, he is a typical teabagger dittohead, a representative of the so-called “Tea Party” faction of the Republican half of The Ruling Party. He is the first member of “Generation X” to run for the White House, which makes him equivalent to the first Baby Boomer to run for vice president, James Danforth “Dan” Quail in 1988. Romney chose Ryan as his mate for the same reason that Daddy Bush chose Quail, not because he has any useful abilities but because he “balances out the ticket.”

For me, the most distressing thing about this nasty little freak Ryan is that he displays all the worst characteristics of his Me Generation elders amplified and rolled into one package. He is a cartoon caricature of a Baby Boomer, thus his appeal to Boomers. It’s both sad and alarming to see such stupid selfishness passed onto the next generation and taken so seriously.

Vice President Joe Biden With Barack Obama

Joe Biden has been chosen once again by Mr. Obama to be vice president, the first Catholic to hold that job. The former senator from Delaware, I was surprised to find out, is almost 71 years old, six years older than Romney. Two decades older than Mr. Obama, the Vice President is technically too old to be a Baby Boomer. He may be the last member of his generation to enter the White House.

Mr. Biden is a tough bird with lots of practical experience and plenty of accomplishments as Vice President, most of which never hit the media. Of course he too was chosen to “balance the ticket,” the old guy with the younger man, but no one questions his competency or his ability to move legislation through Congress. If Mr. Obama is successfully assassinated by teabagger terrorists or by an FBI hit squad, then we can all be sure that the Presidency will pass to someone who can handle the job.

The stylistic downside to Mr. Biden is that he is every inch an old pol. He often campaigns and presents himself to the public as if the corporate media still monopolizes information, and if he doesn’t play to the corporate information brokers then they will instantly destroy him with spin. For most of Mr. Biden’s career that’s what the corporate media did routinely to Democratic politicians who made even the tiniest of public errors, he is not likely to change the cautious habits that have allowed him to survive politically.

The President Sits While Romney Jabbers Entertainingly

For a while it looked like Mr. Obama was cruising to an easy win, but then he didn’t bother to prepare for the first televised debate against his Re-pub challenger. It’s pretty clear he had more important things to do, like deal with the Libya crisis. The President didn’t make the same mistake twice and came back roaring in the second debate, making Romney look like the babbling fool that he is.

But it was too late. If you look at presidential campaigns for the last forty years or so, the only debate that matters is the first one and the rest are quickly forgotten. Mr Obama blew it big time. In the first debate he let Romney chatter and jape for the cameras like a deranged ape while The President stood there looking presidential and disgusted with the crap coming out of Romney’s mouth.

Mr. Obama of all people should have known better. The TV presidential debates are never about issues or even common sense. You have to remember that the kind of people who take television seriously are the kind of people who demand first and foremost to be entertained. That night Romney was way more entertaining than the incumbent, therefore Romney won the debate hands down.

Of course, Mr. Obama was seriously hobbled in these debates because he could not substantially challenge Romney’s destructive style of corporatism. How could he have without drawing attention to his own, much more palatable style of corporatism? If Mr. Obama had kept his anti-corporate promises from 2008 (and before) then there would be no contest today, he would be a shoo-in. That is, if he had been allowed to live this long.

Typically Unreliable And Easily Hackable Electronic Voting Machines Rejected By Riverside County, California

So now we have a real world nightmare on the horizon. You see, whenever a major race for public office is deemed “close” and the race involves some sort of Republican or Teabagger, then it is very likely that in at least a few key locations the electronic voting machines will be instructed to “tip” the race toward the “preferred” candidate. This has been true since electronic voting machines were first introduced in the late 1990s.

No, this is not a conspiracy theory. In this country all municipalities are required to purchase electronic voting machines and software to run the machines from one of three corporations. (Or this used to be true, many States are now defying this decree.) The software is completely secret and cannot be inspected by anyone except designated employees of the corporation that owns the machine.

Secret software. Supposedly the reason voting software is completely hidden from inspectors is because it’s “proprietary,” that is, if anyone actually sees the software then they might steal the software and start selling it as their own. Seriously, that’s the given reason.

Gee, I wonder how all the other software in America is protected from pirates. Perhaps they have to use copyright or occasionally a patent if the software is particularly innovative? You know, that way if someone steals your product you can sue them. How do other software owners get by without special legislation forcing us to buy their products and forcing us to not inspect what we buy?

Karl Rove’s Hacker Michael Connell Broke Omerta And
Paid The Ultimate Price

Sarcasm aside, it constantly astonishes me that almost no one challenges the decree from the Cheney/Dubya years that corporate owned election software is exceptional and shielded from inspection. Nor do we ever hear President Obama or any national Democrat discuss this problem or so much as allude to it. And of course the Secret Software Issue does not exist for the Gops or for the corporate media.

In 2008 Karl Rove was caught red-handed trying to manipulate the vote totals in Ohio. It took a court order the day before the election to stop Rove’s little setup, which re-routed all vote totals through a server in Tennessee. Not long after that the tech guy who spilled the beans, who was also the guy who set up Rove’s apparatus, met with a fatal accident involving a small plane. His name was Michael Connell and he was on his way to be interviewed by a blog about the fraud.

I don’t bother with conspiracy theories. The USA is full of scheming little b-holes like Karl Rove who work very hard to undermine our country. Reality is bad enough. Just let me remind everybody that Rove is the big boss of the 2012 Re-pub campaign. If Romney wins then Rove will become the effective despot of America, the new Dick Cheney. And Romney will become the new Dubya.

Young Voters In 2008

Based on recent precedent, if Mr. Obama leads by a large margin by Election Day, then he will win. If Mr. Obama only leads by a slim margin , then the electronic voting machines will be manipulated and Mr. Obama will lose the election. That’s how it works, up to this point the vote manipulators have been afraid to be too obvious about their fraud.

This why I say that the only way Mr. Obama will win re-election is if at least some of the younger voters, the ones who were disillusioned after the 2008 election, defy their elders and visit the polls on Election Day. Too many of their Me Generation elders, you see, identify with this Re-pub radical who wants to take away their jobs (or prevent them from finding one) and raise their taxes. These old farts are easily influenced by propaganda, and they rarely question anything they see on TV.

So it is up to the youth of America to tip this election toward the more tolerable corporatist, the one who doesn’t want to “creatively destroy” our nation. I seriously doubt that this country can survive four years of Karl Rove and Mitt Romney without devolving into chaos followed by widespread deprivation and poverty. Basically, if the youth of America want to have a future then this is their last chance to grab at it. Do enough of them understand how much power they have at this moment?

Barack Obama Attends Church In Chicago, 2004

Finally, a big irony. The Democratic half of The Ruling Party is fielding a practicing Baptist and a practicing Catholic. By practicing I mean that both Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden are by all appearances sincere in their Christian beliefs and have even been known to attend church. Yet both respect the US Constitution enough to keep their personal beliefs out of public policy.

The Republican half of The Party is fielding a Mormon and an atheist. Mormons are only nominally Christian, they make Unitarian Universalists look like strict fundamentalists. And Mormons are not Trinitarians, which for much of the radical right is the measure of a “true” Christian. As for Ryan, before he pursued a career in politics he was very upfront about his atheism and his devotion to Ayn Rand, a woman who considered religion to be little more than a political tool.

