New York Cowboy.org: New Autonomy

Pretenous

2008-05-09T00:00:00-06:00

I often worry with this blog that I sound to pretentious to world or that those reading it believe that I am some all knowing god. That is far from my intent. I simply want to express who I am and what I believe about the world, in a way that is most true to my beliefs.

I don't believe that I am any better then anybody else. I don't intent to impress anybody with my blog or sell any idea. I just want to discuss what I believe to be right and what it's like to be an individual living the way that I choose to live. It's fine if you disagree with me or choose to live a different lifestyle then I choose to live.

Being an individual means having a personality and stating what you believe in. That is egotistical in it's nature, but it's the only alternative to being sheepish and accepting whatever is handed down to you by the homogenizing culture machine that hands down standardized culture from a high.

My Legally Blind Scoutmaster

2008-03-26T00:00:00-06:00

For the first couple years when I was in Boy Scouts in Clarksville, my scoutmaster was legally blind, much like that of our current governor, David Paterson. The scoutmaster, Toni as we called him, vision may have been poor, but his intellect certainly was not, and he proved to be an invaluable role model in my life.

He would lead each scout meeting, filled with hope and passion, telling quality stories and demanding much of us as scouts. He expected us to be on time, always be well dressed in our uniforms, and always be the best. Indeed, under his leadership we where the best, almost always leading our troops and packs with our discipline and our team work.

Toni was a skilled craftsman, and despite being blind, could make almost anything our troop needed in his wood shop. His sight may have been poor, but his touch was strong, and he knew how to make the most beautiful items out of wood. He proved that sight was not necessary to do great things. He could build and he could lead without his eye sight.

So many of us take our vision for granted. Yet, even those who can't see, can be great leaders that inspire us to do what is right. Toni will forever be an inspirational part of my life.

The Ramblin' Around Year

2008-03-24T00:00:00-06:00

It was about four years ago today, out of college, down on my luck, I took the roads hiking around, almost daily exploring new places. Without a job I could not pay for gasoline, so it was on foot that I walked, exploring my world step by step, mile after mile around my parents house in Westerlo.

I really do not know why I walked so far. A first I justified it as a way to loose a few pounds. Then I started to justify it as a way to explore new places, at a new detail impossible to do in the speed of a passing car. It was a way to pass the time. Whatever it was, I got out and I walked and walked and walked.

Some days I'd walk 10 or 15 miles. Sometimes it would be much less. I walked in the blistery cold of winter that year, and I walked in unforgiving heat, sometimes for hours. I passed dozens of farms, reservoirs, small town people trying just to get along, on dirt roads and high speed highways alike. I always was walking and making little observations on the world.

All this wandering took it's toll on my sneakers and left my feet with blisters. Yet, I need to walk and try to find myself. I had so much pain in my soul, and so many emotional issues I had to work out. There was always a legalistic theory I would be teasing out in my brain, or some kind of news story I felt I wanted to think more about.

Walking took some of the stress and strain out of my life. I was so stressed so pulled beyond my limits those days, that the open road, walked by hand, would be able to calm me to the point where I could make it through another day. Staying home, only made me more depressed, while the expansive landscape inspired me and gave me hope when this ordeal would soon be over.

These days, being fully employed and busy with social activism I have little time to be spend wandering around, trying to find myself or looking beyond the next corner. Those days without a job and without a college, spent hiking the roads around where good days, when I discovered myself and became a stronger individual. While I don't ever hope to go back to then, I feel my life improved because of such a time.

Simple Eats are Good

2008-03-09T22:00:00-06:00

I don’t particularly like to cook. Yet, I do and are able to make a variety of good foods to eat without spending a lot of time in the kitchen. Most of my meals are the quick type that really don’t take all that long, but are both cheap to make, delicious, and often contain local foods.

As a single guy who hates cooking, I have some tricks to get things done quickly and easily:

Can It Be Microwaved? Things that come in shinny plastic packages or paperboard boxes are not the only thing that can be microwaved. Baked potatos are one of my favorite – just poke some holes in it, and put on a plate and push the baked potato button. About a minute before it’s done, just put some cheese, onions, or even garlic on top. Yum. Most things can be reheated easily in the microwave.

How Simple Is It? More then preparation of the food, my next question how simple is what I’m eating. Highly prepared and marketed food tends to be significantly more expensive then basics like potatoes, cheese, and eggs. It’s also much more difficult to buy healthy and cheaply by going for simple, whole foods that are grown on farms, rather then made in factories.

