Author: admin

  • Freezing Cold March For Dr. King

    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…

  • The Apartment Shortage Controversy

    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…

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

    September 28, 2019 The Wife Under The Dunn Memorial Bridge, Paddling Toward The USS Slater.  

  • Fungus On A Dead Tree, Great Lake Sacandaga

    Recent Posts: Current Post City of Albany, New York Albany CountyNew York Albany Public Records Database Port of Albany, NY Albany Pine Bush Preserve Commission Save the Pine Bush CDTACapital District Transportation Authority CANACouncil of Albany Neighborhood Associations Ramblin’ With Roger All Over Albany The Altamont Enterprise Hudson River Data Craigslist Albany New York State NY State…

  • The New Boat Launch In Troy

    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 Her Walk Home

    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…

  • Drones Peering Through Your Window

    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…

  • The Tulips Are Too Early

    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…

  • The Mysterious Cavernous Pothole

    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…

  • Maple Sugaring Time In The South End

    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…

  • The Poop Pipe To Third Avenue

    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…

  • I Am Getting Ready To Knock Heads

    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,…

  • A Rambling Retail Tale

    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…

  • Modern Fine Living In The South End Perhaps

    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…

  • Clouds And Fog Over The Lake

    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…

  • The Floating Island At Island Creek Park

    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…

  • Caroga Lake In Decline

    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…

  • That Property Down In Coeymans

    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…

  • A Blatant Racial Incident

    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…

  • Magnolias In The Park

    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,…

  • They Want To Fill In The Ravine In Lincoln Park

    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…

  • A Very Expensive Pothole

    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…

  • Defiance In The Cold Sunshine

    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…

  • Proud To Be A Patriotic American Liberal

    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…

  • A Tale Of A Busted Zipper

    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…

  • Hot Day On Fish Creek

    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…

  • The 2017 City Of Albany Mayoral Election

    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…

  • The Church On Delaware Avenue

    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…

  • The Shale Flats At Waterford

    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…

  • You Will Not Burn Our Garbage

    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…

  • The Raptors Of Schodack Island

    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 Scientists March

    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…

  • Spring Water

    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…

  • Counting The Particles In The Air

    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…

  • The War Of The Lies

    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.…

  • The Attack On Islamberg

    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…

  • They Marched In Silence

    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…

  • Triumph Of The Corporate Media

    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.…

  • The Demand For Public Education

    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…

  • The Leaves In My Neighborhood

    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…

  • A Halloween Ghost Story

    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…

  • Crude Oil Pumped Under The Hudson

    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…

  • We Walked The Entire Rail Trail

    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 Sewage Still Spills

    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…

  • Dignity And Respect

    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…

  • The Tulips And The Tulip Queen

    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…

  • Earth Day Arises

    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:

  • Signs Of Spring

    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…

  • The Presidential Distraction Examined

    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…

  • Some Stuff From My Buildings

    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…

  • The Theme Of White Privilege

    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…

  • Four Items For The New Year

    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…

  • Losing My Imaginary Friend

    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…

  • A Shrine To Peace, Southern Roots And The Moon

    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…

  • Albany Will Not Be Vaporized

    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…

  • And That Was August

    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…

  • Her Eighth Triathlon

    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…

  • The Tallest Tree In New York State

    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.

  • Two Dans For County Executive

    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…

  • The Reversal Of Decline

    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…

  • The Armory Migos Riot

    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…

  • Dr. King Frozen In Time

    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…

  • Destroying The County Government

    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…

  • The So-Called Heroin Crisis

    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…

  • A Thanksgiving Mishmash

    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…

  • The Incident At Howe Library

    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…

  • Andrew Cuomo Can Kiss My Butt

    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.…

  • Paper Boats In Troy

    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…

  • The Tuesday Evening Flood

    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…

  • Hydrogen Sulfide Train Car Bombs

    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…

  • What Light In Lincoln Park Breaks

    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…

  • The Casino And All The Promises

    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…

  • Cohoes Falls Is Running

    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…

  • Cuomo’s Corporate Casino

    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…

  • Another Phony Obamacare Horror Story

    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…

  • A Burning House At Midnight

    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…

  • Sunrise In Albany, A New Day

    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…

  • The Vacant Building Crisis Up Close

    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…

  • Straight Talk About Guns

    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…

  • Teabag Dittohead Re-pub Scum

    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…

  • Sewage And Flooding On The Waterfront

    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…

  • The 2013 Totally Biased City Of Albany Election Guid

    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…

  • The Wife Takes A Walk

    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…

  • The Staghorn Coral Expedition

    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…

  • A Revolution In City Hall

    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…

  • Welcoming The Capital South Campus Center

    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…

  • I Am Not A Radical

    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…

  • Mr. Calsolaro Retires

    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…

  • A Casino In The Convention Center

    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…

  • A Letter To Mr. Longo

    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…

  • A Tragic Death Wish

    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…

  • At The Dawn Of Good Government

    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…

  • The Anonymous Save

    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…

  • Postcards Of The Park

    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…

  • The Much Better Corporatist

    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…

  • Paddling To Waterford

    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 September Elections

    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…

  • An Obscure Little Run

    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…

  • A Ribbon Cutting At Giffen

    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…

  • The Medal Hurling Ceremony, Part Two

    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,…