The Hayseeds blog, No. 125 for the week starting July 31, 2005.
July 17, 2005
Hayseeds No. 124
July 31, 2005
Hayseeds No. 125
August 7, 2005
Hayseeds No. 125
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It was a hetic weekend with many hours of classes and much enlightened discussion on winning elected office in NYS, issue lobbying, and how to best support campaigns. The DFA training is amazing, and the calbier of the people there were great. The food and speakers weren't as great the Rural Convention, but there weren't any politicans here.
It's always so neat to meet rural politicans or at least perspective rural politicans. Things are so different out there when you live deep out in the country where their aren't all the evils of city life around those parts. Yet, it must be so different without a strong Democratic Party in those areas. It's a long struggle when your running as the first Democrat in a generation or more against a Republican. At the same time, politics seem to be a lot less of a part of life in these areas.
The weather was spectacular, particularly on Saturday through mid-day Sunday. On the drive back it was a bit more hazy and grey. Yet, somehow it's so beautiful out here. The small towns on Route 20 somehow liberate the mind, as do all of the many farms along the roads. The rugged individualism combined with the technology of the area fascinates. So many different dairy and cattle farms along miles of miles of road, and many implement dealers.
As part of our state's effort to create even more unneccessary lawyers in the most lawyer-rich state in the US of A, there are many aspiring lawyers taking the bar exam at the plaza. That means lots of people are trying to squeze through security to get parked in the plaza today. Lawyers are just too good of people to park on the street like most normal people. I hate elitism.
Many of my friends and colleagues are lawyers, and I've played with the idea of someday going to law school and joining the bar. Many of them are down to earth, but there are some lawyers that could use an attitude adjustment. Lawyers, elected officials, and especially judges aren't preistly despite the honorary title and robes they sometimes wear. It is my opinion that many farmers and others that work with the earth both work far harder and do far greater things with their hands. Many judges and other members of the bar only use their hands in their pants. I'll leave it there.
It's a real pain for those going to and from Clarksville and many areas in the Hilltowns with all of the traffic being diverted onto Route 32. They are replacing a drainage ditch and things are suppost to be open next week. We are seeing more and more roads closed for construction, in an effort to protect workers after the death of Charles Ballard and several others in other parts of the state (like the killing of three in Binghamton). It also speeds up work, and allows for a better job to be completed. Yet, it's a pain.
The important thing is that a closed site has less distractions and less cars to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Working on roads is dangerous enough, even witohut trafffic. So while we hate dealing with construction, we want to have safe roads, and we want roads without potholes. Before you know it, the 4 months of the year where construction workers spent in the woods hunting and snowmobiling, and not making our lives hell will be here.
When you think of organized labor, you think of the old-left. And yesterday, the old left probably saw one of it's greatest set backs in years. The Teamsters and the SEIU quit the AFL-CIO to spend more money on their own membership drives. Implicitly, that means they want to spend less on lobbying and on political campaigns and particularly on things of interest to their industry.
This is not all that surpising with our changing political culture. More and more union people vote Republican, even if it's not in their economic interest. Many working class people are unhappy with the Democrat's lack of moral certainy, their positions on guns and crime, over-regulation and big government, and urban vs. rural. A good union is not partisan, but instead lobbies for the rights of workers.
Everybody needs healthcare coverage and livable wages, whether or not you work on a farm, in a factory, or in an office. Whoever does that and is willing to work with the unions should be the bases of union support. Unions support both Democrats and Republicans aggressively in NY if they go along their ideals. That's what unions should be about, and not about fighting against excessive regulation (or whatever the pet peive of workers might be that day) that seems annonying to workers. Absurd regulations create a lot of work for people, as witnessed by the Asbestos industry.
There is a real need for focusing more on new members. After all, unions need people first and foremost. Employeers do everything they can to avoid them, particularly in non-traditional sectors. The pressure of the threat of unionization can do much to improve standards, even without a union. If people push harder for the union, standards will be even better for all. Those who get unions will enjoy a collective voice, regardless of what happens in DC (bar new limitations on unions).
Unions should ultimately reflect their industry, and they should provide a strong voice betweeen management and worker. Having worked in a couple of unionized companies, I have seen how well unions work at advocating for employees, giving them training, and ensuring quality work gets done. Unions could do far more if they got more public support at improving the quality of life at work, and the outcome of the product. People who care about their product make a far better product.
