SeeingGreene

December Droplets

2011-12-10T18:57:00.000-05:00

BESTOWED by the Greene County Historical Society, at a Saturday ceremony in the Haines Falls Free Library, on an eminent devotee of GreeneLand history: the first-of-its-kind Jessie Van Vechten Award. Recipient Justine Hommel is a founder of the Mountain Top Historical Society and has been its leader for 30 years, in addition to being the chief public librarian during 1957-88. As reported in the Daily Mail (12/6) by Jim Planck—himself no mean historian--the award bears the name of a founder of the county historical society “who is probably best known for stopping the NYS Department of Transportation in the 19030s from destroying the eighteenth century stone bridge in Leeds.” With that feat in mind, the Jessie is represented tangibly in the form of a ceramic plaque bearing a likeness of the bridge. The plaque was commissioned by the county historical society from Frank Giorgini of Freehold, master designer and fabricator of handmade commemorative tiles. It calls attention to achievement of historic preservation of objects as well as of records. With that in mind, Robert Hallock, president of the county historical society, recalled at the award ceremony that Ms Hommel succeeded back in the 1980’s in dissuading the Department of Transportation from ruining the historic and esthetic character of Kaaterskill Clove by using corrugating steel instead of rocks to replace aging stonework, as well as in acquiring the long-abandoned Ulster & Delaware Railroad station in Haines Falls and restoring it for use as the Mountain Top Historical Society’s headquarters. In addition, Ms Hommel created a film, “The Valleys, The Mountains, and the Clove,” and she has shared her knowledge of the old-time tourism industry, and of the Hudson River School of Art, with the Smithsonian Museum, National Geographic magazine, The New York Times, and public television figures.

COLE CASH. A tiny, crude, 170-year-old pencil sketch by a 19^th century artist went up for auction last week in Philadelphia. The drawing of an ancient Roman “Arch of Nero” occupied just 15 square inches on a 32-square-inch sheet of paper. Experts in the art trade guessed that, in view of the artist’s fame in his own time, the recent revival of interest in the artist’s work, and the known habits of collectors, this scrap of art history could fetch as much as $2000. In fact it sold for $7500. Another picture, "attributed" to the same artist, sold for $3275. A third picture, a fully realized, full-sized oil painting made by the same artist, did not reach the six-figure reserve price Which serves to indicate what has come to be the market value of works by Thomas Cole (1801-48), of Catskill NY.

BETTER DAYS. The jobs picture, nationally and locally, has shown signs lately of improvement. As widely reported in the news media, the national rate of unemployment dipped in November to 8.6 per cent, the lowest (=best) since March 2009. Part of the improvement, to be sure, is due to departures from the ranks of people who are counted as belonging to the work force. But 120,000 jobs were added, even while 20,000 government jobs were cut. And those gains coincided with upturns in rates of factory output, construction, retail sales, and small business returns.

Consistent with the national trend, moreover, is the jobs picture in our section of the country. The November figures have not been released yet by the State’s Labor Department, but the positive trend is evident:.

10/11 9/11 10/10

NYS 7.7% 7.8% 8.0%

Albany Co. 6.5 6.9 6.9

Ulster Co 7.4 7.8 7.8

Dutchess 6.8 7.0 7.2

Columbia 6.8 7.0 7.0

Sullivan 8.1 8.3 8.5

Delaware 7.6 8.4

Orange 7.2 7.7

GREENE 7.8 8.3 7.9

Bronx* 12.4 12.4 12.3

Saratoga** 5.9 6.0 6.3

*Worst in State

**Third best in State

Those figures also serve to confirm a persistent economic fact: in GreeneLand, it's harder than in neighboring counties to find work.

NO SPICE. The substance known colloquially as “spice” (and as K2, Spice Gold, Spice Silver and K3), as well as synthetic marijuana, has been outlawed by Greene County’s legislators. This happened even before the stuff, the cannaboids, had been tested by the Food & Drug Administration to learn whether the emitted smoke affects bystanders adversely. That action was taken by the legislators of Greene County, Indiana.

SHAGGY DOG STORY. “I was at WalMart buying a bag of Purina dog chow for my dog ,” recalls GreeneLander Eugenia Brennan Heslin (on Facebook), ”when a woman behind me in the check-out line asked if I had a dog. Why else would I be buying dog chow, RIGHT? So on impulse I told her that no, I didn't have a dog, I was starting the Purina Diet again, and that I probably shouldn't, because I ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in intensive care, with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms. I told her that it was essentially a Perfect Diet and all you do is load your pockets with Purina Nuggets and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry. The food is nutritionally complete so it works well and I was going to try it again.... Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food poisoned me. I told her no, I stepped off a curb to sniff a poodle's butt and a car hit me. I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack he was laughing so hard. Better watch what you ask me and be prepared for my answer. I have all the time in the world to think of crazy things to say….
“Now that you've read this I have to confess, I copied it from someone else."

DAILY MAUL.

--“The plan, which is a department level plan, has been aoporived through the commissioners level after several levels of review, outside of the public review.”

--“The two underpinning reasons…was to help inform the public on how DEC manages deer and wanted to lay out specific strategies to improve the plan for the future.”

--“He said he viewed the deer management plan as pushing for quality for a well balanced deer heard, allowing for the proper amount of bucks to the proper amount of does.”

--“For 2012, the budget decreases in revenues and expenditures, no cost of living raises, and hours cut for certain departments’ personal services where revenues have declined.”

--“Total amount to be raised by taxes in 2012 have been figured at $1,490,345….”

--“Bringing up the rear was Santa Claus and one of his helpers in the bucket…”

Greene Gobbling

2011-11-28T18:20:00.002-05:00

EULOGIZED as lawyers’ lawyer, devoted husband (of Patricia Ann Murphy, for 53 years), mountaineer (Kilimanjaro; Everest), runner (of marathons), builder (of a family chapel near home), chef, conversationalist, friend to many, staunch family man (six kids, 22 grandkids), polymath (engineering, law, theology), dutiful citizen, campaigner (folksy door to door bid for election as District Attorney), eternal energetic optimist,“class act”…; by Greene County’s legislators (unanimous resolution, 9/21/11), and by a procession of lawyers and judges, addressing a plenitude of lawyers and court functionaries and kinfolk, in a Greene County Court session last Wednesday (11/25): Charles J. Brown (1933-2011), late attorney for Greene County. As recounted by witnesses, after graduating from Notre Dame University (1955) and from Fordham Law School (1962), Mr Brown worked in New York City as a specialist in intellectual property issues. Two experiences with Lower East Side street muggings impelled him to move with his family up-State, to Ashland, in 1971. Starting with a solo practice in Windham, he subsequently partnered what became the foremost law firm in GreeneLand. At the same time he worked as an assistant county attorney and then (from 1996), as County Attorney, retiring from that office in 2002. He continued to practice privately, and to play energetically, until the onset of an 18-month battle against cancer, ending on September 14.

DISREGARDED by prospective bidders: the recent (11/17) foreclosure auction on November 17^th , on a downtown Catskill sidewalk, of the extraordinary, almost-completed Union Mills Lofts development. Turnout for the announced sale consisted of two spectators. Michael Whartenby, attorney for the plaintiff, M & T Bank of Buffalo, said his client’s bid as creditor would have been $935,000. Which means that a solvent buyer could have acquired the complex for a few dollars more. And which also could mean that a solvent buyer, by saving the bank the expenses of agent-hiring, taxes, maintenance and other holding costs could acquire the property now for something like $800,000. Which could be a bargain, since the defaulting debtors originally bought the complex for $2 million and then pumped big sums into rehabilitation and conversion. The part of the property that formerly was Orens Furniture is by far the most capacious retail space in downtown Catskill. The part that formerly was Oren’s venerable, solid brick warehouse, fronting on Catskill Creek, is far along in being converted into nine gracious condominums, with an elevator. But the cost of completion depends in some measure on the scale of damage inflicted by September’s flooding on the warehouse’s basement (and the wiring, etc.)--an area that once housed a night club. The lawyer and the referee who appeared for the auction did not have a key to the place. That is why the whole thing was conducted on the sidewalk. And a subsequent query from Seeing Greene, about how one can get inside, did not attract an answer. That silence fortifies, in some measure, an accusation made by the defaulting borrowers, namely, that the M & T bank “malevolently” sought to shrink the imputed value of the Union Mills project so as to make it ripe for plucking by “prized customers.”

OFFERED IN ACRA tomorrow: a workshop on how to “lower your energy bills this winter and make your home feel more comfortable in the process.” The EmPower New York event, from 6 to 8pm, sponsored by the New York Energy Research & Development Authority, will be conducted by Cornell Co-operative Extension’s educator, is free, and includes a light supper, a door prize, and even an energy kit (weatherstripping, shrink window insulation, outlet and light switch gaskets...). The deadline for registration has passed, but a telephone call to the Agroforestry Resource Center (518 828 3346) could disclose that space is still available. Otherwise, there will be a repeat workshop on December 8.

ON OR ABOUT THANKSGIVING DAY a century ago, republican revolutionaries in China were besieging defenders of the imperial Manchu Dynasty, European powers were entangled in conflicts that would soon trigger what came to be known as The Great War, warfare between Turkey and Syria produced the first use as an airplane as an offensive military weapon, politicians in Washington were preoccupied with anti-trust issues, and (via N.Y. Times reports):

Thomas Edison passed word along that he would not accept a Nobel Prize for physics, since he believed that such awards should go to financially struggling scientists.

The daughter and son-in-law of Karl Marx committed suicide, leaving a note predicting “with supreme joy” that glorious future awaits the cause of “international Socialism.”

White Star Lines commenced construction of a 1000-foot-long luxury liner, The Gigantic, sister of HMS Titanic.

Explorer Ronald Amundsen reached the South Pole.

A fire in New York City’s Triangle Shirtwaist Company killed 148 people.

For discovering radium and polonium, Marie Curie received (and accepted) a Nobel Prize.

Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst was barred by Harvard University’s overseers from giving an on-campus talk about “Votes for Women.”

Hunters residing in the Tarrytown NY area complained that foxes, raccoons and other animals were all taking refuge in John D. Rockefeller’s 6000-acre property in the Buttermilk Hill area, where no hunting is allowed, leaving the remaining woods empty of game.

Dr Julia Sears, head of Boston’s New Thought School, estimated that “There are enough people on the planet to-day who remember one of more of their incarnations to make it a certainty that reincarnation is a positive fact.” She herself recalled having been a Chinaman. Many dreams and intuitions, she affirmed, really are memories of previous lives. “And that strange feeling that you have been somewhere before, or known some one you meet, is but an evidence that you have lived before.” Members of her 112-strong audience recalled having been Italian minstrels, German monks, and a decapitated/guillotined French noble.

Hot Coles

2011-11-18T11:07:00.003-05:00

MARRIED on Tuesday, November 22, 1836, by Rev. Joseph M. Phillips, at the ‘Cedar Grove’ estate/farm in Catskill, New York: Maria Bartow, to Thomas Cole. The bride-to-be was the daughter of the late Stephen and Mary (Thompson) Bartow, and the niece of Alexander Thompson, proprietor of Cedar Grove. The prospective bridegroom was the seventh child of James and Mary Cole, who immigrated from Lancashire, England, to the United States in 1818, when Thomas was 17 years old. For a few years prior to the betrothal, Mr Cole lived in New York City and, part of the time, in a Cedar Grove cottage where he created a body of work, and achieved a growing reputation, as a landscape artist.

That event’s 175^th anniversary will be re-enacted tomorrow (11/19), at the place--lately restored by local efforts--where it actually occurred. Professional actors will play the principal parts, dressed in period-evoking clothing, and drawing on passages from actual letters exchanged by Thomas and Maria. The ceremony will be based on the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, and the groom’s vows will be based on Thomas Cole’s own poetry, including a passage wherein Cole rejoices in the fulfillment of his “fondest hope,” finding “that loving spirit,” “the congenial one” who “would mingle soul with my soul—mind with mind,” whereby, “like two fountains forming one deep stream whose waters clear should be divided never….”

On display beside in the bridal chamber, loaned for the occasion by the Greene County Historical Society, will be the bride’s actual wedding gown.

The re-enactment is open to the public, at no charge. Welcoming refreshments (thanks to Crossroads Brewery of Athens) will be served at 6pm, the ceremony will start at 6:30, and a reception with wedding cake (based on a vintage recipe) will commence at 7. Guests are invited to don “top hats and ruffles” for the occasion. Some period clothing will be available on site.www.thomascole.org.

CROSSED WIRES

Lamentably, the timing of the Cole House re-enactment coincides with that of another extraordinarily attractive local event: a concert (Schubert, Debussy, Brenet, Rameau) by the distinguished pianist Raj Bhimani, performed at BRIK Gallery (473 Main St, Catskill), from 7pm on Saturday, as a benefit for the Greene County Council on the Arts. “Virtuosic, heartfelt and eloquent,” as a New York Times reviewer of Mr Bhimani’s keyboard work. www.greenearts.org.

THOMAS WHO?

“There was no larger force in American Art than Thomas Cole. Born in England, the artist immigrated to America in 1818 and was a successful landscape painter in the Catskills by 1825…. His paintings are featured in the collections of almost every major museum, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Gallery of Art, and the Musée du Louvre.” ArtInfo, 11/15/10.

COMING HOME: an original oil sketch, on wood pulp paperboard, by Thomas Cole. It’s a modest thing, small (11 inches by 8), drawn (in pre-photography days) to capture a scene for later use in the studio composition of a fully realized landscape painting. In this case, the scene evidently was drawn from a corner of Cole’s buckwheat field.

The sketch is coming home as a gift from the Seattle Art Museum. In the judgment of Patricia Junker, curator of American Art at that museum (and a 2010 speaker at Cole House), the sketch was made two or three years before Cole died in 1848. It was given by the Cole family to Charles G. Coffin (1857-1910), who lived on Spring Street, just across from Cole’s place at Cedar Grove. It later found its way to Montclair NJ and thence to the Seattle museum.

The acquisition becomes one of the few original Coles that belong to Cole House. Other originals displayed there are loans, of indefinite duration, from the Greene County Historical Society, the Catskill Public Library, and Richard Sharp and Henry Martin, private collectors.

GONE HOME, at substantial expense (shipping; insurance) to owners in Cincinnati, Mitchelleville MD, Chattanooga, Springfield OH, Washington DC, Silver Spring MD, Fort Thomas KY and New York City; from Thomas Cole House, after the close of its 2011 exhibition season: 16 paintings by Robert S. Duncanson (1821-72 ), the African-American artist who was directly inspired by Thomas Cole paintings and who in his lifetime was hailed as “the best landscape painter in the West.” According to an article in The Smithsonian (Lucinda Moore; 10/19/11), the rediscovery of Duncanson as a great artist, after decades of obscurity, began in 1972 with an exhibition in Cincinnati, his home town, then gained momentum by way of several books and articles, and culminated with the Cole House exhibit entitled “Robert S. Duncanson: The Spiritual Striving of the Freedmen’s Sons.”

That exhibit came on the heels of the 2010 season’s show that brought overdue recognition to female exemplars of the Hudson River School of landscape painting.

For the 2012 season, as announced in the forthcoming Cole House newsletter, the special exhibit will feature Louis Remy Mignot (1831-70) the American Creole who "began his professional career in the fold of the Hudson River School (specifically, in the Tenth Street Studio Building), painted in the Andes alongside Frederic Church, and experimented with European aestheticism toward the end of his life." (http://questroyalfineart.com/artist/louis-remy-mignot)

OPENING TOMORROW at the Columbia (SC) Museum of Art: “Nature and the Grand American Vision: Masterpieces of the Hudson River School Painters,” an exhibit sponsored by the New-York Historical Society and starring, of course, Thomas Cole. The collection’s 45 paintings already have made lengthy stops at museums in Texas and Massachusetts, and next May they will occupy the new Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas, where they will share space with “Kindred Spirits,” the Asher B. Durand picture, with Thomas Cole in the foreground, that Alice Walton bought for $35 million. According to a preview for the Columbus SC showing, www.thestate.com/living/index.html the Hudson River paintings “represent the best of a 19th-century New York art movement. That movement’s coterie of artists…gave voice to the American landscape…. The paintings of a newly established country helped establish a cultural identity.” Indeed, they were “the beginning of American art, documenting a land of so much promise and so much untapped beauty.” www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions

TOURING since September, to libraries and other sites around the country is "Wild Land: Thomas Cole and the Birth of American Landscape Painting," a multi-media exhibition sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. "Based on scholarship from Cedar Grove, The Thomas Cole National Historic Site, says the web site www.nehontheroad.org, “this emmersive [sic] and interactive exhibit will take the visitor both into the studio and into the woods.”

OPENING on January 13 in the Louvre--yes, that place in Paris, France--will be a special exhibit of paintings by Thomas Cole and by his contemporary, Asher B. Durand. And joined with the exhibit will be screenings of "Thomas Cole: Painter of the American Landscape," the film that was made in 2009, at various GreeneLand sites, by Cole House staff members.

JUST OPENED.

CAMDEN NJ--The works of iconic American landscape artist Thomas Cole are on display at the Stedman Gallery at the Rutgers–Camden Center for the Arts through Jan. 7.

“Wild Land: Thomas Cole and the Birth of American Landscape Painting” explores the works of the 19th-century artist whose visionary ideas on the natural world heralded the sense of American identity that prevails today. The exhibition, which is free of charge and open to the public, takes visitors “into the woods” and through Cole’s studio, revealing the ways in which he, and other artists of his time, pioneered cultural conversations that shaped our national landscape—intellectually, physically, and visually.

Through a combination of large-scale banner graphics, immersive environments, media features, and other interactive elements, “Wild Land” takes audiences on a journey with Cole through the story of his creative process. From an itinerant portrait artist to the founder of the Hudson River School, Cole transformed landscape sketches into a new vision of the American wilderness.

The Rutgers–Camden exhibition also examines how the meaning of nature has changed over time into a source for creative and intellectual inspiration. Visitors will be invited to explore the concept of preservation and how societies come to value and live in balance with natural resources, as well as Cole’s in forging America’s identity as a nation inextricably tied to nature.

The exhibition includes works by such contemporary American landscape painters as Michael Bartmann,Diane Burko,Daniel Chard, Randall Exon,Ann Lofquist,and Kyle Stevenson.

           --News Bulletin (11/17/11) from Rutgers University

FORMING: a national council of authorities on American art, especially pre-modern American art, who will serve as friends of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. A round of telephone calls to luminaries who have previously lectured at or otherwise taken part in Cole House projects yielded, in every case, a positive response: “With pleasure,” “delighted to,” “I’d be honored....” This from curators and directors of the nation’s foremost museums and from professors of art at the most distinguished universities…. The recruits will be named in the upcoming Cole House newsletter.

SCENERY “is a subject that to every American ought to be of surpassing interest; for, whether he beholds the Hudson mingling waters with the Atlantic — explores the central wilds of this vast continent, or stands on the margin of the distant Oregon, he is still in the midst of American scenery — it is his own land; its beauty, its magnificence, its sublimity — are all his; and how undeserving of such a birthright, if he can turn towards it an unobserving eye, an unaffected heart.”
                                                              --Thomas Cole, 1835.

Elections &

2011-11-11T11:38:00.001-05:00

Last Tuesday, 7963 GreeneLanders took part actively in a uniquely American exercise. They voted in popular elections that would determine not only who would be their town-level law-makers, but also who would occupy a rich variety of extra-legislative public offices: State Supreme Court judge, district attorney, county clerk, county coroner (!), town judge, town clerk, town tax collector and town highway superintendent.

Prior to last Tuesday, moreover, 891 GreeneLanders applied to the county elections commission for absentee ballots covering all those offices, and about 700 of them actually posted those ballots (still to be counted, and potentially decisive in a couple of races).

Those voters comprised a fraction of the eligible population. Registered to vote in GreeneLand, and classed as “active,” are 28,542 names. In addition, 2702 names are listed as “inactive” voters (persons who are registered but failed to vote on previous occasions). On this showing, about one out of four eligible GreeneLanders actually took part in the elections.

Their participation, however, was uneven. Incomplete. Selective? Ballots in which a vote was cast at every opportunity occasion may have been the exception rather than the norm. Many of the voters chose, with regard to lots of office-filling exercises, to be non-voters. And they did so for eminently cogent reasons: felt ignorance regarding the candidates; consciousness of the stupidity of filling such offices as clerk and coroner by popular election; and awareness of the futility of voting when—as was so often the case—there is only one listed candidate.

Anyhow, among the most remarkable results of Tuesday’s elections--apart from the crazy dollar cost, per vote, of the exercise--were these:

*An incumbent town supervisor was out-polled by a political rookie. That happened in Cairo, where John Coyne (Republican) lost to Ted Banta (Democrat) by a margin of 823 to 628. And at the same time, the two incumbents who sought re-election to the town council went down to defeat. One of them, Richard Lorenz, was an endorsed Democrat. The other, Janet Schwartzenneger, a registered Republican, ran on the Independence and Reform Cairo party lines, after failing to win local Republican Party endorsement. They were out-polled by Dan Joyce and Tony Puorro, the official Republican candidates. But another incumbent office-holder who had been dumped by local Republicans—Tara Rumph, town clerk, listed on the Conservative and Reform Cairo party lines--won re-election.

*A write-in candidate won an office. That was in flood-ravaged Prattsville, where the incumbent town supervisor, Kory O’Hara, received 140 votes while Alan Huggins, a former supervisor, received 155—all by painstaking write-ins at the bottom of the ballot.

(Here and elsewhere, we are citing figures published in the Press and posted at www.greenegovernment.com)

Other candidates who waged active write-in campaigns were unsuccessful. Specifically, in New Baltimore’s contest for two town council seats, Christine Walsh garnered 244 write-in votes but that put her far down in fourth place, with victorious incumbents Chris Norris and Lisa Benway reaping 636 and 588 votes. Similarly, Gary Maher’s 208 write-in votes for highway superintendent for New Baltimore fell short of incumbent Denis Jordan’s 751 regular votes.

Also, in Athens, Ray Brooks, former county legislator and avid Republican, mounted a late-stage challenge to incumbent town supervisor (and Democrat) Leallen Palmateer, but was swamped by 356 votes to 91.

(The Brooks effort was the closest thing to electoral contestation that occurred in Athens. That fact evidently inspired a Daily Freeman scrivener to opine (11/10) in connection with the multi-office elections, that “The outcome…were [sic] largely not surprising….”)

THE WEEKEND. Main GreeneLand attractions:

*Chilly Willy Winter’s Eve tours, with early local history recalled, at Greene County Historical Society’s Bronck Museum in Coxsackie. Costumed guides, Dutch and Swedish treats, recollections of life here going back to the late 1600s. Saturday and Sunday, at two-hour intervals from 11am. www.gchistory.org

*Group art show & sale (works of 16 artists) opening, from 5pm Saturday, upstairs at Ruby’s Hotel in Freehold. 634-7790

*Festival of Trees, the Fortnightly Club’s annual, lavish display and sale of Christmas decorations plus Santa Claus plus munchies. At Anthony’s banquet hall, Leeds, Saturday and Sunday, following opening gala (reservations) on Friday at Elks Lodge.

http://welcometocatskill.com/Fortnightly or http://greatnortherncatskills.com/events

*Rip (Van Winkle) awards and sale. Carved, dressed figures designed for the summer promotion in Hunter go up for auction on Saturday (viewing from 4pm, auction from 6pm) at Windham Mountain. http://greatnortherncatskills.com/events

Doggy Days

2011-11-06T12:42:00.004-05:00

BOCKER T. LABRADOODLE, actor, model, therapist and pawthor (Chasing Bocker's Tale) now resides up here, on Superstitious (sic) Drive in the Sleepy Hollow Lake development. Bocker is not an actual bocker (=beagle/cocker spaniel crossbreed). Neither is he descended from a once-popular trouser or from an old Dutch settler (knickerbocker). But this labrador/poodle performer is manifestly bocker (=especially cute, per The Urban Dictionary), which helps to account (along with astute management by mothering Marie) for a flourishing career in show business. See www.bocker.tv (especially the Press kit) as well as Facebook and Twitter sites.

COMING TUESDAY, to a polling station near you: county and town elections, whose most conspicuous feature is a dearth of candidates. Each GreeneLand voter who goes to the polls will be offered a ballot (to be processed electronically) enabling her/him/ them to participate in electing two State Supreme Court judge (for Judicial District 3), a district attorney, a sheriff, and two (!) county coroners. The listed choices include four candidates for the two judgeships, two candidates for the two coronerships, and one candidate each for district attorney and for sheriff.

In addition, each voter will be offered chances to vote on candidates for election to various town offices: supervisor, council member, judge, clerk, highway superintendent, tax collector. The total of offices that are subject to election on Tuesday in GreeneLand is 84. If each one were contested, then, there would be at least 168 candidates. But in fact there are 115 (plus about three avowed, active, write-in candidates).

On the printed ballots for Ashland, Athens, Durham, Halcott, Jewett and Windham, voters will find precisely one candidate for each elective office.

In contrast, lively competitive action abounds in Cairo, with two contestants for supervisor, five for two council seats (one of them an incumbent who was refused re-nomination by her fellow Republicans), two for town clerk (the 12-year incumbent was not re-nominated by fellow Republicans, and neither was her husband, the outgoing highway superintendent), two for highway superintendent, and two even for tax collector. Also loaded with actual choices this year is the New Baltimore ballot, presenting rival candidates for town supervisor, justice, council member (three candidates for two seats) and highway superintendent. At the same time, a third candidate for highway superintendent has mounted a write-in campaign, as has a fourth candidate for town council. (New Baltimore has been the scene over the past few years of extraordinary wrangling among as well as between co-partisans).

Meanwhile, in Catskill, Tuesday’s ballot names two candidates for town supervisor (both former town councilmen running for a currently vacant seat), three for two council seats, and two for highway superintendent.

ELSEWHERE. The paucity of contestants for elective offices in GreeneLand marks a contrast with the electoral picture in nearby counties. Ulster County is experiencing a hot fight for the office of district attorney, plus contests in 18 of its 23 legislative districts. Kingston city voters will encounter active choices between candidates for mayor and for most of the common council seats. In Saugerties, voters get to choose between rival candidates for supervisor, for governing board and for highway superintendent. In Dutchess County, voters are being stimulated to turn out on Tuesday by, among other contests, an intense battle for the office of county executive. On the other hand, they will encounter just one choice for district attorney, sheriff, and county clerk. Over in Columbia County, voters are being treated to the unusual spectacle of contests—not altogether peaceable contests—for district attorney, county treasurer, county judge and even coroner. And Hudson City residents have been entertained, to an unusual extent, by the mayoral contest between Bill Hallenbeck, the Republican nominee, and Nick Haddad, the erstwhile nominal Republican who is the Democratic nominee and is supported more ardently by active Democrats than was his ‘regular’ Democratic predecessor.

BTW. In the words of a Register-Star reporter--to use that noun loosely--it was the sight of “a need in his community” that drove a new candidate “to enter the political spectrum”).

ENDORSEMENTS of candidates for elective office used to be a standard, and influential, thing for newspapers. That was then. To be sure, the Albany-based TimesUnion did endorse candidates in competitive races for State Supreme Court Justice in two districts, along with a candidate for sheriff in one county, for mayor in one city, and for supervisor in two towns. The Kingston-based Daily Freeman did bless three candidates--the incumbent Ulster County district attorney, a candidate for Dutchess County Executive and, half-heartedly, one of the four candidates for mayor of Kingston--but it offered no word on any other contest in its three-county area. As for The Daily Mail and its sister paper, the Hudson-based Register-Star, their Saturday-Sunday (11/5-6) editorial enjoins us to “Take Diabetes Seriously” and their next editorial advocates voting.
(A Daily Mail scrivener did opine, on 11/4/11, in the guise of doing straight news, that “Since Coyne’s election” as Cairo town supervisor, “by most measures, the town has moved forward.”).

Seeing Greene also is devoid of endorsements. But we do salute a proposal voiced by one candidate. In a letter to The Daily Mail (10/27), Rick Hanse, would-be town councilman for Coxsackie, not only espouses the idea of greater transparency of governmental deliberations, but also advocates specific steps to that end: agenda of pending Council meeting to be posted on the town's web site in advance, so people know what topics will come up; agenda of Planning and Zoning board meetings also to be posted on line; tentative minutes meetings also posted, so as to allow for challenges or correction prior to formal adoption. Mr Hanse also affirms, perhaps too hopefully, that the best thing for “positive direction” for a town is having “the greatest possible participation” of residents.

BUT ALSO, let's have a burst of write-in votes, at appropriate places, for Bocker T. Labradoodle.

Politics 2012

2011-10-26T18:06:00.000-04:00

“STEPHEN SALAND, YOU’RE NEXT.”

That’s the promise that is currently trumpeted on, among other places, a Route 9 billboard on the north side of Catskill. Sponsored by the National Organization for Marriage (www.nationformarriage.com) and pointing to the web site www.letthepeoplevote.com, the message is aimed at a State Senator who on June 24 voted Yes on the Marriage Equality bill, legalizing marriage between same-sex partners. The “You’re Next” threat refers to the fate of the Democrat who in September lost a by-election contest in a heavily Democratic district in New York City. N.O.M. chieftain Brian Brown claims that the upset was due largely to his organization’s success in mobilizing anti-same-sex voters to back the Republican candidate, Bob Turner. (That interpretation has not appeared in any regular news outlet).

Stephen Saland is one of four Republican State Senators who, along with all the Democrats in the upper house, passed the Marriage Equality act. All four are targets of N.O.M. retaliation, along with one Democrat (Sen. Shirley Huntley of New York City, who voted Yes this time after voting No, along with all Republican senators, in 2009).

The threat is hollow. Although Mr Brown talks about spending $2 million to defeat those candidates, his cash intake so far has been small as compared with campaign funds already raised by active, organized, affluent supporters of the Marriage Equality Act. Anyhow, if the Brown forces did recruit strong challengers to the targeted incumbents, they would produce a split that puts more pro-marriage equality Democrats in office.

What is more, the retaliation campaign evidently would be waged clumsily. The “You’re Next” billboard on Route 9W, erected in October 2011, refers to a senator whose re-election date is November 2012. The billboard also is misplaced: here in Greene County, which is not part of Senator Saland’s district. Greene County’s senator is James Seward. He voted against the Marriage Equality bill. That fact is not acknowledged, much less explained, on his web site.

