"We don't budget for sidewalks"

The Saratogian ran an article about how residents in Saratoga Springs want more and better sidewalks. The request was pooh-poohed by city leaders. DPW Chief Skip Scirocco said, "We don’t put any money in our budget for sidewalks."

(Probably not a surprise to Jim Kunstler)

Cool... that must mean that people in Saratoga who walk, bike and take the bus everywhere don't have to pay taxes... right?

A great day for civil rights

After intense debate, the New York Senate finally voted on and passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. The bill was quickly signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The irony is that a similar measure failed two years in a Democratic-controlled Senate. But this bill was approved by a GOP-controlled chamber.

Interestingly, a combined 55% of legislators supported the civil rights measure, which is actually a lower percentage than in the 2009 vote. Perhaps surprisingly, a recent Siena poll showed that 59% of Catholics in New York supported the legalization of same-sex marriage, despite the obstinance of their leaders.

Shortly after the bill was signed, someone I know announced that she and her partner were engaged. I checked outside and noticed that the sky did not appear to be falling.

Critics make the farcical claim that allowing gays and lesbians to marry will cause society to implode. I think the real sign of the apocalypse is that the legislature actually did something to make us proud to be New Yorkers.

The Chronicle should give credit for using MOFYC/Wilson piece (and did... updated)

The Glens Falls weekly Chronicle picked up the most recent story published here written by Mark Wilson... sort of. This was part of Wilson’s series examining troubles at the rival daily Post-Star. But in his article, Chronicle editor Mark Frost referred to, “A blog that a Chronicle reader referred us to put those numbers in perspective...”

His piece did not include the name of this blog, a URL to Wilson's article or, what should have been the bare minimum, Wilson's name.

The excellent blog entry did not appear out of thin air. Mark Wilson has done a lot of research to put together that piece and the entire series. Frost ought to have acknowledged Wilson in his article as the person who “put those numbers in perspective.”

We hear mainstream media journalists complaining all the time about bloggers ‘stealing’ their content without attribution but here it’s just the opposite.

Blogger Wilson did all the work of “putting those numbers in perspective” in a piece of journalism as good as anything you’d read in either The Chronicle or The Post-Star. But Frost used the material Wilson compiled without bothering to credit him. Frost mentioned that he saw it in a blog but consciously chose to not include details about the source, which is even more of a slap in the face to Wilson’s efforts.

This amateur blog’s policy is to always give attribution to material taken from other sources and, whenever possible, to link directly to it. I’ve occasionally referenced articles from The Chronicle, but always with credit given. A professional newspaper operation should do the same.

As such, I’d like to remind readers of that which is listed in the blog’s masthead: Essays are available for re-print, with the explicit permission of the publisher. mofycbsj @ yahoo.com. If brief excerpts are going to be used or if the piece is going to be mentioned in passing, attribution must be given.

Although I don’t usually agree with Frost’s political opinions, I generally consider him someone who tries to be fair-minded. Frost does like claim he stands up for the little guy. As such, he could start by giving the little guy credit for his work.

A discussion is planned with Mr. Frost and we hope they will run a clarification in the next issue. Stay tuned!

Update: The weekly agreed to run a clarification in the next issue crediting Mr. Wilson for his work. We thank Mr. Frost for his cooperation.

Further update: The weekly did run a clarification in yesterday's issue. It was something like "Mark Wilson stopped by the office to request attribution" rather than "I (Mark Frost) failed to give attribution" (which should have been a no-brainer in the first place). But proper credit was finally given albeit, it seems, grudgingly.

English soccer's cluelessness and FIFA's war against honesty

I saw an article in the UK Guardian about the English soccer team crashing out of the European Under-21 Championships. Manager Stuart Pearce blamed his side’s failure on their lack of ‘doggedness.’

And this is the English mentality in a nutshell. To them, dealing with repeated failure doesn’t mean improving skill, technique or tactical awareness, areas where the English are light years behind countries like Spain, Germany, Argentina and Brazil. Their solution to everything is always to just “be more dogged”... which, without the aforementioned improvements, equates to banging your head against a stone wall a little bit harder.

Why American soccer has taken this as its model, as opposed to those of countries which actually challenge for top level championships and produce world class attacking players, is beyond me.

***

Speaking of soccer dysfuction... the sport’s international governing body FIFA has been tarnished by an avalanche of corruption and bribery accusations. It’s become so controversial that even a newspaper in Nigeria, no stranger to graft, has noted that “FIFA has become so corrupt that it no longer knows that it is corrupt.” FIFA’s tinpot dictator Sepp Blatter has acted in the same manner as every other tinpot dictator, doling out slush funds and ruthlessly punishing anyone who dares challenge his rule. But what do you expect from a man who once dismissed a journalist's query by saying, “I am the president of FIFA and you cannot question me.”

FIFA is so committed to secrecy that not only does it refuse transparency in its own operations, but it even relentlessly squashes any attempts at transparency in its member organizations.

Given the entrenched nature of the organization's corruption, I suspect pressure from their highly-paying sponsors is the only chance of badly needed reform.

The new African land grab, brought to you by Harvard

This essay is part of an occasional feature on this blog that presents compelling 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, IsraelStine and the Trumped Up Enemy of the Month. A list of all pieces in this series can be found found here..

The UK Guardian has a disturbing piece on how many prestigious US universities, including Harvard and Vanderbilt, are collaborating with European speculators to buy or lease large chunks of land in Africa thus forcing thousands of locals off the land.

I don’t discriminate against Catholics... I just want them to have fewer rights than everyone else

George Wallace at the University of Alabama during his notorious "Segregation today! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" speech.