It looks like there is going to be new television drama that looks at the mess in Iraq. Maybe it's a way to give people more of the reality of war, but I fear it will glamify war and killing and make our precence there look justified or otherwise right. People are very uneasy about this war, yet it should be interesting whether or not a drama will turn them on to it.
I constantly worry about the difference between reality and what we see on television and through other kinds of medium. Bagging a deer is so much different from the violence we see on television. People go bang-bang on television, fall over and die in the most elegant way. There is no lifeless there. Something is missing and prefoundness of action is left behind. Until you've spent time with a dying animal, particularly one you've killed, you can't understand death.
People coming back from Iraq suffer from a great deal of scientifically quanitified mental illness then the general public or even soldiers of previous wars. None of those studies can even look at the profound changes to the self when he is killing other human beings, particularly those he's labeled the enemy.
We need to create a variety of jobs in our country, so we don't have to go to war to give people in rural America and other depressed areas of our country. We need to find ways to ensure that industrial employeers and agriculture can sustain in society. Sending people off to a distant land to kill is wrong. We should be building greatness and not killing.
That's how you have to look at it on the Route 19 / Voorheesville bus, which did come on Monday evening, but 20 minutes late after it broke on down. I rode for free again today, as the driver (some say with the backing of ATU) didn't charge with the policy of No A/C, No Charge. I love the Voorhesville bus, but it would be nice if CDTA for once would have the A/C running in the afternoon and make it show up 5 times a week at 4:10 PM. But for the fact I'm riding 3x-4x a week in the afternoon for free, it ain't that bad. Saves half the gas and effort of parking downtown with my pickup.
Today it is widely expected that our governor is going to say he's quiting at the end of his term and won't seek election in 2006. That's good news for Spitizer, and it begs interesting questions on what Pataki plans to do next. Is he going to try to be another Romney and run for President or is he going to hang out at his farm in Washington County? We don't know yet, but I suspect he still wants to be President.
Some are asking why has Pataki fallen so much from grace. The reason is the same that Mario Cuomo faced in 1994: he's overstayed his welcome, and the fights with the legislature have worn him down over the many years he's been in office. He opponent is well liked for his fights against big business from corrupt stockbrokers to stores that are over charging for milk and underpaying farmers.
Environmental groups in NY (maybe CEC—the TU didn't say), claims that many of the dirtest plants as rated by carbon dioxide emissions per kilowatt are in New York. That line of thought is alarming to some of us, not because global warming isn't real, but because it ignores far more serious polluntants from the oldest of plants in New York. Yes, many of the inefficent power plants out there not only release a lot of CO2, but also sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides, and probably most serious of them all: mercury.
Mercury pollution immediately damages fishing in many areas. We can't anymore safely consume more then a few fish every month from our local streams, without risking the effects of mercury poisioning. This is a problem now. To a lesser extent, sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxides create acid rain, and kill valuable tree stands that should be used for logging and recreation. Carbon dioxide emissions will ultimately lead to significant climate change, but it's effects are not as profound in the immediate time. Moreover, carbon dioxide emissions aren't dirty or sooty, as much as they in excess will increase the trapping of global gases.
Vinyl is everywhere out there, from evil vinyl siding to vinyl records to vinyl containers that some shampoos come in to the dash board of your car. The Health Building Network looks at many of the hazards of vinyl and it's byproducts when it's disposed. Vinyl leaches out overtime, as witnessed by the gue on the windshield above the vinyl dashboard on your truck. The 120 °F or more tempetures inside the cab in the summer release not only neat messes of phthalates, cholrides, but also the various heavy metals. The same thing as you might guess happens in muncipal landfills where there is a real lot of this stuff, and possibly to greater extent in dumps with less containtment. Phthalates and chlorides don't wreck water like MTBE, but they aren't exactly healthy to drink.