As for the “Let the People Vote” part of the N.O.M. campaign, it is a call for a popular referendum on the marriage equality question. And it is wrong-headed call. Its exponents tout a call "to let the people decide on the definition of marriage." But legislation, whether enacted by popular vote or by elected representatives, is not an exercise in definition. The Marriage Equality Bill (A8354-2011) does not define, re-define, or mis-define marriage. It provides that

A marriage that is otherwise valid shall be valid regardless of whether the parties to the marriage are of the same sex or different sex. No government treatment or legal status, effect, right, benefit, privilege, protection or responsibility relating to marriage, whether deriving from statute, administrative or court rule, public policy or common law or any other source of law, shall differ based on the parties being or having been of the same sex or different sex. When necessary to implement the rights and responsibilities of spouses under the law, all gender-specific language or terms shall be construed in a gender-neutral manner is all such sources of law.

ROMNEY RHETORIC

Among contenders for the Republican nomination for President at the November 2012 national election, in sample surveys and straw polls, first or second place has generally gone to Mitt Romney. In a field of seven or eight contestants, Mr Romney seems to be the preferred candidate of between 20 and 30 per cent of survey respondents. Those respondents are self-styled Republicans or Republican activists. Other contenders—Michelle Bachman, then Rick Perry, then Herman Cain—have soared in popularity within that special population, and then lost ground. So why has Mr Romney not picked up what those candidates left behind? Why hasn’t he gained momentum? Observers—some of them impartial—ascribe the problem to a feeling of distrust. The feeling is related vaguely to Mr Romney’s Mormon faith, or his flip-flopping on hot-button issues, or positions and evasions that could betoken a slippery, impure sort of conservatism. (“His whole campaign has centered around tapioca,” says crypto-conservative blogger Erick Erickson).

That feeling can be fortified by a due appreciation of rhetorical tricks to which Mr Romney is disposed to resort. Thus:

*Back in 2008, in a speech on the floor of the Republican national convention, Mr Romney undertook to identify key differences between “liberal” (bad; Democratic) and “conservative” (good; Republican). And his first item was this:

…what do you think Washington is right now, liberal or conservative? Is a Supreme Court liberal or conservative that awards Guantanamo terrorists with constitutional rights? It’s liberal!

Mr Romney was alluding to (and damning) recent action by the Supreme Court. He also was falsifying that action. He did so by mischaracterizing the inmates of the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. Those inmates were being detained indefinitely, without the usual business of being charged, being arraigned, and in due course being brought to trial. They were detained as terrorist SUSPECTS. It was prisoners SUSPECTED by U.S. authorities of perpetrating terrorist acts who, the Supreme Court held, are entitled to “constitutional rights.” Mr Romney put the “liberal” stigma on a Supreme Court ruling that had not taken place. He did so in a way that could be construed as disdain for commonly accepted principles of due process of law. (The distinction between terrorist and terrorist suspect was expressed during the Republican “debate” in Nevada on October 18. It was voiced by Ron Paul).

*Mr Romney followed his “Guantanamo terrorists” item with another purported contrast between liberal and conservative:

Is a government liberal or conservative that puts the interests of the teachers union ahead of the needs of our children? It’s liberal!

The context of that utterance conveys the suggestion that Mr Romney was alluding (as he did with regard to the Supreme Court) to a recent, substantive event. But there’s the trick. Instead of citing a specific event (a proposal, a governmental action), he conjured up a predisposition (a bias). He delivered an arbitrary INTERPRETATION of the thrust of an unnamed measure and of the motivations of its sponsor.

*At the Republican “debate” in Orlando FL on September 21, Rick Perry defended his decision, as governor of Texas, to allow young illegal immigrants who gain admission to public Texas colleges to pay tuition at the in-State rather than the much higher out-of-State rate. “If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason…than they’ve been brought here by no fault of their own,” said Mr Perry, “I don’t think you have a heart.”

At the next day’s resumption of that “debate,” Mr Romney picked up on Mr Perry’s “have a heart” expression. He responded in these words:

My friend Governor Perry said that if you don't agree with his position on giving that in-state tuition to illegals, then you don't have a heart. I think if you're opposed to illegal immigration, it doesn't mean that you don't have a heart; it means that you have a heart and a brain.

Noteworthy about that statement, for connoisseurs of sophistry, is avoidance of the point at issue. Mr Romney picked up on Perry’s “have a heart” expression but did not voice a position on the matter addressed by Mr Perry: the propriety of in-State tuition rates for resident illegal immigrants. Rhetorically speaking, he pretended that the immediate issue was opposition (or not) to illegal immigration.

GIBSON ATREMBLE?

U.S. Representative Chris Gibson apparently will be challenged for re-election next year in this (the 20^th) district. Joel Tyner, a Dutchess County legislator, has announced a bid to win the Democratic nomination for the seat that Mr Gibson won in November 2010. (He out-polled the incumbent, Scott Murphy, who had won the seat in a March 2009 special election contest to succeed Kirsten Gillibrand, who had been elevated to the U.S. Senate by gubernatorial appointment). In launching his campaign, Mr Tyner declared (as reported in The Daily Freeman, 8/13) that “People are sick and tired of politicians that are all about Wall Street and not Main Street,” and that Mr Gibson favors corporations over individuals and the wealthy over the middle class. On his web site www.joelforcongress.org he voices opposition to hydrofracking and to cuts in Medicaid and Social Security, and he classifies himself as a “progressive.” His background includes stints as a teacher in mid-Hudson schools and campaigns for elective offices since the 1990’s. After winning election to the Dutchess County legislature in 2003, from a heavily Republican and affluent district, Mr Tyner won successive two-year terms and now, for the impending (November 8) election, is unchallenged. Last year he attracted news media attention with an effort to force Andrew Cuomo into a primary election for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. That effort failed for lack of sufficient petition signatures.

Mr Tyner must be just right for the 20^th congressional district’s urbane, hip, cosmopolitan, progressive inhabitants.

But seriously, the Democrat-dominated re-districting process could make the 10-county, 20^th congressional district a bit less safe for Mr Gibson. It might even prompt him to

back his professed concern for the job shortage with a bit more thought than the vapid, vacuous formula (www.chrisgibsonforcongress.com) “get the government out of the way.”

Good News Doses

2011-10-24T09:31:00.001-04:00

SHOWING COLE

The fame of Thomas Cole, the Catskillian who is sometimes hailed as founder of the first distinctively American school of art, and who is often hailed as founder of what came to be known in the 19^th century as the Hudson River school of landscape painting, is spreading. September 1 was the starting date, and the Brazos Valley Museum in Bryan, Texas, was the starting place, for a traveling exhibit whose title is “Wild Land: Thomas Cole and the Birth of American Landscape Painting.” The exhibit, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, will go from museum to American museum for the next five years. “Based on scholarship from Cedar Grove, The Thomas Cole National Historic Site, says the web site www.nehontheroad.org , “this emmersive [sic] and interactive exhibit will take the visitor both into the studio and into the woods.” And perhaps it will impel visitors to enrich their experience by means of a trip to Cedar Grove, Cole's home and workplace, here in Catskill.

Another exhibit could serve to bring in other visitors. Those visitors would come in from the east. They would be inspired by a special show, opening January 13, of paintings by Cole and by his contemporary, Asher B. Durand, in the Louvre. Yes; that place in Paris, France. And with it, sub-titled in French, will be screenings of “Thomas Cole: Painting the American Landscape," the film made by Cedar Grove staff.
BTW: the National Gallery of Art, in Washington DC, exhibits Cole's 1841-42 set of Voyage of Life paintings, distributes a leaflet saying, among other things, that "Upon his death in Rome at the age of forty-seven, Cole was universally mourned." (wwww/mga/gov). Actually, he died at home in Catskill.

WIN-WIN STORY
Official members of GreeneLand’s Democratic Party gathered on a recent Monday night in Cairo, at Gallaghers banquet hall, for their biennial reorganization conference. And they took part in transforming a potentially bruising contest into a happy event.

The hundred or so Democratic activists from the county’s sixteen municipalities were expecting to be obliged to take sides in a contest over the office of county chairman. They were expecting to be obliged to choose between Tom Poelker of Windham, the incumbent, and Doreen Davis, party treasurer and leader of the Catskill Democrats. Both of those leaders had circulated letters soliciting support. The choice between them had nothing to do with ideology or current issues—nothing like the much-publicized strains in many States and towns between Tea Party Republicans and regular or established Republicans. The need to choose between them did, however, bear prospective consequences for relations between mountain Democrats of GreeneLand and lowland Democrats. Those relations are always a bit sensitive, as are relations between north county Democrats and south county Democrats. Many of the conferees did not want to choose between those esteemed candidates. Some planned to cast blank ballots. Some couples among the conferees planned to split their votes.

What happened, instead of a clash, was an accommodation. Before the meeting, Mr Poelker approached Ms Davis in confidence. He offered a proposal: he would make a “lateral shift” into an appointive office called “executive director” of the county’s Democratic Party, and would continue to serve as its representative on the governing board of the New York State Democratic Party, while she would take over the county chairmanship. Ms Davis readily concurred. Then, at the meeting in Cairo, before the election of new officers, Mr Poelker was called upon to deliver his annual report. After reviewing the activities and the fortunes of Democrats in GreeneLand in the past few years, and after saying that he had aimed to serve as chairman for one more term, he sprang the surprise. He described the arrangement that he and Ms Davis had worked out, called it a “win-win” deal, and nominated Ms Davis for the office of Greene County Democratic Party Chairperson.

The vote was unanimous.

Wrong Times

A bit of GreeneLand political history was recalled in a recent (Sunday, 10/9/11) New York Times story, incorrectly. The story’s immediate focus was trickery in a pending recall election in Arizona. The recall sponsors’ target was a Russell Pearce, president of the State Senate and author and staunch champion of harsh anti-immigrant legislation. The trick, performed by the Pearce’s allies, consisted of recruiting a sham candidate whose Hispanic name offered a chance of siphoning away votes that would otherwise go to Pearce’s other (as in real) challenger. When the case went to court, according to reporter Mark Lacey,

The judge said the Cortes case was distinct from others in which sham candidates were put forward, including a dispute from upstate New York in which opponents of Linda H. Overbaugh, a candidate for the Greene County Legislature, circulated petitions on behalf of Linda L. Overbaugh, who had not given her consent to run.

When I read that passage, I recognized what I took to be an error—by the judge? by the reporter?--that deserved to be corrected, even if nobody noticed the item. To that end, I sent e-mail messages to Linda Haines Overbaugh and to the Times’s Corrections Desk. In the latter I claimed that back in 2009, Linda H. Overbaugh was endorsed by GreeneLand’s Republican committee for election to the legislature, but her supporters mistakenly circulated petitions on behalf of Linda L. Overbaugh, who is a real person (and kinswoman), who resides in the same electoral district as Linda H., whose correct home address was stated, and who disclaimed any interest in being a candidate. When the error was spotted (after the filing deadline), the validity of those petitions as support for Linda H. Overbaugh was questioned, and a State Supreme Court judge ruled against allowing either Overbaugh to appear on the ballot on the Republican line. To verify this version of events, I suggested, check with Linda H. and with Elections Commissioner Thomas Burke (contact numbers provided).

My messages went out at mid-morning on a Monday. On Tuesday morning, a Times staffer called Mrs Overbaugh (Linda H., that is), who confirmed the gist of my recollection. By Tuesday evening a Correction had been broadcast on line, and it was published in the Wednesday Times:

An article on Sunday about a judge’s finding that supporters of Arizona State Senate President Russell Pearce recruited a candidate to siphon votes from his opponent in a recall election referred incorrectly to a 2009 New York race for Greene County Legislature, in which petitions were circulated on behalf of a candidate who had not given her consent. In that race, supporters, not opponents, of Linda H. Overbaugh mistakenly put the name of another woman, Linda L. Overbaugh, on the petitions, resulting in their disqualification.

The New York Times is a great news organization.

BANK NOTES

The economy is stagnant. Jobs are scarce. Housing prices are down. Loans are not being repaid. Big banks, national and international, are sorely troubled. But many of the smaller, community banks are still healthy. And in the case of GreeneLand’s main community bank, “healthy” is an understatement. For the fifth straight year, the Bank of Greene County’s assets, loans receivable, deposits, and net income have gone up: to $547million from $326million; to $301million from $207million; to $470million from $284million; to $5.3million from $2.3million.
As bank president Donald Gibson says in the parent company’s annual report, these gains are all the more noteworthy in light of the “national economic crisis” of 2008 and subsequent events whereby “many banks struggled, and even failed.”

As compared with the previous fiscal year (July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010), the bank achieved gains in of 8.2 per cent in net income, 10.5% in assets, 11.4% in deposits.

Among its other “gains,” however, were unwelcome ones, such as “non-performing” loans (when promised payments don’t come in). These increased not only in dollar size but also as segments of total loans: to 2.1% of all outstanding loans, as compared with 1.33% and 1.01% in the previous two years. Similarly, non-performing assets, evaluated at $6.7million as compared with just $3.9 million in fiscal 2010) were pegged as of the end of the last fiscal year at 1.23% of total assets, as compared with just 0.79% and 0.64% in the previous two fiscal years.

Mr Gibson reports too that demand for residential loans has slowed during recent months. Moreover, property loans totaling $3 million are now in foreclosure, the number of loans that are in the process of foreclosure has “grown substantially,” and more would have reached foreclosure status but for the fact that, in consequence of recently adopted regulations, the process in New York takes two years to complete. (One property that has gone through all the foreclosure steps, and will go up for auction on November 16, is Lange's Groveside resort in Acra).

By comparison with other banks, the BOGC is in a flourishing state. It can readily cover its dividend yield of about 3.8% (especially since the parent company, Greene County Bancorp, owner of a majority of shares, waives its right to dividends).

Among the laggards is the Buffalo-based M&T Bank, a regional giant (nine States, 13,000 employees, 750 branches, $79 billion in assets) touting (on its web site) “a tradition of careful, conservative and consistent management.” That institution reported losses in earnings, rate of return and net income; and its share price recently hit a 52-week low.

We mention that particular bank because it is plaintiff in a foreclosure action against defaulting borrowers who bought the former Orens Furniture store and warehouse in Catskill, undertook to transform the warehouse into up-scale condominium apartments (Union Mills Lofts) then pulled the plug. The State Supreme Court judgment of foreclosure puts the amount owing as $1,120,381.44 “plus interest, costs and disbursements, attorney’s fees and other amounts….”

Watermarks

2011-10-18T15:56:00.002-04:00

THE INSTALLATION

Four moving vans arrived the other day at the former Elco electric boat factory in Athens. Their drivers, and a lot of helpers, proceeded to load, piece by piece, section by section, a single work of art. The vanloads were driven down to New York City, where they were unloaded at 212 West 83^rd Street, home of the Childrens Museum of Manhattan. There, in a 3000 square foot space, they are now being reassembled. When that job is completed, visitors will undergo a unique esthetic and educational experience. The theme of the whole installation is “Eat Sleep Play.” Under a ceiling dotted with Smallagtites, visitors will make their way through a series of interaction-sparking stations, or chambers, that are dedicated to cultivating appreciation for, and practical knowledge about, healthy living. There will be a Decision Center that is in the form of a giant brain, which responds to questions about the consequences of various patterns of behavior. A walk-in stomach. A seven-foot tall heart. A chamber for every internal organ, including, yes, the bowels. A Consequences chamber, that promotes learning about such matters as the costs of clogged arteries. A Play station, where visitors can do various kinds of exercises, such a pedaling a stationary bike, and see readings of how much energy they are burning per minute. Twenty-five chambers, culminating in the Forterium.

This comprehensive installation, this constellation of forms, is the masterwork of two Athens-based artists: Carol May (to whom I am not related) and her husband Tim Watkins. It is not their first effort. They won the commission, amid stiff competition, on the strength of a plenitude of previous works: interactive, compound, permanent exhibitions for children’s museums in Calvary and in Brooklyn, plus large-scale, moving (as in wriggling, waving, spinning, dancing) creations in Maine and Oregon and Florida and elsewhere. You can get a sense of their artistic feats by dialing their website: www.maywatkinsdesign.com And for a bit more information about the Manhattan project, the web site is www.cmom.org

RESCUERS

Delivery of the latest May-Watkins creation to its new Manhattan habitation, in time for re-assembly ahead of the November opening date, took place only because people showed up to offer help. Hurricane Irene lifted the Hudson River, among so many other watercourses, to a new height. The Elco plant was swamped to the extent of two feet. The legs and other parts of “Eat Sleep Play” were soaked and bent. Completion of some chambers was stalled. The task seemed to be unmanageable. But then friends (Tina, Doug, Joe…) showed up, unbidden, to lend a hand. So did strangers.

That phenomenon—the turnout of volunteer helpers—occurred in place after storm-ravaged place. Cumulatively, it’s the great GreeneLand story of 2011. We know only fragments of cases:

*When flooding on Windham’s main street knocked out all the food retailers (cafes, restaurants), much to the consternation of locals and restaurant workers, Erica Reagan and some of her friends took the initiative of setting up a canteen in the town’s cultural center, the former church. Mustering what they could find in the way of foodstuffs, they dispensed more than a thousand sandwiches in one day.

*Scores of mountaintop residents who were driven from their homes found lodging, food and hospitality at Catskill’s Community Life Church (formerly called the First Baptist Church).
*Devastation in Windham from late August through early September placed in jeopardy the town’s traditional Autumn A-Fair, scheduled for the weekend of October 8-9. But when scores of volunteers turned out to help with the restoration of stores and other buildings (as pointed out by Bryan Walsh in the TimesUnion, 10/10/11), the show did go on.

*In an effort to raise emergency funds to aid flood victims, M.A. Tarpinian and Sonny Rock (aka Clifton Anshanslin) organized, at the Michael J. Quill Cultural Centre, an October 1-2 “Concert for the Catskills.” It was hard to get the word out in time. Attendance and receipts were disappointing. But Sonny’s call to fellow musicians yielded a turnout of some 35 bands, whose members paid their own way, played for no pay, and gave to Community Action half of what they took in from sales of CDs and other souvenirs. (See D.T. Antrim in 10/6/11 Daily Mail).

*A van load of sub-teen girls arrived at the devastated site of Cone-E-Island in Catskill. They set to work cleaning away mud. Didn’t even ask permission.

*On October 8, a hurricane relief benefit dinner and auction, sponsored by the Windham Mountain company, brought in, according to The Daily Mail (10/11), $171,000.

*The downpour and the flooding washed away a 30-acre chunk of Windham Country Club’s golf course. It also washed away the club’s maintenance machinery. And it evoked help from owners of other GreeneLand courses—help, gratis, in the form of men and machinery. In addition, members of the Windham club were made honorary members, for the remainder of the season, of most of the county’s other (“rival”) clubs.

*Last Friday (11/14), according to Daily Mailperson Melanie Lekocevic, members of Coxsackie’s Hose 3 firefighting troop sold 400 pasta dinners, plus t-shirts and 50/50 raffle tickets, at a benefit for mountaintop flood relief. That’s a riverside troop, far away from the mountaintop.
*There is a man in Columbia County who, according to Brad Poster (the United Way director), is “a real hero.” In addition to contributing his truck and his labor to the task of salvaging Pratt Museum and Prattsville town hall pieces, for storage and restoration at the Columbia Ice plant in Hudson, Jeff Johnson “contacted me after hearing conflicting reports of peoples’ needs.” Working “under the radar” from the first week of the disaster in Prattsville and Windham, dodging the complications and delays of applications, programs, he “tirelessly on his own and at his own expense” collected and delivered “relief materials.” He would visit families personally, learned what they needed, and would return “with almost everything that has been requested.” Jeff Johnson “gives everything and asks nothing in return.” [This item added 10/19, after original 10/18 post. Ed.]

*The volume of food, clothing, and supplies that GreeneLanders and other donors contributed to the recovery effort reached, and surpassed, the point of saturation. Further donations of clothing were politely declined. Some non-perishable foodstuffs that had been trucked up the mountain were returned to established food pantries in our flatland communities.

CRISIS AS OPPORTUNITY
From the threatened devastation wrought by those rainstorms in Palenville, Highway Superintendent Alfie Beers extracted a benefit. Utilizing special authority that he was granted so as to cope with the emergency, he was able to cut through a maze of permit requirements and rush in crews and heavy machinery to the widen and deepen a bed on Kaaterskill Creek, thereby saving a couple of bridges from getting washed away—as had happened in the past, under milder conditions. The long-targeted project had been stalled by permitting procedures. (Other GreeneLand repair and improvement projects still are snarled in the regulatory maze).

WATER TALLY

Geologist Robert Titus says rainfall this year is about 40% above normal here. He said that last Spring.

THE PROSPECT

“The worst, however, has apparently gotten more bad.” (Daily Maul, 10/15/11).

Greene Grime

2011-08-26T11:20:00.001-04:00

GONE
Another local enterprise has left downtown Catskill. As of Wednesday (8/24) the door closed permanently on Café 355. Operator Jeffrey Meyers (C.I.A. ‘96) reached the conclusion, after three years of trying, that “I can’t afford to stay open.” He has taken a job in Albany. He is vacating a place whose décor is far above ordinary and whose history, as the Mayflower Café under Manny Cominos and then under Doug and Regina Doebler, is rich. Other local ventures, including coffee shops, are imperiled.

MISCREANTS FILE

A woman attracted police attention the other day in the Wal-Mart parking lot, as she successively opened fresh bottles of mineral water and poured their contents down a drain. She was working from a trolley stacked with cases of that liquid, cases that she had bought with food stamps. She was dumping the contents, she explained, so as to accumulate a supply of returnable bottles. With enough refunds, at a nickel per bottle, she would then be able to buy a packet of cigarettes. “And it’s all legal,” she said; “I’ve checked."

That story comes second-hand from a probably reliable source. We have not obtained official confirmation. We would love to print the woman’s name. We would love to include her, by name, in the ranks of locally suspected

*WELFARE CHEATS. Our local newspapers have reported that charges related to welfare fraud have lately been lodged against Stephen and Kathleen Salluce of Athens (fraudulently obtaining food stamp benefits, Medicaid benefits, and home energy benefits, to the extent of about $6650); Leanne Smith, of Palenville (theft from Department of Social Services, hence from taxpayers, of $1365 in Medicaid benefits); Vanessa Weiss of Catskill ($605 in Temporary Assistance benefits, $167 in food stamps); Eva Brodsky of Jefferson Heights ($7,149, from the Columbia County welfare office); and Marina Cancell of Catskill and Ronald Thorne of Athens $3547).

Among other cases that have led to formal charges lately in GreeneLand:

*BREAK-INS. Christopher O’Reilly, 18, of Cairo, and a 17-year old compaion (not identified because of his minor status) face charges on suspicion of breaking into 30 cars at the Earlton Hill Campsites. According to the police report, they are suspected of taking GPS units, cell phones, satellite radios, and money from the cars to their own campsite.

*MENACING. Jeremy B. Lee of Tollhouse Road, Catskill, was arrested on reckless-endangerment charges after by sheriff’s deputies responded to a 911 call relating to a domestic dispute. Deputies reported that Lee fired shots through his front door, refused to come out, eventually did emerge, and appeared to be drunk.

*POT. Justin Reynolds of Kornell Drive, Haines Falls, was arrested and jailed on several charges after police officers, responding to a call about a domestic dispute, found a yard and house loaded with marijuana plants, along with cultivation gear.

*BURGLARY. Matthew Altenau, 23, of Catskill, was charged along with a Saugerties man (Roger Justus III, 28) with burglary of storage units on Route 9W. Police reported recovering more than $10,000 worth of stolen items. Several lockers were raided during June. And Steven D. Shultis, 29, of Cairo faces burglary charges arising from police suspicion that he broke into an abandoned Cementon building and sought to take items, including a mirror and copper pipes.

*RECKLESS PILOTING. Matthew Devlin of Catskill, pilot of the tugboat Caribbean Sea, pleaded guilty of the offense of mis-operating a maritime vessel, with fatal consequences, after a fatal collision last July on the Delaware River near Philadelphia. The barge he had been pushing crashed into an amphibious duck boat that was loaded with tourists. Thirty-seven passengers were flung into the river, and two of them, students from Hungary, were killed. According to the Associated Press report (Daily Mail, 8/6/11), Devlin said he was distracted by news of a medical emergency incurred by his 5-year old son. The news drew him into telephone calls from and to his wife Corinne, and into web surfing in quest of information. He turned off the tug’s radios to talk on the phone, and thus did not receive distress calls sent from the stalled, threatened tourist boat.

The charge against Devlin is the equivalent on land of involuntary manslaughter. Under Federal guidelines, this would bring a sentence of 37 to 46 month in prison. Meanwhile, the families of the dead visitors, who were taking part in a church exchange program, have filed wrongful-death lawsuits.

The Devlins’ son, following a prolonged period of oxygen deprivation during eye surgery, has recovered.

*ANIMAL ABUSE. Robin A. Kelly of Catskill was charged with failing to provide proper nourishment for horses residing in her Bogart Road stable. According to the police report, as recounted in the local Press, passing motorists noticed the condition of some of the animals and notified Ron Perez, who is president of the Columbia-Greene Humane Society. That alert, said Mr Perez, prompted a series of visits to the stable in quest of improvement. Unsatisfactory response led to a raid in which five of the horses were removed, placed in foster care, and put up for adoption. For inquiries: (518) 828-6044.

*MOONLIGHTING. Edward Pebler, the prison correctional officer who also was working as code enforcement officer for the town of Coxsackie, was arrested 11 months ago on felony charges involving falsified time sheets and unauthorized outside work. Thanks to a plea deal that was not announced until long after the fact, District Attorney Terry Wilhelm reduced the offenses to a misdemeanor and minor cash penalties. Peculiar behind-the-scenes aspects of the case were chronicled by Daily Mailman Doron Tyler Antrim.

*DRUNK DRIVING. Jason M. St. Denis, 24, of Cairo achieved the rare distinction of being arrested twice within a 90-minute interval. According to a Daily Freeman account of official reports, a State trooper stopped St. Denis on State Route 32 in Catskill, booked him for drunk driving, released him to a third party, and told him not to drive while still drunk. But 70 minutes later, again on Route 32, Denis again was nabbed on suspicion of driving while drunk, was released again to the care of a third party and told to stay away from the driver’s seat. Again.

INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENTS?

Two troubling stories about GreeneLand’s Industrial Development Agency have earned Press coverage. Most recently, the Daily Freeman’s Ariel Zangla reported (8/25) on the contents of a confidential agreement relating to remuneration for the I.D.A.’s former executive director, Sandy Mathes. Mr Mathes, who had held that office since 2002 resigned in May, under pressure from the county legislature, in the wake of controversy over bonuses paid to him by authority of the agency’s board of directors. Disclosed in the Freeman report were terms of a deal whereby, under agreed conditions, Mr Mathes would be paid $2500 per week, and would receive medical insurance benefits, for six months following his effective date of departure (6/28). The Freeman story was in the nature of a scoop. Daily Mailman Jeff Alexander played catch-up to the extent of reporting that the existence of that deal was a surprise to Wayne Speenburgh, the chairman of the county legislature, and that Eric Hogland, chairman of the I.D.A.’s board, said the severance deal was carefully worked out, with “plenty of drafts” written and all board members participating. [Note: as posted on Friday, the account of Sandy Mathes's post-resignation salary said $2500 "per month." That was wrong]

Which brings us to the second troubling I.D.A. story. Mr Mathes’s departure was followed soon after by the resignations of three heavyweight board members: Hugh Quigley, Robert Snyder (the chairman) and Martin Smith. That left a bare majority of four directors. The task of finding replacements fell, by law, to the county’s legislators.

It is an important task, since the legislators have no direct power over the agency’s operations—no authority over its site development projects, its tax exemption deals, its compacts with prospective resident enterprises. And yet the responsibility for finding suitable replacement prospects was not assigned by common consent to a search committee or to an individual. Instead, the names of two nominees eventually appeared on the legislature’s agenda. The nominations were not accompanied by notes about backgrounds or qualifications. Opportunity for closed-door discussion was not provided. And when two legislators raised a question about one nominee, a question based on a previous conflict-of-interest situation, they were accused by Chairman Speenburgh of smearing a good man.

Another seat on the Agency’s board is vacant, and still another will soon be vacant. Perhaps the search for suitable appointees will be conducted this time in a manner that is methodical and inclusive.

Greene Goners

2011-08-07T09:35:00.000-04:00

The Village of Catskill is losing its head. Vincent Seeley, president of its governing board of trustees for the past six years, the most industrious and involved president in memory, is moving away. What with the death last year of both parents, and perhaps with a sense of exhaustion, Vinnie is moving, with his wife Gwen and their two daughters, to Minnesota. There the Seeleys will be close to the headquarters of his employer, Optum Health, and to Gwen’s kinfolk. They will be leaving a community that he tried, with extraordinary dedication and an insomniac’s endurance, and in the face of harsh economic realities, to deserve the billing he gave it on the web site he instigated/instituted: “the ever-improving village of Catskill.”

There will be no real successor. The current vice-president, Jim Chewens, is limited in availability for Village work by his job as a prison correctional officer. The other three incumbent trustees are similarly constrained. And no fresh candidates for the five-member governing board have surfaced so far.

STREET TALK. The imminent departure of Vinnie, along with the scarcity of revnues and of prospective candidates for trustee, has revived local interest in a Village-Town merger.

Soon to depart from Catskill, and from GreeneLand, is the giant HSBC bank. Its local branch is one of 183 up-State offices that, by the end of this year if not sooner, on the basis of a billion-dollar deal that was announced recently, will become properties of First Niagara Bank. Since First Niagara already has a branch right next door to HSBC’s, at 341 Main St, Catskill, the present HSBC branch surely will be vacated. An exceptionally imposing building, rich in history, will be added to our abundant stock of vacant commercial properties.

In global terms, London-based HSBC is closing hundreds of retail branches, including half of its United States outlets. Its program already has involved the elimination 5000 jobs and is expected to eliminate 25,000 more by 2013. The announced rationale is concentration on corporate finance, international connections, and growth markets. During the first half of this year, HSBC’s corporate parent made a 3 per cent, $11.5 billion, gain in pretax profits.

Not announced so far is abandonment of the company slogan, “the world’s local bank.”

The GreeneLand HSBC branch began life back in 1803, as Catskill National Bank & Trust Company. It was sold in 1971 to Marine Midland Bank East and then to HSBC.

In recent months, or years, the place has been almost a hollow shell. Although it is open on weekdays, it cannot be reached by telephone.