All the so-called “conservative” Christians are voting for these two non-Christians in the hope that they will “uphold traditional Christian values.” This shows you what obedience to corporate propaganda will do to a person’s mind. And this bizarre contradiction shows how we are all desperately close to the final precipice.

Bush And Romney

This is it, folks. We will not survive four more years of Bush and Cheney. This time Bush is Mitt Romney and Cheney is Karl Rove, but the bullcrap is the same degree of deadly. And this time is the last time. We get no more chances after this.

 

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September 20, 2012

A visit to the farmer’s market and The Wife inspects the breastworks

*UPDATE* Empty Threats Are Always Welcome: Some people who can’t handle mild criticism are threatening to sue the blogger over this article

Sunday morning Labor Day Weekend The Wife and I took our boats to the Waterford Farmer’s Market. Around the Capital District there are farmer’s markets everywhere you look, which I think is a very good thing for farmers and consumers. Some, like the Troy Farmer’s Market is a weekly festival that takes over part of downtown Troy on Saturday mornings and goes indoors in the winter. Others like the Delaware Avenue Farmer’s Market in Albany is hidden in a back parking lot behind the library and held on Tuesday afternoons but only in warm weather.

This farmer’s market is held in a locally unique setting. The vendors are arrayed along the Hudson riverfront some twenty or thirty feet from boats parked along what is called the Canal Harbor. This is a working marine facility. The monumental Visitor’s Center, looming over the harbor with a giant clock facing the water, contains support services for the boats such as showers and ice. Most importantly the dockside provides electricity, water and a pump out station for the head, but no fueling facility.

Waterford Canal Harbor, Tents For The Farmer’s Market

And no, we did not paddle my kayak and her canoe twelve miles upriver from Albany. We loaded the boats on top of the terrestrial gas eater and headed for a boat launch in Lansingburg, which is the name of northern Troy. There are lots of obscure boat launches along the upper Hudson, if you want to use one you have to figure out where they are.

This particular launch is along Route 4 and we always have a time remembering where it is. We know the launch sits just south of a Price Chopper, probably the only local supermarket that has docking facilities for marine customers. If we see the store we know we just passed the turn off for the launch. But to our consternation, when we pulled up to the boat launch we saw this:

Lansingburg Launch Is No Good, September 2012

Aw come on, what the freakin’ frack is this. It turned out that several concrete paving panels at the water’s edge had slid out of place, this made it a very bad idea to launch a power boat off of a trailer. This is no doubt a delayed consequence of flooding by the two hurricanes Irene and Andrew exactly one year ago. We’ve been seeing this sort of delayed damage to several other boat launches along the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers.

Frustrated, I asked a passing neighbor carrying a shopping bag where Ingalls Avenue is. She had no idea, but she told us people park and carry in their paddle boats all the time. Another neighbor passing by assured us that we were not going to be arrested for disobeying a sign. So we carried in our boats and cast off.

Paddling The Short Distance To The Waterford Boat Launch, At Left Of The Blue Sign

*Update* A regular reader sends this photo of the landing and the blue sign from ten years ago.

In a few minutes we landed on the Waterford side and left our boats to check out the farmer’s market. There’s not a large number of vendors at this one, but the quality of their products is high. As usual they had a musician playing classic songs accompanied by guitar, later after we cast off again we could her her voice singing over the water.

The dockside was lined with parked boats, I didn’t notice any empty berths. At the end of the Canal Harbor basin are the doors of Erie Canal Lock #2 which we didn’t see open the entire time we were there. And we didn’t see much evidence of marine commercial activity that morning, the few water craft we saw were pleasure craft. Of course, this was Sunday morning.

End Of The Waterford Canal Basin With The Doors Of Erie Canal Lock #2 (Under The Bridge)

The next weekend, after this Labor Day weekend, the basin was going to be the site for the popular annual Tug Boat Roundup which was cancelled last year due to flooding by the two end of summer hurricanes. Large crowds show up for the festivities and to tour the tugboats, the farmer’s market does its best business then. But I do wonder what happens to the boats berthed here, where do they move to for the weekend and when are they allowed to return?

I picked up some very tasty bread and The Wife got a big bag of mushrooms and sweet rolls. I stashed our loot in the hold of my kayak with some frozen water bottles. We used the facilities at the Visitor’s Center and cast off again.

The Onrust Sitting Idle

We pulled up to this wooden sailing ship and said, well what could this be? The owner of the vessel tied up next to it set us straight. It turned out to be the Onrust, a replica of a ship that was built in 1614 somewhere near New York City. It took some 250 skilled volunteers led by a master shipbuilder from Holland about three years to build, finishing in 2009.

The Onrust is very cool, even though it isn’t “the first ocean going ship built in English speaking America” as originally advertised. In fact it was gorgeous, but it looked like it had been tied up to the dock for a while, perhaps months. Now why would this beautiful thing be mothballed on a sunny Labor Day weekend? (Ironically, “Onrust” means “restless” in Dutch.)

Reading some Daily Gazette stories, it appears that a fellow named Don Rittner, who was in charge of publicity and fundraising for the project, has been embroiled in a fight with most of the skilled volunteers who built the boat. The dispute appears to have gotten ugly, but at late summer Rittner appears to have taken control of the actual boat for himself. Unfortunately, the dispute also appears to have driven away potential sponsors for maintaining the ship, sponsors who early on were lining up to be associated with the project.

Figurehead At The Prow Of The Onrust. Note The Cobwebs At The Feet.

A wooden ship needs a lot of maintenance, for example the Clearwater is drydocked by its volunteers every year for repairs. Because of the dispute the Onrust now has no money and no skilled volunteers to attend to it’s needs, and here it sits idle during high summer. The vessel has not been Coastguard certified as is required, nor has it been developed into a “floating classroom” as promised.

Now it seems that no municipality wants to give the wooden ship a permanent home, probably because no one wants to inherit the dispute. Looking it over from the dock, I imagined returning to this site a few years from now and seeing the Onrust still sitting there under a blue tarp, decay eating the fancy woodwork and with rot along the waterline. It would be a shame and a crime to see this beauty fall apart from neglect for no particular reason except foolishness.

The Wife Inspects The Handicapped Boat Launch

We didn’t want to sit here all day looking at boats so we went out to paddle around. But first we had to go check out the Handicapped Boat Launch that had been installed early in the season. The installation of this unusual dock was the subject of feel-good filler stories in the local media, we were thinking of trying it out for ourselves to see how it worked.

It didn’t look like it was being used very much, I mean, how many paraplegic kayakers are there anyway. We were puzzled and rather alarmed at how high it sat out of the water, anyone going off the end was going to to splash hard. I suppose a person would have to ask someone in charge to get it lowered before using it, which I’m sure is a hassle. I invited the Wife to try it out but she wasn’t in a flying mood.

