Glens Falls: one of the worst cities in America?

The Syracuse Post-Standard reported on a new book entitled 'The Absolutely Worst Places to Live in America.'

According to this book, two New York state cities made the list of 50 worst places to live. Syracuse and Glens Falls.

While I'm sure some of my progressive friends think Glens Falls is hell, since you'll never hear anything good about the region coming out of their mouthes, I think most local residents can only laugh at this characterization.

Glens Falls is not a perfect city and there are certainly things that can be improved. The economy could be better and, like much of upstate New York, property taxes are high.

But frankly, it's a great little town. A great library. A theatre. A professional symphony orchestra. Magnificient recreational opportunities. Good schools. Safe streets. Big enough to have stuff to do but small enough where you don't feel overwhelmed.

Of course, the author of the book is New Jersey, the center of the world when it comes to livable cities.

The paper adds: Although some people might not see it as such, the book is a satire, says [author Dave] Gilmartin.

I suppose that makes sense.

The secret life of pork

It will be no secret to regular readers of this blog (or of any serious New York state newspaper) that New York has the most dysfunctional legislature in the nation. Whether it's secret slush funds or legalized gerrymandering, the one single word that best describes Albany is opaque. Legislative leaders are used to operating with neither scrutiny nor accountability. So they've been troubled that in the last several years, good government groups (the real opposition movement in Albany) have successfully rallied public opinion to pressure these leaders to make minimal reformist concessions.

To its credit, the press has played its role too. A few years ago, the local Post-Star ran regular editorials calling on readers to write letters to legislators protesting this pathetic state of affairs. I wrote the editorial page editor pooh-poohing this crusade. He asked me if I had any better ideas. I didn't really. Turns out, he was right and I was wrong. Pressure has forced legislative leaders to throw the public a bone. Granted, these changes are far from what is necessary, but it's a start. The mere idea that the public still has a shred of influence in sclerotic Albany is a sign of hope.

The Albany Times-Union has also played a constructive role in favor of government transparency. It recently filed a successful lawsuit against Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno. The lawsuit wanted to force Silver and Bruno to release details of all the personal pet projects that are spent by legislators. The two leaders wanted these budget items, containing our money, to remain secret.

It takes no genius to figure out the reasons for that.

The daily reported that:

Silver sent grants from his personal basket of funds to at least two groups represented by his friend, lobbyist Patricia Lynch. Lynch served as Silver's top aide for years before opening a lobbying firm, which has become one of the biggest outside of Washington, D.C.
Clients getting Silver grants paid Lynch tens of thousands of dollars to lobby in Albany, including:

* Alliance for Downtown New York, which got $200,000 for an ad campaign for lower Manhattan firms, $100,000 for printing and distributing restaurant and retail guides, and $100,000 for free concerts in city hall park.

Ultimately, Silver was personally and unilaterally responsible for spending some $15.2 million in the last two years on his pet causes, including the above example of taxpayer money being used to subsidize special interest lobbying of... Silver.

Bruno, for his part, "generously" spent over $12 million of our money on his causes.

Bruno did his best to be as obnoxious as possible in complying with the court ordered release of information that should obviously be part of the public record without an expensive lawsuit. Of course, the state (ie: us taxpayers) had to pay the legal fees of The Times-Union because the legislative leaders refused to release this public information)

Unlike similar documents released by the Assembly, the Senate's can't be readily analyzed with computer software and had special encryption. Bruno blamed a "glitch" in the Senate computer system and said future data on Senate member items will be released unencrypted, the paper reported.

I wonder why.

New York's top judge proposes modest judicial reforms

About two months ago, The New York Times published a series of troubling articles about the disturbingly dysfunctional local judicial system in New York state.

(The original blog entry and this follow up explain in more detail)

Inside Albany reports some modest news on this front. The state's top judge wants to significantly expand training for judges who aren't lawyers as well as buying computers for local justices to better keep track of their caseload. The state will also purchase recording equipment for justice courts, the article adds.

These modest improvements, which most New Yorkers would be shocked to know weren't in place 20 years ago, must only be the first step revamping New York's local courts.

Sex blotter

Yesterday's local newspaper made for some depressing lunchtime reading.

You had the guy who was accidentally shot and seriously wounded by his brother-in-law during a hunting expedition. Fortunately, the guy is expected to pull through despite injuries to his kidneys, liver and intestines. On the upside, we now have a potential replacement if Vice-President Cheney ever resigns.

Then you had the guy who was arrested and charged with molesting a one-week old baby. Talk about something to make you lose your appetite.

You know there are going to be idiots and scumbags out there but you sort of hope the justice system will take care of most of them. I hate to sound like The New York Post but this article really left me scratching my head.

A Warrensburg (NY) teen pleaded guilty to a series of sex abuse charges and will spend five years in prison. The Post-Star notes that he could have faced up to 25 years in prison on one of the rape charges alone, as well as consecutive sentences for the other charges. The deal was opposed by the Warren County district attorney's office. The teen's brother also faces sex crime charges.

The short five year sentence is disturbing. The charges alone are serious enough. According to the paper, they include multiple felony counts of first-degree rape, first-degree criminal sexual act and first-degree sexual abuse for sex acts with 5 young girls ages 9 to 14, as well as restraining and threatening the girls during the assaults.