Retiring from part-time public office in GreeneLand is Jack Van Loan, head since December 2003 of GreeneLand’s veterans’ service agency. He will be replaced by appointment by Michelle Romalin Black of Greenville. She is a GreeneLand native, an Air Force veteran and, according to County Administrator Groden and to key county legislators, she did very well on a rigorous accreditation test.

Another retirement has paved the way for departmental consolidation. With the departure of Thomas Yandeau as head of the county’s Department of the Aging, County Executive Shaun Groden, with the hearty approval of the elected legislators, has placed that office under the guidance of Therese McGee Ward, head of the Youth Bureau. The merger will produce more job cuts.

Soon to be leaving the Cairo-Durham school system, after a long local career, is Superintendent Sally Sharkey. As reported in the Daily Mail, the school district’s trustees decided back in May to give Ms Sharkey a one-year notice of termination, and then decided, by a vote of 5 to 4, at a stormy public meeting on June 30, to uphold that notice. Ms Sharkey was a music teacher in the district before she acquired an administrative degree and then was appointed in 2005 as superintendent, followed in 2007 by a five-year contract extension. Demands to give reasons for the termination were declined by the trustees. One of the protestors, Adrienne Gatti, said (Daily Mail, 7/14) that Ms Sharkey is “the lowest-paid superintendent” in “surrounding counties” and “has not taken a pay raise for two years.” According to State Department of Education figures, however (see www.p12.nysed.gov/mgtserv/admincomp), her salary of $135,523 plus a benefits package valued at $41,127) is second-lowest among GreeneLand school superintendents. The lowest salary goes to the superintendent in the smallest (in population) district: Hunter-Tannersville, at $126,838 plus a benefits package valued at $42,244.

The other figures are $138,030 plus $59,760 (Windham-Ashland-Jewett—and that benefits packages is the fattest of the six); $140,057 plus $34,316 (Greenville); $143,000 plus $10,940 (Coxsackie-Athens, and a remarkably small benefits package); and $162,081 plus $44,729 (Catskill).

Then we have the case of GreeneLand’s semi-governmental Industrial Development Agency. The abrupt departure of veteran Executive Director Alexander Mathes was followed soon after, not coincidentally, by the resignations of three veteran directors: Robert Snyder, the president; Hugh Quigley, an I.D.A. founder and leader during the past 20 years; and board secretary Martin Smith, who is chairman of the board of the Bank of Greene County. Although Rene Van Schaak has been moved up to the post of interim executive director, and although four governing directors remain (Dan Frank, former county executive; Eric Hoglund; Sy DeLucia; and Willis Vermilyea, retired county treasurer) and although office manager April Ernst is still on the job, the I.D.A. is in a state of limbo. No minutes of meetings (www.greencountyida.com) since May. The agency was crippled by controversy last year over the $175,000big bonus that the directors gave to Mr Mathes in 2009. It has been hurt too by a report from the office of the State Controller. The report imputes a lack of transparency to many local agencies. More broadly, it voices concern about results, in terms of jobs created relative to the scale of tax exemptions granted.

Already gone from GreeneLand, happily, is Nicholas Barcomb. He came over the Rip Van Winkle bridge from Hudson last January and, wielding a knife, stole $729 from Tori G’s restaurant. According to District Attorney Terry Wilhelm, Barcomb was nabbed by police, charged with felonious armed robbery, and housed in the county jail, entered a plea of guilty, and was sentenced by Judge Pulver Jr to a ten-year stretch in State prison.

Marriage Equality II: The Rhetoric

2011-08-02T13:35:00.001-04:00

[Part I is just below this post]
Although the Marriage Equality Act was a sore subject in the senate of New York, statements about the pros and cons of that measure—statements about relevant principles, rights and wrong—were conspicuously scarce. Outside the chamber, however, marriage equality was a hot topic. The controversy continues. Some of it supplies fresh material for our Seeing Sophistry files.

*CATEGORY ERROR. Proponents of the Marriage Equality Act relied primarily on an equal rights pitch. The honor and the benefits of marital status, they argued, should be available to consenting same-sex adults just as they are for consenting opposite-sex couples. To that thesis, whose cogency and conclusiveness are far from being self-evident, opponents of the bill offer no direct response. Their paramount line of argument is that in passing the so-called Marriage Equality Act, the legislators performed a false, and pernicious, act of re-definition. Thus, Ruben Diaz of New York City, the only Democratic senator who voted No, stigmatized the bill as a move “to redefine our definition of marriage from [sic] one man and one woman” (press releases of 7/7 and 7/11). Similarly, here in GreeneLand, Chuck Kaiser lamented (Daily Mail, 7/ 27) that the 33 assenting senators, scorning the Biblical definition of marriage as “a holy union between one man and woman” (citation not supplied), presumptuously “took it upon themselves to redefine marriage.”

That version of events is categorically wrong-headed. Defining is not what lawmakers do. In this case, legislators performed an act not of definition but rather of legitimization. Together with a majority of State Assembly members and with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the 33 assenting senators made it legal for same-sex couples to procure government licenses and to undergo civil ceremonies whereby they could legally call themselves, and could be called by others, married.

That action does not threaten anybody who believes, and asserts, that the same-sex couples who utilize their new legal right are not “really” married. Thus, advocates of a popular “referendum” on a “State Constitutional Amendment defining Marriage in New York as a union between one man and one woman” (Mr Kaiser’s words) miss the point.

*EXTRANEOUS ADVICE. “Marital bliss,” says Pastor Johann Christoph Arnold of Rifton NY (in letters to many newspapers), “can be attained only when God’s order—that is, marriage between one man and one woman—is adhered to.” That functional appraisal could work as a warning to same-sex couples who hope for bliss through marriage. It does not work as rational grounds for deploring a measure has no bearing on the quests of opposite-sex couples for marital bliss.

*HEALTH HAZARD. The 33 senators who passed the Marriage Equality Act, Mr Kaiser affirms, “advocated for” an “unhealthy lifestyle.” In support of that contention, Mr Kaiser testifies that “the morbidity and mortality rates of practicing homosexuals is [sic] far greater than any other segment of our population.” That line of argument could be cogent (without being conclusive) if it were backed by evidence that legalizing same-sex marriage would enlarge the population of practicing homosexuals. Meanwhile, one can speculate that new law may reduce rates of morbidity and mortality in the gay population, by prompting a decrease in rates of promiscuity.

*MIS-DESCRIPTION. In addition to mis-classifying the new Marriage Equality Act, Mr Kaiser falsified its immediate terms. He averred (I’m not making this up), that New York “took a giant leap down the slippery slope of moral degradation when it officially sanctioned sodomy under the guise of ‘marriage equality’.” But it is difficult indeed to legalize a practice (anal intercourse) that already is legal.

*EXTRAVAGANT ALARM. Because the State legislature and Governor have given legal sanction to so-called marriages of same-sex couples, says Pastor Arnold, “civilization as we know it is now doomed.” That fate looms “because what was foundational is being destroyed and”—ahem—“redefined”; we are “declaring God’s laws as irrelevant.” Since he voices those sentiments in response to one legislative act, he makes it seems as though salvation is readily attainable: repeal that one legislative blunder. Too easy.

*PHONY NOSTALGIA. “Let us return,” pleads Pastor Arnold, “to the time when our nation put its full trust in God.” Would that be the time until June 24, 2011? Anyhow, nations are not people who trust and distrust. And the proposition that this “nation” until recently did “put its full trust in God” is a bold, novel one.

Marriage Equality, Part I

2011-08-02T12:44:00.001-04:00

The past week has set a record in New York State for weddings. According to news media reports, 46 couples were united in marriage at a joint ceremony at Niagara Falls last Sunday. About 100 other couples did the same last Monday at Long Island’s Bethpage State Park. Town clerks all around the State have been busily engaged in processing applications for marriage licenses.

The rush of marital business was triggered by a change in State law. It marked the first week in which applicants could take advantage of the newly adopted Marriage Equality Act. That measure removed a restriction on eligibility to earn the status, and the benefits, of being, in the eyes of the law, married. It conferred eligibility to obtain marital legal status on couples who are of the same sex. It made New York the sixth State, and the most populous one, to give legal sanction to same-sex marriage. (The other States are Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire and Vermont; plus the District of Columbia) And it prompted hundreds of homosexual couples to seize the opportunity.

First among the GreeneLand couples were Sam Aldi and Michael DeBenedictus. On Sunday (7/31), in their sunlit Catskill garden, before scores of friends and relatives, with Village Justice William Wooton presiding, they sealed a bond whose durability had already been proved over the past 40 years.

The Marriage Equality Act won adoption after strenuous controversy, especially in the State Senate. Its passage there, by a vote of 33 to 29, marked a reversal of fortune for a similar measure that went down to defeat, 24 to 38, back in 2009.

Some features of the marriage equality controversy deserve comment.

MEDIA BIAS? Devotees of the “liberal bias” thesis concerning our mainstream news media can draw a mite of support from one aspect of how the Marriage Equality drama was covered. While giving prominence to the pivotal role played by the senators who reversed their previous opposition, the reports did not immediately identify the ‘defectors.’ Neither did they do so when reporting the prospect of an organized political retaliation against on the defectors. Thus, in a long Associated Press story (published in the Daily Freeman under headline “Gay marriage foes target 7 senators who flipped”) readers are told that “The four Republicans and three Democrats who changed their votes or positions were key in Friday’s 33-29 vote.” But in the course of 17 paragraphs, only two of those ‘flippers’ were named. That example is representative of what occurred in print and on screen. The omissions do not make sense professionally. They can be cited plausibly as evidence that the responsible journalists chose more less consciously to give those defectors a bit of protection.

The pivotal Republican senators were Mark Grisanti of Buffalo, Roy J. McDonald of the Capital Region, James Alesi of Monroe County and Stephen Saland of Columbia County (and other counties). The switching Democrats were Joseph Addabbo, Carl Kruger, and Shirley Huntley, who represent districts in New York City.

SILENT SENATORS. In their dealings with the Marriage Equality Act, New York’s senators differed not only in how they voted, but also in how they addressed the subject. The main contrast here is between something and nothing. Senator Grisanti accompanied his affirmative vote with a speech acknowledging his change of position, and he put a video of that event on his official senatorial web site. Senator McDonald gave a cryptic statement to The Daily News (“fuck it”; “trying to do the right thing”) but no trace of that event appears on his web site. Similarly, the search word “marriage” yields nothing on Senator Alesi’s web site, and yet, tucked next to his “Community Update” of June 24 (distributed to all local papers) is a video in which he speaks at a marriage equality rally, anticipates being (by alphabetical order) the first Republican senator to vote on the impending bill, rates his vote as “the most important thing I can do in my 20-year career as a legislator,” and anticipates the loss of “what I thought were a lot of good friends.” As for Senator Saland, the last of the Republican “turncoats,” he spoke on the Senate floor and addressed the issue on his web site (while declining to be the focus of national media interviews). He spoke of the stress of clashing loyalties to the traditional conception of marriage and to equality of rights. He also emphasized the “religious exemptions” that he and others had managed to include in the 2011 act, as distinct from the 2009 version. www.nysenategov/senator/stephen-m-saland/marriageequality.

Senator Saland’s territorial neighbors and fellow Republicans, James Seward (representing GreeneLand, among other counties) and John Bonacic (Ulster and other nearby counties) took a different course. While voting Nay on the Marriage Equality Act, they refrained from addressing the subject. They kept mum. On their web sites, with sections devoted to Issues, with all press releases and public statements listed, nothing about marriage occurs. Both of those senators (and many others) did post video statements evaluating the 2011 legislative session. Both gave the session high marks. “Good news,” says Senator Seward; “Albany is functioning again,” and even “better” days for New Yorkers can be expected, thanks to measures lately adopted by the legislators. It’s been a “good year,” says Senator Bonacic; and “things will get better and better.” Their readers would not know that the legislative session ended with a bothersome, controversial, emotion-laden, dramatic debate about marriage.

Also mum on the subject were the down-State Democrats who supported the Marriage Equality Act after opposing the earlier version. They issued no statements, submitted to no interviews. In two cases, however—Senators Huntley and Kruger--the search word “marriage” does yield material on official web sites. The material in each case is a press release dating from December 2009. Each release explains the senator’s vote against the proposed Marriage Equality Act. Each explanation consists of affirming that the senator’s constituents clearly, firmly oppose the granting of marriage rights to same-gender couples.

Doing Business

2011-07-26T14:46:00.001-04:00

GreeneLanders are hurting. Jobs are scarce, sales are slow, tourist traffic is down, tax revenues have shrunk. (Fees from marriage licenses, however, have hit record highs in the past couple of days). Our plight is illustrated by commercial property transactions. In Catskill’s business district, in the past three years, sales of commercial properties have numbered just two. One was realtor Gary diMauro’s own purchase (for $167,500) of a building to house, among other things, a sales office. The other was--at the price ($1.2 million), for the announced purpose (video games), and based on a financial windfall (the lottery)—a fantasy purchase. Meanwhile, many commercial buildings remain empty, after months or years of being offered for sale. The immediate outlook is dour. As Mr DiMauro says, “the recent deadlock on raising the [Federal] debt ceiling and anemic job growth numbers do not bode well for any serious recovery during the balance of the year….” BUT:

PROMOTION of GreeneLand as destination has been bolstered by way of the Economic Development, Tourism and Planning Department’s much-improved web site: www.greatnortherncatskills.com

On the other hand, the www.welcometocatskill.com site shows signs of neglect. Clicking on the “Events” link yields only directions for driving to the Village. And the Masters on Main Street program that closed at the end of May is still touted, while the new MOM program is not mentioned at all.

(It’s not a mess, however, like the official web site http://villageofcatskill.net

which tells us that the term of the current Village president “expires March 2010”; that the term of the senior Village justice, Charles Adsit, also expires in March 2010 (when in fact he held court until he retired in May of his year); and that the term of the incumbent justice, William Wooton, expires in “March 2011”).

FRUCK SOLD? The Ulster Savings Bank may have succeeded at last in unloading the Friar Tuck, which in times past was touted as GreeneLand’s “foremost” resort. According to Michael Shaughnessy, the bank’s executive vice-president (as quoted in a Daily Freeman report by Ariel Zengla, 7/22; see also Daily Mail, 7/23), a deal was closed Wednesday evening (7/20) and the buyer, called L & H Resort Systems LP, paid or promised to pay $2.425 million in cash. That price is about one million dollars less than what the bank was owed when it foreclosed on the property, with its 376 rooms, 52,000 square feet of exhibition space, banquet facilities, conference rooms, indoor and outdoor pools, debts and deterioration. Two previously announced sales of the Tuck failed. Realtors Greg Berardi and Win Morrison represented the new buyers. They did not immediately identify their client, apart from alluding to a “foreign” group of individuals. The Daily Mail’s web search yielded an “L&H Property Development” company, “a global real estate development corporation based in Kuala Lumpur.” Our own Google search yielded a web site for “H & L,” “point of sale solution providers in the hospitality industry” in, mostly, Australia (www.hlaustralia.com.au. No properties listed; latest “news” item posted in February 2010). When contacted by Seeing Greene (7/24), Mr Morrison said the buyers are mainland Chinese who are specialists in entertainment, and “If they do what they say they plan to do, the result will turn Ulster and Greene counties around considerably.” Mr Berardi said that a major partner in the buyers’ team is based in the United States, and that before making their bid, the buyers made a direct, close inspection of the place, with a view to transforming it into a “luxury resort.”
BANK BOOM. The Bank of Greene County (with branches spilling into Albany and Columbia counties) evidently continues to thrive, or at least to survive comfortably, amid hard times. Its quarterly dividend, payable in mid-August, will be the same as it has been for many quarters past: 17.5 cents per share. To recipients, the yield is about 4 per cent per year, which is better than the return on savings deposits. Its availability is due not only to financial solidity but also, in no small measure, to the fact that the bank’s parent, owner of 55 per cent of the shares, foregoes dividends. [This item was inserted three hours after the blog was first posted. DM]

NEW STAGE. The venerable Orpheum Theater in Tannersville has achieved juvenescence. (We’ve waited for years for a chance to use that word). It has been comprehensively, expensively renovated as a venue for live up-scale entertainment, thanks to the efforts of Peter Finn and other supporters of the Catskill Mountain Foundation. Its recent soft opening bodes well for the cultural life—and, incidentally, the economic life--of GreeneLand. (http://catskillmtn.org)

NEW OWNER. The Kingston-based Daily Freeman, which offers news about some GreeneLand events (as evidenced by citations in this blog), now is owned by a New York hedge fund. Its immediate parent, the Journal Register company, whose stable of publications includes newspapers in Troy, Saratoga and Clifton Park, as well as in other communities (chiefly in Connecticut and Pennsylvania) was bought by Alden Global Capital Company which, surprisingly, has placed substantial bets on the viability of several print-based media companies.

(BTW. Another change of ownership in local publishing will be announced soon).

SMART START? Veteran journalist Paul Smart has announced plans to launch a trio of “independent community” newspapers. Adopting the editorial we in a broadly circulated e-mail message, he says that “As seasoned newspaper folk, we have tried working on blogs and other digital means, as well as radio. But we miss the tactile qualities of print. So we're trying to do it from scratch, without investment, believing that our local businesses also miss having direct contact with their local communities and will support what we're doing.” In times past Mr Smart edited The Mountain Eagle and The Phoenicia Times, as well as operating the Olive Press and, until this April, chairing radio station WGXC’s news committee. He envisions a September 8 launch for three bi-weeklies that are stuffed with local news: The Catskill Current, The Hudson Harpoon and The Mountaintop Meteor.

GLORY. Zach Hyer of Tannersville, according to DailyMailman Jim Planck, has won an Academy Award—yes, that academy—in the 2011 competition for film students. For his short film “Correspondence” he scored a gold medal in the animation category. Receipt of the award involved a free trip to Hollywood, a tour of industry-related events, and attendance at the regular Academy Awards presentation. His depiction (via the Flash and After Effects programs) of a soldier delivering a message through a heavy combat area came out of a storyboarding class in his first semester in the Master of Fine Arts program at New York’s Pratt Institute, following graduation from SUNY New Paltz and, before that, from Hunter-Tannersville High School. Hyer is the son of Rosemary Hyer of Tannersville and Mark Hyer of East Jewett. For his acceptance speech, click http://www.oscars.org/video/watch/38saa_animation_gold_hyer.html.

Happy July

2011-07-10T10:28:00.000-04:00

4 WOOD as musical instrument? We saw it and heard it at the Catskill Point warehouse, during last Saturday’s (6/26) Bing Bang Boing Festival. Ken Butler also played a electrified tennis racquet (electrified strings), a snow shovel and (with a violin bow) an umbrella. Extracting sounds (music?) from other improvised, performance-based, sculptural instruments were Harry and Josh Matthews, Matt Bua, Ed Podokar, Peter Head, and cousins Brian and Leon Dewan (creators of the now-famous Dewanatron). Their experiments in audibility were complemented in no small measure by the moving sculptures, the graceful swaying gestures of GreeneLand’s own Wild Rose Belly Dancing Troupe.

330=number of revelers at Sunday’s glorious fund-raiser for GreeneLand’s Thomas Cole National Historic Site. It rained in the morning. Rained again in the afternoon. Then the clouds passed, and people converged on the designated Catskill party site. Welcomed by Cole volunteers, by suitable libations, by photographer Rob Shannon (www.fotopic.com)

and by soft music (the raucous stuff came later), they eventually strolled down to a giant tent that had been erected just above the majestic Hudson.

After (and while) dining,

they were jolted by the start of a spectacular fireworks show provided by Rich (Misbehaven) Pilatch.

(To view full size display, click on the lower right corner of image)

(To return to text, hit ESC key, upper left of keyboard)

Then it was back up hill to dancing (luscious Lex Grey and the Urban Pioneers), to a laser light show that bathed trees and pool in dancing light (based on the ingenuity of the late Rudi Berkhout), to more camaraderie.

According to hostess Lisa Fox Martin, who presides over the Thomas Cole House board of trustees, the affair took in “a bit more than” $80,000. That was a gain over the take in 2010. The net return also was higher. That gain was due in no small measure to donations of items and time as well as money. Cole House staff members and Fellows and volunteers handled multiple assignments. Every table was graced by potted flowers loaned by Story Farms. Welcoming libations were a gift from Ed Domaney of Great Barrington (www.domaneys.com). Memorable catering was provided by Shawn Hardy (www.therentachef.com). Geoff Howell (www.geoffhowellstudio.com) designed the background for the photos taken by Mr Shannon (big white number 10, marking the tenth year since the restored Cole House opened to the public). And Mr Howell and his helpers gave the big tent the look that appears in our photo (by Shannon). Pivotal too were the party’s sponsors. These people, 52 in number this year, paid from $500 to $2500 for tickets they gave to chosen guests (some of whom made independent contributions). Meanwhile, the other attendees paid $150 (as Cole House members) or $175 (as non-members).

LAST YEAR'S Cole House benefit, as it happens, has been memorialized in the July-August issue of Country Living, by way of a picture together with a note written by Sarah Gray Miller, editor of that magazine and (with husband Tony Stamolis) an Athens resident. The family photo below was taken by Rob Shannon against another background designed by Geoff Howell.

Seeing Sophistry

2011-06-22T17:00:00.001-04:00

If the government funds you,

the government owns you.

Those words are attributed by GreeneLander James Varelas to Charles Krauthammer, the columnist and Fox News commentator, and they are hailed by him as “a brilliant statement.” In nine subsequent paragraphs of a letter to local papers (Daily Mail, 6/9/11) Mr Varelas hammers the Obama Administration, but he does not undertake to clarify the Krauthammer statement’s terms or to support his evaluation of its thesis. I shall attempt here to identify properties that generate its rhetorical glitter.
Pithiness. The Krauthammer statement is a model of brevity and rhythm. It seems to load a great deal of experience into a neat package.

Gravity. Manifestly crucial to the Krauthammer proposition are the final words “owns you.” Those words express the idea of being a serf, a slave, a disposable piece of tangible property. Thus, the consequence of being funded by the government, as alleged in the “brilliant statement,” seems portentous indeed.

Taken at face value, that proposition is false. Few if any governments hold ownership papers on the people they fund. But taking the proposition literally or legalistically would be imprudent and shallow. What is offered essentially is a strong quantitative claim. It is a claim about variations—big variations—in degrees of servitude. Thus we have the still-portentous proposition that If the government funds you, you occupy a state of dependence and servitude that is far along in the direction of serfdom.

Contrast. Basic to such a proposition is a distinction between spheres of existence: government, also known as the public sector, and non-government, or the private sector. Invited by If the government funds you, the government owns you is the inference that if a non-government agent funds you, he or she or it does not own you. Accordingly, If the government funds you, your state of servitude is much more complete than if a company, foundation, union, client, parent, church, bank, or paying customer funds you.
Conglomeration. Implicit in our “brilliant statement” too is denial or belittlement of differences in the status of people who are funded by different types of government. Denial is conveyed by the absence of differentiating adjectives such as despotic, autocratic, feudal, Fascist, theocratic, Communist, strong, republican or democratic. Denial is conveyed too by context: delivery to subjects of governance by elected representatives. Respondents are invited thereby to recognize that if the government—any kind of government—funds you, the government owns you; differences in degree of servitude under different forms of government, are trivial. (This leaves room for the possibility that, for occupants of the private sector, different forms of government do cause variations in degree of servitude).

Personation. Crucial to the power of the “brilliant statement” is treatment of the government as a sentient, willful, demanding actor. “The government” here is not an institution, a set of procedures, a mechanism. It is an agent who (sic) can speak, think, pay, hire, fire, sell and boss people (including “you”).

Diversion. Thanks to its pithiness, its categorical distinction between government and non-government, its inclusiveness with regard to forms of government, and its treatment of government as a willful actor, our “brilliant statement” serves to divert attention from everyday experience. As a routine matter we know people who are, so to speak, government-funded. They are police officers, soldiers, sailors, engineers, clerks, lawyers, judges, bailiffs, mayors, pensioners, nurses, teachers, letter carriers. They also are manufacturers, researchers, landscapers, and other private-sector workers who are funded by way of contracts with government agencies. These people are not paid, however, by “the government.” They are paid by various public-sector employees, who are constrained by regulations. They are supervised (governed!) not by “the government” but by various authority figures (governors) whose power, again, is constrained by regulations emanating from other authority figures.

A common complaint about public employees in general is that they are too secure. Rarely can they can be fired or demoted or transferred without an elaborate hearing. Never can they be auctioned off. They may be redundant but, under established tenure rules, they cannot readily be discarded. To think of them as government-owned chattels is quite a stretch. Our “brilliant statement” seems to be reducible to initials: b.s.
[BTW. Mr Varelas's letter also was published in The Daily Freeman (7/21). And although Mr Varelas did respond by e-mail to the above critique, he declined an invitation to have it, or a revision,
posted as a Comment here. 7/21/11]

Baby Blog

2011-06-14T16:09:00.001-04:00

BEST OF SENIORS (students, not retirees). In Catskill High School’s graduating class of 135 students, 44 received special awards. At a ceremony Tuesday night, they collected a total of 94 awards for scholarship, for sports, for music, for improvement, and for a variety of services. The top recipient, as it happens, also is this year’s top student: Valedictorian Sierra Rocco, whose nine prizes attested to a broad range of achievements. Also outstanding in terms of versatility of achievements were Caitlin Coughlin (eight awards), Mike Cothren (seven), and Paul Sira and Lauren Mansey (five apiece).

JUST OUT: historian Regina W. Daly’s compilation of GreeneLand newspaper coverage of the early days of the Civil War. First item in Reports to the Homefront. A sesquicentennial commemoration of Civil War journalism in Greene County, N.Y., November 1860-December 1861 is a Windham Journal paragraph reporting Abraham Lincoln’s election as President:

Never…has a political battle been more closely contested,and never before has the tide of victory swept with such force. [In Greene County, Lincoln did not carry the day, but] the usual Democratic majority was reduced from 700 to some 400.

Final item is a Catskill-based Examiner story entitled “Christmas and the Contrabands.” The latter term refers to Negroes who escaped Southern masters long before the Emancipation Proclamation. Under then-existing Federal law they would have been subject to return as fugitive slaves, except that their Northern classification as war “contraband” supplied a pretext for making wholesale exceptions. According to the Examiner’s story,

The day before Christmas the children of the Colored Sabbath School, of this village, were gathered in the room of the Young Men’s Christian Association to receive the presents annually prepared for them by the teachers and friends of the school. A Christmas tree, whose top touched the ceiling, was loaded with bright and comfortable, and beautiful and toothsome things….

Fifty or sixty children neatly dressed and so well behaved as to set an example we should be glad to see imitated by some other children we know, filled the benches.[After singing by the children, and by the children and adults, followed by]three short addresses by clergymen of the village[and more singing,]Three presents…were given to each scholar,--something to wear, something to show, and something to eat.

The book, compiled and edited in cooperation with the Greene County Historical Society, is priced at $13 (including tax). Copies are available at the Society’s Vedder Library in Coxsackie, and will be available at Civil War remembrance events later in the summer. All proceeds, says Ms Daly, will go for conservation of the flag of the 120^th New York regiment of volunteers, in which 300 Greene County men served.

NEW PRO. Chris DeForest, grandson of the late Jim DeForest (former president and long-time staunch supporter of Catskill Golf Club) and of Dorothy DeForest (resident of Jefferson Heights), and son of John DeForest (professional at Rondout Golf Club), having just graduated from the University of Illinois (where he starred on that school’s NCAA Division 1 golf team), and having just turned professional, has qualified, by way of a three-man playoff last week, to compete, starting on Thursday, at the Congressional Country Club in Bethesda MD, in the United States Open, against the best golfers in the world. (They come from 24 countries). He won that playoff, incidentally, by hitting a 415-yard drive (repeat: 415), then a lob wedge, setting up a short eagle putt. For a video interview with the lad, see http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110613/MEDIA02/110619923

MANHUNT by a posse of State and local police, plus Sheriff’s deputies, plus State Department of Environmental Conservation sleuths, plus dogs, for one Joe Taylor, plural offender, who fled from police after being detained in Catskill Village last Sunday, has been fruitless so far. [But on Tuesday morning, after the posting of the blog, he was found in an abandoned car in the vicinity, according to The Daily Mail, of Prospect and Liberty streets] But it has yielded some memorable local reporting:

A search by [all those people] were unable to locate Taylor.

At one point, to no avail, the dogs used a white T-shirt the suspect had allegedly discarded in the woods in an attempt to pick up his scent.

RECOVERED from an overdose of sunflower seeds: Kalli, pet goat of GreeneLand’s Kurt Andernach. Kalli fell into the sunflower seed bin and, well, pigged out. Rushed to the emergency veterinary clinic in Kingston, he survived the pump out. They were well acquainted with Mr Andernach down there, what with foolish encounters, in his deeply wooded property, of his dogs with porcupines. As for Kalli, he was rejected by his mother soon after birth, because he was blind. But with tender nursing and an excellent daily diet, says Mr Andernach, “his deformed eyes regenerated, and now he can see!”

DISFIGURATIVELY SPEAKING. “The planets are lined up in a way that the brass ring is ready for us to reclaim City Hall,” says Andi Turco-Levin, freshly endorsed as the Kingston Republican Party committee’s candidate for mayor. (Quoted in Daily Freeman, 6/8/11).

Politics 2012

2011-06-01T17:40:00.000-04:00

From the standpoint of the Democratic Party, it is unfortunate that the next national elections are 17 months away. So many recent events have gone the Democrats’ way: the extirpation of Osama bin Laden; winding down of U.S. engagement in Iraq, and with it reduction in military spending and casualties; a booming stock market; the economy’s upswing; the unemployment rate’s fractional downward trend; the pratfalls of Republican presidential hopefuls Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich; and last Tuesday’s stunning result in the special Congressional election in up-State New York.

In a fortified Republican stronghold, running against an orthodox and locally eminent Republican, battered by huge oppositional spending, the Democratic nominee won the race. Kathy Hochul, starting as a 20-point underdog, captured 47 per cent of the votes, while 43 went to Republican Assemblywoman Jane Corwin, 9 to the mis-labeled Tea Party nominee and one per cent to the Green Party candidate.

More auspicious for Democrats than the fact of achieving an upset victory is how it was accomplished.

Ms Hochul pitched her campaign as a call to save Medicare. Loud and long, she warned that the Republican-backed “Ryan budget” for the Federal government would kill Medicare, or entitlements for conditional government payments for medical bills. That warning (factually correct, though incomplete) proved to be persuasive, especially to higher-aged voters.