The title of this essay is obviously exaggerated to make a point but there actually were those amongst our country’s sainted Founding Fathers who wanted to deny Catholics the right to vote. Would that have constituted discrimination against Catholics? Perhaps not, according to Timothy Dolan, the Catholic archbishop of New York.

If you want an classic Orwellian read, check out this blog entry by Dolan. (If you want to read pure vile hatred and lies, check out some of the reader comments at the bottom)

It was a pretty standard regurgitation of the Vatican’s position.

And no Chicken Little hysteria would be complete without an evocation of a fascist or Stalinist regime -- in this case, North Korea.

The particularly Orwellian passage by the archbishop that caught my attention was this: Our beliefs should not be viewed as discrimination against homosexual people.

Except that applying different standards to different people on the same issue is the EXACT definition of discrimination.

Discrimination is not always bad. DMVs discriminate against the blind in issuing driver's licenses. The Constitution discriminates against young people in who can run for president. Voting laws discriminate against non-citizens. All of these forms of discrimination are generally considered legitimate. But legitimate discrimination is, by definition, still discrimination.

As such, one might argue that the Church’s anti-marriage equality position constitutes legitimate discrimination but even if that's so, it’s still discrimination. It’s one thing to defend a pro-discrimination position; the Catholic Church has a number of them. It’s another thing to deny its reality.

(The most enraging thing about the position of the Vatican and many other religious organizations is not that they are defending their own right to discriminate internally, which would remain unaffected by same-sex marriage bill; it’s that they are trying to mandate that the state practice discrimination itself based on the Church’s own religious beliefs)

The archbishop insists that marriage was invented by God and can’t be modified by Man, even in our non-theocracy. A cursory look at history shows that this is demonstrably false.

But I say that if Albany can’t redefine marriage, then Dolan can’t redefine the dictionary.

***

Opponents of equal rights in New York state have recently invoked the Torah (even though we're "not a theocracy"), the Holocaust and, of course, the totalitarian North Korean regime. State senator and evangelical minister Ruben Diaz, New York's own George Wallace, compared marriage equality proponents with the Ku Klux Klan.

(Maybe there is hope... Wallace eventually came around to the fairness position, recanted his anti-civil rights views and apologized for the damage he helped inflict).

Surely that can’t be it! No Chicken Little hysteria is complete without a Nazi reference. He may have sent gays to the gas chambers, but Hitler would've supported same-sex marriage too, right?

***

A few days ago was the 44th anniversary of the Loving decision, named after the plaintiffs Richard and Mildred Loving. That was the US Supreme Court ruling that struck down all state laws banning interracial marriages.

In his ruling, the initial trial court judge ruling against the Lovings said: Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

The rhetoric sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it.

In a statement a few years ago marking the 40th anniversary of the case, Mildred Loving wrote: I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no
matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people's religious beliefs over
others. Especially if it denies people's civil rights.

She then expressed her pride that her husband's and her name is on a court
case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life.

I couldn't have said it any better myself.

If "Wallace" Diaz's assertion is correct, then the African-American Mrs. Loving was no doubt wearing a white hood.

Why Dolan and Diaz, both self-proclaimed men of God, are so rabid in demanding the state deny this basic humanity is beyond me. I just hope the God who they claim to be representing will ask them that exact question when the time comes. I will leave the judgment up to Him. I'd urge them to do the same.


Update: the United Nations passed a historic resolution insisting up equality for all humans, without regard to sexual orientation. The Vatican joined Saudi Arabia, China and Russia in opposition.

The power of the Punch

Watching the Stanley Cup final, you probably thought the triumph of my Bruins was down to Tim Thomas' amazing goaltending, hard-working forwards and the generous hospitality of Vancouver's defenders and goalie. I'm here to tell you it's just an illusion. In fact, the Bruins' Stanley Cup victory was proof positive of the power of Hawaiian Punch.

When I was in high school, I drank nothing but Hawaiian Punch. Lord knows why. It probably has more crap in it than a McDonald's McNugget. But I was addicted to the stuff. It was my superstition to drink it around gametime. The Punch became the official drink of the Stanley Cup finals. During that time period, the Bruins made it to a pair of Stanley Cup finals and went deep into the playoffs every single year. Coincidence? I think not. Proof?

By the time I got to college, I outgrew my taste for the drink. And the Bruins became crap, with the occasional foray into the choking domain. After 1992, the team never once made it even to the conference finals. Some blame it on the demise of the Wales Conference and the identity-shattering re-naming of the league's groups with boring geographical references. But I know better. I'd betrayed the Punch.

This season, the Punch reprised its role as the official drink of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The B's became the first team ever to win three Games 7 in one playoff series and won their first Cup in my lifetime. In a nod to tradition, I drank a glass of the Punch to start each period of Game 7. This ritual so emasculated the Canucks that they knew the jig was up and played like it. Why do you think the first place targeted by Vancouver rioters after the game was the Hawaiian Punch merchandise store.

As Zdeno Chara hoisted the big mug to celebrate, I hoisted my own mug, downed it and saluted the Punch. I shall never again doubt its power.




He knows its awesome power.

May you get what you want

"People tend to get the kind of government they deserve." -Thomas Jefferson

This blog has a good commentary slamming liberals who voted for Andrew Cuomo and his regressive agenda and are now whining about Cuomo actually trying to implement that agenda.

Despite the fact that Cuomo openly promised BEFORE THE ELECTION to wage war against unions, one of the groups who endorsed Cuomo was none other than the AFL-CIO.

I guess it would've made too much sense for unions to endorse the only candidate who was not only pro-union but an actual union member.