The Now Peaceful Waters Seen From Waterford

It’s hard to remember that within living memory this mostly quiet confluence of waterways was one of the busiest intermodal transportation centers in the country. Geographically, this is where the Mohawk River meets the Hudson River at a right angle, it is also where Lock 5 of the Champlain Canal connects to Lake Champlain. Starting from here a watercraft can travel all the way west to Minnesota or north to Montreal.

In the 1800s and in the early 1900s these waters churned as long lines of commercial boats and barges lined up to enter the locks. Every bit of waterfront in all directions was used for parking boats and the real estate behind the waterfront was nearly priceless. Gangs of working men loaded and unloaded ships throughout the day and night.

The Wife Contemplates Once Valuable Highway Commercial Real Estate

For more than a century this waterway was actually too small for the traffic it handled, this confluence was a bottleneck on the water highway. After the commercial demands of World War Two in the middle of the 20th Century, most inland boat and barge traffic was replaced by more expensive but more flexible truck transport. The industrial waterway went through decades of neglect and by the turn of the century much of the once valuable surrounding land had reverted back to woodland.

Part Of The Big Picnic Area On Peebles Island

On the other side of the basin is Peebles Island, named for a guy who bought the entire island around 1840 and became very wealthy renting to tenants and storing goods waiting for shipment. Around 1870 a prominent iron railroad bridge called the North Bridge was built which connects Waterford to the island. The current bridge was built after the original was destroyed during the great flood year of 1913.

Today the former railroad bridge has been converted to a walkway and a single lane driveway side by side. After old Mr. Peebles died the island became heavily industrialized. Notably the Peabody Cluett shirt bleaching factory was built starting in 1909 and operated until the 1970s, when it was closed because the rambling facility was considered outdated and too small. Today Peebles Island is a State park.

We of course turned our noses up at the convenient bridge for the tourists, we preferred to paddle across the water like rough pioneers in the wilderness. There’s no real open water around this river junction, every destination requires no strenuous paddling to reach. We ditched our boats at the base of the bridge and walked around part of the island.

The Breastworks On Peebles Island

In 1777, long before the island was industrialized, a Revolutionary Army detachment under Tadeusz Kosciusko (“Thaddeus” on the historical marker) occupied the island to defend against British General Burgoyne’s expected attack against Albany to the south. Burgoyne never made it this far, his army was stopped at Bemis Heights (usually called the Battle of Saratoga) to the north. Looking around the site and at a map, I decided it was a good thing for our side that the English army didn’t make it to this last line of defense before Albany.

Colonel Kosciusko’s men built an earth rampart across the island to protect the defenders, which a historical marker calls breastworks. Most of the rampart has been leveled over the centuries, but it turns out that a small section survived intact, two mounds. The entire island was once used entirely for industrial purposes, storage and dumping, that sort of thing, so I’m guessing these two mounds survived under a slag or garbage heap and were discovered when the land was cleared of waste and made into a park.

The Wife was delighted by the mounds. “I can see why they call them breast works,” she said. I had to explain to her that the mounds protected men’s lives and the, um, cleavage was probably where they placed the cannon. She climbed one of the mounds and pointed to a woodchuck hole near the top. “Oh look,” she said happily, “the breast works had a lumpectomy.”

Woodchuck On A Nearby Island, Note The Rough Gravel

Eventually we got back into our boats and shoved off. We went around Peebles Island, or we went as far as we could go before running into dams. Like the rest of the State canal system, the mechanisms of this water highway intersection are a collection of aging but reliable industrial works, all designed to keep boats and barges afloat without the boats being forced to leave the water to cross rapids.

Like I said, at one time every bit of land around here was used. In the water surrounding Peebles there are a number of mostly low, flat islands that are covered with rough gravel and remind me of parking lots. Each of these islands, no matter how small or prone to flooding, has a name. On this trip it occurred to me that these islands must have been altered to accommodate temporary storage of goods waiting for transport. So these islands probably really are former parking lots.

The Dam Behind Peebles Island

One can see the old evidence of intense commercial activity scattered about the waterways, this is usual along the New York State Canal system. The general rule of thumb is that stonework predates the early 1930s, concrete dates afterward. Some of the stonework along the canal system dates back to the 1700s and is still intact, although I don’t think any of the stoneworks in these particular waters goes back before the mid 1800s.

For decades the State let the commercial traffic decline on the canal system, only doing necessary upgrades and maintenance. In the 1990s the State decided to turn the water highway into a playground for pleasure craft and let the commercial traffic fend for itself. Judging by the nearly complete absence of active pleasure boats in these waters on a sunny Labor Day weekend I would say that policy has failed.

Unused Stone Culvert

One of the reasons the State did not promote commercial activity here around Waterford is that they would have had to dredge the entrance to the Champlain Canal to accommodate large barges. But for decades the State refused to dredge because the operation would have exposed the General Electric PCBs buried in the mud. As a result for the last 40 years or so commercial boats were cut off from Canada and thus we locals were deprived of the economic benefits.

This was done to accommodate General Electric, which didn’t want to clean up their PCBs. Thus we see once again how corporate socialism stifles real economic activity. Fortunately public opinion forced General Electric to start taking responsibility for their merde. And I hear that serious plans are finally being implemented to dredge the Champlain Canal for large commercial boats. Finally!

Industrial Buildings Along The Waterford Waterfront

On the far end of Waterford away from the Canal Basin there are indeed working industrial buildings, at least one of which is very noisy. From our vantage point we could see that the older of these buildings once upon a time used the river, that is why they are perched so close to the water. Now the occupants of the buildings ignore the river and the edifices presented to us their ugly backsides.

The water along here is very shallow, especially so this dry year. But I was fascinated to observe a straight boat channel near the shore that was obviously dredged at some point. If someone occupying these buildings wants to start using the river, well, they won’t be pioneers. With a little upgrading everything is ready for commerce.

Mysterious Pier Near The Lansingburg Side, What Exactly Was It?

I keep talking about how the State canal system can be used for commerce once again, but we sure like the current peacefulness of the waters. Sure, that’s why we come here on a Sunday morning, to enjoy nature. But as nice as it is that’s not right. This fabulous water highway needs to be used. It’s the reason why Waterford and Albany exist, without the waterway our communities are just dots on the map.

We paddled around the other side of Peebles Island but The Wife, who is a wimp, was getting tired. We’d only been out for about three hours but I could see all this light physical activity was starting to catch up to the serial desk sitter. I figured we’d better end this trip before she started getting crabby so we headed in. As for the farmer’s market loot that we had stashed in the hold of my kayak, it survived just fine.

Heading Back To Lansingburg

 

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August 25, 2012

Here’s my biased and opinionated guide to some races in the upcoming Democratic Primary in and around the
City of Albany and in Albany County

See the*Update* to the 108th Primary race at the bottom.

People keep asking me, “Who are you supporting in the upcoming elections this September 13?” That would be the Democratic Primaries in the City and in the County of Albany, which for better or worse are the real elections in these parts. For most elections in most years the November elections merely rubberstamp the decision that the voters made two months earlier.

For the New York State Assembly Primary races I’ve been giving my standard answer, “Aw geez, I dunno.” For the other contests, though, I do indeed have strong preferences. In particular one big newsworthy Albany County race is clear and obvious to me. So at the risk of annoying and upsetting a whole new batch of politicians, here’s my take on the races.