The pitch that worked for Kathy Hochul could be potent for Democratic candidates all over the country. The Ryan budget is not just a proposal that can be disavowed. It is a legislative package (also containing tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy) that was put to a vote in the Congress. While all Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against it, all but three Republicans (including Chris Gibson, GreeneLand’s Representative) voted for it. It then went to the Senate, where all Democrats voted against, while all but five of the 47 sitting Republicans voted for it, even after they knew the result of the by-election in up-State New York. They can’t readily disavow that position.

It is a position of vulnerability. “Ryan’s budget may reflect Republican values and approaches,” says Stuart Rothenberg, the expert elections analyst, “but from a political point of view it is a serious burden with no possible near-term payoff” (5/27/11).

That burden could prove to be seriously valuable to the Democrats, at a time of peculiar vulnerability. In the Senate, as it happens, although Democrats hold a majority of seats, 23 of those seats will be subject to election in November 2012, while only 10 Republican-held seats will be open. In the House of Representatives, after majority control swung to the Republicans in 2010, the Democrats must win 25 seats in order to regain control. Sixty-one seats that are held now by Republicans are in districts where Barack Obama won in the 2008 presidential elections. Fourteen of those were won too by John Kerry, the Democrats’ presidential candidate in 2004. They look especially ripe for Democratic takeover. But next year’s Congressional elections will be preceded by a shuffle of districts and district lines. In the wake of the Census, New York and other Northern States will be losing seats to Republican-leaning southern and western States.

Fortunately for the Republicans, moreover, there is time enough to adapt to the Corwin disaster. There is time to devise subject-changing themes, to concoct better rationales for the Ryan budget (which cable television commentator Rachel Maddow gleefully labels the “Republicans’ Kill Medicare bill”), to seize on strategic possibilities that are thrown up by the course of events.

Fortunately for the Democrats, attempts by Republican operatives to get away from the Medicare issue, attempts to make competitive adjustments, are likely to meet internal as well as external resistanceSome top-level Republicans downplay the significance of the Hochul victory and thus the need for a change of course. Karl Rove pointed out that Ms Hochul won only one more percentage point of votes than Barack Obama, as the presidential candidate in 2008, gathered in that district. (Yes, but John McCain won the district by 56%, while the State went heavily for Obama. And Ms Corwin’s Republican predecessor won the seat in 2010 by 76%).

Another form of downplaying the Hochul victory consists of noting that electoral support for the “conservative” candidates, Republican and Tea Party, surpassed the Democratic candidate’s margin by 51 to 47. (Yes, but the man who put himself on the ballot under the banner of the Tea Party, Jack Davis, wealthy local industrialist, was nothing like a “conservative” in the “tea party” vein. His entitlement to that brand was denied, in advertisements and broadcasts, by all sorts of national “tea party” figures. His favorite issue, apart from autobiographical effusions, was the evil of “free trade.” His votes would not have gone overwhelmingly to the Republican nominee).

Other influential Republicans acknowledge that the Hochul victory demonstrates that the Ryan/Republican budget is at present a political liability, while advocating a Stand Fast response. Ryan himself proudly claims that he draws up measures on the basis of merit not popularity. “I don’t consult polls to tell me what my principles are or what our policies should be.” He urges his co-partisans to remain steadfast in support not only of the Medicare-privatizing provision of that budget package, but also of other key provisions: raising Medicare eligibility from age 65 to age 67; converting Medicaid to a block-grant program run by the States, cutting tax rates for corporations and the rich, and a reducing discretionary spending for domestic programs by more than 20 percent…. In the same vein, the head of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, Rep. Tom Cole, urges his colleagues to “stay with our argument” while conducting a “stronger marketing” campaign.

The conservative pro-Republican columnist Jonah Goldberg anticipates that the Medicare-killing Ryan budget, which enabled a Democrat to capture a heavily Republican seat in the Congress, “will likely define both the presidential and congressional elections in 2012.” He urges the Republicans to stand fast; no retreat, no weaseling. He joins another conservative columnist, Charles Krauthammer, in contending that the best Republican nominee for President in 2012 would be Paul Ryan.

Greene Features

2011-05-27T12:46:00.003-04:00

JUST INSTALLED in downtown Catskill: Mike Tigerson. Motorcycle Meowsma, Catadozer, Chinese Good Luck Cat, Olanacat, Mad Catter, Boo Boo Kitty, and 42 other fiberglass felines. This year’s Cat ‘n Around figures are just as imaginative, as startling, as exciting as ever. Arriving at a time when all too many Main Street stores are empty, supply they supply a timely morale booster. Meanwhile, downtown Cairo is acquiring a fresh bounty of bears, while Rip van Winkle figures re-appear (newly configured) in Hunter, and the streets of Athens are bedecked with lighthouse-shaped birdhouses.

Momcat
FEATURED at the top of the Washington Post’s Lifestyle section of May 19: a long illustrated article titled “The Impulsive Traveler: Following in the footsteps of the Hudson River School in Catskill, N.Y.”

I’d come to Catskill, N.Y., a town about two hours north of Manhattan, to retrace the steps of the Hudson River School, the 19th-century movement of landscape artists who walked the mountains of this verdant slice of the Northeast in search of inspiration.

The people at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, a.k.a. Cedar Grove, the movement founder’s historic residence, have made the reasonable assumption that visitors would enjoy exploring the same places the artists did. So they’ve put together a guide to eight sites (more to come later this year), creating the Hudson River School Art Trail. Armed with that, and not a whole lot else, I found myself on a bright May day wandering the wilderness and channeling my inner artiste.

The first two stops on the trail, Cole’s Cedar Grove and Olana, the elaborate Persian-style mansion of painter and Cole student Frederic Church, was the most leisurely part of my day. I strolled their grounds, taking in the views perfumed with the heavy scent of lilacs. But with six more stops to go, I couldn’t dally too long.

[Queries for County Tourism promoters: Is Cole House in your mind as a tourist attraction? Do you do enough to spread the word about Cedar Grove and the Art Trail to visitors and prospective visitors?]

FEATURED in the Real Estate section of Thursday’s New York Times, with a big picture and an interview: a two-bedroom house in Palenville, whose Manhattan-based owners fell in love with the place, already had a place they love, bought this one, fixed it up, then gave it a lavish buildup on web site www.waterfallrental.com, as a vacation rental. “Feast on the majestic mountain and waterfall views, the inspiration for the famed Hudson River School of Painters.” $400 per night in season, or $2600 per week, or $9800 per month. Right.

FEATURED at the top of the Wall Street Journal’s Arts & Entertainment section on May 17, in an illustrated article hailing the opening of his first solo show in America: artist Vahap Avsar, who is a part-time GreeneLander. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703509104576327790564647756.html?

FEATURED on the Crain’s NY Small Business site, May 18^th, a story titled “Lexy Funk’s Take on the Night Shift.” It’s about how, after coming home, feeding the kids, reading them a story, and putting them to bed, this mogul uses the 9 pm and midnight period to work on her $20 million business. http://crainsnewyork.com. Ms Funk is a part-time GreeneLander. And is training for a triathlon. And is about to be featured in Inc. magazine. And is married to Mr Avsar (who does help with the kids).

OFFERED for just $1.1 million: The whole site of the former St Patricks Academy on Woodland Avenue in Catskill. After being closed in 2008, it was used for a year as a temporary county courthouse. It’s billed on the Coldwell Banker Commercial web site as “land sale.” On the 10.6-acre site stand a 20,000 square foot school building, a 2800 square foot office building, and an 8500 square foot gymnasium, all set back from the road by a plentiful lawn. The land goes right down to 400 feet of Hudson River frontage. Selling agents are in the Cohoes office; 785-9000.

BOYS UP! At Catskill High School, in the latest term, 12^th grade girls achieving High Honors did NOT greatly out-number boys. Eleven of those 19 were boys. That marks a rare break from the pattern of female superiority there and elsewhere. By way of contrast, at Greenville High, only four boys achieved top honors among seniors in the last term, while eight girls made the grade.

DISCIPLINE CASE. At a GreeneLand school recently, the principal suspended and sent home a misbehaving student. The student’s father reacted with anger and indignation. He demanded reinstatement. The principal relented. On the day that the student returned, her best friend was rushed to the hospital, on account of a toxic reaction to pills supplied by the student.

Serenitymeow
--Photos by Rob Shannon

Greene Money

2011-05-20T12:45:00.002-04:00

BUDGETS PASS. In all parts of GreeneLand on Tuesday, voters who turned out to rule on school budget proposals that were submitted to them by their district boards of education delivered strong majority support. They authorized, for the county’s six school districts, expenditures on public education during 2011-12 totaling $139.3 million. In doing so they were acquiescing in the prospect of increases--historically small increases, to be sure--in their taxes.

This show of support for school spending plans proved to be consistent with what occurred elsewhere. In New York State, outside the five big cities, there are 678 districts where outlays on public schools are subject to approval by local voters. On Tuesday, in response to proposals made by their locally-elected school trustees, in 634 of those districts, according to The New York Times, majorities of the voters said Yes.

Four of the other 44 districts are near GreeneLand. In Columbia County, according to The Register-Star, voters in the high-standards Ichabod Crane school district (Kinderhook area) rejected the board-proposed $33.8 million budget. So, by 1249 votes to 424, did Hudson voters. And in Ulster County, according to The Daily Freeman, refusers out-numbered assenters in the Pine Plains district, by 476 to 413, and in Saugerties, by 1631 to1369. [NOTE. The foregoing paragraph is a revision of what was published yesterday (5/20). The original text did not include Columbia County results].

In GreeneLand, margins of support for those budget proposals ranged from comfortable (Cairo-Durham, 529 to 408) to overwhelming (Catskill, 565-301; Coxsackie- Athens, 854-449; Greenville, 582-255; Hunter-Tannersville, 181-97; Windham-Ashland-Jewett, 178-65). [Daily Mail, 5/18]
COST AND BURDENS

The school budgets that were adopted here on Tuesday offer substantial contrasts in financial ‘meaning’: cost per pupil, local tax burden per pupil. Some of those contrasts are brought out in statistics compiled from State Education Department figures by staff at the Empire Center for New York State Policy. Thus, in GreeneLand, with projected school enrollments in 2011-12 totaling 6760, and with Tuesday’s passage of district budgets, cost per pupil works out to $20,624. As between the six districts, however, cost per pupil will range from $16,452 (Coxsackie-Athens) to $34,171.

The high-cost district is Hunter-Tannersville. Next highest is Windham-Ashland-Jewett ($26,309 per pupil). Those districts are much smaller in enrollment (and substantially larger in space) than the other four. But the correlation between size of enrollment and cost per pupil is not neat. GreeneLand’s second largest district--Coxsackie-Athens, with 1525 students anticipated in 2011-12--also is the least expensive, and by a big margin. Its projected cost per pupil is $16,452. Cairo-Durham is third highest in student population (1458) while being second-lowest in cost per pupil ($16,685). Greenville’s school district is fourth in student body size (1286) and is fourth in cost per pupil ($20,276). As for Catskill, it is first in the county in enrollment (1702) and third in projected costs per pupil ($21,863).

No less interesting are inter-district contrasts, following adoptions of the new school budgets, in consequences for local property tax levies. Among GreeneLand’s six school districts, according to the Empire Center’s calculations, those costs will range from $7956 (Cairo-Durham) to $24,929 (Hunter-Tannersville).

PUPILS VS, PRISONERS

Our cost per pupil of public schooling, incidentally, is less than the cost per prisoner of incarceration. Nation-wide, the average is around $24,000 per inmate per year. In the big northern States such as California and New York, it’s more than $40,000. [Reuters, 5/20].

THE GREEN AT GREENE. GreeneLand’s foremost local bank, in the words of its president, Donald Gibson, experienced “strong” earnings during the latest three-month period.

According to the official company report, however, net income during January 1-March 30 was the same as the net during the first three months of 2010. That result ($1.2 million) marks a contrast to results in the same quarters of previous fiscal years. It suggests a drop in momentum. But the immediately preceding quarters of the 2010-11 period did show gains. Consequently, the nine months from July 1, 2010, to March 31, 2011, as compared with the same period in 2009-100, yielded an 8 per cent gain in net income. The raw score was $3.9 million.

The appearance of a slowdown in net income could be due to accounting precautions taken. Company executives evidently are preparing for an increase in loans that go sour. Thus:

*Provision for loan losses for the current financial year has been boosted over the same provision in 2009-10, by nearly 20 per cent to $1.2 million.

*Commercial loans extended by the bank have increased relative to residential loans, and those loans, as a general rule, are riskier.

*Properties owned by the bank in consequence of foreclosure action—owned but not earning a return--increased during that same period by $563,000.

*”Nonperforming” bank assets have enlarged. These are loans for which repayments have ceased while foreclosure actions, often stretching over two years from the time of commencement, have not reached completion. Their total book value at the end of March 2010 was put at $3.2 million. The new total is more than double the old one; $6.9 million. That increase, says Mr Gibson, “reflected the decline in the overall economy.” And it prompted an increase in the bank’s level of allowance for losses on loans that go sour relative to the value of the total portfolio. The new figure is 1.62%. The March 2010 allowance was 1.33%.

Those figures can be read as signs of trouble to come. They also can be read as signs of prudent anticipation.

Meanwhile, some contrasts are worth noting. The mammoth Bank of America, having previously closed its Germantown branch (which the Bank of Greene County took over, profitably) is closing its home-loan office in Saratoga, putting 34 people out of work. [TimesUnion, 5/4/11]. And the Bank of Greene County, unlike neighboring banks and other lenders, has avoided all of GreeneLand’s larger financial flops: Friar Tuck, Quality Inn, Shady Harbor Marina, Irving Elementary School makeover, Union Mills Lofts, Catskill Creek condominiums….

HAPPY NEW$

GreeneLand’s current fiscal health, says County Treasurer Peter Markou in his annual report, is sound. For 2010, while revenues declined, so did expenses. The debt burden did not get heavier.

Also in good fiscal health, according to another treasurer, is the GreeneLand’s Historical Society. Much of that condition, said David Dorpfeld at the Society’s annual meeting last Sunday, is due to the “very generous” bequest of IBM stock made by the late stalwart member, Olga Santora.

BUYER BEWARE

Those gasoline prices that are posted outside stations may apply only to payments in cash. Credit card purchases may cost more. The difference is posted on the pump itself, but it must be noticed there and then acted upon BEFORE refueling.

The difference at a Catskill Getty station recently (5/16) was seven cents per gallon.

Leading Ladies

2011-05-15T11:22:00.001-04:00

In higher education, American women now out-number men. And for the first time, according to U.S. Census figures, the ladies’ numerical superiority applies to Masters and higher degrees as well as to Bachelor (!) degrees.

That situation is eminently consistent with what has been reported persistently about performance at the secondary school level. Girls evidently rule. Thus, at Catskill High School in the last term, 16 seniors achieved High Honors; 10 were female. At Hunter-Tannersville High School, one boy scored high honors, along with 12 girls (and congratulations to Nicholas Tripsas).

Those GreeneLand results conform to what is reported elsewhere in the mid-Hudson region as well as the nation. According to figures supplied by school administrators and reported in newspapers, girls out-numbered boys in the ranks of High Honors achievers at Rondout Valley High School by a score of 18 to 10. At Red Hook High, the female edge was 46 to 25. At Kingston High, 27 girls achieving High Honors in grade 12 were joined by 14 boys. At little Germantown High, girls who reached the top bracket of achievers in the 12^th grade out-numbered boys by 6 to 3.

Such figures shape eligibility for admission to college and, particularly, for admission to the more selective colleges.

They also shape rates of employment. According to U.S. Labor Department figures, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, the unemployment rate among men who are classified as members of the work force is currently 9.4 per cent, down from 10.5% in 2010. For women the figures are 8.4% and 8.6%.

SCHOLARSHIP NOTE. The Kiwanis Club of Catskill annually offers two college stipends of $500 to GreeneLand high school seniors. Selection is related to service as well as scholarship. Applications from Cairo-Durham High School numbered zero. For the second year.

PAWED. According to regular news media reports, on April 14^th a GreeneLand lady disturbed a black bear that was sifting through garbage outside her house Round Top. The bear knocked Joy Bayer-Mozynski down, held her down with one paw while finishing its repast with the other, then departed in peace. Authorities subsequently set a trap for the bear, but soon removed it. People who live along traditional bear trails, especially in during the weeks when ursine hibernating has just ended, are warned to keep garbage cans indoors, to forego bird-feeders, and to feed pets inside.

SEX, FAITH, TAXES. What is a religion? GreeneLand Judge George Pulver Jr, sitting as a State Supreme Court judge, will soon take on the task of ruling on that question. The need for a ruling derives from a dispute about the status, for property tax purposes, of a property in Palenville. That property, once known as the Central Hotel, now is depicted by its primary occupant, Cathryn Platine, as the Phrygianum of the Maetreum of Cybele and “center of the world wide Cybeline revival,” or worship of a particular ancient pagan goddess. Ms Platine’s claim for ecclesiastical exemption from taxes levied on her Phyrigianum has been rejected by Catskill’s town council. Judge Pulver has ruled that the rejection was poorly rationalized. He is calling for a more comprehensive treatment of qualifications for exemption.

(Ms Platine’s movement—see www.gallae.com -- differs substantially from a London-based “world wide” Cybeline revival. Whereas Palenville’s pagans offer shelter and durable fellowship (so to speak) chiefly to persons who have achieved female status by means of surgery, the alternative Cybelians are militant gynocrats. They cohabit with men on the condition that their partners accept a position of absolute toilet-like subservience. The prescribed position is dramatized by means of a most extraordinary marriage ceremony. www.cybelians.com )

SEPARATING: law partners Eugenia Brennan-Heslin and Edward Kaplan, based in Hunter. Scheduled for a May 27 hearing before Supreme Court Judge Roger McDonough is Ms Brennan-Heslin’s contention that “it is not reasonably practicable to carry on the business…since it is no longer carrying on the purpose for which it was formed and has become dysfunctional….” She asks that a receiver be appointed to make an accounting of the partnership’s assets and liabilities and to distribute them. In addition to practicing law, Ms Brennan-Heslin stood for election, back in 2005, on the Democratic and Working Families party lines, as county judge. She currently works for the State of New York.

“BUY 1, GET 1 HALF OFF!”

--Kohl’s advertisement for “perfect bra.”

AS FOR THE MEN, GreeneLand is now home for Major League Baseball’s official Historian. John Thorn, a Catskill resident since last October, was appointed to the office (vacant since 2008) by Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig. Mr Thorn’s latest book, Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game, pushes the true history of the sport far back beyond its reputed origin at the hands of Abner Doubleday. (Could it be that local Little League organizers need a suitable season-ending speaker?).

MOREOVER, GreeneLand is home, so to speak, for a man who has chosen to waive his right to a service that would cost the taxpayers about $800,000. According to an Associated Press story (Daily Mail; Daily Freeman, 4/27), Kenneth Pike, who is serving a long sentence in Coxsackie Correctional Facility for raping a 12-year-old relative, decided to forego getting a heart transplant at public expense, even though relevant laws, plus expert medical diagnosis, make him eligible. The 55-year old inmate already has undergone, at public expense, triple bypass heart surgery and the insertion of a pacemaker.
AND for a forthcoming division meeting of Kiwanis Club members, one of the dinner entree choices is “Chicken Franchise.”

REMINDER REMINDER REMINDER: Tuesday (5/17) is school board and school budget election day.

Greene's Greene

2011-04-12T19:39:00.000-04:00

In his new 900-age biography of George Washington, Ron Chernow describes another Revolutionary general, whose name adorns this county (and a dozen more around the United States) in these terms:

Nathaniel Greene of Rhode Island was one of the first brigadier generals picked by Congress; having turned thirty-three that summer, he was the youngest general in the Continental Army. Tall and solidly built with striking blue eyes, full lips, and a long straight nose, Greene had been reared in a pious Quaker household by a prosperous father who owned an iron forge, a sawmill and other businesses. Discouraged from reading anything except the Bible, he had received little school and missed a college education as much as Washington. “I lament the want of a liberal education,” he once wrote. “I feel the mist [of] ignorance to surround me.” To compensate for this failing he became adept at self-improvement and devoured authors both ancient and modern….

After his father died in 1770, Greene inherited his business but was shadowed by mishaps. Two years later one of the forges burned, and the following year he was banned from Quaker meetings, possibly because he patronized alehouses. In 1774 Greene married the exceptionally pretty Catharine ‘Caty’ Littlefield, who was a dozen years younger and a preeminent belle of the Revolutionary era. As relations with Great Britain soured that year, Greene struggled to become that walking contradiction, ‘a fighting Quaker,’ poring over military histories purchased in Henry Knox’s Boston bookstore. At that point his knowledge of war derived entirely from reading. Greene was an improbable candidate for military honors: handicapped by asthma, he walked with a limp, possibly from an early accident. When he joined his Rhode Island militia, he was heartbroken to be rejected as an officer because his men thought his limp detracted from their military appearance….

Nevertheless, within year, by dint of dawn-to-dusk work habits, Greene emerged as general of the Rhode Is;and Army of Observation, leading to his promotion by the Continental Congress. Washington must have felt an instinctive sympathy for this young man restrained by handicaps and with a pretty and pregnant wife. He also would have admired what Greene had done with the Rhode Island troops in Cambridge [MA.]—they lived in “proper tents…and looked like the regular camp of the enemy,” according to the Reverend William Emerson.

Nathaniel Greene had other qualities that recommended him to the commander in chief. Like Washington, he despised profanity, gambling, and excessive drinking among his men. Like Washington, he was temperamental, hypersensitive to criticism, and chary of his reputation; and he craved recognition. As he slept in dusty blankets, tormented by asthma throughout the war, he had a plucky dedication to his work and proved a battlefield general firmly in the Washington mold, exposing himself fearlessly to enemy fire. Years later Washington described Greene as “a man of abilities, bravery and coolness. He has a comprehensive knowledge of our affairs and is a man of fortitude and resources.” Henry Knox paid tribute to his friend by saying that he “came to us the rawest, the most untutored being I ever met with” but within a year “was equal in military knowledge to any general officer in the army and even superior to most of them.” This tactful man, with his tremendous political intuitions, wound up as George Washington’s favorite general. When Washington was later asked who should replace him in case of an accident, he replied unhesitatingly, “General Greene.”

--Washington. A Life. NY: Penguin Press, 2010, p. 202.

Star Turns

2011-04-08T15:51:00.002-04:00

Among Young Global Leaders newly crowned by the eminent World Economic Forum’s selectors is a new GreeneLander: Asli Karahan-Ay. YGL designation, according to a Forum release, goes to “outstanding young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world.”

Honorees emerge from a rigorous screening of thousands of candidates who are under 40 years of age and come from the ranks of business, government, foundations, communications media and social entrepreneurship. Included with Ms Karahan-Ay in the North American contingent of honorees are a novelist (Dave Eggers), a mayor (of Calgary), a governor (Nikki Haley of South Carolina), a news broadcaster (Dana Perino, former press secretary for President George W. Bush), a Gates Foundation executive, a politician who has turned to business (Harold Ford Jr.), and leaders of several go-ahead enterprises. Ms Karahan-Ay was chosen in deference to her work at the global bank, UBS, most recently as executive director of the office of the chief executive officer, and previously as director of the investment bank division. And she won that distinction shortly after performing another feat: giving birth to her second son, Adrian Aslan Ay.

Ms. Karahan-Ay and her husband, Evren Ay, recently bought a GreeneLand estate whose main house dates from 1754.

THESPIAN WATCH

*”Sparrow Lane” is the title of a short movie to be shot, all being well, during April 18-24 in Catskill. According to director Patricia Gillespie, it will be a “true fable” of a young man who experiences a “crisis of honor.” Desperate for money to stave off foreclosure on his home in up-state New York, and to care for the pregnant widow of his lately deceased older brother, he sees no solution other than working as a well paid strike-breaking scab. Some footage will be shot in the Cus D'Amato gymnasium, with local young boxers working under trainer Ernest Westbrooke. Main location of the action would be on Water Street, between Factory and Bridge. The crew of 15, and the acting cast of 10, would come up from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. There may be openings for an extra or two, including a uniformed Catskill cop. (Not quite on the same scale as “War of the Worlds.”). Queries: yellowbellyfilms@gmail.com

*Casey Biggs has been busy on both coasts. Out in Hollywood, he played the part of the president of Wells Fargo Bank in the forthcoming movie “Too Big to Fail,” and he taped a choice role in an episode of the television series “The Good Wife.” Moving up the California coast, he spent quality time sampling the cookery, as well as the charms, of spouse Brigit (Roadfoodie) Binns in the zinfandel-growing region around Paso Robles, where he also taped a trio of commercials for a California zinfandel-growing region. (The first one is delightful: http://www.youtube.com/wach?v=XVaNxB5TN2M&feature=youtube_gdata_player). Then too there was a weekend in San Antonio, where he gave the keynote speech at the remembrance of the 175^th anniversary of the Battle of The Alamo. (He played the fort’s commander, Col. William Bliss, in the IMAX movie re-enactment of that ordeal). Meanwhile, in Manhattan he has been teaching New School of Drama classes, including performances of a play that he conceived and directed: a blending Anton Chekhov takes, in "Uncle Vanya," "Three Sisters," "The Cherry Orchard" and "The Seagull," on the themes of love, lost and leaving. Next year, he confects Shakespeare’s Henry plays)

*Warner Shook too has been out west, away from his Catskill abode, in Los Angeles directing the Irish-flavored play written by Colin McPherson, “The Weir.” Now he is in Seattle, his old theatrical/dramaturgical stomping ground, directing a fresh production of “The Prisoner of Second Avenue."

*Joseph Capone is here at home, writing a play about Sybil Ludington, who is celebrated in statues and memorial postage stamps as the female Paul Revere. In 1777, when she had just turned 16 years old, Sybil made a 40-mile circuit (twice as long as Revere’s), in darkness, in the rain, through Putnam and Dutchess counties, spreading the word that the Redcoats were coming. Four hundred militiamen responded to the call to muster in what is now Kent NY, under the command of Sybil’s father, Col. Henry Ludington. The call-up came too late to prevent the sacking of Danbury CT but it brought vital Revolutionary force to the Battle of Ridgefield soon afterward. Sybil subsequently was married to a lawyer named Edmond Ogden and they lived for some 12 years on Main Street, Catskill.

*Robert Lupone of Coxsackie will be retiring at the end of the current academic year as director of the Master of Fine Arts program at New York’s New School of Drama. He will continue to spend time in New York, as artistic director of the MCC theatre company, which stages three new plays per year.

*Frank Cuthbert returned to GreeneLand just in time for last Saturday’s Beaux Arts Ball at Hunter Mountain, after a Winter retreat in Asheville NC working on the libretto of a musical for which he has written music and the lyrics….

*”Oliver” will be performed at Cairo-Durham High School this weekend. Saturday (4/8) and Sunday at 2pm and 7pm, Sunday at 2pm. 239-6922.

*Mozart pieces for woodwinds will be played by a Bard College ensemble on Sunday from 2pm at Beattie-Powers House in Catskill.

*Alternatively, a seeker after novel experiences could devote this weekend to apprehending “The Energy of Money.” In Acra, at the Peace Village Learning & Retreat Center, participants will explore “inner dynamics of wanting, hoarding, receiving, donating, and generating prosperity.” www.peace-village.org589-5000.

DESIGNING

While redecorating the home of Jennifer Aniston out in California, Stephen Shadley finds time to supervise reconstruction here of his Potic Mountain castle. That historic edifice was built in 1913 for Winifred Grier, daughter of a Canadian timber baron. Its designer, Wilfred Buckland, was primarily a theatrical scene designer whose career took him from David Belasco productions on the Broadway stage to silent film epics in Hollywood. As for the castle, Winifred Grier sold it when she moved to England as bride of Ion [sic] Hamilton Benn, baronet and Member of Parliament. The place was last occupied back in 1976. It was heavily damaged by arson in 1977, during winter when fire trucks could scarcely reach it. It is now receiving the careful attention that Mr Shadley has given to dwellings of luminaries such as Diane Keaton and Woody Allen.

Bad News: Pushy Personation

2011-03-28T12:27:00.000-04:00

Another choice example of journalistic Personation (as discussed in Seeing Greene’s Feb. 18 installment) has turned up. This one is noteworthy on account of its psycho-political use.

BERLIN (AP)—Germany is determined to show the world how abandoning nuclear energy can be done.

The world’s fourth largest economy stands alone among leading industrialized nations in its decisions to stop using nuclear energy because of its inherent risks. It is betting billions on expanding the use of renewable energy to meet power demands instead.

The transition was supposed to happen slowly over the next 25 years, but is now being accelerated in the wake of Japan’s …nuclear plant disaster….

Berlin’s decision to take seven of its 17 reactors offline for three months for new safety checks has provided a glimpse into how Germany might wean itself from getting nearly a quarter of its power from atomic energy to none.

The author of that piece of news discourse endows a nation-state (plus its capital) with a mind, (a determination, a decision) plus a capacity to wean itself and to lay a bet. Joined to that metaphysically bold bit of rhetorical Personation is a flight of Presumptuousness, whereby the author pretends to disclose, and thereby pretends to be able to detect, mental states (of, in this case, a nation, which also is an economy).

Moreover, on this occasion the author wields Personation and Presumptuousness on behalf of advocacy. By aggrandizing the breadth of an attitude, (s)he glorifies it. In doing so, (s)he employs a variant on what rhetoricians call The Bandwagon Device, or promoting an attitude by endowing it with wide popularity.

The case may also be noteworthy on account of other elements of the article. Apropos of that “decision to stop using nuclear energy,” the author refers to a decision made by a previous “center-left government” to phase out nuclear power use by the year 2021. The present German government “amended” that decision “to extend the plants’ lifetime by an average of 12 years.” The amendment then “was put on hold after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami compromised nuclear power plants in Japan.” So: where is that determination by “Germany” to demonstrate “how abandoning nuclear energy can be done”?

ANOTHER MATTER OF PROPRIETY

A reader who chooses to be anonymous professes to “find it disrespectful” that in Seeing Greene (March 4th) we “published the name of the bridge jumper.” “NO OTHER publication published his name within an article about the bridge. Yes, there was an obituary published, but it of course did not mention he was the jumper.”

Mr or Ms Anonymous is factually correct. We alone identified the suicide as Christopher Hare. Obituaries devoted to Mr Hare were published shortly after the fatal jump but (like most locally published obituaries) did not name the cause of death.