The bigger problem is that a lot of vinyl is burned in one fashion or another. Some of it disposed in muncipal incinerators, which causes great problems of hydrochloric acid burning the walls of the incinerator and some dioxin escaping through the baghouses used to remove much of this toxic chemical. Cars and houses burn, and when they do the hydrocholric acid is released giving firefighters and victims problems. People chuck vinyl soap bottles and wire in the burn barrel without thinking. Stacks of waste vinyl siding are often burned along with other construction debris when houses are built in rural areas. Dumpsters are a lot less common out there and hauling is more expensive—it's bad enough in urban areas for prices.
And don't think about recycling PVC. It messes up other recyclables as it starts to burn at a lower tempeture when accidentially mixed in. The phtalates and other chemicals added to PVC are far more diverse then other chemicals. It's a real mess too deal with, and there are other plastics that are far more recycable, only require slightly more material and oil. It's far better to burn HDPE or some other plastic with a lower cholorine content then PVC.
A Cornell/Roedel study seems to suggest for non-consumer fruit and vegetables, more traditional methods of animal manure application and crop rotation produce just as much crop as using anadrynous ammonia and other chemicals, along with much healthier soil and less run-off pollution.
For many people this is surpising to a degree, particularly those who have been spending a lot of money on such technologies. On the other hand, the devils are in the details: crop rotation and manuring takes more land and labor to make it happen. That can be expensive, but in part is made up for by costs of various inputs. And for crops like Apples and Grapes, pestides tend to be a real problem that can't be dealt with as successfully as with non-organic methods.
People will pay extra money for organic products, regardless of their quality. Sometimes that's the wrong way to go, as some organic chemicals are more toxic then man-made equalivents. The long-banned use of arsenic on grapes (technically an organic pesitide as it doesn't involve chemical synthesis) shows how dangerous organic pestides can be compared to other pestides.
Ultimately, the question should be the bigger one: what kind of methods produce the best product in a way most healthy for the land. Sometimes synthesized chemicals are most efficent and better then organic ones, in other cases organic is the way to go. Tying our hands either way seems impratical and might lead to more degragation and waste then otherwise needed.
You will be able to listen to his words live on WAMC 90.3 FM or you might be able to see him in person at the Red Room of the Capitol if you can find space. This should be exciting, and the governor should be coming in soon with his helicopter on the launch pad at the plaza.
It's for sure now too, as the governor has called Schumer and other officals to tell them that it's over, and that he looks forward to his life outside NYS government. For many of us long-time political observers, it's rather anti-climatic, but it should be exciting when we get another governor. The lame-duck scenario should play out interesting next year in NY politics, with lots of vetos and stuff being handed out, especially if the Governor is focusing on the Presidency.
While many are blaming CDTA for not hiring more unionized A/C mechanics for not having A/C on many of their buses, and Omni/State of NY for not fixing the A/C at work, there is another reason for it being so hot inside: there is too much mositure in the air for efficent air conditioning. I know my parent's car the A/C at times in city traffic has been piss-poor.
Air conditioners often only work well with a dewpoint below 75 °F, yet it's been much warmer this summer. Too much water makes the compressor run constantly, consuming a lot of electricity. The heat doesn't seem all that bad outside, as we get used it, but it's still been an awful hot summer. You could blame global warming or many other things, but it still doesn't make it any nicer outside. At least the weekends this summer haven't been so hot.
It looks like part of the South Mall Arterial is falling. And it means that a lot of local roads are closed. These includes ANY ROAD that runs under or is the 787 Southbound Exit 3 including:
So if it crosses the I-787 Northbound Exit 3 Ramp to the Plaza it's closed. They don't want that 350 TON ramp to fall on your car, and they're taking precautions. Sounds like a reasonable plan.
In case you want to get to Albany and the mall from Southbound, you have to get off at Exit 2 to Green St. to Madison Ave. If you need the plaza, you need to go up South Pearl Street and take Grand Street ramp past the Pepsi. From the Dunn Memorial Bridge take the ramp to Corning Preserve, left onto Colonie Street, left onto Water St, proceed to ramp to ESP.
The security guard / greater from the back door at One Commerence Plaza has passed away at the early age of 54. He was such a nice guy, and helped hold the elevators open countless time. His personality always made going to work a little bit more fun.
Sometimes littlle people like this are all but ignored in our lives, yet they preform such important tasks. It also sadly shows how short life is and how when you expect something to be there, it won't always be there. As they say, life is one failed traffic light from being over. You have to accept what you can get.