This article is ridiculously long, so here’s an index so you can jump to whatever Democratic Primary race you want to read:

Albany County District Attorney: David Soares and challenger Lee Kindlon
Albany County Court: Peter Lynch Unopposed
NY Senate 44th District: Neil Breslin challenged by Shawn Morse
109th Assembly: Six candidates to replace McEneny
110th Assembly District: Four candidates to replace Reilly and Tedisco
My own 108th Assembly district: Two candidates to replace Canestrari – See the*Update*

All Over Albany put together a great page on how the Senate and Assembly districts have changed, with before and after maps. I referred to it repeatedly as I wrote this article, so give it a look as you read so you can understand the head-spinning changes.

Please note that I am not looking at any of the local races that will be decided in November. These are Democratic Primary races that are effectively final. That’s not to say that the Republicans won’t put up candidates for November against the winners of some of these September Primaries, but such Republican and other party candidates are expected to have no serious chance of winning.

Albany County District Attorney: David Soares and challenger Lee Kindlon

Albany County District Attorney David Soares is seeking a third term. Every single day the Hearst-owned Times Union is printing attack articles aimed at the D.A., almost all of them are repetitive fluff and exaggerated allegations. Meanwhile, his opponent is portrayed by the Times Union as the most perfect candidate to ever file qualifying petitions, but the articles don’t quite explain why he is so wonderful.

Albany County District Attorney David Soares Announces His Campaign For Reelection

Albany County Executive and Iraq War veteran Dan McCoy has endorsed the incumbent D.A., standing next to Mr. Soares during his campaign announcement at Academy Park in the City of Albany. Mr. McCoy said, “We have many fiscal challenges ahead and I welcome the opportunity to work with David to serve the best interests of the people of Albany County.”

Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but It looks to me like the County Executive considers Mr. Soares’ re-election to be fiscally sound and thus advantageous to the County. It is a notable fact that although these two elected officials come from radically different backgrounds and experience, Mr. McCoy and Mr. Soares are the new generation. Both are in their early forties and unlike their declining political elders are actively struggling to embrace the future. Thus it is natural that they support each other.

Mr. Soares’ re-election is once again opposed by the lingering local network of Old Boy politicians and their minions, law enforcement bureaucrats and corporate media commissars. Eight years ago in 2004 Mr. Soares ran a stunningly successful underdog campaign against the then incumbent. His wide margin of victory shocked the complacent Old Boys, who assumed that the voters would continue indefinitely to behave reliably like obedient sheep.

Jack McEneny And Paul Tonko In May

The Old Boys are still enraged. But not all of the elder elected officials have rejected Mr. Soares. He’s been endorsed by our dynamic Congressman Paul Tonko, and by State Senator Neil Breslin who is running for reelection. And retiring State Assemblyman Jack McEneny, who in most minds is every inch one of the Old Boys, has once again lent his support to Mr. Soares.

Despite the 60% to 40% mandate in 2004, throughout Mr. Soares’ first term the Old Boys petulantly refused to cooperate with the new District Attorney, trying to isolate the man and discredit him. Yet when re-election time came four years later, the Old Boys couldn’t find a credible candidate to oppose him and the voters returned the incumbent to office. In 2008 Mr. Soares won by a margin of almost three to one.

Without question the voters were telling the Old Boys to take a hike and don’t come back. The general thought as I understood it was that the voters chose Mr. Soares because they were sick and tired of having District Attorneys who were servants of a few insular power brokers and who ignored the rest of us. As a resident of the City of Albany, which at the time (2004) was suffering under police denial of service, I considered the election of Mr. Soares a welcome break from a corrupt law enforcement network that had failed decisively to enforce the law.

District Attorney David Soares

Also, Mr. Soares brought up the issue of reform of drug laws. He was the first candidate for any local office to speak about this politically dirty subject out loud, how the the so-called “War On Drugs” has failed and how certain people in law enforcement have a stake in perpetuating this war against the citizens. Well, that cogent criticism terrified the Old Boys. But the voters responded enthusiastically and swept him into office.

This is not to say that Mr. Soares has ever had any intention of staging some kind of revolution and replacing The System, on the contrary. His main campaign promise, which he has worked to fulfill these past seven and a half years, has been to uphold the law and try to apply it equitably. This has meant that if a law is on the books, then he intends to enforce it the same no matter the class status of the parties involved, wealth, race, political connections or, most importantly, whether the involved parties lived in the City or resided in the suburbs.

For example, it is not generally known that after Mr. Soares took office in 2005, the Guilderland Police (a suburb in Albany County) were given the green light to crack down on kids cruising in cars and smoking marijuana on Western Avenue. Before Mr. Soares took office the cops rarely bothered, they knew the former D.A. would decline to prosecute these suburban white kids and most of these cases would be dismissed. (Meanwhile black kids in the South End were routinely given jail time for possession.)

Western Avenue In Guilderland

Suddenly the police blotter in the weekly Altamont Enterprise was full of driving and drug arrests on Route 20, and remains so today. Of course this greater enforcement hasn’t solved any drug problems in Guilderland, I hear that heroin is now very popular out that way. But the point is that for better or worse Mr. Soares has done his job as intended and is working closely with local police.

On the other hand, Mr. Soares has annoyed a lot of regular cops by being a stickler for the rules of conduct. One of the biggest problems that law enforcement has had to face in my lifetime is a growing perception by the public that the cops consider themselves above the laws they enforce. We see a strong willingness to tackle this problem not only by Mr. Soares, but also by Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple and by City of Albany Police Chief Steven Krokoff. This is clearly an issue on which all three men agree.

More famously Mr. Soares has tried to enforce laws against the sale and distribution of steroids, drugs used to bulk up muscles and “enhance performance.” It seems the steroid penalties are almost as stringent as the prohibition on marijuana, but the Old Boys rarely if ever enforced them. But oh my, when Mr. Soares tried to prosecute the steroid distributors the Old Boys shrieked and hollered and threw tantrums that were amplified by the compliant corporate media.

David Soares With US Senator Charles Schumer Announcing The Steroid Arrests In 2007

Personally, I think that all of these illegal drugs, steroids and marijuana included, should be immediately de-criminalized at the very least. But that is not likely to happen soon and the District Attorney does not have the power to alter the law. But he can choose how to enforce the law, and can choose which laws take precedence.

Thus we see that the conflict between Mr. Soares and the Old Boys has nothing to do with perpetuating the discredited notion of social engineering by outlawing drugs. Experience proves repeatedly that the very notion is ridiculous. But this conflict over manner of enforcement has everything to do with who gets to choose which laws get enforced, and therefore who gets to have enforcement power over the taxpayers.

Let me be clear, David Soares is not a saint and a savior. Indeed, I’ve been told by people who work with him that he has an inflated view of himself and sees himself as a man of destiny, which can be very annoying at times. Also, his office is known to be disorganized and chaotic, but then again I’ve been told that is a condition that he inherited. I suppose he should have done something about that by now, but would a new D.A. deal with this lingering problem any better?