How Little Packaging? Packaging is a big part of the expense when you go shopping, yet benefits the big corporations without benefiting you much at all. Packaging is also a major source of waste, and much of the plastic food comes in is not recyclable and must be landfilled or burned. There are a lot of fruits, vegetables, and local foods that come in little packaging yet are incredibly good tasting.

Reheating is Your Friend. Whenever I cook I always try to make two or more portions. As soon as they are done cooking I put them immediately in the freezer so they are frozen and ready when you want to have dinner the next day or later in the week. In the morning you can thaw things out in the fridge, and then put them in the microwave to cook them.

You don't have to buy things in expensive cardboard boxes to eat well and eat healthy. Indeed, most of the best food out there is the simplest food that is largely unpackaged and relatively inexpensive. You can avoid excess packaging and waste if you choose food that is simpler.

People Read My Blog

2008-03-04T22:00:00-06:00

I guess I should not be surprised that people actually read my blog, but I always still am. There are a lot of you out there who come here and read what I have to say multiple times a week or even several times a day. It's as if my words and my thoughts really matter.

I have some clout with people as they read my blog and digest my ideas. They may not always like what I have to say, but I certainly don't always agree with them, so I see little reason why they should always have to agree with me. We after all grew up in our own little worlds, with our own little experiences.

Many other blogs won't link to me as they disagree with some that I say. Yet, I have no problem telling what I see to be the truth. If you don't want to read my blog, then so be it. I won't necessarily read your blog either. It's my goal to blog in a way that expresses who I am and not the viewpoint of any particular group or ideology.

I don't profess to be a liberal who agrees with the Democratic Party at all times. Sometimes, I even challenge some of the progressives who are some of my most loyal readers. I may sometimes be right, and sometimes wrong. Yet I hope that by blogging I am provoking new ideas and challenging old assumptions about the world around us.

Until a few months ago I never really quantified the faces that read my blog. Then I got to meet some of the people who read it, and interact with them, and challenge their thoughts. Our mid-winter shutdown of the blog, to work on code, got such a response from people, that I decided I ought to keep up the blog, even while I work on improving my site.

Keep enjoying my blog.

The Past Four Years

2008-01-14T12:40:00-06:00

Last night four of the most difficult years of my life came to an end. In these years I went through such fear and horror, there where days I could pull myself up only by running around in the backfields on my parents farm yelling and screaming until I had no breath left.

During this time period, there where unimaginable stresses that would fall on me and probably take years off my life. It also was a period of character development, where I was forced to think about who I was, and change my identity to conform with values developing within me.

My feelings about this time period are still painful and bitter, as are the lessons learned about our country’s notions of freedom and justice. Many of my mistakes during this time period still sting me to this day, but I hope over the next few months I will be able to explore them here on a series of articles on the fodder collection.

Here is what happened to me very briefly.

It was my sophomore year in college during the spring semester at the University at Albany. I took a class known as Caribbean and Latin Studies with Professor James Wessman. One of the ways students could earn extra participation credit was to participate in an online discussion board known as WebCT. I always enjoyed this as it was an easy way to discuss the issues of the day and get extra credit for free.

About three weeks into the class on Friday, February 13, 2004, I was participating in the class and made some rather crass and probably inappropriate remarks alluding – in a mocking kind of way – to a tragic incident regarding a seriously mentally ill student at Columbia High School in East Greenbush where a student brought a gun into his high school in threatened his teachers.

The next evening the University at Albany police showed up at my parents farm. I was arrested for aggravated harassment for posting words that this professor found offensive – in part because I was so defensive of my right to free speech in the police station. I gave a statement in support of right to speak freely. I spent a night in jail, until I was bailed out the next morning by parents on $15,000 bail.

I spent the next year fighting the matter in court and at the college. I was told by the court and the university that I was crazy for fighting for my right to speak freely, and that I had to be mentally ill – despite the fact I proved them much to the contrary. I gave a impassioned argument for free speech at the college hearing on my behalf, only to be declared a person non-gratia from the college, with a two year disciplinary suspension and a ban from on-campus housing through graduation. I worked with my lawyer to write an appeal to this declaration, only to lose again.

I lost out on the University at Albany fight. I also would lose repeatedly at court, with one pretrial motion after another being thrown out. After a year of fighting this my lawyer quit for an out of state job, so I was given three choices two days before trial: plea to a reduced charge of the violation of harassment, plea to the original misdemeanor charge and appeal the denial of my motions, or pay more money to take to trial with a lawyer unfamiliar with the case.

