Loose Ends

SECRET LAWSUIT FOLLOW-UP. Tuesday’s blog about the Dushane v. School Board case prompted lively responses. Read them by going back to that installment and clicking Comment spot at the bottom. Unfortunately, you’ll encounter some ostensible responses that in fact are advertisements from cyber-polluting scum who are not readers at all.In addition: *The school trustees did not break their silence at Wednesday night’s meeting (10/26). *The settlement, we hear from a good source, calls for paying Mr Dushane the sum of $35,000. How will it be paid, without public explanation? *In settling, we hear, the Board went against advice of counsel. *Mr Dushane did return our call—Tuesday evening, after That blog was posted (but not after having read it). He declined to comment for publication on his feelings about the settlement.

IMMINENT. Today (10/28): Night of 100 Pumpkins. Downtown Catskill celebration. Pumpkins available for carving (especially by Halloween-costumed kids) at Hose Co. 5 on Main Street from 5:30 pm., followed by parade down Main Street, with creativity applied to modes of non-motorized transport of carved creations…. Sponsored by Begnal Motors and HOCA. *Saturday (10/29). Race for Rayann. Fund-raising foot races ($15 entry fee) of 19 kilometers and of 5 kilometers, from Creekside Farm, 1235 High Falls Road, Catskill, through Cauterskill Creek-side roads, up to a country dirt road and back. Information, from Michael & Sandra Smith: 678-5875. *Saturday. Halloween party and art show opening at Athens Cultural Center, from 7 pm. *Saturday. Wolf Fly Festival. Strings trio concert by Among Friends, from 7:30 pm. at Greenville Cultural Arts Center, sponsored by All Arts Matter. 966-4038. *Sunday (10/30). Halloween party for kids, at Hose # 5 station, Main St, Catskill, sponsored by Police Benevolent Association, from 1 pm. *Sunday. Auction (65 lots) +dinner sponsored by Kiwanis Club, at Catskill Golf Club, from 5 pm. All welcome. 943-3100. *Next Friday (11/4). Flu shots available at the senior center in Athens; from our Health Department; free for senior. Also available Nov. 18th at Acra's senior center. *Next Saturday (11/5). Railroad archaeology trek along path of the late Canojaharie & Catskill Railroad (1837-42), led by Ulster & Delaware Railroad Historical Society, from 8 am. at Park-n-Ride lot at Thruway Exit 21’s toll booth. Check it out at www.udrrhs.org/fall_tour. *Soon, in Tannersville: Tavern called O’Neill’s Public House, in former PJ Larkin building on Route 23A. They are hiring. The man to call (589-5568) is Tim Ohle.

PREMATURE DEATH STORY?  Maybe the Daily Mail is not on brink of extinction after all.  The company is
advertising for two reporters to replace departed Chris Smith and Deborah Travers.  But one successor, 
Andrea Macko, already is working. And another new by-line, Alvaro E. Alarcon, appeared under a local story
in today’s paper (10/28).  Editor Raymond Pignone invites submissions to editorial@thedailymail.net
or 943-2100 ext 3326.  