Lee Kindlon, Candidate For District Attorney

David Soares’ challenger in the Democratic Primary is a lawyer with a locally famous name, Lee Kindlon. His father Terry Kindlon is the principal partner of the law firm Kindlon Shanks and Associates, which is located in downtown Albany not far from City Hall. Since 2006 Lee has spent his entire civilian career as a lawyer working for Dad, he is still listed as one of the Kindlon Shanks attorneys.

Mr. Kindlon has carefully managed the readily available information about himself, for example there is no Wikipedia entry on him. It took me a while to track down his current age, which is 35 but he looks much older. But I did find that before he worked for Dad he was a football player in college, then joined the Marines and served in the War Against Iraq and was stationed in Fallujah, although it appears that he did not directly participate in that less than glorious battle.

Now, before I continue here, let me say that I have never seen or heard of anything scandalous or nasty about Lee Kindlon and have heard nothing that would cause me to question his basic competency. I’m reasonably sure that he is quite capable of executing the duties of District Attorney, in fact he is very goal oriented and has a strong drive to succeed. What concerns me is exactly how he intends to execute those duties, and on whose behalf.

The problem is that we don’t really know what Mr. Kindlon stands for. His campaign has been decidedly negative from the start, attacking what he calls Mr. Soares’ “priorities,” picking over the D.A’s office petty cash expenditures and calling for some sort of criminal investigation of the incumbent. Some of these allegations are indeed substantial. But when we brush aside the attacks and accusations we are left with a challenger who is rather mysterious about his own priorities and positions. Indeed, I wonder if he has any.

Occupy Albany Participants And Supporters At Academy Park, Autumn 2011

Mr. Kindlon immediately kicked off his campaign by condemning Mr. Soares’ famous announcement last Fall that he would not prosecute the Occupy Albany participants encamped in front of Albany City Hall unless they committed civil crimes. Whatever you think of Occupy and their tactics, the plain fact is that the Occupy Encampment was primarily a political action and was not at all some random criminal activity. Mr. Soares recognized this and decided to take a politically risky principled stand in favor of the First Amendment.

Lee Kindlon seized on this, portraying Occupy as a bunch of criminals intent on fostering disorder for no particular reason. This, of course, is the attitude of the Old Boy politicians who have wrecked the City of Albany and continue to suppress the economy of Upstate New York for their own personal aggrandizement. Lee’s portrayal of Occupy did not sit well with either me or The Wife, and when the candidate asked the two of us for our support we made sure to tell him as much.

Mr. Kindlon emphasizes his military career in his personal biography on Dad’s website. Indeed, he appears to have spent most of his time in Iraq practicing military law, a field which is radically different from civil law and does not acknowledge the Bill of Rights. He makes it clear that he intends to bring his Marine training to the job of District Attorney:

Now a drilling reservist, Lee still adheres to the warrior ethos and the commitment to be Always Faithful… While he specializes in criminal defense, he applies the lessons learned on the battlefield in the Marine Corps and in the civilian courtroom for every client on every case.

July 21, 2012

Despite having lost the corporate sponsor a 5K race in Lincoln Park was a success that should be repeated

At 8 AM on a Saturday morning in the middle of July I followed behind The Wife as she trudged with determination through the mists of Lincoln Park. It had thunderstormed the night before after weeks of no rain and big heat, so the vegetation had wilted and the grass was turning brown. But overnight the plant life had revived and the moist air was cool enough for running a 5K race (3.1 miles.)

The Wife On Her Way To The 5K Race

As we walked the sky looked like more rain was imminent, and sure enough by the time we got to the Lincoln Park Pool it started to sprinkle and then drizzle. But the shower wasn’t unpleasant and was not accompanied by thunder and lightning. So it looked like the race would happen as scheduled, but would anyone show up besides us?

Lincoln Park Pool, Saturday Morning July 2012

You see, we had only learned about the 1st Lincoln Park Pool 5K Run For Breast Cancer two days earlier. Some mysterious someone who turned out to be our alderman had dropped off a City of Albany issued pamphlet at our door. It looked like it had been done hastily like at the last minute, full of blank spaces like someone didn’t have time to fill them, or perhaps because there were some last minute omissions from the program.

I couldn’t find an announcement for the race on the City website, it didn’t come up on google. I did see announcements on several racing websites under the heading “Capital Region 5K runs.” So word had gotten out about the race, but not in the nearby neighborhoods. I attempted to rectify this problem by sending out an announcement on nearby neighborhood email lists but it was pretty late for publicity.

As we approached the pool I could see what the Wife had told me, that the deck in the middle of the pool (which we are no longer allowed to climb on) had been painted with the famous breast cancer pink ribbon. Also, according to her, the red circular lap line under the water had been sloppily covered with pink paint. Obviously this painting had been done before the pool was filled with water in June. Very interesting.

The Pink Ribbon In Lincoln Park Pool

The pink ribbon is actually a proprietary trademark of Susan G. Komen For The Cure, and legally can only be used with their permission. Indeed, last year Komen had been filing lawsuits against small local non-profits, municipalities and the like, as part of a push to gain economic control of the pink ribbon. And we all remember how Komen tried to shut down Planned Parenthood by suddenly defunding their very extensive breast screening program.

By March of this year the upper middle and wealthy class donors to Komen from all across the nation reacted angrily to this childish politicking and almost completely withdrew their support. Overnight the supposedly non-profit Komen became regarded as a sleazy corporate predator by the general public. Which is precisely what Komen had become, having been completely taken over by scam artists. By April “Komen” had become a toxic brand name.

So what the hell is this proprietary pink ribbon for a much hated sleazebag corporation doing in the middle of Lincoln Park Pool in July of 2012?

Sheltering From The Rain Before The Race

When we arrived at the Pool House a warm, steady light drizzle was coming down, which was rather pleasant. Registration for the race was already underway, it looked like we were not the only ones. Most of the participants were waiting out the light rain on the Pool House porch.

The Wife was very disappointed that Albany mayor Jerry Jennings didn’t show up like He usually does at such events. That’s too bad, I had resolved the night before to write nice things about Him (for a change) for bestowing His favor upon our neighborhood and Lincoln Park Pool. So much for that. At the very least The Wife expected to see John D’Antonio the commissioner of Parks and Recreation who would have been in charge of this event.

In fact our alderman, Common Council member Dominick Calsolaro was the sole City representative to show up. We found him standing in the rain with a black umbrella, but when we arrived he moved onto the porch where he greeted the occasional constituent. The Wife went inside to register.

Race Registration In The Lifeguard’s Sanctum

The inner sanctum for the pool lifeguards was used for registration. I could see bits of pink detritus, pink tickets, pink rubber wristbands, even pinkish slices of watermelon all ready on dishes. Outside at the starting line we had pink balloons tied into the shape of the proprietary Komen ribbon. But not one single direct reference to Komen anywhere.

They gave The Wife #411 to pin to the front of her shirt. “Is that how many people are registered for the race so far?” she asked enthusiastically. Sheepish smiles, well, um, no. But by then the porch was getting crowded, it looked like we had a race.