We're not talking about an 18 year old having consensual sex with a 17 year old here.

And it wasn't simply a one time lapse in judgement either.

The now-18 year old plead guilty to all FORTY-NINE charges against him which cover acts committed 'over a several-year period.'

A psychologist concluded that the teen (and his brother) were 'likely to reoffend.'

Yet for admitting to serious sex crimes perpetrated repeatedly against pre-teen girls over a several year period, he gets only five years in jail.

I know that sometimes the hysteria over sex abuse allegations can get out of control and drown out rational discussion of this problem. But five years for serious, violent and repeated sex crimes against pre-teens is obscene by any standard.

World AIDS Day

This essay is part of a (more or less) weekly feature on this blog that presents interesting stories from elsewhere in the world, particularly Africa, that are little reported in the American media. It's part of my campaign to get people to realize there is a lot going on in the world outside the US, Israel, Iraq, North Korea and Iran.

Today is World AIDS Day.

Being based in South Africa, which has the world's largest AIDS population, The Daily Mail and Guardian offers an interesting perspective. Two of its articles illustrate how the disease impacts more than just those affect with the HIV virus.

It notes that the AIDS death rate will create some 200,000 orphaned children this year alone.

The Mail and Guardian also talks about one of the underappreciated parts of the pandemic: the grave toll exacted on medical workers treating AIDS victims.

The paper mentions a study by a South African mental health group concluding that almost 2/3 of the caregivers in the country suffer from depression. Given that these are the people who help keep AIDS sufferers alive, it's a very serious problem.

The Independent offers a few bits of good news. The center-left paper has a surprising article on how the world's drug firms sacrificed profits in the battle against AIDS. It's a great example demonstrating how shame and public pressure are far better means to address socially irresponsible corporate behavior than government mandates (which should remain an option of last resort).

The British daily also has a piece on how music is being used in Senegal in HIV/AIDS education campaigns. The west African country has the lowest rate of HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa.

The paper also has an article on the 50 best African artists.

Top myths about Iraq

Alternet has a good piece on the top ten fallacies about the civil war in Iraq.

Among the canards:

-"Syria and Iran are behind the violence."

-"Foreign fighters, especially jihadis, are fueling the violence."

and the most popular one of late

-"If we do not defeat the violent actors there, they will follow us here."

Adirondack villages rap state aid distribution

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise had a fascinating article on the way state aid is divided up.

According to the Saranac Lake based paper, the New York state legislature gives far more aid per capita to entities classified as cities than those classified as towns or villages.

Leaders from three of the largest villages in the Adirondacks passed a resolution pointing out, among other things, that cities receive about 60 percent of state aid funding while villages receive only 2 percent, despite the fact that villages have to provide “city-like” services such as water, sewer, police and fire.

The paper noted that the Adirondack villages in question receive between $8 and $15 per person in state aid while the decaying capital district city of Amsterdam receives $115 per person.

The daily concludes that as a result villages have to use property taxes to generate larger portions of their revenue base. In 2004, Tupper Lake generated 72 percent of its revenue through property taxes, Saranac Lake was at 70 percent and Lake Placid was at 66 percent. Amsterdam raises 35 percent through land taxes.

The mayor of Saranac Lake reiterated that he is not necessarily calling for more aid statewide but for the existing aid to be distributed more fairly.

“There are villages that are bigger than cities. There are towns bigger than cities," he said.

"Religion" and the politics of division

One thing that's clear throughout human history is that the politics of division is destructive on nations and societies. One thing that's equally clear is that for all the talk about unity, the politics of division is effective as a way to earn money, power and votes. This is why negative campaigning works, even though everyone claims to hate it.

One thing that's always bugged me about the right-wing Christian movement is how un-Christian they seem to me. That plus the fact that many people act like right-wing and Christian are synonymous. I was raised in a moderately left-wing Christian household. My parents didn't talk about the evils of masturbation or homosexuality. Instead, they talked about the importance of giving of yourself, of helping those less fortunate. That's what I took from Christianity.

But many people instead take negative things from the religion. Don't do this. Don't do that. These people are evil. Those people are going to hell. Not a positive agenda, but a negative one.

I was interested to read that the man elected president of the Christian Coalition, a group of predominantly conservatives, resigned before he even took office.

He wanted to broaden the group's agenda to include reducing poverty and fighting global warming. I consider these to be noble, Christian goals: helping human beings and the Earth they live on. In other words, taking care of God's creations.

But the Christian (sic) Coalition's leadership opposed this. They said that there members were primarily interested in attacking gay marriage and abortion.

The Coalition's president-who-never-was said of the group's board, "When we really got down to it, they said: 'This just isn't for us. It won't speak to our base, so we just can't go there.'"

And that says a lot about the so-called Christians who make up their base. An agenda centered around helping people doesn't interest them nearly as much as an agenda centered around attacking people.

Ironic since CHRISTianity is supposedly centered around some guy named CHRIST. Christianity's central prophet Jesus was a man who spoke quite a bit about fighting poverty and helping the less fortunate but, to the best of my knowledge, uttered not a single word about gay marriage.