Our practice in this case was consistent with common practice. News stories about suicides generally do identify the principals. Sometimes identification is delayed, as when authorities withhold the information pending notification of next of kin. Sometimes identification does not occur. Sometimes identification does not occur because local journalists do not bother to follow up (or “chase the story,” in journo parlance).

In the meantime, Anonymous offers an instructive case of spurious humility. (S)he voices a personal attitude (“I find it disrespectful…”) in a way that suggests that it is the Correct attitude. And (s)he skips the business of indicating how, and to whom, publishing a suicide’s name is disrespectful.

(BTW: Anonymous also says that we “also published wrong information as [the jumper] DID NOT DRIVE a vehicle to the bridge. Please remove WRONG information.”)

WRONG-HEADEDNESS
The headline “U.S., Allies Attack Libya” (Daily Freeman, 3/20/11) differs from what has been reported elsewhere in the news media, and it falsifies the text of the story that it introduces. The headline makes Libya the target of American and allied attack. Other contemporary news sources depicted the attackers' target not as Libya but as pro-government or pro-Gadhafi Libyan forces that are attacking anti-government Libyan forces. And that version of events is voiced in the text of the Associated Press story that appeared under that headline:

The U.S. and European nations pounded Moammar Gadhafi’s forces and air defenses with cruise missiles and airstrikes on Saturday, launching the broadest international military effort since the Iraq war in support of an uprising that had seemed on the verge of defeat.

The misleading headline in this case may be a bit less interesting, to be sure, than these cases:

Astronaut Welcomes Baby From Space

Craigslist Killing
Suspects in Tacoma Court

Man Seeking Help for Dog

Charged with DWI

TESTS SHOW MAN NOT MISSING BOY

TV Pilots Shot in R.I. Await Word of Fate

Bad News: the Framing Game

2011-03-25T11:54:00.000-04:00

Gen. David Petraeus, the top US commander in Kabul, said yesterday that continued progress in Afghanistan is critical to preventing the situation in neighboring Pakistan from deteriorating further – and to persuading Islamabad to mount a more...

Councilman Ruben W. Wills of Queens acknowledged on Sunday that he had failed to resolve an outstanding arrest warrant related to a business dispute from more than a decade ago.

ALBANY -- Detective James Miller, the city police department spokesman charged with driving while intoxicated during a Friday night traffic stop, released a statement as he prepared for arraignment Monday morning.

KINGSTON – The chairwoman of the Ulster County Republican Committee said the county should give serious consideration to selling the Golden Hill Health Care Center.

Those sentences, each the opening of a news story (New York Times, TimesUnion, DailyFreeman; 3/21/11), illustrate a dual communicative operation. Each one combines brief description of an event with a hint about newsworthiness. The cited event in each case is a speech act. The hint about newsworthiness comes by way of what the reporter picks to say about the cited speaker’s identity. The reporter chooses to mention that the person whose words are being reported is a general (and more), a borough councilman, a detective and police department spokesman, or a Republican county chairwoman. By singling out that aspect of identity, and by giving it pride of place, the reporter invites respondents to infer that the most important thing about the news subject’s act, for the present situation, is his or her role.

As regular recipients of news, we recognize this mode of suggestion. We respond to hints that serve our felt need to grasp the meaning, the implications as well as the immediate nature, of a cited event. We credit the sender with attempting to render that service with verbal economy. To that end, the sender employs a device that can be called the First As Foremost nudge. It prompts receivers to construe the first thing that is said about the identity of a news subject as, circumstantially, the most important thing.

In the cases cited, drawing the invited inference seems altogether safe. The reported deeds surely are newsworthy becauseof the named social traits of the speakers: U.S. commander in Kabul, councilman, detective who is facing charges, local Republican chairperson.

In other cases, trust in the First As Foremost clue could be misplaced. The following sentences also opened news stories. Each report, again, recounts an individual’s act or experience.

An 18-year-old Cairo man was charged with possessing marijuana and driving recklessly after leading police on a high-speed chase early Sunday.

A 24-year-old Palenville man has been charged with possession of child pornography, authorities said Thursday.

The 22-year-old Cairo man accused of forcing his way into a Cairo home last year, robbing the residents at gunpoint has pleaded not guilty in Greene County Court.

Joseph Francis “Bubba” Conlin, Jr., 55, of Tampa, Florida, died suddenly on Thursday….

Captain Thomas J. Bradley, 79, of Corwin Place, Lake Katrine, died Saturday…at Ferncliff Nursing Home in Rhinebeck after a long illness.

A 25-year-old Greene County motorcyclist was killed in an accident Saturday morning, according to the Greene County Sheriff's Office.A 66-year-old Hunter man has died after being struck in the chest by a tree he had cut down on his property.

Salvatore Taccetta, 49, of Athens, was arrested Sunday at 3:50a.m. by state police at Catskill and charged with two counts of misdemeanor drunken driving and the infractions of leaving the scene of a property damage accident and unsafe lane change.

Zachary S. Coons, 25, of Saugerties, was arrested Sunday at 4:45 a.m. by state police at Coxsackie and charged with two counts of misdemeanor drunk driving.

Each of those sentences conveys, by means of the First As Foremost nudge, a suggestion about causation. Each one conveys the same explanatory suggestion. Each one invites recipients to believe that with regard to the deed or the experience of the person mentioned, great importance attaches, surpassing relevance pertains, to years of age. Each one can be seen as equivalent to reporting that

Gen. David Petraeus, 58, said yesterday that continued progress in Afghanistan is critical to preventing the situation in neighboring Pakistan from deteriorating further....

Such sentences can be seen as acts of devotion to a little-known, quaint, scientistic doctrine: Ageism. To alert receivers, however, they convey an additional message. They signal the presence in mainstream news organs of thoughtless, habit-bound, misleading verbiage. They call attention, more particularly, to blind habit as a shaper of verbiage about the identities of news-makers.

The need for sensitivity to that aspect of news discourse can be demonstrated by reference to opening sentences such as these:

Democrat Jim Van Slyke has announced his candidacy for a third term as NewBaltimore’s representative to the Greene County Legislature at his family’s farm.

Republican Elsie Allan, citing her concern and love for her community, has announced that she will seek the Town of Durham seat on the Greene County legislature this fall.

Democratic Greene County Legislator Forest Cotten has kicked off his re-electioncampaign at Union Mills Gallery, 361 Main St., Catskill.

Those sentences too perform a dual communicative operation. They combine bits of information about candidacies for elective office with hints about what is at stake. In the latter respect they deliver a politically sensitive suggestion. By means of the First As Foremost device, they invite recipients to adopt a particular way of seeing the named candidates. Each one suggests that the foremost fact about the named candidate, the fact that is topically most salient for receivers of the news, is party affiliation. And cumulatively, those sentences suggest that the foremost fact about candidates generally, the fact that we most urgently need to know, is party affiliation.

Accepting that suggestion can be convenient. As conscientious prospective voters, we might feel obliged to learn about each candidate’s family, career, character, principles, policy stands, and non-party as well as party affiliation. If we take at face value the suggested primacy of party affiliation, we gain relief from a daunting task of information-gathering. Thus, accepting that suggestion—seeing it as a trustworthy application of the First As Foremost nudge--can be more convenient than seeing it as a thoughtless, habit-born manifestation of hack journalism.

Local Politics Notes

2011-03-18T10:49:00.000-04:00

Tuesday’s village elections in GreeneLand, and elsewhere, were noteworthy for the absence of contests, and of voters. Tannersville alone offered a choice between candidates. That came about after a trio of newcomers pulled a surprise on the incumbent mayor and two trustees, by bringing a few friends to the local Democratic caucus and winning that party’s nominations. Mayor Lee McGunnigle and one of the trustees, Gregory Landers, responded by rounding up signatures in support of putting them on the ballot as Watchful Eye Party candidates. Mr McGunnigle then out-polled Jason Dugo in the mayoral race, 109-58 (according to The Daily Mail), while Mr Landers led the trustee candidates, with newcomer Christopher Hack winning the second board seat and Jeremiah Dixon finishing out of the running.

In Catskill’s election, trustee Joseph Kozloski, a Democrat who was cross-endorsed by the Republican committee, won re-election without contest, as did village justice William Wooton, an enrolled Republican who was cross-endorsed by the Democratic committee. Thirty-seven votes were cast.

In Hunter, similarly, mayor William Maley won re-election without contest, receiving 33 of the 36 votes that were cast.

In Coxsackie, 135 voters went through the motions, returning Mayor Mark Evans to office along with trustees (and fellow Republicans) Stephen Hanse and Paul Sutton.

In Athens, Mayor Andrea Smallwood coasted to unchallenged victory along with fellow Democrats Robert June (incumbent trustee) and Anthony Patsky (successor to Tom Sopris, who opted not to run for re-election). Fifty-two votes, according to The Daily Mail, were cast.

ELSEWHERE in the mid-Hudson region (as reported in Daily Freeman and Times Union), contested elections also were the exception rather than the norm. In Rhinebeck, Red Hook and Tivoli, among other Dutchess County villages, candidates for local office (mayor, trustee, and/or judge) gained office without opposition. To the south of us, in Saugerties, the incumbent mayor won re-election without opposition, while four candidates vied for three village trustee offices. Over in Tivoli, again, the ballot paper offered voters one candidate for mayor and one each for two board seats. To the north, similarly, elections without choices between candidates occurred in Ballston Spa, Round Lake, Altamon, Voorheesville, Castleton East, Schaghticoke, Glens Falls….

CONSEQUENCES? The absence of contests in Athens may be especially remarkable, given a recent history of inter-party and inter-personal clashes. It evidently prompted a local resident to scold local Republicans for “not running any candidates to oppose the incumbent positions that are up for re-election” and to dilate broadly on the functions of electoral contestation. “When both parties run candidates for a common position,” said this citizen (Daily Mail, 3/4/11, verbatim), “the voters can expresses his or her feelings by voting for the candidate of their choice, and the one that will represent them the best.” “Politicians may not always do what ever voters feels is in their best interest, this is why the voter should always have a choice of the candidates running that office. This is also that voters way to keep the incumbent candidates in check which will be evident by the ratio between votes cast for each individual.” The author did not say why he did not file his own candidacy. Neither did he address the option of writing in a candidate’s name.

ANOMALY FILE. Demonstrated in those village “races” was a quaint feature of election law in this State. It is the requirement that in order to appear on the ballot, every candidate must pretend to be the nominee of a political party. On the ballot, each candidate’s name appears not only in a column devoted to aspirants for a given office, but also on a horizontal party line. Thus, in order to appear on the ballot, a would-be candidate (or his friends) must round up voters’ signatures on supportive petitions AND those petitions must brand her as prospective nominee of a supposed local aggregation of Democratic, Republican, Conservative, Working Families or other co-partisans. Then, when several kinds of offices are to be filled (Governor, Treasurer, Judge, Assemblyman, Highway Superintendent, Coroner…), the ballot provides a column for each office (read down for each gubernatorial candidate) and a line (read across) for all Democratic candidates, another line for Republican candidates, and so on. From this there is no escape.

Some people, however, are unable or unwilling to run for office wearing the familiar party brands, Democratic and Republican. In more than a few cases, especially at the local level, candidates want to avoid assumptions and stereotypes that are apt to be triggered in voters’ minds by those labels. They solve the problem by gathering petitions that make them the nominees of elusive, nominal aggregations. Thus, last Tuesday elections in mid-Hudson villages brought victories not only for some Democrats and some Republicans, but also for champions of the Vibrant Village, Citizens, NOP, Tivoli First, Rhinebeck First, Justice, New Vision, Home and Watchful Eye parties.The results, with those affiliations cited, were duly reported in the Press. Readers were invited accordingly to impute meaning—ideological significance? policy orientations?—to those labels.

Such misdirection can easily be forestalled. The method consists simply of eliminating party designations from the ballots.

NEW FACE. The seat in GreeneLand’s legislature that was vacated by the resignation in January of Durham representative Sean Frey has finally been filled. The new member is Patricia Handel, who operates, along with husband Roy, the Blackthorne Resort. Ms Handel was nominated (after a lengthy delay) by members of the Republican Party committee of District 9, and then appointed by vote of the legislators. In the best of worlds, the new appointee would have been the joint nominee of District 9 Democrats as well as Republicans. The incumbent legislators could have insisted on that process of selection, in light of the facts that Mr Frey was elected as a Democrat while enrolled Republicans are numerically preponderant in the district. In that case, the appointment could not have been treated so readily, so reductively, as another stage of party-political warfare. That treatment was exemplified in the Daily Mail story (Colin DeVries; 3/17/11) holding that Ms Handel’s selection “furthers the power of the county legislature’s Republican majority, which now has nine seats over the Democrats’ five.”

Ladies First

2011-03-11T15:29:00.001-05:00

ELEVATED to the Presidency of the Catskill Golf (& Country) Club for the year 2011 is--gulp, ahem, gasp, wheeze--a woman. Donna Meo is first of her gender, in the course of the club’s 83-year history, to occupy the presidential suite. (Jan Vincent was a board member and club secretary for around 20 years). The Windham Golf Club, now 84 years of age, has never had a female president.

RETIRING soon, as full-time executive director of the the Heart of Catskill Association (qua Catskill Chamber of Commerce), after 12 years on the job (following six as a founding volunteer), is Linda Overbaugh. But she may not withdraw altogether from promotional work.

HONORED as businesswoman of the year, by HOCA at the recent Mardi Gras party: Dr Christine Scrodamus, optometrist, who in 2006 took over Dr Damon Pouyat’s Main Street, Catskill, optometry practice, and in 2010 bought the building.
Businessman of the year title was bestowed upon Joe Anese, proprietor of The Wine Cellar (which is not a cellar and is more than a wine shop) which he acquired from Oreste Vincent back in 1998 after working there for two years (and after a six-year stint with the band “Equinox”).
In addition, Hillcrest Press was hailed as Business of the Year, with the award being collected by proprietors Christie and Nathan French, who had acquired by business years ago from her parents, Carol and Robert Goodling.

SELECTED for special photographic attention, during Women’s History Month, for a presentation at the Athens Cultural Center this Wednesday (3/16): clandestine pictures taken by Miroslav Tichy, using cameras improvised from junk, of women in Communist-era Czechoslovakia. The evening’s Greene County Camera Club program will include a discussion, led by Palenville’s Jill Skupin Burkholder, of “Finding Your Artistic Style.” www.gccameraclub.com.

POTENT PAUL. After starting at the Oriental Guide level 12 years ago, and climbing up the ranks through High Priest & Prophet, Assistant Rabban, and Chief Rabban, GreeneLand’s Paul Rosenblatt has achieved the eminence, in the seven-county Cyprus Shrine order, of Illustrious Potentate. Sir Paul is the 135-year-old Cyprus Shrine’s first GreeneLand Potentate since 1994, when George J. Wilk of Cairo held the office (and the robes). At the order’s Temple in Glenmont last Saturday, with the Lady Eileen at his side, the new leader welcomed Nobles and their ladies to the Potentate’s Ball. www.cyprus5.org.

PAY CAPS. Governor Andrew Cuomo has invited the State legislature to support the imposition of limits on the salaries of public school superintendents. The caps would vary according to district pupil populations. For districts whose populations are in the 251-750 range, the limit would be $135,000 per year. The caps would rise by increments of $10,000 for superintendents in districts with 751-1500, 1501-3000, 3001-6500, and more than 6501 enrolled students. As it happens, salaries of GreeneLand’s superintendents, with a minor exception, already come in under those proposed limits. Thus, Catskill Central School District superintendent Kathleen Farrell draws a salary, in a district with 1775 students, of just under $152,000. Sally Sharkey’s pay of $123,094 as Cairo-Durham’s superintendent puts her under the $145,000 ‘Cuomo cap’ of $145,00 for a 1467-pupil district, and Hunter-Tannersville’s Patrick Darfler-Sweeney’s $122,548 salary in a district with 423 students puts him under the $135,000 gap. In the Greenville district, with 1250 students, the superintendent’s reported salary was under the Cuomo cap at $140,057. In the Windham-Ashland-Jewett district (401 students), superintendent John Wiktoro’s salary at last report was $131,457. In the case of Coxsackie-Athens, however, superintendent Earle Gregory was being paid a salary last year that put him $953 above the Cuomo-proposed cap of $155,000. But then Dr Gregory retired, and interim superintendent’s Annemarie Barkman’s salary is under the Cuomo cap.

CONTRAST. Those figures mark a contrast with salary levels of superintendents in many neighboring school districts. To the south of us, as reported in The Daily Freeman (Kyle Wind), salaries ABOVE the Cuomo caps are more common than salaries below. In the Kingston district, with more than 6501 students, the proposed cap would be $175,000 but the incumbent superintendent, Gerard Gretzinger, is currently paid $193,401.

EXTRAS. Salary figures don’t tell the whole pay story for school superintendents (or private corporation executives or wage-earners or...). The State Education Department compiles remuneration figures that cover not only salaries but also “benefits” and “other.” The latter sums can be substantial. Thus, Superintendent Gretzinger is counted as receiving $50,780 in benefits plus $9762. And in Coxsackie-Athens, Dr Gregory was scored as the recipient of $43,147 in extras compensation in the year of his retirement. That was not the GreeneLand record, however. Surprisingly enough, the biggest package of extras went to the superintendent in the modest-sized Windham-Ashland-Jewett district: $52.468.

BANK SHOT. Ulster Savings Bank, which has a GreeneLand branch in Windham, is in more trouble. It is stuck with GreeneLand’s defunct Friar Tuck resort, into which it had sunk some $3.8 million in the way of loans. And its president, according to Daily Freeman reporter Paul Kirby, “is on leave of absence during what is being described as a ‘leadership transition’.” It is a prolonged transition. Michael Shaughnessy, as executive vice president, has been running the place for months. Now he is the bank’s interim president and chief executive officer. The titular president, Marjorie Rovereto, started working for the bank in 1963, moved up the ladder, and became president and CEO abruptly in 2006, after Clifford Miller resigned in the wake of an arrest for allegedly soliciting sex from a policewoman who was posing as a prostitute.

Girdling the Greenes

2011-03-04T15:40:00.000-05:00

RESCUE. A boat operator and a sheriff’s deputy teamed up last night to rescue a motorist whose Jeep Cherokee had plunged into the river. They pulled Charles Sidwell from his submerged vehicle and summoned transportation to the hospital, where Sidwell was treated and released. Although he blamed the mishap on brake failure that caused the Jeep to became airborne, Sidwell was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, disobeying a traffic signal, and illegally transporting alcohol.

FACTORY. Construction of an ammonium nitrate production plant for Greene County moved a step closer to reality on Tuesday when county legislators voted to rezone 400 acres to house the facility. The plant would be operated by Austin Power Company of Ohio, a manufacturer of explosives. Some prospective neighbors of the plant complained about the deal, which was orchestrated by the county’s economic development agency.

OFFENDER. A former high school teacher who had been convicted of rape and sodomy, but was allowed to go free on probation as requested by her victim, may go to prison after all. According to Greene County’s district attorney, Alison Peck violated twice a condition of her probation, requiring that as a registered sex offender she give notice of changes of residence. Ms Peck’s conviction arose from activities with a 16-year-old lad with whom she performed, as a keyboard player, in a rock band.

IMPERSONATOR. A man who is disguised as a police officer could be targeting Greene County women. The sheriff issued a warning last Monday, saying that a man driving a car with a blue flashing light on the roof stopped a young woman motorist, made her get out of her car, patted her down, and then, saying he was going to look up her criminal record, went back to his car and drove away.

KIDNAPPER? A man who is accused of abducting a three-year-old boy and fleeing to California has been extradited back to Greene County. Bernard Rheaves, 27, is now in jail and facing a child abduction charge, as well as an earlier count of check-kiting. According to the county sheriff’s office, Rheaves decamped with the boy, who is his son, after getting into a custody quarrel with the boy’s mother.

PIMP? A local fourth grade teacher (currently on leave) was booked into Greene County jail last week on charges of promoting prostitution. The arrest of Laura A. Fiedler, 35, according to police reports, resulted fro an undercover investigation of activities at a local hotel.

DECEPTION. The foregoing items demonstrate a rhetorical trick: inviting a false inference by not explicitly forestalling it, when circumstances make it likely that respondents will otherwise draw it. The false inference is that the cited Greene County events occurred in Greene County, NEW YORK. Actually, they occurred, or were reported to have occurred, in the Greene counties of Ohio, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Of course the author of those items did not say that the events occurred in New York’s GreeneLand. But the scoundrel set up the deception-by-omission by means of a history of bloggery devoted to matters in that Greene County.

So now for some genuinely local items:

SUICIDE. Just before noon last Thursday (2/24), Christopher Hare drove up from his home in Germantown, parked near the eastern approach to the Rip Van Winkle bridge, walked west onto the bridge carrying a metal briefcase, walked past the sign saying “When it seems like there is no hope, there is help,” and jumped to his death on the ice below. Mr Hare, 31, a native of Virginia, was an electrician’s apprentice and reportedly had a history of mental illness. Authorities closed bridge traffic both ways for nearly two hours, until they determined that the metal briefcase was not explosive.

RAPE? Following an incident in the Jefferson Heights section of Catskill on February 24, sheriff’s deputies arrested Louis Sanchez, 40, of Saugerties on charges of rape and of endangering the welfare of a child. The latter charge derives from suspicion that Sanchez committed the rape in front of the victim’s two-year-old.

FUEL GOUGE? The price of regular gasoline in GreeneLand has soared past the $3.60-per-gallon mark. At Citgo today, $3.66; Getty, $3.68; Stewart Shops in Athens, $3.65. By way of contrast, the nation-wide average was $3.45. And in other Greene Counties (including Dodge’s Chicken Store in Paragould, Arkansas), lowest local prices for regular fuel ranged from $3.24 up to $3.47.

ASSAULT? Martin Morales, 21, of Cairo has been charged with attempting to murder his former girlfriend. According to police reports, as covered in local news media, Morales traveled to Winooski, Vermont, donned a black ski mask, broke into an apartment there, and beat and stabbed Mary Rowlands. She survived and told police that he might have fled to hangouts in Hudson. After a search of designated places there, he was found and clapped in Columbia County jail.

LAUNCH. Our community, volunteer-run radio station is now on the air. The official launch of WGXC (signifying Greene and Columbia counties) last Saturday (2/26) at Catskill’s Community Center, drew an immense crowd of well-wishers. Scores of people packed the broadcasting room, providing a live audience for home-grown musicians and composers, program hosts, announcers, notables. Upstairs, multitudes of children and adults partook of the day’s live entertainment and home-made refreshments. The opening festivities, in short, surpassed all expectations. What went out on the air, however, was a different matter. The station’s signal did not go out loud and clear. Listeners were assailed by squawks and squeals and mumbles. Only half of the station’s authorized, needed broadcast power was operational. Since then, the signal has been much improved. It is at FM90.7.

HIRING. The Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, vaunted birthplace of distinctively American art, is advertising a job opening for a part-time curator. The appointee would help with the museum’s collection of art and artifacts, with its exhibitions, and with its Fellows program. She or he would be hired for just 12 hours per week, at a wage that is not specified but would be decidedly modest.

So: more than 30 people have applied for the job. Among the applicants, higher education far past the bachelor level is normal. Masters and even Doctoral degrees abound, as do publications in professional journals. Every applicant points to at least five years of relevant experience.

That tells us something about the state of the economy, and about the scramble for survival in the world of art, AND about the prestige that has been earned in the last few years by the Cole House operation

DEAD END. The Greene County (NY!) government’s web site offers links not only to various departments but also to “News and Press Releases.” But that link brings up “Page not found.”

Jackpots, Crackpots, Empty Pots....

2011-02-24T09:14:00.000-05:00

GreeneLand is the home of a newly minted multimillionaire. As reported copiously in the news media, Stephen Kirwan of Purling hit the jackpot on a Powerball lottery ticket that he bought in January at the Clothes Pin Laundromat in Catskill Commons. Beating odds of one chance in 295 million, among buyers in 42 States plus territories and the District of Columbia, he snagged what was billed as the prize of $122 million. But his actual prize was a smaller sum. After choosing to collect by way of a lump sum payment rather than installments spread over 29 years, he actually copped a prize of $61.2 million, or $40.4 million after taxes.

His decision in favor of collecting a lump sum makes sense in light of the fact, among others, that Mr Kirwan is 68 years old. He has retired from two jobs: 20 years as a South Bronx firefighter and then, after moving to Purling with his wife Catherine and two offspring, 25 years up here at the Stiefel Laboratories skin care products plant.

Joining Mr Kirwan at the award ceremony, at Albany’s Empire Plaza on February 11, was another Powerball winner: Jeff Pintuff of Wilton, in Saratoga County. The nominal $48.8 million jackpot he won at a Christmas day drawing, thanks to a QuickPick ticket bought on December 23 at a Stewarts Shop, yielded payments of $12.4 million to Mr Pintuff and to his wife, Christine, with taxes reducing those sums to $8.2 million each.

(Publicity photos showed the winners holding blow-ups of checks in the amounts of $122 million and $48.8 million, but no checks of those amounts were tendered).

Meanwhile, back at the Clothes Pin Laundry, proprietor Bhasu Patel reports that in the last couple of weeks, sales of lottery tickets have surged.

Not so lucky in the quest for sudden wealth is Coxsackie resident (so to speak) Ronald Williams. Over the past four years, Mr Williams filed Federal tax refund claims totaling $740 million. Instead of reaping a fortune from that paper work, he achieved a grand jury indictment on charges of filing false instruments—around eight of them, including one for the sum of $293 million. As reported in the local press (and picked up by the Associated Press), Mr Williams submitted the claims while residing, in consequence of convictions for possessing stolen property, in Greene Correctional Facility.

The number, the scale, and the effrontery of those claims may indicate an attachment of the prisoner to the “sovereign citizens” or “redemption” movement. “Sovereigns” deem themselves free from Federal and State taxes and regulations. They self-award their own ‘legal’ documents (licenses to drive, hunt, fish, own a car…), file nuisance property liens naming huge figures, occasionally make lethal attacks on law enforcers, and claim to be entitled to huge government-hidden sums that were allocated to their accounts at birth. If Mr Williams is indeed a local “sovereign” he might be one of the fools who have heeded the bloviations of “Dr Sam Kennedy” (a.k.a. Glenn Richard Ungar) of Clifton Park, who does or did have a radio show (Republic Broadcasting) called “Take No Prisoners.” (For more information, check web sites of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League).

And speaking of money, GreeneLand’s recent cases of double-dipping from the public treasury, when compared with what is emerging down in Kingston, look trivial. The head of that city’s detective bureau has been charged with grand larceny, to the tune of $9000, and more charges, involving lots more money and perhaps more police officers, seem to be imminent. Lt. Timothy Matthews is suspected of drawing pay from the city, including overtime, while simultaneously drawing pay from the school district, working as a security guard at special events. As reported in The Daily Mail, the investigation is spreading so as to cover other police officers who have worked as school security guards (at $24.50 per hour), as well as other officers in Lieutenant Matthews’s police division. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents reportedly are sifting files relating to the Ulster Region Gang Enforcement Narcotics Team (URGENT). Lieutenant Matthews reportedly drew pay from the city and the school district from 2007 through 2010 of $707,000 (plus benefits). Before being placed on unpaid leave, he was due to receive in 2011, as a police lieutenant, $118,000 in salary and benefits. Apart from overtime. And outside work.

Oh, and speaking of money, State financial aid to GreeneLand (among other counties) is shrinking just as local demands for county services, prompted by hard times, are growing. Workloads of county employees, including overtime, are up. Obligatory payments to retirees from public sector jobs continue to grow. Given likely revenues, at present tax rates, GreeneLand faces an excess of spending over income of $5 million. To meet anticipated costs, even after strict economies, would require a 7 per cent hike in the local tax levy. But the State’s new governor, Andrew Cuomo, advocates the imposition on county governments of a 2 per cent limit on tax levy increases. Such is the picture presented in his annual status report (Feb. 16) by the chairman of the county legislature, Wayne Speenburgh.

STRIKEOUT. The lawsuit brought against the Catskill Central School District by the high school’s former principal, William Ball IV, has been dismissed. Judge Joseph Teresi of State Supreme Court (which is not judicially supreme) ruled that Mr Ball’s termination by the district’s trustees at the end of the 2009-10 school year did not manifest “bad faith and subterfuge.” Mr Ball had contended, through attorney Richard Mott, that the trustees were punishing him for union-like activities as head of the State principals’ association. Judge Teresi spurned that theory, giving credence instead to the trustees’ economic, budgetary rationale for the termination (which was followed by the appointment of a replacement principal). Little attention was paid to the abrupt suspension last Spring, and to the earlier staff muttering, that preceded Mr Ball’s termination.

TWOFERS. Now available are “Greene Cards” entitling bearers to mid-week two-for-one deals at GreeneLand resorts and attractions. They are free and are valid for Hunter Mountain (zip line as well as ski slopes), Windham Mountain, and—come Spring--nine local golf courses. www.greenetourism.com/greene-card

GENDER SCORE. Latest reports from GreeneLand high schools on Honors achievers show boys almost catching up in two cases out of three. At Catskill HS, the ranks of High Honors-achieving seniors for the second term contained nine boys and ten girls. At Coxsackie-Athens, the score was ten boys, twelve girls. But at Cairo-Durham, where 32 seniors scored High Honors in second term, only nine boys made the cut.

DOG STORY. A sheriff’s raid on a mobile home in Ashland achieved the rescue on February 8 of 20 Golden Retriever puppies that the town animal control officer, Bruce Feml, described as “walking skeletons.”

According to Ron Perez, president of the Columbia-Greene Humane Society, the raid followed a tip from a State police officer who had gone to the mobile home, at 580 Sutton Hollow Road, on an unrelated matter. The animals were taken to the Humane Society shelter in Hudson, given a medical checkup, fed, and made available for adoption. www.cghs.org. (518)828-6044. Offers of adoption have poured in, to the point where no more applications are being taken.

The puppies had been under the care of George Leary and Emmaretta Marks, veteran rock musicians,. Mr Leary told a News 10 reporter that he feeds his dogs “holistically” with emphasis on “natural foods.” Mr Perez said the dogs’ mistreatment seemed to be “not malicious,” only “misguided.”