What does this mean for the morning after pill? It might just mean we are going to have to live in stone-age and ignore the liberating aspects of technology. Pataki could care less about NYers now, and he has his sights firmly on the presidency. While he can get full state retirement benifits now, we know he has bigger things in his sights. Like many empire state politicans he suffers from delusions of grandeur. Got to impress the conservatives.
That sucks for all us New Yorkers. Easy access to the Plan B pill is so important. People make mistakes, and they should not have to go through the horrors of getting an abortion. Plan B is only 87% effective and quite expensive, so you should be using something else before climing around in an alf-alpha field or truck, but it's better then an abortion or a pregenancy that ruins a life.
Remember, without a Republican running things, there won't be any state job at the end of the tunnel for those brave enough to run for governor. It also will mean whoever runs will not only be out of public office, but also a state job. Pat Manning might run for governor, but he'd never sell to downstaters, and he doesn't want to give up his Assembly seat and his vocal opposition on the EnCon committee.
Other names have been tossed around. The billionare Tom Gollisano is said to be crazy enough to give it a try, and he's the only candidate that has the money to be a serious candidate. Nobody giving to the Republican these days, when they know they are going to be the minority shortly. John Sweeney is thinking he'd be a laughable candidate, and an excuse to spend more time in Clifton Park rather then DC. Jeane Pierro name is kicked around, though she's more likely to run against Hillary who will not question her husband's tax evasion conviction.
Anybody to run against Spitizer right now is out of their minds. Maybe some Republican will make a viable candidate, but it will have to be a downstater, well liked such as Rudolph Guilani who has flatly said no to this. Brilliant Bloomberg has also been mentioned, but he doesn't fly so well in Republican upstate. Whoever the Republicans put up against Spitizer, it will be a joke.
I walked down to the plaza by the Egg to look at the broken ramp. As noted earlier, it is the Ramp from Exit 3 I-787 Northbound to South Mall Arterial Westbound. In other words, the really high up fly-over ramp that was designed to give legislators coming from NYC a really impressive view of Rockefeller's plaza. Neat!
I commute that road in everyday, be it in my pickup, carpooling, or taking the Voorheesville Bus from the park in ride. Don't expect that exit to the plaza northbound to be open for several months, though expect that within days all of the roads below it to be open except for possibly for a single lane closer right under the break on the Dunn Memorial Bridge.
Stablization will come first then will come reconstruction. It's going to likely cost over a million dollars, and will take some time. Yet, there is no question that this bridge will be reconstructed as it's too important to the infrastructure of the plaza, no matter how you feel about the largest modernist but dated plaza.
A lot of state workers who park in the plaza want to know how to get to Renselear and to Troy with the Dunn Memorial Bridge closed, along with the ramp to I-787 North. All traffic must exit the plaza (for now) from I-787 South Ramp. The state is recommending the following route for people wanting to go all points north or to Renselear.
IMPORANT: You should expect some delays with this route, as the two left hand turns with the high volume, despite assistance from the police will be very slow.
Those of you wanting to go to Renselear should take Patroon Island Bridge / I-90 Eastbound to Washington Ave (Exit 7), and those wanting East Greenbush should go to Route 4 (Exit 9).
The DOT is suggesting those who want the Northway to go to Saratoga should not follow this route, and instead take the Thruway between Exits 23 and 24, but the tolls will cost you 25¢ and will likely be very backed up.
It's really nice weather out there for once. A bit warm in the sun, it's a lot less sticky then past days. That's good as it cuts down on energy wasted by air conditioning in all the big buildings in the city, and all the cars running it. It's also good for those of us riding un-airconditioned city buses.
We can't forget all those who have to work outside, particularly those brave men and women who are working to fix the fly-over ramp to the plaza. Good day for those not working at an office and can be outside doing just about anything from mending fences to walks in the woods.
From the beauty of the 14th floor of One Commerence Plaza, it is so clear out again, with the beautiful Catskills and Adirondacks shining brighly and blue. The Hudson River is so pretty. Wish I could be outside, as the beauty is so great. Some day, I won't have to spend my life cooped up in an office.