MAUL NOTES.  Inserted in all organs of Hudson Valley Newspapers last Thursday (10/20) was a supplement
entitled, in big bold letters, “Fall Care [sic.] Car [sic.] 2005.” One of the headlines says “Check Engine Light
Nothing to Ignore.”  The publication was an advertising supplement not only in the sense that it contained display
ads from local companies, but also in the sense that its editorial matter, offering advice on vehicle maintenance,
was chock full of explicit product-touting. The standard pejorative label for this odious practice is advertorial.  
    *And on pages A3 (“News”) and again on A8 (“Business”) of the same issue, the same story (from
Associated Press, on Republican gubernatorial hopefuls) appeared.
    *According to a picture caption on page A1 of Monday’s DM (10/24), “Town of Catskill Democratic [sic.]
Party Chairman Dan Howard, left, presents the Greene County Republican [sic.] Committee’s 2005 Man of
the Year Award to Greene County Judge George J. Pulver Jr….”  Howard is Republican town chairman.
They actually published a Correction of that bungle.
     *Not corrected so far was yesterday’s mutation of Margo Muller into Margo Mullen.
     *Read it and ponder (from Tuesday’s Maul):  “The basis for the project is to enforce a clean-up strategy
for residential properties within the village that meet property, maintenance, or building violations.”  “Among
the assessed problems include two or more motor vehicles, weeds or garbage in the year and general lack of
upkeep.” 
GOV POLITICS.  Who will be Republican candidate for governor of New York in 2006?If GreeneLand’s
Republican chairman, Brent Bogardus, gets his way, it will be John Faso.  That near-neighbor, former State
Asemblyman and former candidate for State Controller, was keynote speaker at last Saturday night’s GOP
dinner-dance at Hunter Mountain. Support for Faso means non-support for other hopefuls or possibilities, such
as William Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts (New York-born and –resident); Tom Golisano of
Rochester, former Independence Party bankroller and gubernatorial candidate, now registered as a Republican;
Patrick Manning, Republican assemblyman from Dutchess County; Randy Daniels, Secretary of New York
State; and our Congressman, John Sweeney.   We mention Sweeney because he once touted himself, and
was touted by some news people (using the “widely discussed” formula) as a likely candidate.  He too spoke
at the function, and was hailed by Bogardus as “one of the true shining stars in Washington.”  Not mentioned
was the fact, trumpeted by the Democrats in Washington, that Sweeney was the recipient of political largesse,
to the tune of  $4915), dispensed by his disgraced House leader, Tom DeLay.
Faso depicted himself as a “reform” candidate who would do something about Albany taxing and spending.
According to the report by Jim Planck in The Daily Mail, 10/23), Faso also characterized Eliot Spitzer, that
scourge of corporate crime who is the likely Democratic candidate, as one who “stands for the status quo” and
for “all the special interests who will endorse him.”   As for Randy Daniels, he’s a Republican odd duck in that
he’s black and that he has ingratiated himself with some upstate liberals.  As secretary of state he refused to
give St. Lawrence Cement Company a Certificate of Coastal Consistency for its proposal to build a giant plant
in Greenport and along the east bank of the Hudson River.  Thanks to that crucial decision, he’ll be featured
speaker at a meeting Sunday (10/30) of the South Bay Coalition (Basilica Industria, 110 Front St, Hudson,
from 2 pm.).  At the same time, Daniels is being touted to Republican stalwarts (including some who have
been dead for 10 years) as the man who can beat Spitzer.  And that victory is urgent.  According to Patrick
B. Donohue, Esq., in a fund-raising letter for Daniels, “Spitzer has waged a cynical one-man campaign
against businesses big and small and entrepreneurs whose only sin has been the pursuit of the American Dream.”
Spitzer and the diabolical liberals “want to raise taxes, increase spending and the size of government, and
impose regulations to a level that have [sic.] never been seen before in America.”   “I’ll guarantee you that if
Eliot Spitzer is elected Governor, you will be shocked and appalled by the assault that will inevitably occur on
the taxpayers, business community and the economy in [sic.] New York.”  What is more, and perhaps worse,
is that “The Governor’s Mansion is the key piece in Hillary Clinton’s Master Plan of becoming President of the
United States.” 

 METAPHYSICAL GAMING.  In a September issue of Seeing Greene we twitted
ace Saugerties writer John Thorn for opining that art, like play, “may
have no purpose but itself or it becomes no longer itself.” To that blather
we responded with piercing acuity that “Activities do not have purposes.
They may serve various purposes, and art and play serve many.” To
which John offered (via the Commentary key) the limp rejoinder that “Your
inner grammarian has stifled your reason. Play and art may be compelled to
serve purposes only when they are in thrall to a utilitarian power (Nazi
art, Organized Baseball, and kindred oxymorons). But art and play do not
serve willingly, for when they are yoked into service they are no longer
marked by the very thing that defines them,independence: art for art's
sake, play to no purpose.” This he boldly calls an “uncontroversial notion”
that is adumbrated by Johan Huizinga in Homo Ludens (1938). To which, with
devastating insight, we respond that Thorn has unwisely espoused the
notorious Pathetic Fallacy. He endows inanimate objects with animate
qualities. Play and art become not just activities but mobile, willful
creatures who (yes: who) can be “compelled” to “serve” a “utilitarian
power” (=master?) albeit unwillingly. But he asseverates contrarily that
they can’t be so compelled because if they are, then they are not—alive,
that is. In the meantime, John obfuscates the nature of oxymorons. Nazi
art is not a contradiction in terms. Neither is Soviet art or New Masses
art or commercial art. Your turn, J.T