The Lady From Right Timing

I chatted with the lady who was in charge of keeping straight the race statistics and such. I told her that we had only got word of the race on Wednesday and she replied, “So did we. The City hired us on Wednesday.” So this foot race, which had been planned for months was actually organized only three days earlier. Most curious.

Foolishly I didn’t get her name, it looked like she was doing all the work. She was from Right Timing, a small business that runs races like this. When I told her I was blogging, she said, “Mention that the company is run by Glen Wolin,” her boyfriend.

Runners Get Instructions

I have a theory about all this. Mind you, I have no confirmation, such as a City official telling me, “Yeah, that’s about what happened” or something like that. But I do have plenty of corroborating evidence, and a theory is only as good as it fits the observable facts.

My theory is that sometime last year the predators at the Susan G. Komen For The Cure corporation approached the City of Albany (that is, approached Jerry Jennings) with a sponsorship fundraising proposal centered around a 5K race. As we all know, Jerry likes to roll with corporations bristling with cash, so He was probably enthusiastic about the proposition. Unfortunately, the only City venue available was neglected Lincoln Park, but our neighborhood would do in a pinch.

But by the time this past Spring had sprung, Komen had become a dirty word and no one wanted to associate with them, certainly not elected officials who depend upon a positive public image to stay in office and pay their bills. So by April Fools Day Jerry wanted nothing to do with them.

Runners Ready To Go

There was a definite ad hoc feel to the event that was not the fault of the contractors who ran the race. For example, the City always paints a finish line on the pavement for such races, but there was none. Nor were there markers along the route, and the one banner proclaiming the City’s benevolent sponsorship was general in nature.

A firetruck showed up to do EMS if necessary, that’s required. First the guys tried to park the truck on the race route, but then they were persuaded to park it off to the side. But then the contractors who ran the race deferred to the FD guys and asked them to blast the truck siren to start the race.

So one of the guys said okay, and without warning went into the truck and hit the siren. Taken by surprise, the startled runners took off in a pack. They didn’t get to on your mark get set go.

Startled Runners Take Off At The Firetruck Blast

After Komen became a dirty word their revenue, which was almost entirely charitable contributions, dropped precipitously and the corporation went into crisis mode. By late spring their Bottom Line was in deep trouble and the corporation no longer had the time or resources available for expansion projects like a 5K race in some noplace like Albany. So either they withdrew their sponsorship or else Jerry told them to get lost and they gladly took a hike.

But the administrative bureaucracy of the City of Albany, you see, is not organized like other municipal governments. Each department exists in a separate “silo,” each department communicates directly to the mayor but not to each oher. If they want to talk to each other they have to do it through the mayor.

That’s why Jerry needs a deputy mayor with a salary second only to His, and that’s why until very recently He has successfully resisted the implementation of a modern interdepartmental computer system. The purpose of this manner of organization is to make the mayor the hub of all power. That’s why some people like to say that Albany has yet to catch up with the 20th Century.

Running Uphill Toward ML King Boulevard

Lincoln Park is basically a giant flat bottomed bowl surrounded by killer steep hills. The race route was four times around the bottom of the bowl, each time around detouring up then down the hill that leads to the ML King Boulevard entrance to the park. All but the healthiest runners, I noticed, tightened their jaws grimly when they regarded that incline.

Very quickly the lead runners were lapping the slowpokes. I walked the bowl once, at about three quarters of my way around I asked a passing fellow who was trotting along easily, which lap was he doing. “Last,” he said, and stepped up his speed in the home stretch.

Albany Fire Department Recruits In Blue Shirts
Behind The Very Fast Baby

The winner was Philo Germano of Albany who came in at an astonishing 16:20, he didn’t look sweaty or winded in the least. The first female, who I didn’t talk to, was Emily Finnegan at 17: 47. Not to diminish their accomplishments, but I have to wonder if we really had exactly 5K (3.1 miles) laid out, I suspect it was a might short. Then again, for all I know the route may have been a might long.

Laying out the route is the City’s responsibility, it’s too bad they had no time to do it right. The haste in preparation takes away from the accomplishments of the winners, but who cares. People had showed up and paid ten bucks to run in the early morning mists, not win big prizes and bask in lasting glory.

Lincoln Park Pool Lifeguard Philo Germano, Winner Of
The 1st Lincoln Park Pool 5K

So what I think happened is that the mayor forgot to tell all the different departmental silos to cancel the race. However, some efficient City worker embedded in one of the silos had already informed the wider racing community about the event and the notice had been posted on several online lists of race announcements. And He appears to have forgotten to tell the Department of General Services (DGS) silo to cancel the order to paint a pink Komen ribbon in the center of the pool.

My theory is that four days before the race someone brought all this to Jerry’s attention, that people were expecting a race on Saturday, there was a pink ribbon in the middle of Lincoln Park Pool and something had to be done. Actually, I was impressed how the City handled the crisis, things went off rather well considering. I mean, screw-ups are bound to happen even if you have 21st Century bureaucratic systems in place.

If Jerry had showed up at the start of the race like He usually does I would have praised Him for managing to pull off the race without debilitating glitches, but alas, He did not show His face to us that morning. I guess He didn’t want to get too close to that proprietary pink ribbon in the middle of the pool.

Our Neighbor Jo-Ann Leads The Pack

It looked like the entire squad of Lincoln Park Pool lifeguards participated in the race, both top winners were lifeguards. I observed their esprit de corp. The pool lifeguards have always had their own workplace identity but this was different. These physically fit young guys and gals appeared to me to identify with each other, they were friends.

One year ago I wrote about how the pool was sadly neglected and underused and wondered why the City saw fit to do that. With the Demolition By Neglect and imminent shutdown of the indoor pool at nearby Bathhouse #2, at the time it looked like Lincoln Park Pool was next for elimination. But since June of 2011 we have seen a massive change of official attitude toward Our Pool.

Crossing The Finish Line

It seems that the City has re-instituted the long-abandoned program to recruit lifeguards from Albany High School. Also, this event was the first time I’ve seen these orange “Ranger” t-shirts at the pool, apparently some sort of apprenticeship program about which I have to learn. There is now a running club centered in the Pool House, and of course the weight training program upstairs.

And most importantly, this year we have swim programs for neighborhood kids sponsored by the Red Cross. This is clearly in response to a recent report that inner City black kids are three times more likely to die by drowning than suburban white kids. All this indicates that the City has reversed it’s policy of Demolition By Neglect and now recognizes our pool and our park as a valuable resource that they can, um, exploit.

I learned about these new programs from a troll who posted a sarcastic comment a few weeks ago on an old article about the pool on this blog, from one year ago. The troll claimed to be a high school student who worked as a lifeguard but that person sure didn’t think or write like a teenager. I suspect the troll is a City official. Still, I’m grateful to read the flame, I’m delighted to see the City is relenting and letting us use our pool again.

The Wife Rockets Into The Final Lap

So The Wife trudged along like a snail in the mud. You would not think to see her crawl through Lincoln Park that this slug had done the Pine Bush Triathlon the previous weekend, swimming, bicycling and running. Okay, in that event she swam like a bag of concrete, biked almost as fast as a toddler on a tricycle and ran like a three-toed sloth wearing flippers but she was not the last participant to finish, far from it.

