GreeNews Bits

DEAR KIWANIS Club.

-----I love that you raise money to get these fantastic book that you gave us. The gift you gave me was really really cool! I’m going to use this dictionary for poems and writing. I will use it and be gentle with it. I got stock on a word on Monday; when I grow I will get the word. Now I can look up words, find new words, define words, spell words, use it in reading group, and look up how to say new words. My school name is Catskill Ementary. I am going to show my mom and dad then tomorrom I am going to bring it back for the whole antire school year. We always use them all the time in Reading Group. In our reading group we used the dictanary to help us with the prnounsyasions.

Your friend, sincerely,

Kimani, Jacob, Toya, Christina, Nyen, Molly, Jose, Emily, Shiann, Joshua,Eli,, Alley, Andrew,CeeJay, Zhira, Olivia, Luis, Quinasia, Robert, Tyanna, Keely (of Ms Tedford’s third-grade class).

P.S. I used the dictionary to spell sincerely.

“TO SMOKE OR not to smoke. It’s not even a question”=a GreeneLand sixth-grader’s contribution to the recent Great American Smoke-Out program.

GONE from Cairo’s Planning Board is Vice Chairman Mike Vilella, whose resignation letter (Greenville Press, 11/20) cites“administrative changes and time restraints of my work,” “made worse by the new Site Plan Review law.” That the Town Board adopted in pointed disregard of his opinion. Before the new measure was adopted, Mr Vilella quit work early, went to the Town Board meeting, and “waited two hours” for the proposed new law to be discussed, only to be “told that there would be no discussion.” The law, he warns, will provoke lawsuits and seems to be aimed at “slamming the brakes on commercial growth’ in Cairo. “I can’t in good conscience waste any more of my time working in a process that…will hurt our town….”

ANIMAL OVERLOAD? Coinciding with the return of Catskill’s Cat’n’Around show next summer will be street art renditions of bears and butterflies in Cairo and, in Saugerties, of horses.

TREES “respond to injury, disease and or decay in …only one way. They bulge. Trees cannot heal any sort of wound or repair any injured tissue so they simply seal off the injured tissue and grow new tissue around it.” --Bob Beyfuss, Cornell Cooperative Extension.

CROSSING. Lillian Johnson is about to move her Imagine That! shop (“come on in and paint a [ceramic] piece”) from 396 Main Street, Catskill, clear across the street, to the bigger space lately occupied by Mountain Buddies and then by Republican campaign headquarters.

CHANGED, and rightly touted as “new and improved,” is the web site of The Candyman Chocolates. And for tasty eye candy, click the link to Gabby’s Corner.

PUBLISHING NEWS. Sarah, the “authorized biography” of “possibly America’s next Vice President,” published (and started, and written) during the recent election campaign, is now available--and billed as a “new biography”-- from www.newsmax.com for free (plus shipping & handling). In different parts of the on-line blurb, it is endowed with different sub-titles: How a Soccer Mom Turned the Political Establishment Upside Down, and How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down. This information comes to us from Human Events, the proudly “conservative” magazine and web site that has lately been self-designated as “headquarters of the conservative underground.” Also advertised on that site are newly published, photo-filled Sarah Palin wall calendars.

BiG BEEF. County Legislator Dorothy Prest (Catskill, District 1) deplores her colleagues’ past and prospective outlays in support of the Think BiG (=Buy in Greene) campaign. Spending 180,000 taxpayer dollars for a marketing campaign in the hope of augmenting sales tax revenues, she says (Daily Mail, 12/3), “is defeating its purpose.” A better use of the currently proposed outlay would take the form of restoring the cuts that have been inflicted on various semi-public agencies’ applications for support.

FETED as Catskill High School “teacher of the year,” at a ceremony in advance of his coming retirement after 32 years in harness: Michael Shantz.

PUMP PRICES. GreeneLand continues to be costlier for motorists than neighboring counties, and the State, and the nation. As of Monday (12/1), the nation-wide average for regular gasoline, per gallon, was $1.81. East Coast, $1.86; Massachusetts, $1.80; New York State, $2.14. Apart from averages, regular was available in downtown Hudson for $2.05 per gallon as well as at the bridge; Kingston, $2.09; Albany, $1.97; various places in New Jersey, $1.57 (!); but here the price ranges up from $2,04 on West Bridge Street (Hess; Cumberland Farms) and $2.05 (Citgo)-$2.07 (Getty) at the Rip Van Winkle bridge exit.

NEW AFFILIATES of GreeneLand’s Chamber of Commerce include Clear Paths Reflexology in Greenville (Irene Vance), The Deer Watch Inn B&B in East Durham (Jo-Ann McGreevy-Rascoe), Green in Greene in Earlton (Jessica and Keith Abrams), IA Financial Advisers in Windham (Graham Merk), and The Retail Doctor (Bob Phibbs) and Starfish Communications (Cheryl Elkins) in Coxsackie.

TONIGHT (12/5/08). Treble Choraliers perform with guest singer Derek Hood at First Reformed Church, 320 Main St, Catskill.

>>Santa Claus joins Christmas tree lighting celebration at the Riverside Park gazebo in Coxsackie, 6:30pm.

TOMORROW (12/6). Holiday Forest Farmers Market, from 10am, at Agroforestry Resource Center, Acra; locally grown and crafted products.

>>Winter Festival showcasing of local food and other products, at Catskill Mountain Foundation’s Hunter Village Square.

>>Holiday Gift Sale by Catskill Garden Club members, with refreshments, at Beattie-Powers House in Catskill, from 9am.

>>Victorian Holiday Stroll (revived after 15-year hiatus), starting at 1pm from Athens Cultural Center.

FINE PRINT eludes readers? It evidently happened among readers of Seeing Greene’s final Nov. 21 item. Our story about canoodling among jail inmates was seen by careless readers as a story about THIS Greene County. Local officials who have received queries on the matter deny that the callers demand to be locked up.

VARSITY PLAYER? A Greene County woman has been charged with the crime of taking indecent liberties with minors. Tammy Harlow Cox, 39, was arrested by Sheriff’s deputies on the basis of evidence indicating that she sent lascivious text messages to, and copulated with, tackles on a local high school’s football team in Greene County, Virginia.