Ms Marks was a featured player (as one of The Supremes) in the original cast of the Broadway musical “Hair.” She has performed with such luminaries as Jim Hendrix, Ike and Tina Turner, Levon Helm, Paul Butterfield, Melba Moore and The Rolling Stones. She and Mr Leary, a drummer with roots in Albany and Woodstock, have recorded music with Mambo Daddy, Agitated Bovine and other bands. As Marks & Leary & Friends, they produced an album, “Rockin’, Rhythm & Soul,” that, according to the promotional material, delivered an “urban elite sound…of super soul Woodstock dance music” that “leans you to the groove.”

Fictitious News

2011-02-18T12:49:00.000-05:00

        Israel Releases 255 Palestinian Prisoners

       Taliban Threatens to Kill 18 Korean Hostages

       Indonesian Town Begins Preparation for
       Next Tsunami

       Denmark Says It Secretly Flew Iraqi Employees
       Out of Iraq

       Hamas Replaces Gaza Courts

       Italy Says Group Uses Mosque As Terror Camp

       White House and Military Say Iraq Report….

       China Shuts 3 Companies…

Those headlines are false. Although they were presented in the guise of straight news (in The New York Times; 7/21/07), they presented fictions. What is more, they delivered variations on a distinctive, and common, kind of fiction. Cases recur in the texts as well as in headlines of putative news stories, at home and abroad, written and spoken. Witness these opening sentences:

The Town of Catskill has opted not to fill its empty fifth seat, but will continue as a four-man body until the November elections this year.”

Greene County has begun a Hudson River Corridor Study that will bring together local officials and community leaders to plan for the growth and development of its Hudson River corridor ....

HONG KONG — China took steps Wednesday to control rising prices at the most basic consumer level. But Beijing faces a severe challenge in preventing higher global commodity prices from igniting broader inflation that could threaten China’s streak of powerful economic growth.

BEIRUT— Hezbollah and its allies threatened to withdraw from Lebanon’s government on Wednesday, a move that would force it to dissolve and deepen a crisis over a United Nations-backed tribunal investigating the assassination of a former prime minister.

New Delhi: A day after Trinamool Congress said it was prepared to go it alone in the West Bengal assembly elections, ally Congress on Tuesday claimed that Mamata Banerjee's party cannot defeat the Left Front alone.

Wall Street retreated Tuesday after [some companies] issued disappointing reports and the Federal Reserve voiced concern about the slumping economy.

While all of those sentences expressed falsehoods, however, for recipients they were not equally deceiving. Some of them delivered fictions which some recipients could translate into more or less accurate accounts of actual events. Some of them, for some recipients, worked as useful compressions.

Achieving that benefit, from such locutions, depends first of all on recognizing figurative speech. That recognition may come quickly. After all, the cited headlines and sentences allude to events that contravene generally accepted notions of the laws of nature. Each offers putative information about the deeds (words; other willful behavior) of an agent who (!) does not possess a voice box, a brain, or limbs. Each endows some inorganic entity—nation-state, faction, party, department, building, corps (“the military”), direction (“the left”)--with faculties which are peculiar to human beings. Each can be processed, then, as a variant on a singular figure of speech.

Strangely, while that pattern of figurative speech is a common feature of news (and other) discourse, it has not acquired a commonly recognized brand name. Labels such as impersonation, personification, anthropomorphism and reification do come up, but none of them points directly to a rhetorical device. The best label, I suggest, drawing on old lexical usage, is Personation.

Recognizing Personation is but the first step toward decoding. Further progress can be achieved at times by way of familiarity with conventions governing the use of particular variants. Thus, “the White House said…” may be decoded by experienced respondents as the start of an account of what was said by a particular denizen of a particular white house: the American President’s press secretary, acting in his official capacity. That interpretation, based on recurring use, may be validated by a news story’s subsequent sentences, recounting what was said by a person who is identified explicitly as the President’s press secretary. The informant does not bother to stipulate that when he quotes or paraphrases “the White House” he is quoting or paraphrasing the President’s press secretary. But we get the idea, and we can then credit the informant with admirable economy of expression.

So it is too when headlines saying “UNIONS THREATEN…” and “UNIONS TO PRESS…” are followed immediately by sentences saying “Union officials threaten…” and “Leaders of two large New York City unions said Wednesday that they would push…”. A real-world translation of the headlines is implicitly offered.

A seasoned consumer of mainstream news might not feel baffled even by the verbal image of a retreating street named Wall. He might instead draw the inference that yesterday the average price of stocks composing the Dow Jones Industrial Index went down. In like manner he could make sense of reports that the subject street missed the Cisco story, is poised for a tepid start, or is less anxious this week.

Again, reportorial prose averring that “The Senate on Feb. 2 voted 81-17 to remove an unpopular paperwork requirement from the new healthcare reform law”—behold a “Senate’ who (!) votes and simultaneously votes for AND against—may deliver, with admirable brevity, a summary of how 88 Senators voted on a certain measure and of that voting’s legal effect.

By the same token, ostensible accounts of the doings of China, Britain, and Italy can be deciphered as accounts of deeds of agents of the governments of those nation-states. But here, among other places, the decoding of Personation can be perilous. For example, a headline saying 'BELARUS INTENSIFIES EFFORTS AGAINST FORMER CANDIDATE" invites respondents to infer either that a creature named Belarus is methodically abusing an individual (who somehow is and is not Belarusan) or that most Belarusians support the punitive measures that a rigorously disciplined band of governors are talking against a former candidate. Such suggestions deter the inference that some members of an insecure ruling junta are taking desperate measures amid international and domestic disapproval. And yet the text of the report that appeared below the headline (New York Times, 1/12/11) favors the latter inference:

As Belarussian diplomats scrambled on Wednesday to assuage European concerns about the sweeping crackdown on dissent in their country, the authorities in Belarus were stepping up their campaign against the family of a former presidential candidate whose 3-year-old son they have threatened to seize. The security services conducted a search of the home of the former candidate, Andrei Sannikov, as well as the apartment of his wife’s mother…

Also misleading is this version of a local event:

Greene County’s Republican Party secured, again, control of county government’s treasurer and clerk’s posts in Tuesday’s election….

While the GOP retained control of the Greene County government treasurer’s and county clerk’s posts, the tenor of county politics seems to have changed….

Readers may recognize here a metaphorical treatment of “Greene County’s Republican Party” into as a single, sentient, willful being. But they could readily infer from the author’s use of personation that the county treasurer and county clerk, and perhaps the whole county, now are effectively under the control of agents of a unitary Machine. Such things have been known to happen (in Albany, in Jersey City, in Chicago as well as in Soviet Russia). But in this case the inference would be wrong. The treasurer and the county clerk of Greene County are not puppets dancing at the end of strings manipulated by a Boss. Neither are the county legislators, coroners, district attorney, sheriff and judges who are enrolled as Republicans. They are not centrally recruited, subjected to discipline, subject to dismissal if they break lines, dependent on the local Republican treasurer for their livelihoods. But awareness of that situation depends on local knowledge. Personation in this case—GOP retains “control”—falsifies the local political scene.

Cases of that sort do not necessarily trump the utility of Personation as a condensing, economizing aid to learning about actualities. A sound evaluation of that practice, however, must take account of its other [psycho-political] effects.

One is de-personalization. When newsworthy deeds are ascribed to animated police departments rather than to police officers, to senates not senators, to houses (White) and addresses (10 Downing Street) rather than to occupants, to loquacious legislatures not legislators, to China not Chinese, to extremist groups rather than terrorists, to a town instead of to four Town Council members, to “the voters” rather than to voters, to companies and unions rather than to executives or members, then the effect cumulatively is to belittle—to erase and thereby deny--the responsibilities, the event-shaping roles, of people.

Business news is rife with examples. Deeds performed by company executives or directors are identified regularly by professional news-givers with the deeds of sapient, vocal companies: “Starbucks Replaces Chief With Chairman”; “Mozilla Names New Chief, but Reaffirms Open-Source Commitment”; “The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce fired two executives Monday”; “Conde Nast Publications announced a management shake-up on Monday”….

International news is similarly infested. And the world’s most populous country, as it happens, is the foremost recipient among nation-states of journalistic personation. “China Moves to Block Foreign News on Nobel Ceremony.” “China Resisted U.S. Pressure on Rights of Nobel Winner.” “China no longer resists becoming emotional.” “China has waged an extraordinary and unprecedented campaign…to discredit the [Nobel Peace Prize] award and to dissuade other governments from endorsing it.” China “has punished Norway….” China “took steps Wednesday to control rising prices at the most basic consumer level.” China is “trying to build an economy that relies on innovation.” China “intends to engineer a more innovative economy.” China “intends to roughly double its number of patent examiners” and its patent numbers. To that end, “China has introduced an array of incentives.” China is busy. Where are the Chinese?

Related to personation’s de-personalizing effect is intimidation. Personation promotes a brand of metaphysics that not only is goofy, but also is conducive to personal paralysis. Since so much of history is made not by people but by big, extra-human, super-human willful entities, surely it would be presumptuous for us Lilliputians to entertain thoughts about exerting influence. Personation works, cumulatively, against feelings of personal responsibility and personal efficacy.

Blended with personation’s de-personalizing and intimidating effects, in more than a few cases, is political spin. Journalists (as well as pundits and advertisers) use Personation as a tool of special advocacy. Intentionally or not, they use Personation so as to excuse, praise and damn. Witness this piece of reportorial prose:

The union representing 175 school bus drivers and monitors who work for Durham Services has voted to strike, potentially impacting student transportation for the Rhinebeck, Rondout Valley and Spackenkill school districts and Dutchess BOCES.

By imputing the strike vote to the union, the reporter divorces the actual voters, the drivers and monitors, from that action, thereby acquitting them of responsibility for ensuing disruption. That treatment fits a popular mold. In news discourse as well as in punditry, various unions are Personated in an unfavorable light: greedy, selfish, disruptive, overly powerful…. Not so the teachers, firemen, pilots, beauticians, stevedores or factory workers who make up their memberships. In like manner, profit-greedy corporations are demonized in a way that exonerates their leaders and members from responsibility for ‘their’ misdeeds.

On other occasions, personation works to bestow extra force and luster on a chosen project. Thus, by saying “Greene County has begun a Hudson River Corridor Study that will bring together local officials and community leaders…,” a reporter does not just give a metaphorical rendition of a decision by some or all of a county’s elected legislators. He magnifies the decision’s popularity and imbues it with merit, to the point of treating residents who are ignorant, indifferent or opposed as not being of Greene County.

In similar fashion, a headline proclaiming that “A Town Tries to Protect an Artist’s Inspiration” magnifies the scale and the clarity of popular commitment to a cited project, thereby conferring an extra measure of nobility. (In this case, it also contradicts the substance of the story it introduces, which dwells on local divisions over how, and whether, to protect an Edward Hopper viewscape.)

The headline “India Names Its First Female President” invites respondents to envision not only a momentous historic first, but also a first that either was deliberately and heroically taken by an enormous nation-state or was consistent with the sentiments of virtually the whole of that nation-state’s people. Its personation works against the idea that the new female president was the candidate of the parliamentary majority party, whose adherents out-polled the main opposition party’s (male) candidate.

According to the New York Times (12/11/10) the Swedish city of Kristianstad “vowed a decade ago to wean itself from fossil fuels.” Kristianstad “and the surrounding county” now “use no oil, natural gas or coal to heat homes and businesses.” Their “area” has “forsaken” traditional fuels and, instead of resorting to solar panels or wind turbines, “generates energy from a motley assortment” of wastes. After it (she?) “started looking for substitutes” for standard fuels, the area has come to the point of “looking into building satellite biogas plants for outlying areas….” Such pseudo-expository prose amounts to bandwagonizing. Rhetorically it expunges Kristianstaders who did not take the vow. Its personation serves not just to encapsulate, but rather to cheer and advocate. (Incidentally, in ascribing this puffery to The Times, I commit personation; the by-line on the story was that of Elisabeth Rosenthal. But the personation here may serve to call attention to plural responsibility, running from writer to editors to publisher).

Sounding Greene

2011-02-04T08:49:00.109-05:00

Movie-goers who attend “The Social Network” get treated to a sound track emanating from the Swarmatron, which is related to the Alphatron, the Hymnotron, the Melody Gin, and the Automatic Drone machine, as well as to the parental Dewantron. Those electronic instruments are the creations of GreeneLand’s Brian Dewan, along with his cousin Leon, of New Rochelle. The Swarmatron, and the Dewans, received a nice write-up in the January 24^th New Yorker. Characteristic of this analog synthesizer is the expressing of any note in eight different tones. “The sound of eight voices straining toward but not quite achieving a unity of pitch, the dissonance stretching like taffy,” says author Nick Baumgartner, “seems perfectly suited to these attenuated times.” (To learn more, Google “swarmatron” and http://dewanatron )

MISCREANTS

RESIGNED. In the wake of findings that he sought and received, improper travel reimbursements, to the extent of some $2000, a Greene County legislator has resigned.

As reported in The Daily Mail and The Daily Freeman, Sean Frey of Durham said that while his claims for mileage payments were consistent with “usual and customary practices” of the legislators, he chose to spare his family and the citizenry the ordeal of a “lengthy and perhaps costly public process.” He also tendered a check for $2000.

His resignation, as of Monday (1/31/11) followed a State police investigation that District Attorney Terry Wilhelm instigated in response to a suspicion, prompted by the County Treasurer’s office, of “irregularities” in Mr Frey’s reimbursement claims. The investigation, said Mr Wilhelm, yielded evidence that Mr Frey did not take some trips on county-related business for which he made reimbursement claims, and that some trips were made in an expense-paid employer’s car belonging to Ulster-Greene ARC.

The $2000 reimbursement was about equal to what Mr Frey received improperly, Mr Wilhelm said, and no further legal action is contemplated.

          Mr Frey won election to the legislature in 2007, was re-elected in 2009, and had been the Democratic minority contingent’s elected leader. He was succeeded in the latter position last week by the Cairo representative, Harry Lennon.
         A replacement for Mr Frey will be chosen by a vote of the remaining 13 legislators, to serve for the remainder of this year. The post will then be subject to filling in November by popular election.
       JAILED. A Cairo resident has been jailed on suspicion of taking advantage of a comatose friend. Tammy Lacitignola, 34, of 332 Foster Road, faces a cluster of felony and misdemeanor charges, in Columbia as well as in Greene County, all having to do with stealing the identity of the friend (not named in published reports) for whom she ostensibly was caring. She allegedly opened credit card and cellular telephone accounts in the name of that friend, forged her unconscious friend’s signature on checks, and thereby stole more than $10,000 from her friend.
     CHARGED. A Coxsackie Correctional Facility manager has been suspended pending the hearing of charges that he often went to his part-time outside job while pretending to be doing his prison work. According to the report of an investigation by State Inspector General’s staff, Edward Pebler, assistant maintenance supervisor, criminally filed false instruments, claiming to to be on the job at the prison while actually working as the town of Coxsackie’s building code enforcement officer. He had held the latter job since 2001 and, according to town supervisor Alex Betke, did it well. On one occasion, the investigators say, Mr Pebler did code enforcement chores while claiming to put in a full day at the prison (at $69,000 per year, plus benefits) along with five hours of overtime.
     CHARGED. Another Coxsackie Correctional Facility employee was charged in early December with defrauding the State’s taxpayers out of about $34,000. According to reports in the local Press, Kevin Schwebke, 26, started work in 2005 as a correctional officer, injured his ankle on the job in 2009, started collecting workman’s compensation, but continued to do his part-time job as a police officer for the town of Cairo. Following an investigation by the State’s insurance department and its workmen’s compensation board, he was suspended without pay from both jobs.

GENDER SCORECARD.
Are boys catching up? Latest score on High Honors in 12^th grade at Catskill High School shows a gender division of eight boys and 11 girls. That represents a gain on the masculine side, a climb toward equality of academic achievement. And in 11^th grade, the gender division at High Honors level was even: six boys, six girls. (BTW: special congratulations are due to Buliches: High Honors for five kids in four grades).

At Cairo-Durham High School, meanwhile, the beat goes on. Among High Honors students in Grade 12, girls out-numbered boys by a 3-2 margin: 18 to 12. Similarly, at Hunter-Tannersville HS, for the first term of the school year, four of the seven seniors who achieved “Superintendent’s Honor” rating are girls. To be more comprehensive: 18 seniors achieved grade averages of 90 or better, and 11 are girls.

The pattern of male under-achievement is not peculiar to GreeneLand. At Saugerties HS, 69 seniors achieved High Honors in the first quarter; only 26 are boys. And down in Rondout Valley, 25 female 12^th graders achieved High Honors, while only 12 males did so. Again, at Kingston HS 15 boys won Highest Honors among 12^th graders, while girls achieving the same distinction (grade average of 95 or better) numbered 26.

COMMERCE
PARK. Just announced by GreeneLand’s Industrial Development Agency is a “commitment” to develop a new business and residential park on the 100-acre Coxsackie site that once was touted as future home of a Fernlea Flowers nursery. Now contemplated is a mixed-use development, Fountain Flats Park, that would blend commercial operations with “intergenerational affordable housing.” The site on Route 9W at Brook Mill Road would contain “shovel-ready” sites for distribution centers, offices and retail operations, along with sites for 73 residential units of one, two and three bedrooms. Twenty-four would be reserved for seniors (residents over 55 years of age), including frail elderly residents; and others would be affordable for prospective members of the business park’s work force.

MART. According to a Daily Mail report (D T Antrim, 1/29), the Hannaford supermarket chain has announced the purchase of Ellsworth “Unk” Slater’s Great American Plaza in Cairo. The announcement speaks of plans to demolish the present Great American market in favor of a new 35,000 square foot outlet, including a pharmacy. The reporter notes, however, that the listed Hannaford spokesman would not comment on the matter, and neither would Mr Slater. The company’s web site (http://hannaford.com) makes no reference to the project. Anyhow, it does say that the Hannaford chain (born in 1893, in the form of a one-horse produce cart) includes 173 stores and 27,000 employees located in Maine (the origin), Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont as well as New York. Since 1999 it has been a subsidiary of Belgian Delhaise Group, and part of the fifth largest supermarket chain in the United States.

       BANK. GreeneLand’s foremost bank continues to flourish. Net income of Greene County Bancorp, parent of the Bank of Greene County, grew during the final quarter of 2010 by 11.2 per cent, to $1.4 million. That gain was preceded by another buoyant quarter, bringing net income for the latter half of 2010 of $2.676 million. Mainly contributing to these record earnings, said President Donald Gibson in the company’s report, was “net interest income,” or the spread between what borrowers paid the bank relative to what the bank paid—mostly to depositors—in order to acquire the loanable funds.
        Some passages in the company’s report offer cautionary notes. Commercial loans, which are generally classed as riskier than residential loans, increased fractionally as a proportion of all loans. Provision for loan losses increased along with the volume of loans. So did the value of assets that were classed as “non-performing” (with payments being in arrears); the end-of year figure was $6.2 million. Those troubled assets (loans and other valuables) were just 1.16% of total assets, which grew by fully $36.1 million, or 7.3%, in the final half of 2010.
        Deposits at the bank also grew substantially, by $44.2 million. Among sources of that growth were deposits at the new branch in Germantown, in Columbia County.

REVENUES. The bank’s gains can be viewed plausibly as a reflection of general improvement in local economic conditions. And further evidence of that improvement is provided by an increase during 2010 over the 2009 score on county sales tax revenues. Total inflow to county coffers was reported to be $25,282,642, which is about one per cent higher than in 2009 and about $400,000 better than what had been projected for the purpose of budget framing. Neighboring counties also incurred gains in sales tax revenues.

JOBS. Coinciding with those small gains have been small gains in employment. According to the State Department of Labor’s figures, the unemployment rate in Greene County in December 2010 was fractionally better, by a tenth of one per cent, than the December 2009 rate. In the State as a whole, and indeed the nation, fractional improvements have been recorded. Curiously enough, the sector in which job losses have continued most heavily is not construction or manufacturing; it is government. Meanwhile, the expanding (or most substantially recovering) sectors are various services (education, health, professional, business) and leisure and hospitality.

DEPARTURES. Gone from Main Street in Catskill, and sorely missed by friends, is the MOD Cafe. Dana and Mary have moved to Hudson, near the Amtrak station, where they will be serving dinner as well as breakfast and lunch, and thus have renamed their establishment as MOD Restaurant. Also gone from Catskill, from a Daily Mail desk, is reporter Susan Campriello, who took with her, to The Poughkeepsie Journal, a tiny frame and a locally rare talent: literacy.

MERCHANTS. GreeneLand’s chamber of commerce evidently has acquired a heart, a voice box, and self-governance powers. This metaphysical marvel is revealed in a news release saying “The Greene County Chamber of Commerce is pleased [sic] to announce [sic] the appointment [sic] of a new slate of officers for the coming year.” The slate includes a “Chair” (Kathleen McQuaid), first and second “Vice Chairs” (Perry Lasher; Tom Fucito), a Treasurer (Ed Gower) and a Secretary (Karl Heck).

LOCAL POLITICS

This Spring’s village elections in GreeneLand promise to be extraordinarily uneventful. In Catskill, in Coxsackie and in Athens, evidently, there will be no contests. In Catskill, incumbent trustee Joseph Koslowski was re-nominated at the caucus of his fellow Democrats, and then was cross-endorsed at the Republican caucus. In Coxsackie, members of the Republican caucus nominated Mayor Mark Evans for re-election, along with incumbent trustee Stephen Hanse, and they endorsed Paul Sutton as replacement for the retiring Greg Backus. The Democrats found no challengers. In Athens, at the official Democratic caucus, Mayor Andrea Smallwood was endorsed for re-election along with incumbent trustee Robert June, while Anthony Paski was nominated as prospective successor to the retiring Tom Sopris. So far, no Republican or independent candidates have appeared.

In Tannersville, however, some contestation can be expected. The Democrats’ caucus on January 25^th produced a kind of insurrection. A majority of the 15 participants proceeded to NOT renominate the three incumbent Democratic trustees—Mayor Lee McGunigle, Gregory Landers, Anthony Lucido--whose terms are about to expire. Instead, they nominated Jason Dugo for mayor and Jeremiah Dixon and Christopher Hackgetting for trustees. According to The Daily Mail, the blindsided Mr McGunigle resolves to run as an Independent, and hopes to be joined by Mr Landers.

DAILY MAUL

As one of the most vocal members of his party, fellow Democrats have expressed their regret over Frey’s departure.

That sentence is classified by cognoscenti as a case of dangling construction. Its opening phrase is a modifier which can’t find a subject in the main clause on which to land.

GREENE TO BLACK

The governors of Greene County, Pennsylvania, voted to change the name of that political entity, temporarily, to “Black & Gold County.” They were keen to show Super Bowl solidarity with the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are about to clash with the, uh, Green Bay Packers.

Getting the News

2011-01-06T18:51:00.001-05:00

Cops: Man sets fires, kills self

ATHENS -- A 49-year-old Athens man was found dead Thursday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after he set fire to a home he shared with his mother at 330 Valley Road, according to the Greene County Sheriff’s Office.

--Daily Mail (Doron Tyler Antrim), 12/17/10)

Man burns house, kills self

ATHENS -- A man whose mother was about to evict him from the house they shared set fire to the structure early Thursday, fled and then killed himself with a single gunshot to the head, according to the Greene County sheriff.

--Daily Freeman (Ann Gibbons), 12/17/10

Those two versions of opening treatments of the same local event, published in two local newspapers, offer instructive contrasts, and similarities, in news discourse. Among their noteworthy features:

LAGGED ATTRIBUTION

Both of those openings (known in the trade as ledes) exemplify a form of sentence that is peculiar to news media prose. As compared with everyday speech, the sentence is akin to putting the cart before the horse. Its quintessential form can be represented as

Stuffffffffffffffff happened, Bloggs said.

That sequence of parts reverses what commonly occurs when the same information is delivered in everyday form, namely, as “Bloggs said that X happened.” The journalistic reversal of common narrative speech imparts rhetorical effects. Among them:

First, respondents are misled, momentarily, about the nature of the event that is being reported. The event, in our two cases, is not a death, a suicide, an act of arson, or a combination of the foregoing. The event is a speech act. The reporter is claiming to transmit what a source has said about what apparently happened--a death, a fire, and related events--in Athens NY. The news report is words about words (about deeds). The reporter does not pretend otherwise. But by means of Lagged Attribution--putting the content of the descriptive verbiage before naming the source--the reporter blurs the difference.

Second, the Lagged Attribution device loads the content of reported verbiage with credibility. Indeed, the attributional note appears to be parenthetical. Respondents are given not only a version of what a source has described, but also a nudge in the direction of crediting the purported description with accuracy.

If the reporter had said “According to a sheriff’s deputy, a man whose mother was about to evict him from the house they shared set fire to the structure early Thursday…,” respondents would expect more information about the deputy—who he is, where and why he spoke, what else he said—before focusing on details of his putative report.

WRONG-HEADEDNESS

Reinforcing the deception that is encouraged by Lagged Attribution, on many occasions, in many news organs, is a headline that expresses directly (though in the present tense) what is recounted in the lede—except for the attributional note. In other words, the headline conceals the fact that the ensuing story is a report of a report.

That concealment is exemplified in our second headline, in contrast to the first. The first headline announces (“COPS:…”) that the event covered in the ensuing report is, most immediately, a police report. The second headline declares that a man has burned a house and killed himself. It falsifies what actually is provided in the story. (The published Daily Mail headline, quoted above, was preceded by an on-site attribution-less headline: “NEW: Athens man dead after blaze at home”).

Attribution-suppressing headlines infest print journalism. Rare indeed is the headline that explicitly signals a speech act report (“COPS: FRANKIE SHOT JOHNNY”; “FRANKIE SHOT JOHNNY—COPS”; “FRANKIE CONFESSES”). And yet the overwhelming majority of news stories consist of accounts (more or less accurate) of accounts (more or less accurate) of events.

SOURCERY

Our two cited headlines differ, then, with regard to the kind of event they announce. They introduce opening sentences that are alike in form (Lagged Attribution) and are similar in the substance of their main clauses. Those ledes differ, however, in how they identify the maker of the reported speech act. In the second passage, the speaker is identified as the sheriff of Greene County. In the first passage, the speaker is identified—well, depicted?--as the Greene County

sheriff’s office.

The latter version of who spoke provides a minor (as in minimally deceiving) example of a practice that in mainstream news verbiage is pervasive. Thus, readers of one issue of TheDaily Mail were invited, under the heading “Greene Police Blotter” (12/17/10) to take note of six police actions, each consisting of a charge lodged against a named individual by “state police” or by “the Catskill Police Department.”

Those quaint versions of real-world events, with all their metaphysical implications, are not peculiar to provincial, low-budget news organs. Neither are their chosen subjects, their choices of vocalizing agents, confined to offices or departments. Through all channels of news, day and night, recipients are invited to take note of what the White House, China, the Senate, or General Motors (as well as General McChrystal) said yesterday. Recipients of mainstream news are invited to apprehend, so to speak, that “Greene County is currently developing a Housing Action Plan that will quantify and assess the county’s current housing market,” that “Wall Street retreated Tuesday after…disappointing [company] reports,” that “the Federal Reserve voiced concern about the slumping economy,” that “Denmark Says It Secretly Flew Iraqi Employees Out of Iraq” while “Italy Says Group Uses Mosque As Terror Camp.”

Such declarations are manifestly counter-factual. They may be construed as metaphorical treatments of actual events. On some occasions, for some recipients, they operate so as to serve as informative condensations. That would be the best of their many rhetorical functions.

[SOURCES. The foregoing exercise in rhetorical analysis of news discourse draws upon work in the pragmatics branch of linguistics. Interested readers can dip into that subject by Googling the terms invited inference, implicature and relevance theory as well as rhetorical analysis]

Scraped Greene

2010-12-02T16:39:00.000-05:00

UPCOMING in Catskill this Saturday (12/4): a public Garden Club event (wreaths, decorations, gifts…) at Beattie-Powers Place (from 9am) and (from noon) a downtown “Day in December” with sleigh rides, Santa, cookies & brownies, doughnuts & cocoa, vendors, music. face-painting, “The Grinch” on screen, dramatic reading, bicycle giveaways, stilt walker, dancers…. See www.welcometocatskill.com. During those festivities, Main Street shops and galleries will be open and welcoming. Among them will be the Arts Council’s two galleries, crammed this year with original creations that are priced in the $25-$100 range, including many pieces by artists whose works commonly fetch much bigger dollars. Also, in the evening (5-8pm), one could venture eastward in pursuit of pleasure at Hudson’s attractive Winter Walk.

SOLD? GreeneLand’s once-“foremost” (as in most capacious) resort may have acquired new owners. On November 17^th, on its second trip to the auction block, so to speak, the Friar Tuck (according to a Daily Mail 11/20 report) attracted a $2.58 million bid, which mortgage holder Ulster Savings Bank—already stuck with a million-dollar loss, plus daily holding costs--accepted. But the deal’s survival hinges on delivery to the bank, by this Monday (12/6), of a substantial down payment. Identity of the bidder has been withheld; rumors suggest a real estate investment company or a religious (property tax-avoiding) institution. The 39-year-old Tuck--170 acres, 372 rooms, plentiful exhibition space, heaps of debts and damning Trip Advisor reviews—was ‘sold’ at auction last year for $4.5 million, but the ostensible Oklahoma buyer did not actually have money.

SELLING, also at auction, tomorrow, from 11:30am: an unusually big assortment of abandoned household and related goods—22 lots--at Catskill Self Storage in Leeds (Route 23 & Cauterskill Road). Piano, boxes, furniture, TV’s, AC’s, boxes, grandfather clock, appliances, boxes, “fishing polls,” bikes, computers, boxes…. Each lot is a full locker.

TESTED on money management, and found wanting: Catskill Central School District administration. In the judgment of auditors from the State Comptroller’s office, administrators persistently flouted portions of their own purchasing policies. The violations pertained to purchases where competitive bidding was not required but comparisons of at least three price quotations were required. In 19 out of 30 purchases of that kind, for items costing up to $4000, suitable quotes were not obtained. Furthermore, CCSD managers neglected to “implement effective information technology controls” so as to shield the district’s computer systems from loss, destruction or theft of sensitive financial data. (Go to http://osc.state.ny.us, find the audit report dated November 15, then click “Summary.” For perspective, read the Summaries for audits of other named school districts and municipal governments. Each one dwells on administrative lapses). To these criticisms, the district’s superintendent, Dr Kathleen Farrell, replies (Daily Freeman, 11/21; Daily Mail, 11/23) that one of the alleged faults has been rectified, the other is fictitious, and in other important matters reviewed by the auditors—financial oversight, cash receipts & disbursements, payroll, personnel services—the district passed inspection.