She liked my passing idea for a Lincoln Park Triathlon. Admittedly the park is a little too small for such an event, for instance you really need a lake to accommodate all the participants. But she didn’t care about that, she was all ready to sign up and jump in the pool and start competing.

The Wife Rounds The Bowl

Lincoln Park is wide open, standing at the bottom of the bowl you can survey everything. We could all see The Wife’s trudging exertions in her bid for last place as she slowly rounded the bowl. Still, some of the race participants waited to encourage her across the finish line, that’s not unusual. Foot racers tend to be very supportive of the last ones to finish.

Finally she streaked into home to cheering. Even the slowest slow slugs get praise and support at these things, even if it takes them more than 45 minutes to cover a 5K. Hey, you didn’t see me run, so I’ve got no right to complain.

The Wife Streaks Home In Record Time

In total there were 92 entrants for the race but only 70 actually ran. I guess 32 people who signed up ahead of time were scared of the warm light occasional rain, but I’ll have to say that this race had close to perfect running weather. Experienced runners actually welcome such conditions.

So here it was not even 10 AM and now The Wife announced to all the lifeguards standing around that she was ready to jump into the pool. But see, the pool didn’t open until Noon so she was out of luck. That, she explained to the lifeguards, is why we need to have a triathlon in Lincoln Park. The lifeguards looked like they thought that might be a good idea.

Well, we neighbors hope to see this 5K Run again next year. I’ll bet a willing sponsor can be found, we need nothing too fancy. The Wife, however, wants to see one more award for the runners. “How come,” she asked the race monitors as she cooled down from her exertions, “you don’t give a prize for last place?”

Click Here To See The Fabulous Prizes!

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June 30, 2012

Volunteers rebuild a South End public schoolyard and the County Executive muscles in on Jerry’s turf

The other day, the first day of summer, I went down to the bottom of Morton Avenue to attend one of those ribbon cuttings, this time for a new playground at Giffen Memorial Elementary School. Giffen is the designated public school for my neighborhood, it also has a nice big auditorium which occasionally serves as a meeting place. The school is central to the South End, and like the rest of the South End it has suffered terribly from decades of planned negligence but now is coming back to life.

I’m very happy to find out that the school itself has been successfully fighting back against this policy of decay, and we are seeing very positive results. More importantly, I saw lots of evidence that there are quite a few people who are working to make Giffen a school to be proud of. This includes, besides the neighbors and parents of kids, volunteers from several local businesses who donated labor for the playground.

And we had exactly two politicians show up. That turned out to be plenty. What I didn’t see at this dedication was the mayor of Albany Jerry Jennings, I saw none of His minions, nor did I see anybody who is trying to stay on His good side. Which is odd, because He loves to preside over playground dedications.

The New Playground And Play Area At
Giffen Elementary Public School

I showed up at Giffen School about a half hour before the 10:45 AM event and was puzzled. I drove my pickup around the school several times but I could see no sign of the event being set up. I finally noticed that there was a new looking playground inside the schoolyard fence, but the equipment was being used by a squad of children carefully supervised by three female teachers. Did I get the day wrong?

I’m more used to those Albany Housing Authority (AHA) ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings that involve elaborate set-ups. Those events involve pavilions, seating, a ceremonial mound of dirt bristling with gold-painted shovels, and sometimes even food. And yes, the corporate media shows up in full force with their equipment, and so does City of Albany mayor Jerry Jennings. Always.

What I got to see here at Giffen is how you conduct a ribbon cutting ceremony when you do not have an endless supply of taxpayer money to spend. If I understand correctly, this project was initiated and carried out by the administration of Giffen School itself with crucial assistance from the County of Albany, not the City. As far as I could see the City did not willingly help this project, and I was told that they didn’t spend one cent.

Kids Come Outside For The Ribbon Cutting

Of course a lone male does not drive repeatedly around an elementary school without a female chaperone, that’s how guys like me get put on sex-offender lists. (Ladies… seriously, males are always alert to this sort of threat to themselves. Ask any sensible fellow.) So I decided to park my truck inside the compound and walk around, taking care to look obvious and rehearsing my reasons for being there so that I could counter any accusations of being a child snatcher pervert.

Eventually the kids using the new play area went back inside single file and after a bit several other strange adults showed up, so I could relax. I talked to a fellow from the Momentive Corporation, he told me about the volunteer days that he and his coworkers had participated in the past two weekends. “We had about 90 volunteers cleaning up, from my company and from others, and we completely transformed the lot,” he told me.

Ah, here we get to the very heart of the matter. This big yard inside the schoolyard fence, encompassing perhaps a third of the school property footprint, was your basic urban abandoned lot. The weeds were high and uncut, piles of garbage were strewn about. Some of the garbage was as high as my waist,” the guy from Momentive told me.

The Kids Find Seats

Several people who live nearby later told me the lot had been an overgrown trash pile for decades. So then, it’s great that so many persons came down to the South End to restore the abandoned part of the schoolyard. Indeed it’s a wonderful thing that so many care about our school, and for what it’s worth I’d like to personally thank all of the volunteers.

But this begs the question, why was most of the schoolyard abandoned in the first place? Why wasn’t this yard mowed and the garbage picked up now and then, why couldn’t children use this part of the school to play and learn for so many decades?

The short answer is that the Giffen schoolyard lot was abandoned because of politics and religion. Or, perhaps I should say more accurately, the politics of destruction and the religion of applied stupidity. I’ll get back to that in a moment.

Project Coordinator Jefferson Weidman Of
Arbor Hill Elementary School

More public attendees arrived, and then each class of little kids filed out of the school building to sit around the new play apparatus. I have to say, what a well behaved bunch of kids. I don’t recall behaving that obediently when I was a kid, but then I don’t recall receiving such close attention as these kids were getting from their teachers.

I talked to Jefferson Weidman, a long time teacher at Arbor Hill Elementary across town. Mr. Weidman is a big booster of public education and no lover of “charter” school privatization. As I understand it he was the coordinator for the project and acted as liaison to the City.

Ready For The Outdoor Assembly

The first politician to show up was my First Ward Common Council member Dominick Calsolaro who is most definitely not trying to curry favor with the mayor. Giffen School is not part of his ward, mind you, but like Dom it is part of the South End. The current representative for this ward, the Second, obeys the mayor so he wasn’t allowed to attend.

Dominick greeted me by yelling at me. “Did you get my phone call? Don’t you ever listen to your messages? Did you read that thing from that guy that I forwarded to you with my responses? You know, I’m trying to keep you informed about your neighborhood. Do you even read any of my emails?” It’s always great to see him.

The phone call that I hadn’t listened to yet (it came after I’d left my house for the morning) was about the demolition of two three-story brick buildings from the 1800s located two blocks from my house. Thanks to Dom’s emails I’d known for months that these buildings were condemned to die by “emergency demolition.” But that had been months ago and somehow I had irrationally thought that perhaps they would not be murdered by the City.