The Times Union did a lot of coverage of the two to three foot gap on the Empire State Plaza ramp from I-787 South. They showed where it was, but they're information on road closings was more confusing then useful. I made up a map of the damage and road closures and hope to have it up tommorow. For now, the DOT has done a pretty good job at putting up signs and the Albany Police have been very helpful. I think I've said all I need to on this.
One of my big disappointments with Albany is it's lack of interest in urban revitilization. The city rarely uses eminent domain anymore, to create better housing or infrastructure where it so badly needed. There are no high-quality downtown apartments aimed at the many artsy people that would normally be attracted to government.
High-rise apartment buildings with beautiful views of the Hudson River and the plaza could make the city a lot of money. Yet, the city seems unable to market such things or make the parking avalible for such a project. They could do that, it's just that they won't. Likewise, the artsy attractions of our city are almost exclusively located on a short section of Lark Street. Why should there only be one block of Lark Street? Why can't we revitalize the lower part of Centeral Avenue to the way it was in the 1950s and 1960s?
My grandmother used to always shop at places like Woolsworths on Centeral Avenue for Christmas gifts. North Pearl Street with Lodge's also was a popular place to go. To her it was a great experience. She'd catch the Albany Traction Company Bus 18 downtown from her suburban house in Delmar. She never drove and my grandfather didn't have a personal car until the 1970s. Downtown you could get around. Now without a car, and living out in the suburbs, you can only get to the mall by transfering between several buses.
A while back I was browsing the NYFB's website and they had a link to Cornell's website on the issue of voluntary monitoring for air emissions from dairy farms in exchange for protection for liability arising from violations of clean air laws. It's a pay-up to $2,500 to the EPA now or pay-more later scenario, and not a particularly good one to boot. We would have hoped they would have done better.
For one, before any policy is implemented, the research should be done before strong arming people to comply. You shouldn't be putting the cart before the horse. It should not be the responsiblity of farms to do their own research, but instead of research insitutions in cooperation with these mega-dairies that likely have fairly controlled releases of emissions out of fans and the alike.
The flip-side is that there are some farming operations that clearly violate both air-emissions laws and good farming pratices. With these mega-operations that might be very much grounded in science, there is a compelling reason to regulate emissions as everything else is regulated in these cows' lives. We just should be targeted and not going after everybody (ie. only those who are licensed by statue under the CAFO program).
This issue has been around for a while, but I've been waiting to see it all play out to comment on it. I think if it illustrates anything, it's how government policy can be bad when it's vauge. The EPA should do better.
When will the I-787 Exit 3 Northbound Ramp to the Plaza re-open. There are three scenarios from really bad to bad to lousey to good:
Right now it looks like they are inspecting the pier very careful to figure out what is damaged and what caused the failure. Everybody is hoping that it's the cheapest scanario, and that is the most likely to happen. The reality is that while most of the bridge will likely not be closed for more then a month, the ramp maybe closed long into the future.
TravelInfo.org has lots of good stuff that will help you find your way around the mess known as downtown Albany.
The new energy bill is finally passed with much of the same continuing out into the future, including very limited energy savings and alternative energy tax-credits. The flip-side is that subsidies to big oil were trimmed down quite a bit.
The bill includes a federal tax credit worth 30 percent of the cost of residential solar panels after taking into account any assistance from the state. The credit is capped at $2,000... ...The hybrid vehicle tax credit has its limits, however. Each manufacturer can apply the tax credit to just 60,000 vehicles and Toyota sells roughly 150,000 hybrids per year....
And so forth. Lots of caps and little actual tax breaks of usefulness. All at the time when gas prices continue to go up, and Centeral Hudson is asking the PSE for a hike of rates by 17% or about $150 dollars a year. Most of us hoped for a real energy policy, and less hot-air from Washington, but I guess you just can't expect that from a Republican administration.
Actually there is about four new fodders and four new snapshots that are really worth checking out. I think I got some particularly good pictures this time, and wrote about some really interesting things. The A-Z index doesn't have addition as I haven't ported over the indexing script, and I don't have a home computer, so updates that require telnet are a real pain and can only be done from the public library. Soon though, I'm back to college.
It looks like some people over at the Schenectady Gazette fully expect it to be open by next week, except for the 787 Exit 3 Northbound to the Plaza. That's really good news for all us commuters, though we should expect lane closures and the alike as the bridge is repaired.