I chose the second option to plea to the misdemeanor aggravated harassment and was ultimately sentenced to three years of probation in Albany County from January 13, 2005 to January 13, 2008. I filed the initial papers for the appeal but didn’t have money or the stomach to proceed. In retrospect, I should have either taken the harassment violation or taken the matter to trial. My parents would have been much happier, and I would haven’t had gone through the hell of being on probation for three years.

The first option would have meant little more then a $200-$500 fine, and no criminal record. Yet, to plea to the violation would mean the end of the process with no appeal. The third option, of taking it to trial would have been expensive, and meant that I would have to prolong closure. I knew I would likely lose at trial in an era of fear where few people are willing to stand up for free speech. I’m not sure I would have won at trial and to have lost again and had to wait through appeal would have been difficult.

I paid off the misdemeanor surcharge and went back to work for the next year doing a variety of temporary administrative assistant jobs. I was determined to put my life back together. I took a night class at the College at Saint Rose, and applied and got into SUNY Plattsburgh and SUNY Oswego without any questions. I checked out both campuses and decided I liked Plattsburgh better.

I went back to Plattsburgh in 2005 and got involved in every community and political organization I could fit in my schedule. I worked very hard to get good grades. Amazingly it was not until late in 2005 that I would hear back from the probation office. We agreed to review my conditions over the phone, and I ended up going monthly to the probation office in Clinton County to review my compliance.

I came back to Albany 2006 to make more money for my final year in college. The probation office lost me for a month and a half, then I started reporting every two weeks to South Pearl Street probation office. I got to meet many of the poor working class people so unfortunate to get caught up in this system. It was often difficult having to lie to them as I frequently violated a variety of probation terms – simply because they where so strict that they where impossible to follow. The one requiring permission to leave the county was the most frequently violated.

I went back to school in September 2006. Before I could attend school again, they required that I receive a psychological evaluation to prove that I did not need treatment nor did I pose any threat to anybody. It was rather silly, as there was never any serious question whether or not I actually threatened anybody, but it kept the court and my probation office. The results took about six weeks, but concluded that I had “diverse interests”, “normal”, and that I was rather “embarrassed” about the whole ordeal. During this period, I was required to report to the probation office every two weeks on Thursday night in Albany.

It worked out quite well for me, as it gave me an opportunity to be involved in a variety of political campaigns down in Albany for both Eliot Spitzer’s bid for Governor and Kirsten Gillibrand for Congress. Yet, it also meant I missed a significant amount of time in my final semester in Plattsburgh. Eventually, my probation reporting was moved up to Plattsburgh, but I still frequently traveled down to Albany to do campaign work and to make money at my job in Albany.

I returned back to Albany in the Spring of 2007, and was an Undergraduate Intern for the Assembly. I worked hard at my new position, but I still had to report biweekly to the probation office on South Pearl Street. It was an annoyance, but I always brought lots of interesting reading material to keep me busy. I often had to wait a have hour to be seen, but the questioning was routine, and I showed off my pay stub. I graduated from Plattsburgh State in May 2007 with a BA in Political Science and a 3.75 GPA.

During September 2007 I was moved to the mailing reporting for probation, where I had to send in a monthly affidavit stating I was in compliance with my probation conditions. I continued to be very involved in a variety of community activities, and eventually was hired by the NYS Assembly as a Researcher. I moved out on to my own in an apartment in December 2007. I never heard again from the probation office, although I sent every probation affidavit monthly. Then yesterday, it all came to an end. The long night mere that started with a sentence taken out of context came to end, as quick as it all started.

It’s all over.

The previous five hundred or so words only capture a little bit of the emotion of an event that took a great deal of time in my life. I hope to talk more about the specifics in the next few months as a go through my records and upload some of the documents I have been carefully collecting for the day that I would be free to talk about this, after every word I wrote was not being monitored, and after I had probation officer that I had to report to.

There is not much left over now besides a few scars, painful memories, and a criminal record. After reading this story about my life, maybe now when you re-read my blog and my writings you will understand better where I come from and some of the pain and trouble I have embraced in my life. This new sense of context should make my every word make much more sense.

It’s a new day in my life. My rights to legally purchase firearms has been restored. I can legally go to any county or any place in this country and beyond, without getting special permission from a government agent. Nobody can be legally snooping around my life or monitoring my communications for offensive language. I am free again to make my own choices, and to live the free life as I see fit.

No more staring at calender to find out when January 13, 2008 will come. And no I don’t recommend you commit a crime either, much less plea to one when your offered a violation. It is over! I am free!