Meanwhile, the District is being tested in another way. William Ball IV, former Catskill High School principal, is suing for reinstatement. In a submission to State Supreme Court in Greene County, as reported in the Daily Freeman (Ariel Zangla-Girard; 1/23/10), Mr Ball is “arguing that the abolishment [sic] of his tenure area was done in bad faith and as a pretext for his termination.” Mr Ball was promoted to the principal’s seat in June 2006, was given tenured status six months later, and was pushed out, in effect, last May. Instead of dismissing him outright, after formal disciplinary proceedings, the District’s trustees suspended him during May-June and they abolished his tenured Principal On Special Assignment position (along with other positions, pedagogical and non-pedagogical). According to his lawyer, A. Andre Dalbec of the New York School Administrators Association (http://saanys.org) the trustees were bent on retaliating against Mr Ball’s extra-curricular activities as chair during 2009-10 of the local Administrators Association (qua union). That line of argument belittles other incentives, such as complaints from the trenches plus a memorable tantrum.

CONSOLIDATION! Trustees of the village of Athens have taken a small step in the direction of consolidating municipal services. By a 3-2 vote (with Mayor Andrea Smallwood breaking the tie between Herman Reinhold and Gail Lasher, voting for, and Robert June and Tom Sopris, opposed), they ordered the dissolution (next Spring) of the Village court. Village-related cases will be heard thereafter by the Town’s two justices, with receipts from fines being passed along to the Village. The decision (as depicted by reporter Melanie Lekocevic, Daily Mail, 11/25) hinged on finding that Village cases are so few and minor that the revenue gained from fines does not match the costs (mostly clerical salary and benefits) of operation. So: what other operations, in GreeneLand municipalities, are ripe for Village-Town consolidation?

14 million = number of dollars awarded recently by jurors to the plaintiff in a Fort Lauderdale medical malpractice case, thanks in no small measure to the guidance of part-time GreeneLander Richard Bassin. After retiring from his New York surgical practice, Dr Bassin turned to advising lawyers on prospective malpractice suits and, in seemingly meritorious cases, helping to recruit suitable expert witnesses. The Florida case, he told Seeing Greene, “involved puncture of one of the carotid arteries by an interventional radiologist during insertion of a stent.” That blunder “resulted in cerebral hemorrhage and permanent brain damage.” The jurors’ award surpassed the GreeneLand record for malpractice verdicts that Dr Bassin helped to set some ten years ago, when a local builder, represented by lawyer Ted Hilscher, brought suit against an eminent mid-Hudson surgeon. On that occasion, Dr Bassin himself testified as expert witness. The damage award was $1.5 million.

JOBS PICTURE. In October, according to State Department of Labor statistics, the unemployment rate in Greene County was 7.7 per cent. That figure is higher than for Ulster, Columbia and Dutchess counties (7.4%, 6.8%, 7.3%), is a bit higher than for the previous month (7.5%) and slightly lower than in October of last year (7.9%). That fractional improvement was common to most parts of the country.

GASOLINE PRICES have soared lately, to an average of $2.86 for a gallon of the regular stuff in the nation as a whole (as of 11/29/10). That represents an increase over the same time last year (at $2.68 per regular gallon). The East Coast average was $2.89, but New York State’s average was scored by the Feds at $3.14. And in GreeneLand, as usual, the pump price was higher than in neighboring counties. Thus, a motorist who traveled northward the other day noticed that the pump price at Sunoco in Saugerties was 15 cents lower than the pump price in Catskill (near the thruway toll booth). And yet, on at least one recent day (11/20) the pump price for regular on the eastern approach to the Rip Van Winkle Bridge was higher, by a nickel, than the price on the western, GreenLand, approach.

PRICE CHECK. GreeneLand Jack Dixon broke his pocket comb last Monday. Bought a replacement at WalMart in the form of a two-pack for $1. Later noticed that the same deal was available at Walgreen, while the shelf price at Price Chopper for an equivalent two-pack was $2. BUT in a bin at the end of the aisle there, packets of 20 combs (short, long, male, female…) were offered for one buck. Go figure.

YIPPEE ZIPPEE. GreeneLand now is home to North America’s biggest zipline. That’s the claim, at any rate, that is voiced by Bradd [sic] Morse of NY Zipline Adventures, which is the company that opened two zipline courses last spring at Hunter Mountain, and is about to open the third, the longest, the hairiest: SkyRider, which will enable riders to, uh, zip downward from platform to platform for as long as 3000 feet, over terrain that is as much as 600 feet below. www.ziplinenewyork.com

Greene Goes Red

2010-11-19T09:55:00.001-05:00

To the shellacking inflicted on Democratic candidates for office around the country on November 2, GreeneLand voters contributed generously.They helped in no small measure to replace, in the multi-county 20^th Congressional District, a freshman Democratic U.S. Representative, Scott Murphy, with a Republican, Christopher Gibson, who had just retired from the U.S. Army.(Mr Gibson received 8772 GreeneLand votes, to Mr Murphy’s 5773).In addition, a northern sub-set of GreeneLand voters, residing in a slice of the 108^th State Assembly District, helped to replace a one-term, independent but pro-Democratic incumbent, Timothy Gordon, with Republican nominee Steve McLaughlin. Substantial majorities of GreeneLand voters, moreover, supported two Republican candidates for State-wide office—Dan Donovan for Attorney General, Harry Wilson for Comptroller--who were unsuccessful elsewhere.Substantial majorities also put the Republican candidates for county judge and for county treasurer, Charles Tailleur and Peter Markou, in office.On the other hand, majorities of GreeneLand voters supported, by narrow margins, the Democratic candidates for Governor and for the two U.S. Senate seats.

Those results attest to strong Republican leanings on the part of GreeneLand voters.Those and other results also attest to limits, among pro-Democratic as well as pro-Republican voters, on blind partisanship.

On the eve of the recent balloting, GreeneLand’s voter registration rolls contained 28,914 names.Among the people bearing those names, 12,197 declared a Republican affiliation, 7007 aligned with the Democratic Party, 6912 declined to affirm a party affiliation, and 2898 claimed adherence to the Independence, the Conservative, or another one of 32 political brands.

Out of this population, actual voting on November 2 was done by 14,662 registrants, and absentee ballots were filed by 1077. (The vote tallies cited here do not include absentees).

Listed on the ballot papers that were given to those voters were candidates for 11 Federal, State and County offices, along with, in various municipalities, candidates for some local offices, such as town councilman, town supervisor, town justice, superintendent of highways, and/or collector of taxes (plus, in Hunter, a substantive resolution).

In three of the eleven non-local cases—State Senator, State Assemblyman for the 127^th District, County Coroners—only one candidate’s name was offered for election.Consequently, State Senator James Seward was returned to office without a contest, as were Assemblyman Peter Lopez and County Coroners Hassan Basagic III and John Gulino.

In the eight contested GreeneLand-wide elections, vote totals for winning candidates ranged from 7111 (for Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate) to 8736 (for Mr Tailleur, Republican nominee for county judge).Losers in GreeneLand in those contested elections received as few as 4963 votes (Thomas DiNapoli, the incumbent comptroller and a Democrat), or as many as 6867 (for Carl Paladino, the Republican gubernatorial candidate).

As between the Republican candidates in the various contested elections, electoral support figures ranged from 6619 (for Joseph DioGuardi, against Democratic U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand) up to 8772 (for Mr Gibson, against Mr Murphy).Those figures serve to indicate that some Republican partisans supported some Democratic candidates.Other figures provide further evidence.Although Republican registrations far out-number Democratic registrations, and although several Republican candidates won their contests by lop-sided margins, three Republican candidates were out-polled here by their Democratic rivals.Thus, Mr Paladino’s 6867 votes for Governor fell short of Mr Cuomo’s total of 7111; Republican nominee Jay Townsend’s 6810 votes for U.S. Senator trailed Democratic incumbent Charles Schumer’s 7229; and, in the other U.S. Senate contest, Republican challenger DioGuardi’s 6619 votes left him well behind the incumbent Democrat, Senator Gillibrand, who garnered 7512 GreeneLander votes.Those results depended on Republican cross-overs.

(Still, a lot of GreeneLand Republicans evidently could not bring themselves to desert their party’s bellicose, bungling gubernatorial nominee.While being swamped in the State-wide vote, where he picked up only 34 per cent of the votes, Mr Paladino in GreeneLand achieved a 46 per cent share).

Pro-Democratic voters in GreeneLand also showed a taste for selectivity.That disposition was evidenced most clearly in the contest for State Comptroller.While the Democratic candidates for governor and for two U.S. Senate seats won majorities in GreeneLand (slender ones), the Democratic candidate for Comptroller, Mr DiNapoli, received an electoral drubbing.Although he was victorious when all New York ballots were tallied, Mr DiNapoli picked up only 4961 votes in GreeneLand, while his Republican foe, Mr Wilson, received 8508 (or about 64 per cent).Mr Wilson evidently attracted support from local Democrats (and non-aligned voters) as well as from regular Republicans.

OTHER NEWS

> Bonus. Directors of Greene County Bancorp Inc., governing parent of the Bank of Greene County, bestowed upon stockholders a special dividend, of 20 cents per share, on top of the regular quarterly dividend, of 17.5 cents a share. Their announcement may well have triggered the recent jump in the market price of GCBC shares, ahead of the November 12 ownership deadline. By way of explaining the bonus, the directors cited “strong earnings performance over the last several quarters” plus the coming increase in Federal tax rate on dividends. Consequently, a dividend paid by the end of this year is worth more than the same amount paid in 2011.

> Scam. A Louise Balderas, 50, of Catskill, may have been charged by State police with fraud, grand larceny, and filing false instruments. According to a Daily Freeman report (11/16), investigators say that, by concealing some income, she evidently collected $2309 fraudulently from the Department of Social Services. According to a Daily Mail report (11/17), however, the alleged chiseler is Louis Balderas, 50, of Westkill. And according to the GreeneLand District Attorney’s office, the suspect is Louise Balderas, who dwells in Westkill.

>Foreclosure. A house property at 1 Cottontail Lane, Catskill, formerly owned by former Village Trustee Evan Ulsht and his wife Christine, passed into the hands of Citimortgage Inc. on Monday (11/15) by way of auction in the basement of the county courthouse.

>Hot Prospect. Local biomass resources--wood chips and pellets, grasses and shrubs—could supply 45 per cent of the energy that presently comes from fuel oil and electricity in GreeneLand, says Dan Conable of Cato Analytics (per Daily Mail, 11/2). And utilizing those resources would generate jobs, which would fuel local spending.

>Other Greenes. According to The Paragould Daily Press, needy adults in Greene County, Arkansas, can now avail themselves of the services of a new branch of The Literacy League…. The chief deputy sheriff of Greene County, Georgia, according to The Caboose Chronicle, was shot and killed by a felon who then killed himself…. The legislators of Greene County, Tennessee, have asked the State government to abolish the elective office of road commissioner…. Market Metrics LLC, a consulting firm, foresees growth in the supply of owner-occupied homes, within five years, of 1800 units, in Greene County, Ohio…. The Internal Revenue Service, according to a News-Leader report, owes $101,152 to 79 residents of Greene County, Missouri…. Andrea Alltop has resigned from the office of Environmental Specialist of Greene County, Indiana. She had occupied the post since 2007 by way of appointment from the county’s Health Officer, her father….

>Piety. A bakery called LOAF is about to open in Hudson (at Third & Warren Streets, where LICK dispenses ice cream during warm months). On Saturday, tastings of fresh-baked pie will be dispensed to visitors. That event, as correspondent Ellen Thurston points out, is the shop’s soft opening.

Come November III. The Congressional Race

2010-10-29T08:31:00.007-04:00

Judging from the Siena Research Institute's latest sample survey results, the tide of opinion on the contest to elect a member of the United States House of Representatives for the 20^th District of New York State—including GreeneLand--has turned in favor of the challenger. As of late October, Christopher Gibson, the Republican (and Conservative) nominee, apparently led in popularity among likely voters over the incumbent, Scott Murphy, the Democratic (and Independence, and Working Families) nominee. That marks a reversal of earlier survey findings. It also portends, in my judgment, a result that would be unfortunate. Here, mostly in the form of knocks on Gibson, is my rationale:

SITE-SEEING. For modern voters, plentiful information about contestants for elective office is readily available. Through the News link on Google, voter can review reports of what has lately been said by and about the candidates. Also richly illuminating, though biased, are the candidates’ campaign web sites. Readers of Seeing Greene are directed accordingly to http://scottmurphyforcongress.com and http://chrisgibsonforcongress.com. There they will find biographical notes that do credit to both candidates. They will find lists and texts of endorsements. They will find “Issues” sections that illuminate differences in policy stands. They also will find a big contrast in the depth, the substance, of the candidates' attention to current issues. By that standard, Mr Gibson wins the prize for shallowness.

ENDORSEMENTS. Congressman Murphy’s bid for re-election has attracted support from the editorial boards of the 20^th District’s pre-eminent newspapers, The TimesUnion of Albany and The Poughkeepsie Journal, as well as from The New York Times. Also endorsing Mr Murphy’s re-election are these papers: Bennington Banner, Glens Falls Post-Star, Oneonta Daily Star, Columbia Paper, Daily Freeman, Millbrook Independent and Lake George Mirror News. Mr Gibson is endorsed by The New York Post, The Register-Star and its sister The Daily Mail, The Adirondack Daily Enterprise, The Saratogian and The Troy Record. [This section was inserted on November 1]

BAD THINKING. At an early stage of his congressional campaign (see Daily Mail, 5/28/10), Mr Gibson reverently invoked two sentences that were made famous by Pres. Ronald Reagan: “Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem.” A moment’s reflection suffices to expose the vapidity of those words:There is no problem that is The problem. There is no solution that is The solution. Various problems arise in communities. Various proposals aimed at solutions are voiced. Some of them involve positive governmental (regulatory, law-making, resource-allocating) activity; some call for removing government regulations. To think of “government” as an It that can be The solution or The problem is worse than naïve.

BAD CONDUCT. In the Poughkeepsie Journal of September 26, Chris Gibson was quoted directly as saying “I would not have voted for” a bill, the Small Business Jobs Act, that had come before the House of Representatives and had been supported by Congressman Murphy. (The reporter, Brian Tumulty, did not say where, when, or in what form Mr Gibson made that statement). On October 13, during a videotaped joint interchange of Gibson and Murphy with the Journal’s editorial board (Poughkeepsie Journal Ed Board, 10/13/10), Mr Gibson said “I would not have voted against this bill.” Mr Murphy voiced surprise at the latter statement, and his campaign promptly put out a news release calling attention to the apparent flip-flop. Mr Gibson then responded by ascribing the first statement to a staff error; his spokesman has misunderstood his position, and thus had put the wrong words in his mouth.

Errors of that sort do occur. What speaks ill of Mr Gibson, however—speaks ill of his character—is the fact that he did not promptly correct the alleged error. He did not put out a clarifying statement. Even at the October 13 session (17 days later), he did not acknowledge the discrepancy and offer an explanation.

(At the Journal encounter, following Mr Murphy’s remark about his apparent change of position on the Small Business bill, Mr Gibson falsely accused Mr Murphy of flip-flopping on “the” comprehensive health care bill. No bill that came before the House of Representatives was “the” health care bill. As Mr Murphy pointed out, he voted against one health care bill, and voted in favor of a different, revised health care bill. The false flip-flop charge later was trumpeted by the Gibson camp in attack advertising).

BAD COMPANY? Colonel Gibson’s career has encompassed not only tours of duty in combat zones but also, to an extraordinary extent, ‘civilian’ occupations. While serving in the Army, this professional soldier officer undertook post-graduate study at Cornell University, earning Masters and Doctoral degrees in political science. He also worked in Washington DC as a Congressional Fellow and in Palo Alto, CA, as a visiting scholar at the Hoover Institution that is housed on the Stanford University campus. These assignments can be regarded as exceptionally broadening experiences for a professional soldier and prospective Congressman. They also can be viewed as red flags. Thus:

*As a Congressional Fellow, Mr Gibson worked in the office of Rep. Jerry Lewis, the Los Angeles-based Republican who chaired the powerful Defense Appropriations Sub-Committee of the powerful Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives. Mr Lewis has been scored, by the non-partisan Committee for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), year after year, as one of the “most corrupt” members of the Congress. (www.citizensforethics.org/projects/reports)

*As a Hoover Institution resident, Mr Gibson drew inspiration and guidance from the West Coast outpost of pseudo-intellectual “neo-conservatism.” Hoover Fellows relate to the idea of impartial objective scholarship as the Fox network relates to impartial objective news.

BAD MEDICINE. The Murphy and Gibson campaigns present, as one would expect, contrasting themes and prescriptions. Mr Murphy harps on jobs—on the current scarcity of jobs, on measures that can stimulate job creation. For Mr Murphy that emphasis is doubly appealing: it taps into a strong current of popular feeling, and it heightens the electoral appeal of a successful business enterpriser over a just-retired professional soldier. The Gibson campaign too dwells on the urgency of economic revival. Thus, an August fund-raising appeal alluded to “Chris' vision for less taxes, lower spending and more freedoms that will allow private sector job creation.” At a Catskill rally in August (Daily Mail, 8/24) he touted the importance of “targeted tax and regulatory relief.” Supporters hail Mr Gibson as the candidate who will fight to “cut government spending and create jobs” (http://freedomproject.org, inviting the happy inference that the former will deliver the latter. And at the outset of the “Issues” section of his campaign web site, Mr Gibson declares that

The single biggest issue in this campaign is the economy and the most significant difference between me and my opponent is how we facilitate private sector growth…. [This growth] is achieved by getting government out of the way.

What an easy, happy, painless cure. Reduce tax rates, strip away government regulations, and happy days are here again.

Unfortunately, Mr Gibson neglects to back that prescription with testimony from reputable economists. He does not (on the hustings or on his web site) name the more onerous, suffocating regulations. He does not draw upon experience. Thus, he does not suggest that the Crash of 1929, and the ensuing Great Depression, was preceded, much less caused, by a rash of tax increases or regulations. He does not challenge the widely held view that our present economic plight was triggered mainly by the sub-prime mortgage mess—foreclosures, bankruptcies, construction freezes, job losses—whose occurrence was preceded and was indispensably expedited, for banks and investment houses, by deregulation.

Come November II

2010-10-28T07:11:00.000-04:00

COUNTY JUDGE

GreeneLanders who vote on November 2 will be faced with a choice between two would-be successors to a long-serving and much-esteemed County (and Surrogate, and Family Court) Judge, Daniel Lalor. Each of the contestants has made a point, on several public occasions, of voicing warm praise for the other.

Standing for election on the Republican line (plus the Conservative and Independence lines) is Charles (“Chip”) Tailleur, who is the county’s Chief Assistant District Attorney. Mr Tailleur, 43, started practicing law in 1993, in the Coxsackie office of his sister Joan Tailleur. He then took up an appointment to the District Attorney’s office, and he has been Chief Assistant under successive district attorneys (Ed Cloke, Terry Wilhelm) for 14 years. He gained the Republican judicial nomination back in May after a close contest with two other candidates: Ted Hilscher (lawyer, former prosecutor, historian) and Peter Margolius (veteran, lawyer, Town Justice). Both of the out-polled candidates congratulated Mr Tailleur and praised his aptitude for the job.

The Democratic (and Working Families) nominee is David Woodin, 55, who for the past 28 years has been law clerk for GreeneLand county judges (Fromer, Battisti, Pulver and then Lalor). The “clerk” title does not convey the nature of the appointee’s duties. A judge’s clerk must be a lawyer. He or she is called upon to investigate points of law that pertain to impending cases and to assist in composing the texts of decisions. In addition to performing that work, Mr Woodin has taken as turn as president of the local bar association and has contributed substantially to State-wide projects aimed at guiding judges on sentencing and on instructions to jurors.

Both candidates can be regarded plausibly as ‘natural’ successors. Before Judge Lalor ascended to the bench, he was GreeneLand’s district attorney. The current district attorney, Mr Wilhelm, decided not to run for the Lalor seat, thereby clearing the path for his deputy. On the other side, Mr Woodin’s career has consisted of operating as a judge’s chief assistant.

Mr Tailleur’s main pitch for preferment is the fact that he has the greater experience “in the trenches,” preparing and presenting cases before judges and jurors. Mr Woodin cites his years behind the bench as “ideal preparation” for judicial service. He also suggests that Mr Tailleur’s endowments of talent plus “youth and vitality” make him eminently suitable for judicial office at a later date.

THE SIDESHOW

Some GreeneLanders have encountered recently, at traffic intersections, a man brandishing a sign urging “Vote No on Tailleur” and alluding to “Corruption.” The agitator is Robert Meringolo of Greenville, who distributes unsigned literature dwelling on matters about which he has been agitating since 2006. (For a refresher, see The Daily Mail of 4/27/06, The TimesUnion of 7/30/06, and Seeing Greene blogs of 8/23/06, 3/2/07 and 10/5/07). The Meringolo agitation is wholly independent activity. It is categorically disavowed by Mr Woodin, who told Seeing Greene“I have nothing to do with it; I wish he’d stop.”

COUNTY TREASURER

GreeneLand’s rival candidates for County Treasurer have waged contrasting campaigns. Peter Markou, 70, the Republican nominee, dwells on the extensive, relevant professional training that he has acquired in the course of a long working life. That training (apart from military service in Vietnam) includes a full career as professor of accounting and finance at North Adams State College, followed by stints as director of economic development for Greene County and for the City of Hudson, and then by election in 2007 as Catskill Town Supervisor. Upon being installed as Treasurer, Mr Markou says, his first move would be to strengthen the county’s defenses against cyberfraud. He also would instigate “financial condition analysis,” putting the county’s budget in the context of local incomes, poverty levels, welfare client numbers and real estate sales and prices.

Alan Pavese, 44, the Democratic nominee, has built his campaign upon expressions of alarm about the fiscal state of GreeneLand. In talks, in press releases, on his campaign web site (http://alanpavese.com) and in a full-page advertisement, Mr Pavese warns of a looming budget deficit (of $5-10 million), emphasizes the evaporation in recent years of reserve funds, and foresees a prospective drop in the county’s credit rating and with it an increase in its borrowing costs. Although GreeneLand’s property taxes are “way too high”--12^th highest in the State, measured in relation to average incomes of residents--the revenue has not sufficed to match outlays. “We have gotten into a big financial hole” and need “new and different ways to help us get out.”

Such strictures have aroused resentment on the part of some county legislators as well as the recently retired Treasurer. In the words of county administrator Dan Frank, (Daily Mail letter of 9/30/10), the Pavese “political rhetoric” is “a slap in the face” of current county leaders. While contending that “our county desperately needs to get spending under control,” Mr Pavese neglects to give due credit for economies that were effectuated in 2009-10, to the extent of nearly $5 million in “reduced spending.” The current leaders “have substantially improved the way our county government works.”

Coupled with that rejoinder is the contention that Mr Pavese is hammering at matters over which the Treasurer exercises no control, thereby diverting attention from his meager training for the actual work. The prime qualification for Treasurer is usually regarded as accountancy. To that work, Mr Markou brings abundant experience, as did Mr Vermilyea. Mr Pavese’s vocational history, prior to his arrival in Greenville as a full-time resident in 2004, includes an electrical engineering degree and work for General Electric, followed by a Masters degree in business administration from Columbia University and eight years of work for Wall Street firms (Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse First Boston) as an equities analyst.

Mr Pavese acknowledges that the County Treasurer does not take part directly in setting tax rates, borrowing money on behalf of the county, or deciding how public funds shall be spent (except for his role as a member of the board of the Industrial Development Agency). At the same time he pledges to combine the Treasurer’s regular duties with the role of “financial traffic cop” or “watchdog” who would “make sure that taxpayers are informed about the legislature’s choices and whether they are fiscally sound.”

Mr Frank also accused Mr Pavese of being complicit with Governor David Paterson in the matter of the dispute (reviewed below) over the interim Treasurer appointment and the hold-up of funds. To that direct attack Mr Pavese responded with a full-page “Open Letter to Greene County” (Daily Mail, 10/23), categorically denying Mr Frank’s charge and accusing “incumbent county leaders” of using the governor-legislature quarrel “to promote their political goals in the Treasurer’s race.” Those leaders “appear ready to do whatever it takes to retain non-transparent use of taxpayers’ money…and to distract voters from their poor track record in managing our county’s finances.” Those leaders “approved budget deficits” over the past 7 years of $2.5 million,” drained the county’s “Rainy Day Savings Fund” in the course of five years, “exploded our county’s debt” by $10 million in the past three years, and “are committed to even further increases in our taxes next year, by as much as 25-50%.”

THE SIDESHOW

Entangled with the contest for Treasurer is a dispute between New York State’s governor, David Paterson (or his immediate staff) and GreeneLand’s legislature (or the Republican majority of thereof). The dispute concerns authority to choose an interim county treasurer, in the event that the office falls vacant before the incumbent reaches the end of his official term. That dispute almost broke out last November when the sitting Treasurer, Willis Vermilyea, announced his intention to retire at the end of 2009 rather than at the conclusion of his current term (at the end of 2010). But then Mr Vermilyea, alerted to the possibility that Governor Paterson (a Democrat) would try to fill the interim post by his appointment (of a Democrat, on the advice of the GreeneLand Democratic committee), pre-empting local appointment by the (Republican-dominated) county legislature, decided to remain in office.

On July 13 of this year, however, Mr Vermilyea re-announced his retirement, to take effect on July 31. Eight county legislators responded promptly by invoking what they construed as local-government authority to appoint an interim Treasurer. Over objections by three Democratic members to this version of legal propriety, they appointed Tom Tracey, administrative services director in the Treasurer’s office. Governor Paterson also objected. Maintaining that relevant State law puts responsibility for filling interim vacancies in county Treasurer offices (among others) in his hands, he proceeded to pick his own appointee:Alan Pavese.

The dispute over legitimacy did not produce immediately visible consequences. Mr Pavese did not force the issue by trying to occupy the Treasurer’s office; he stayed away. Staff members in the Treasurer’s office continued to do their jobs. But on October 19, an officer of the county’s Department of Social Services called the Governor’s office to ask why a routine claim for pass-through Federal money to cover June payments, a matter of $546,000, had not arrived. According to a Daily Mail report, the answer consisted of saying that the reimbursement was being withheld because of the legislators’ usurpation. That reported response triggered protests, from Democratic as well as Republican county legislators. The governor, they complained, was improperly, illegally, callously withholding money from needy DSS clients. Also triggered were threats of legal action, and communications from the county attorney, Carol Stevens, to the Governor’s legal counsel, Peter Kiernan.

The next stage of the dispute consisted of a disavowal. The governor’s communications director, Jessica Bassett, denied that the pass-through funds were being “withheld.” Instead, the delay was necessitated by an ongoing “review” aimed at determining whether the claim for reimbursement of funds expended in June by the GreeneLand DSS was signed properly, by Mr Vermilyea, or improperly, by an impostor. That message was followed a day later—October 21--by word from Mr Kiernan that the claim for June funds, dated July 26, had indeed been signed by Mr Vermilyea, just prior to his formal retirement. Mr Kiernan said it was necessary “to ensure that the duly elected Treasurer made that certification.”“Inasmuch as such claim was certified by the duly elected Treasurer of Greene County, such claim will be processed and paid.” But “a legal issue involving an important government principle is still alive,” he added, and it precludes payment of subsequent claims signed by Mr Tracey as putative interim treasurer. According to a press release from the county legislature, the unpaid July-through-August claims on behalf of the Social Services Department amount to $3.7 million.

No reference was made by Mr Kiernan to the disparity between the sum claimed for June outlays by the DSS($546.000) and the sum promised was offered.

Neither was an attempt made to explain why it took 81 days to identify a signature at the bottom of a piece of paper.

One more development came out of the dispute: the Governor promised to appoint as Greene County Treasurer, whoever wins the November 2 election. The chairman of the county legislature, Wayne Speenburgh, indicated that his colleagues will perform the same act of appointment. Those deeds (one of them? both?) mean that there will be a new County treasurer starting in early November, recognized as the legitimate signer of claims for reimbursement in advance of the start, in early January, of his elective four-year term.

Come November

2010-10-22T17:00:00.002-04:00

In the early days of 2010, it seemed likely that for New Yorkers generally, and for Greenelanders particularly, the elections to be held on November 2 would be unusually interesting. Although there would be no contest for President of the United States, there would be incumbent-less battles for Governor and Attorney General. There would be contests for not one but two United States Senate seats. The State Comptroller, freshly in office by way of appointment in the wake of a scandal affecting his predecessor, might be an unusually vulnerable incumbent. In various parts of the State, newly-elected Democratic members of the Congress looked vulnerable. And in GreeneLand, special interest could be aroused by the fact that important offices--County Treasurer and County Judge--would be subject to election without the presence of an incumbent.

Subsequent events changed the situation. Incentives to participation dwindled. Nominating struggles on the Republican side produced candidates for Governor, for Attorney General, and for U.S. Senator who are extraordinarily weak, to the point of being repugnant. It now seems likely that voting in New York State on November 2 (and before, by absentee ballot) will be extraordinarily light, even for an non-presidential ‘off’ year. Especially disposed to abstain from voting in many districts will be Republicans who, as political moderates, recoil from “conservatives” travelling under the “tea party” banner.

In GreeneLand, moreover, voter turnout on November 2 may be kept down by a dearth of contests, as well as by the character of the active contests. State Senator James Seward and State Assemblyman Pete Lopez are unopposed for re-election. Assemblyman Tim Gordon, who represents the northernmost corner of Greeneland along with other counties or portions thereof, does have a challenger (Steve McLaughlin, Republican/Conservative) but is heavily favored. As for those incumbent-less county offices, local nominating processes yielded a different kind of deterrent to participation: rival candidates who are well credentialed, making the choice between them seem to be less than momentous.

The prospect of low turnout in New York (and of consequent survival in marginal districts for imperiled Democratic Congressmen), marks a contrast with prospects elsewhere in the country. In the 50 States, 26 governorships are held by Democrats and 24 by Republicans. In 37 States, gubernatorial elections will take place on November 2. In 19 of those States, the seat is held by a Democrat. Fierce contests in most of those cases make it likely that Republicans will add at least six governorships to their total. Meanwhile, in the United States Senate, Democrats and their allies currently hold 59 of the 100 seats; 36 seats are subject to election on November 2; and pundits foresee pro-Republican swings in five seats or more. Moreover, in the House of Representatives, the current Democratic majority (258 seats vs. 177) will shrink, in the wake of lively contests in many districts, perhaps to the point of eradication.