Destroyed Brick Buildings At Morton Avenue And Eagle Street

So on my way down to the ribbon cutting at Giffen I saw the heartbreaking pile of rubble. In the 1980s these two buildings were viable and inhabited. But then… I don’t want to start. It doesn’t matter anymore. Suffice to say these buildings were allowed to decay for thirty years and suddenly the other day they became an emergency.

The City has never spent one dime to preserve or stabilize empty historic buildings, but they have limitless funds to destroy them. Years ago Dominick tried to set up a building stabilization fund, but Mayor Jennings laundered the money through the City’s general fund and ended up using that money to tear down buildings. Last month the Common Council floated another bond issue to specifically tear down more buildings. There will be no bonding to stabilize empty buildings in Albany.

City Of Albany Common Council Member Dominick Calsolaro At Left Greets Albany County Executive Dan McCoy

The new Albany County Executive arrived, Dan McCoy, six months into his first term. This was the first time I’d seen Mr. McCoy at one of these dedications, but not the first I’d heard of him in the South End. He carried himself like the Big Man In Charge, a role usually reserved for the absent Jerry Jennings.

Which explains why Jennings was not present, not to mention that the mayor is no friend of Albany public schools, His former employer. Several times I loudly asked where was Jerry? We all know He loves playground ribbon cuttings. And He rarely misses a chance to pose in front of the media.

The line I heard several times was “The mayor is still recovering from knee surgery.” Okay, but exactly seven days later He attended a dedication over on Delaware Street, another demolition but this time with replacement buildings, and His Majesty cavorted about just fine. Listen, Dominick once attended a memorial service after he had surgery on his foot, I pushed him around a rambling old church in a wheelchair. When a politician wants to attend a function, the politician will attend.

(By the way, County Legislator Luci Mcknight wrote to me that she wouldn’t attend this ribbon cutting because she had a mammogram scheduled for that time. I sure as hell wasn’t going to try to talk her out of that.)

Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings On June 27 On Delaware Street

I’ve been getting the distinct impression that Dan McCoy and Jerry Jennings are now butting heads big time. Mr. McCoy has certainly been crowding onto Jerry’s turf, nosing around the City of Albany and acting like he’s in charge, attending ribbon cuttings and congratulating local businesses on their planned improvements. Of course he does these things in the name of the County, people often need to be reminded that Jerry’s City is indeed a part of the County.

Witness Mr. McCoy’s direct involvement with the abandoned dry cleaner’s building filled with barrels of toxic waste at the corner of Washington and Ontario, a building that has been sitting boarded up and very visible for what, 20 years? At least? All of a sudden this building is a very big embarrassment to Jennings and Mr. McCoy is making the most of it by actually tackling the problem. You know that Jerry is furious at the younger intruding interloper, but what can He do?

Jerry Jennings With With Albany County Legislature Majority Leader Frank Commisso In April

Jennings appears to have arranged a truce with His longtime rival and enemy, the senior Frank Commisso, who also does not see eye to eye with the new County Executive. Jennings has even endorsed the junior Frank Commisso’s run for State Assembly, although the mayor may simply wish to see the younger Commisso exit the City of Albany Common Council. Like Dominick, the junior Frank is opposed to floating bonds to pay debt and he consistently opposes the mayor’s spending sprees.

So in conclusion, we now have three big men in dark suits who want to be in charge. The Old Boys Jerry and Frank Senior have apparently allied to oppose Dan the young upstart. Dan is fighting back by currying favor with the public by promoting much needed solutions to annoying old problems in the City. I sure hope we see a lot more of this sort of competition in the South End.

Dan McCoy With Dominick

Dominick introduced me to Mr. McCoy, he shook my hand with icy politeness and Dom mentioned that I wrote a blog. “Yes, I know,” said the County Executive through clenched teeth and turned away. Another politician who hates me before we’ve even met. Ha! Must be something I speculated about that turned out to be accurate.

The County Executive couldn’t get enough of Dominick Calsolaro. Before and after the ribbon cutting Mr. McCoy chatted with the man, doing that thing that politicians do where they stand in the middle of a crowd at the center of attention and converse intimately. This is how politicians bond and bestow favor on one another.

Albany School superintendent Raymond Colluciello acted as MC. Speaking to the kids, the teachers, the visitors and the annoying guy with the cam from TV 13, Dr. Colluciello gave Giffen School principal Maxine Fontroy-Ford prime credit for pushing this project. “She wouldn’t let it go and made sure it happened,” he said.

Giffen Principal Maxine Fontroy-Ford (In Red)

The story I came to understand was of a heavily neglected school at the end of the supply train that got tired of waiting for the authorities to do something about this particular problem. It looks like Ms. Fontroy-Ford did an end-run around both the City and the school district, applying for and getting grants, and organizing volunteer labor with local businesses. And of course she found Dan McCoy, who was hungry to invade Jerry’s turf.

Superintendent Colluciello made it clear that the school district enthusiastically supported Ms. Fontroy-Ford’s efforts to clean up this lot and turn it into a playground, not the other way around. That’s the way it works here in the real world. The authorities have no interest in little you and your problems, no matter how big. The only effective way to get out of them the things and services you need is to knock them off their pedestals and make them pay attention.

Dan McCoy Adresses The Giffen Kids

Dr. Colluciello introduced the County Executive, making sure to make the now ritual mention of Mr. McCoy’s military service in the War Against Iraq. It’s been fascinating to watch how Mr. McCoy brought notice to himself and has built a political career on repeatedly mentioning his military service, this at a time when former soldiers are increasingly being treated like embarrassments by the authorities. Mr. McCoy had this to say:

This playground is an example of how we can provide a community resource that will promote physical activity as a healthy choice for kids. When kids have a positive experience and see exercise as fun, we can effect real change. There are approximately 4,000 residents within a half-mile of Giffen that can benefit by this $10,000 grant.

May 29, 2012

Veterans of our recent corporate wars make their stand in Chicago and The Wife doesn’t get tased

Because I used so many of The Wife’s pictures, this report is in two parts.
Click here to read Part One
This is Part Two

The cops had moved in and tightened their threatening cordon, hoping to provoke an incident. The corporate media tour bus had scooted away and was nowhere to be seen. The Medal Hurling Ceremony was ready to begin.

Again, looking over all these photos, I wonder over and over what the cops were thinking. Here is an actively deployed paramilitary force, accustomed to obeying orders from command without question, acting in a threatening manner toward our military men and women. Did any of these cops feel ashamed of what they were doing? Do these guys and gals really think our Veterans are The Enemy that needs to be repressed?

I certainly am starting to wonder what will happen after our American society disintegrates into civil war, which I think is a real possibility for the near future. Which side will the cops be on, which side will the Veterans choose? Who will use their weapons training to defend the US Constitution, and who will hire out as gunners for the foreign corporations?

Former Marine Iris Feliciano:
"We No Longer Stand For Their Lies."

First up was former Marine Iris Feliciano, who served in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Ms. Feliciano directed her comments to the NATO delegates:

I want to tell the folks behind us, in these enclosed walls, where they build more policies based on lies and fear, that we no longer stand for them. We no longer stand for their lies, their failed policies and these unjust wars. Bring our troops home now and end the war now.