GOVERNOR

A mid-October sample survey by Siena Research Institute canvassers indicates that the Democratic (and Independence and Working Families) candidate, Andrew Cuomo, leads his Republican (and Conservative and Taxpayers) rival, Carl Paladino, by 37 points. Mr Cuomo also may manage to edge nominees of the Green, the Rent Is Too Damn High, the Libertarian, the Freedom, and the Anti-Prohibition (especially with regard to prostitution) parties.

ATTORNEY GENERAL

According to putative pundit Alan Chartock (newspaper column, 10/17/20), the race between State Senator Eric Schneiderman (Democrat/Independence/Working Families; “professed liberal”) and Dan Donovan (Republican/Conservative; district attorney of Staten Island), along with two minor party candidates, is “as close as can be”; it’s “a dead heat.”

Baloney. The latest Siena poll gives Schneiderman a comfortable lead: 44 to 37.

Undecided voters can learn plenty about the two candidates from their web sites, www.ericschneiderman.com and www.dandonovan.org. They will find in the former site a 59-page reform “agenda.” No equivalent is contained in the latter site (although its “Issues” section alludes to some measures as well as to goals).

A New York Times editorial recommending the election of Mr Schneiderman calls Mr Donovan "a decent man who seems ready to restore the job to the sleepy backwater it was a dozen years ago."

Three local informants who do political work in Albany (and are Democrats) tell Seeing Greene that Senator Schneiderman is exceptionally smart, knowledgeable, conscientious, and (at some cost in the way of cordial relations with colleagues) reform-minded.

COMPTROLLER

Thomas DiNapoli, the incumbent (by gubernatorial appointment in the wake of scandal that drove Alan Hevesi from office) leads the Republican challenger, Harry Wilson, by a margin (again, according to the Siena survey) of around 49 to 32.

That apparent margin points to an outcome that can be regarded plausibly, and in a non-partisan frame of mind, as regrettable.

The editorial board of The New York Times, while generally favoring candidates who belong to the Democratic Party, has endorsed Mr Wilson. So, in a novel show of consensus, have the editorial boards of The New York Daily News and The New York Post. In the words of the Times editorial (10/17), Mr DiNapoli Hevesi, formerly a State legislator, “started with little experience or knowledge of finance” and “has been a worthy caretaker.” But Mr Wilson “knows finance and is not beholden to the Democrats in control in Albany.” He went from Harvard Business School to Goldman Sachs, the Blackstone Group and Silver Point Capital, and then “helped to turn around General Motors last year.” “It is rare for someone of Mr. Wilson’s talents and expertise to compete for one of the most important and least glamorous jobs in state politics.” Mr. Wilson “promises to strengthen ethics rules, make better audits of state agencies and drastically reduce the $350 million a year in investment fees paid for the state’s pension fund.” His “investment and management skills” are “needed for New York’s financial and ethical blight.”

SENIOR U.S. SENATOR

Quick quiz: who is running against Charles Schumer for U.S. Senator?

Well, actually, formally, there are three challengers. They include Colia Clark (Green Party) and Randy Credico (Libertarian Party; Anti-Prohibition Party) as well as Jay Townsend, who is the Republican and Conservative nominee. Mr Townsend trails the incumbent by around 30 percentage points.

This huge margin has enabled Senator Schumer to divert millions of dollars in his campaign treasury to embattled colleagues in other States. That in turn will increase his leverage in the upper chamber.

JUNIOR U.S. SENATOR

Quick quiz again: Who is running against Kirsten Gillibrand for U.S. Senator?

Actually, there are several candidates: Cecile A. Lawrence (Green Party), Joseph Huff (Rent is Too Damn High), John Clifton (Libertarian), Vivia Morgan (Anti-Prohibition) and Bruce Blakeman (Tax Revolt Party), plus Joseph DioGuardi, former U.S. Representative (from Westchester County), who is sailing under the Conservative and Republicans flags (listed in that order on his web site, http://dioguardiforussenate.com) . According to various opinion surveys, Senator Gillibrand (http://kirstengillibrand.com) leads the pack by 11 percentage points or more.

That apparently comfortable lead could be regarded as surprising, given the fact that while Senator Gillibrand is the incumbent, she has not been on the senatorial ballot before. She holds her seat in consequence of a gubernatorial appointment entitling her to complete the term for which Hillary Clinton was elected before accepting appointment in 2009 as Secretary of State. Her appointment, moreover, evoked heartburnings from some Democrats (especially down-staters of the “progressive” stripe; plus Professor Chartock). In the matter of keeping contact with constituents—making appearances, communicating, listening, up and down and around the State—Senator Gillibrand has been a model of diligence. According to a lengthy profile in the November issue of Vogue magazine (“In Hillary’s Footsteps”; http://vogue.com) in addition to being slender now, she is “folksy and earnest”; and she “radiates kindness.”

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE

COUNTY JUDGE

COUNTY TREASURER

CATSKILL TOWN JUSTICE

To be continued.

Greene Delights

2010-10-15T17:40:00.001-04:00

THE TRIUMPH. When 351 supporters of GreeneLand’s Thomas Cole National Historic site quaffed “independence cocktails” at a fund-raising feast at a Catskill estate back on the 4^th of July, they celebrated, in effect, two forms of independence. They celebrated (with fireworks custom-tailored by Rick Pilatch) their country’s declaration, 344 years ago, of independence from the English Crown. They also celebrated an imminent local event: transformation of the Cole site’s governing board from a committee of the Greene County Historical Society into an independent entity.

The latter independence was not a product of rebellion. It was the culmination of developments that had been foreseen ten years ago by County Historian Raymond Beecher, who had led early phases of the campaign—the risky, expensive campaign--to rescue GreeneLand’s most important cultural landmark from ruin and oblivion; to fund and supervise the restoration; to get the home of the first distinctly American school of art designated by Federal law as a National Historic Site under management by the Historical Society; to get the place furnished and ready for visitors; to build a collection, a membership, a staff of volunteers, a program; to achieve, through ticket sales, memento sales, memberships, grants, bequests and donations, a state of solvency.

In legal terms, the first step toward separation involved the acquisition, by way of a copiously documented application, of a charter from the Board of Regents of the State Department of Education. Then came the laborious composition of a Memorandum of Understanding, whereby the Cole House would no longer receive a subsidy from the Historical Society, and the Society would transfer, to the chartered Cole House board, titles to several non-profit properties.

The accomplishment of those steps, with all the work that made them possible, was hailed by Joseph Warren, chairman of the board of the Historical Society, as one of the great “success stories” of 2009-10. “With the acquisition of Cedar Grove and the guidance and sustenance provided by the Society over the years, it is with pride that we can look upon our offspring as an asset to Greene County. This triumph is a tribute to the Society’s selfless dedication to the principles of preserving our heritage for future generations.”

EXTRA GREEN. The Bank of Greene County’s parent company, Greene County Bancorp, reports continued growth. Although the local economy is sluggish, with substantial unemployment, a slow real estate market and poor retail sales, the county’s foremost local bank has posted, for the last fiscal year (July 1, 2009-June 30, 2010) and over the latest quarter, gains in net income and in assets. The reported net income, of $4.9 million, represents a percentage gain over the previous year of 19.5. Company assets grew by $34.8 million (up 7.6%) to $495.3 million. Funds on deposit with the bank rose to $421.7 million (as compared with $399million by the end of June 2009 and with $268million back in 2006). What with the opening of a branch in Germantown, more growth is anticipated.

The bank’s president, Donald Gibson, said the year’s results “more than met our expectations.” He also mentioned in the annual report that the bank has done no sub-prime lending and has, upon due deliberation based partly on awareness of the “perilous national economy,” passed up opportunities to “acquire other banks and other bank branches.” (Don’t be astonished, though, if a branch in Ulster County—Saugerties; Kingston…) eventuates in 2011.

Among surprises in the report is the fact that the bank’s growth in assets, in transactions and in branches has not been accompanied by growth in staff. The reported number of full-time equivalent employees, as of mid-2010, was 114, down by three from mid-2009.

MEOWING. The auction of the 59 decorated fiberglass felines that ornamented the sidewalks of downtown Catskill this summer took place on September 26th and fetched more than $60,000, according to a Daily Mail report (9/29). The auction at Catskill Point and attracted more than 400 bidders and spectators. Successful bids ranged from $185 to $6000. The take fell short of last year’s total, even though the cat supply was a bit more abundant, but it may suffice to sustain the interest of prospective designers of cat figures. The 2010 designers received 30 per cent of the bid money. The rest goes to the Heart of Catskill Association (=Catskill Chamber of Commerce, the organizers) and to local non-profit good causes. www.cat-n-around.com

MOUNTAIN DREAMING. A developer from Delhi, Scott Clark, proposes to transform the old gravel mine that is off Route 23A, plus the site that once housed Camp Mayfair, just east of Hunter Village, into a resort. According to a Daily Mail report (Jim Planck; 8/17) Mr Clark envisions a 120-unit hotel, 50 townhouses, 11 single-family home lots, 42 triplexes in 14 buildings, a spa, a pool, a fitness center, and an equestrian facility. It’s all very preliminary. And it marks a contrast with ambitious proposals for resort developments (with golf courses) in Greenville and in Coxsackie; they seem to have been placed on hold.

BEAMING Our new community radio station WGXC will soon be on he air, at 90.7 on the FM dial. From the Acra headquarters and two more studios. The event will be preceded immediately by a weekend “barn raising”—technical training and celebratory events. Abundant local material (audio recordings, videotapes, reports) already is accessible on the station’s web site, www.wgxc.org

SCREENING. “Lost in the Crowd” is the title of a minute documentary made by part-time GreeneLander Susi Graf. It’s all about trans-gendered young people who are homeless in New York City. It took seven years to make and, at the International LBGT Film Festival in San Francisco recently, attracted warm critical praise (“…magical evening; “dispelled ridiculously antiquated thought forms” says Charlie Demos). To see a trailer of the doc, Google ‘Lost in the Crowd’ or ‘Susi Graf’.

SHOWING. In four shows, in three countries (Dominican Republic, Turkey, U.S.A.), creations by GreeneLand artist Vahap Avsar Funk are on display. And in Manhattan, four Chekhov plays are being blended by thespian Casey Biggs into one theatrical event to be performed by New School actors.

PADDLING. Launched in conjunction with the Great Hudson River Paddle this summer (from Corning Park in Albany, 7/29) was a new book published by GreeneLand’s Black Mountain Press (=Deborah Allen): A Kayaker’s Guide to New York’s Capital Region, by Russell Dunn. Like the two guides for Adirondack region hikers that Mr Dunn wrote with wife Barbara Delaney, this volume blends practical guidance—where to go, how to go on the Hudson and Mohawk rivers--with history. www.blackdomepress.com

WORKING and not. While the employment picture in GreeneLand still is bad, the trend is favorable, and the rate of improvement lately has been better, evidently, than in many other counties. The latest figures issued by the State’s Department of Labor apply to the month of August. The rate of unemployment (portion of “labor force” members who do not have jobs) for GreeneLand in August was 7.5 per cent. That figure is higher than for neighboring Albany and Columbia counties (6.7%; 6.8%), slightly lower than for Ulster County (7.6%), and substantially lower than for the whole country (9.5%) and for the State (8.2%). GreeneLand’s August unemployment rate was substantially better (as in lower) than in July (7.9%) and much better than in the final months of 2009 (8.3-8.6%).

SCROUNGING. Local efforts to keep the county’s Arts Council alive, amid the evaporation of accustomed government support, made some progress last weekend. On short notice, on a balmy afternoon at Beattie-Powers Place, more than 100 supporters turned ou, along with entertainers and staff members, for a happy fund-raiser that yielded, says Council manager Kay Stamer, yielded “a little over $3,000. That will buy us a few more weeks when we need it. And, we’ll need it.” The State Comptroller’s Office has stalled on approving State arts council contracts for the release of authorized funds. “We could be waiting until…December for our contracts of over $120,000. Meanwhile, we're under contract to deliver services.... It's one hell of a way for the State to stay liquid!"

WASTING. In keeping with some law or other, banks take out newspaper advertisements giving “Notice of names of persons appearing as owners of certain unclaimed funds” held by them. First Niagara Bank’s latest GreeneLand list included 12 names. Among the names were Greg Lubow, the well known attorney, and Raymond Pacifico of Cairo. Along with people named Nemeth, Knudsen, McCorry, Kubler, Deluccy and Coleman, these people are “entitled to abandoned property in amounts of fifty dollars or more.” Some are listed in the telephone book. Why not call them?

BANNING. Greene County’s legislators have imposed a ban on the sale and possession of a substance, known in some quarters as “Spice,” that is reputed to be a synthetic imitator, in terms of effect, of marijuana. That’s in Greene County, Indiana. Meanwhile, this ‘Spice’ has been added to the list of substances whose consumption is prohibited on Catskill school grounds. It is construed as an “herbal smoking and incense mixture” (also known as Silver, Genie, Smoke Skung, K2, K3…). The school board also banned “synthetic cannabinoids or cannabidiol analogs, such as daamiana” AND “power drinks” (or “high energy” drinks), heavily caffeinated, such as Red Bull, Monster and (it’s a brand name!) Cocaine. (Daily Mail, 10/14/10).

Greene Girls

2010-10-07T10:36:00.000-04:00

-------“Remember the Ladies,” the exhibition of paintings assembled at the Thomas Cole House in Catskill (showing until October 31; http://thomascole.org) proved to be the start of something big. Thanks to that exhibition, says Smithsonian magazine writer Judith Dobrzynski (7/21), some painters of “America’s great landscapes” are “finally getting their due.” Although they made “awe-inspiring contributions to America’s first distinctive school of art, with its “romantic sensibility, respect for balance, luminosity and love of picturesque scenery,” those artists were “unknown and forgotten to history.” They were ignored because they were women. The people who undertook to rescue those women from oblivion, the people who conceived the idea and performed the tasks of finding and borrowing and hanging the all-but-lost landscapes, the people who assembled the full-color catalogue with illuminating essays, the people run our Thomas Cole National Historic Site, started what amounts to “rewriting a chapter of American art history.”

-------They also instigated a whole season in GreeneLand of gallery shows devoted to female artists.

-------In terms of sheer volume, the foremost of those tributes took place at the BRIK gallery in Catskill (www.brikgallery.com ). Under the title “Cowgirls 3,” and with the summer's most festive opening party, entrepreneur Frank Cuthbert exhibited works by 83 (!) living artists whose common trait is, well, femaleness.

-------Directly responding to “Remember the Ladies” came “Artistic Women Past and Present: Looking Forward from the Hudson River School Tradition,” at the Catskill Mountain Foundation’s gallery in Hunter. It combined works of living female artists (Nancy Campbell, Patti Ferrara, Edith Marcik, Kate McGloughlin, Lauren Sansarecq, Kaete Brittin Shaw, Sue Story, Edith Wetzel) with works by pioneering predecessors who helped to make art a legitimate profession for women.

-------At the Astor House in Tannersville, similarly, “Today’s Ladies” was the title of the Hudson River Artists’ Guild collection of landscape by mountaintop-based female plein air painters.

-------In Catskill, the county Arts Council’s main gallery was occupied by a “Nature/Nurture” show composed of works by 11 local women (Jane Bloodgood Abrams, Mariella Bisson, Sasha Chermayeff, Linda Cross, Tasha Depp, Patti Ferrara, Claudia McNulty, Susan Togut, Christy Rupp, Olivia Stonner) who treat nature as subject, as source material, as object of scientific inquiry and/or as manifestations of the sublime. And at the same time, the upstairs gallery was festooned with what Naomi Teppich calls “Ancient Morphons”: ceramic sculptures and mixed-media draws that evoke early geological history, with special attention to the fossilized forms and textures of primordial sea creatures.

-----And down the street from the Council’s gallery, Edith Marcik of The Galleria led an assemblage of works by women who exemplify ”Contemporary Artists Inspired by the Hudson River School.”

-------Also contributing to GreeneLand’s season of female-flavored recollection was an illustrated talk given on a September Sunday, at Beattie-Powers Place in Catskill. Historian Sylvia Hassenkopf recalled the careers of Edith Howland, sculptor, and K.C. Budd, architect of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Ms Budd designed (or redesigned) the Howland family’s majestic GreeneLand home, Catwalk (originally a cottage occupied by artist Charles Herbert Moore, now an art-nurturing estate owned by Purcell and Jim Palmer.
-----Moreover, at a gallery in St Louis, a summer exhibition of multimedia encaustic art featured the work of yet another GreeneLand artist of the female persuasion: Fawn Potash.

RECOGNIZED in quite another way recently was another GreeneLand woman: Stacey Fitzgerald, former bookkeeper (for 21 years) of the former Birch Hill Enterprises in Freehold. She achieved the distinction of being convicted in Greene County court of grand larceny. By forging checks and tapping the personal account of her boss, Ben Buel she plundered the firm. Under a plea bargain (as reported in the Daily Mail, 9/24) she admitted embezzling $62,000 during the firm’s final three years.

RECOGNIZED too in GreeneLand this summer were women of another sort. At the Maetreum of Cybele, Magna Mater, in Palenville, worldwide home of the Cybeline Revival, convent home of the Priestesses of Cybele (www.gallae.com), August 28th was celebrated as Pagan Pride Day. Portions of the “Goddess Remembered” film trilogy were shown, and presentations were made by a Corelian Priestess from the Paranormal Society of Albany, by a Senior Druid of the Closed Grove and by the Arch Druid of the East Coast.

-------(That observance coincided with a special evening at GreeneLand’s clothing-optional nudist camp, when some guests donned garments to the extent that was suitable for participation in a lingerie fashion show. www.juniperwoods.com )

-------(GreeneLand’s Goddess-worshipping pagans, catering especially to trans-gendered adherents, differ markedly from other professed Cybelians. Another branch of the “Cybelian movement,” ostensibly with chapters in 82 countries, advocates female-dominated male-female relationships and aims “to bring about a world-wide gynocracy.” Such is the testimony of the anonymous keeper of the web site www.cybelians.com who also is the principal author of successive titles marked by way of Kinkebooks ).

Chock Full o’ Greene

2010-06-26T13:41:00.000-04:00

EXPLOSIVE NEWS. Although it now looks unlikely that fireworks will soar and burst over Catskill on July 4^th, there will be fireworks over downtown Catskill on July 3^rd. Plus festivities. Rockets will be launched from the creek-side near Cone-e-Island, the ice cream dispensary, which will be home base too for vendors, rides, games and an Elvis tribute. Sponsoring the show are Mountain T Shirts, Sawyer Chevrolet, the Wine Cellar, the Creekside Restaurant and the Fortnightly Club, as well as Cone-e-Island.

------This may soften the blow of the Village Board’s decision to forego the traditional Independence Day fireworks. That decision, made in the midst of strains over costs and locations, was sustained by the Board even though private parties offered to foot the bill to the extent of $8000—provided that the traditional hilltop Friary launch site was used. BUT there WILL be a fireworks show in Catskill on July 4^th. BUT it will be a smaller and less visible than usual.

POSTPONED to July 2 (next Friday) from June 25: opening performance at Catskill Point of the famous Noel Coward comedy “Blithe Spirit.” The shift was ascribed by director Joseph Capone to illness. The sick performer(s) was/were not identified.

RELEASED from the peril of a grand larceny prosecution, on payment of $22,000 to a client: a GreeneLand building contractor. He acknowledged engaging in the Dummy Receipt dodge: getting vendors to put down fake amounts of charges for supplies—the listed retail rather than the builder’s discount—and presenting these to the customer for ‘repayment.’ He also engaged in submitting phony figures on hours worked. Having paid up, we hear, he’s doing the same to another client.

CLOSING: The Buick/GMC automobile dealership in Catskill. According to a Daily Mail report (6/19; Susan Campriello), customers have been notified that the long-established agency next door to Price Chopper, will be merged into the Romeo Chevrolet dealership in Kingston. That would leave the seat of Greene County, the main population center, with just two new car dealerships: Sawyer Chevrolet, and Lacy Ford/Lincoln/Subaru. A general announcement has not been issued yet. The closing will hurt GreeneLanders to the extent of loss of sales tax receipts (of 8%) on repair and service work that no longer will be done in the dealership’s workshop. As for tax revenue from sales of vehicles, payments go to the home county of the buyer.

BRANCHING OUT to another Columbia County location, according to a company announcement covered in the Albany-based Business Review (6/24): The Bank of Greene County. This branch, the company’s 12^th, would be in Germantown, on Route 7G, in a former Bank of America building.

Also announced by the bank’s news office is a supplemental retirement plan for three top executives: Donald Gibson, the president; Michelle Plummer, executive vice-president and chief financial officer; and Steve Nelson, senior vice-president and chief lending officer (and long-drive ace). The plan calls for supplementing present pension entitlements. It also provides that the executives can defer receipt of salaries (up to 50 per cent) and benefits, with the money going instead into accounts that pay at least 5 per cent annual interest. Similarly, instead of collecting their annual bonuses, the executives can assign those sums to interest-bearing accounts. Some of the new benefits are contingent on staying employed at the bank for ten years from July 1. The arrangement evidently has a lot to do with income tax brackets.

FEATURED in a “House Tour” story in The New York Times (6/25): the vintage (1810) five-fireplace house in Athens (“active art scene” that has been restored, with period details retained, by Carrie Feder and Randall Evans. “Historic homes that do not need work typically cost around $550,000,” says the Times writer. For this one, in a riverside village boasting an “active art scene,” the asking price is $259,000. Or was. A sales contract has been signed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/realestate/25tour.html?scp=1&sq=bethany%20lyttle&st=cse

GENDER NEWS. Among the valedictorians in graduating classes at GreeneLand’s six high schools this year, four are girls. Among the salutatorians, again, four are girls.

IN PROSPECT for GreeneLand next summer, in the wake of the recently performed “O’Sullivan Stew” musical, locally created and performed: a Performing Arts camp, in Catskill High School quarters, with GreeneLander Casey Biggs and other New School faculty teaching dance, writing, and voice as well as drama.

NOMINATED by Gov. David Paterson to serve as a member of the Empire State Plaza Art Commission: GreeneLand artist (and collector, and dealer) Kico Govantes. Once the appointment is confirmed by the State Senate, Mr Govantes would become one of 25 commissioners who look after the State’s valuable collection of paintings, sculptures and tapestries—most of them dating from the 1960’s and 1970’s—and who also attempt to add to the works by way of gift or loan. Plaza Art commissioners serve without pay but are eligible for expense reimbursements.

HONORED with Tech Valley High School’s first Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Award, a four-year, $15,000 annual scholarship: Kyle White of Palenville, fledgling physicist, who has just finished his junior year with Tech High’s inaugural class. Receipt of the award is contingent on attending R.P.I. (Daily Mail, 6/15/10).

HAILED by Ernst & Young, at a Marriott Marquis crowning ceremony last Tuesday week, with the title of retailing Entrepreneur of the Year in metropolitan New York: Lexy Funk, president of Brooklyn Industries (street wear; accessories) and (with husband and two sons) a part-time Athenian. District winners of Entrepreneur titles become eligible for national and then international crowns.

POT SWEEP. THE recent musical Mountain Jam in Hunter yielded more than a rich harvest of bluegrass. It also yielded an abundant supply of arrests for possessing another kind of grass. On opening day (6/4), State police nabbed 19 persons. On Saturday, the harvest was a bit smaller. Arrestees hailed from Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont as well as from many New York State communities. Most of them were given tickets returnable to Hunter Town Court. But jail time was immediately meted out to suspects from Wingdale, Carmel, Buskirk, Burlington, Albany, Buffalo and Catskill residents.

PROSE SWEEP. In addition to generating a burst of drug busts, the Mountain Jam inspired an effusion of dopey prose. Readers of GreeneLand’s foremost daily newspaper were invited to contemplate festival “amenities” that “lay dormant” on Friday and then “launched” on Saturday, to appreciate that “the harmonies of Dr. Dog were absconded,” to behold a musician “igniting the fiddle strings,” and even to contemplate a “massive” “musical menagerie” that “is expected to do nothing less than set the mountain on fire.”

Figuring Greene

2010-06-09T08:44:00.000-04:00

FISHY FIGURES 603=number of contestants in the six-week River Basin Sports Striper Contest, run by Tom Gentalen, that ended at noon last Sunday (5/30). 47=inches length of the Hudsonian striped bass caught by contestant Eric Borchert. 6030=dollars won by Mr Borchert for landing the longest striper. 46.75=inches length of striper caught by second-placer Rob Shilkaunas. 3980=dollars of difference a quarter-inch, in this case, makes.

FOODIE FIGURES 1883=date that Stewart House opened as restaurant and lodge in Athens. And that number inspired new manager Reggie Young's decision on the price of three-course prix fixe dinners: $18.83. And soon there may be a bottled wine that also sells for $18.83. Meanwhile, the garden bar may be open for business by Saturday (June 12).

FUELISH FIGURES. Gasoline prices have dropped a bit lately, even in GreeneLand. As usual, however, local prices exceed those of neighboring counties as well as more distant locales. On Tuesday (6/8) a gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.78 (Citgo, Hess, Cumberland Farms) or more in GreeneLand, while the low figure in Albany and in Hudson was $2.61, and the low Saugerties figure was $2.69. Gasoline in GreeneLand costs more than the nation-wide average, the East Coast average, and the New England average.

JOB FIGURES. The situation, in the country and generally in New York State, evidently has improved. According to statistics distributed by the State’s Department of Labor, the ranks of employed persons have increased, and in most places the ranks of unemployed persons have dwindled (a relationship that does not always hold). But in GreeneLand, as usual, the job situation is worse than other nearby counties. Percentages of unemployed persons in relation to total membership of the “work force,” in April of this year as compared with the previous month and with the same month last year:

	4/10	3/10	4/09
USA	9.9	9.7	8.9
New York State	8.4	7.7	8.0
Upstate NYS	7.5	7.6	7.6
Dutchess County	7.2	7.7	6.8
Ulster	7.2	7.9	7.0
Albany	6.2	6.5	6.2
Rensselaer	7.0	7.9	7.0
Columbia	6.9	7.8	6.9
GREENE	8.1	8.6	8.5

CHURCH FIGURES 2,500,000=probable dollar cost of restoring Catskill’s St Patrick’s Church, as estimated by a consulting architect who has been retained by Bishop Howard Hubbard of the Albany diocese. Sean Reilly, the consultant, delivered the estimate, together with a plan sketching prospective phases of work and their costs, to a gathering of congregants Thursday (6/3). Some congregants deplored the idea of putting infrastructure and exterior repairs ahead of fixing the roof and the ceiling so that the church can be reoccupied. St Pat’s, 151 years old, has been closed since 2008 after big chunks of plaster fell from the arched ceiling. Masses are held by Fr Rick Shaw in the basement of the Father Murphy Parish Center (former bingo hall) next door. But the congregants are scattered. Some attend services at The Friary. Others go to other towns. As for how the restoration can be funded, that remains to be seen. The diocese (138 churches in 14 counties) is not flush with cash.

TOUR FIGURES 300=number of buyers of tickets for the Greene County Historical Society’s tour of historic homes (and other places) in the Windham area on Saturday. 6925=dollars gained by the Historical Society from sales of tour tickets plus advertisements and book sales (the illuminating Historic Places of Greene County). That counts as a good result, even though it falls short of attendance and sales at the Mountain Jam in Hudson on the same day, by a few thousand.

ACHIEVER FIGURES Among Greenville High School’s top ten graduates this year, in contrast to GreeneLand’s other high schools, girls do NOT out-number boys. The gender division is exactly even. Girls ranked second, third, fourth, fifth and ninth. And the top-most distinction, the honor of valedictorian, went to a boy: the superbly schooled, Yale-bound Jonah Coe-Scharff. In illustration of the more normal thing, 25 Catskill High School students were inducted last week into the National Honor Society; 10 are boys.

PROPERTY FIGURE 296,000 = dollar value of lien against property (defaultfully owned by Eric Borfitz) at 75 Riverside Avenue in Coxsackie, to be sold at auction tomorrow (Thursday) in the lobby of the county building at 10am.

SATURDAY in GreeneLand could be spent touring the cat figures that ornament the sidewalks of downtown Catskill, and the bear figures that are scattered about greater Cairo, and/or the 50+ "Rip Lives" figures in and around Windham. Additionally or alternatively, the day could be spent touring Cairo’s community-wide yard sale, or Catskill’s ditto; checking out Greenville Library’s book sale, the Rotary Club craft fair in front of the library, or the farmers’ market at the nearby Cultural Center; attending the garden fair and plant sale at the Mountain Top Arboretum; learning about Woodstock-based artist George Ault (1891-1948) from Alexander Nemerov (professor of art history, Yale U.) at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, from 4pm (http://thomascole.org); or going Joycean at the Athens Cultural Center (“Bloomsday” readings, followed by a “Pride of Place” exhibition); or taking an inaugural ferry ride from Riverfront Park in Athens to Henry Hudson Riverfront Park in Hudson, starting at 3pm, continuing through the Flag Day fireworks (945-1357); or catching the splendid Booglerizers (ragtime, blues, bluegrass) at Ruby's Hotel in Freehold (audible on www.booglerizers.com); or perhaps learning how “deep inner stillness can elevate the clarity and truth” of one’s writing. The latter is offered in (www.peace-village.org) at GreeneLand’s Brahma Kumaris Learning & Retreat Center.

SUNDAY’s treats could include the ‘Summer Songbird Celebration Walk’ led by Rich Guthrieand other naturalists at Coxsackie Creek Grassland Preserve from 1:30pm.

SCOOP! Four Catskill High School seniors will not be collecting diplomas (personally, on stage) at their graduation ceremony, after they roared through the halls this afternoon on motor bikes. And six other seniors face lesser penalties for invading the halls on push bikes. Some of the perpetrating pranksters are top-ranking students. One is the son of a District trustee. Some are daughters of Middle School monitors. Bikers Matt, Nate, Brian and Graham teamed with bicyclists Katie, Medina, Brianna, Jen, Miranda, and Kelly.

------Back in 2000, six seniors were barred from receiving diplomas by hand, on stage, after committing a prank. They watched the ceremony, clad in caps and gowns, from the auditorium's front row. Some of their classmates, in a show of sympathy, pinned white dove figures to their gowns.