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"Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles." - Ambrose Pierce Good Thursday Morning,
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer. It's going to be hot out there for the next few days with temps reaching the humid 90's today through Sunday. All the rules apply: check on your neighbors, make sure your outdoor animals have plenty of shade and cold water... you know the drill.
By the way, have you taken a close look at the outside of your house lately? No? Go outside and take a walk around... it looks drab and not as sharp as you'd like it to. And your deck... you keep meaning to protect it but life keeps getting in the way. My advice would be to get it painted before the summer is out. Forget vinyl siding - that's just tacky. There's nothing like the spiffy look of a good paint job. And if you're trying to sell in this buyers market, the better your place looks the better price you'll get for it. I can help.
Look! Up in the sky! Just after sunset when the moon is rising you'll see it has a companion, Jupiter. They make a fine grouping.
The Stop Patterson Crossing folk will hold a 30 minute demonstration at the Patterson Town Hall tonight at 7PM just before the start of the Planning Board meeting where the PC FEIS is on the agenda. After the demo they will head on inside for the meeting. The flyer I received warns: "IMPORTANT: The Patterson Planning Board's meeting rules and protocols must be respected when we attend their meeting." But that never accomplishes anything, especially when you've got nothing left to loose like the folk in Lake Carmel.
The Putnam County News and Recorder has been bought by Elizabeth Ailes, wife of FOX News President, Roger Ailes. Current publisher Brian O'Donnell has built the PCNR into the best weekly in Putnam County with a small, but fiercely loyal readership. There was more genuine County news in his once-a-week paper than the Courier carried in a year and the Journal News in two. Now that the paper is in the hands of FOX News I suspect we'll be reading stories about the infallibility of the President and cautionary tales about how liberals have taken over the media and employee illegal immigrants in their press rooms. How Congressman Hall runs a communist training camp out of his campaign headquarters and how developers like Paul Camarda and Val Santucci are Knights on White Horses riding in at the last minute to further the American Dream. And yeah, Jeff Green supports terrorists and eats puppies - alive.
Media coverage in our county now consists of a right-leaning Gannett daily, the weekly Courier, which serves as the official news for the County, and the FOX News aligned PCNR. I'd better not hear anyone complain about the "left wing media" anymore since there isn't one, at least not around here. The right wing now controls the media from northern Westchester through to Columbia county and if you think that's a good thing consider what the lack of objective voices does to democratic institutions.
The best outcome is for the Aile's to offer to purchase PlanPutnam's News That Matters so that the lock is solid, otherwise we'll always be a nagging thorn in the empire. I can be bought and I don't think asking $1.5 Mil is too high, do you? I'll bet we've cost The Establishment that much in hassle over the years anyway. Come on... make me an offer! I'll even run it this way;
"Jeff Green, publisher of News That Matters, Putnam County's only independent media outlet, has sold the website and its daily column to Elizabeth Ailes, owner of the PCNR, for an undisclosed sum thus solidifying corporate control of the media in the Hudson Valley. Says Mrs. Ailes, "This is another feather in the cap for corporations and another nail in the coffin for Democracy."
It is possible Mrs. Ailes could run an objective and fair newspaper but history usually proves me right about these things. We shall see.
There are now more than 1 million records in the government's terrorist watch list representing some 400,000 people and 50,000 more are on the TSA's No-Fly list. You can't find out if you're on the list until you try to board a plane and if you find out you are, as Senator Ted Kennedy and "Peace Train" singer Cat Stevens did, the only way off is to prove you don't have weapons of mass destruction buried in your backyard while singing the Star Spangled Banner backwards - in Norwegian.
While we're singing in Norwegian, the Department of the Interior handed the oil companies another 55 gallon drum full of welfare by opening 2.6 million acres of the arctic for exploration. Mind you, there are millions of acres in the US that are not being explored for oil, acres that have already been leased by the industry and I'm still not hearing anything meaningful out of Washington about conservation or alternative energy. In fact, I understand if you suggest national conservation measures you get your name placed on the terrorist watch list as a threat to national profits security.
But here's the real unspoken issue: Our nation's oil refineries are working at full blast and we cannot produce more usable petroleum product. Putting more oil in the pipeline whether its from the arctic, from offshore sources, or from mining the zits off the faces of 20 million teenagers, will lower the price of oil - for the producers - not for you. I've always said to follow the money. If you're happy with the current situation then revel in your happiness. If you're not, do something meaningful to change it and sending email to your friends and preaching to the already converted, ain't gonna cut it.
And now, the News:
- Sacramento couple who let lawn die to save water face $746 fine
- Assemblyman Ball should get the facts
- The Putnam County News and Recorder Under New Ownership
- Historic Tompkins Corners Church Redefining Itself
- Go Green this Summer: Save Water, Save Money
- Land Protection: More Is More
- Logging and landslides: What went wrong?
- U.S. still flunks healthcare test, group says
Sacramento couple who let lawn die to save water face $746 fine By Matt Weiser - mweiser@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, July 2, 2008
If Sacramento wanted a poster couple for its "green city" aspirations, it would be hard to do better than Anne Hartridge and Matt George.
The husband and wife bought a home in east Sacramento for easy biking to work and shopping. They installed solar panels and efficient appliances. Their laundry dries on a clothesline.
They didn't own a car until four years ago, when their eldest son, then 18 months old, was being treated frequently for food allergies. They bought a Prius.
So when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a statewide drought June 4, Hartridge decided it was only right to let her front lawn die to save water.
"The whole water conservation ethic is very important to me," said Hartridge, a state employee who bikes or rides the bus to work.
But that ethic didn't agree with her neighbors, or with the city.
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Assemblyman Ball should get the facts Noreen O'Donnell
Journal News columnist
Once again, former Brewster Mayor John Degnan is being accused of being a slumlord.
Once again, his political opponent offers no proof.
The charge is backed only by a claim that apartments Degnan owns and rents were not inspected by the village of Brewster, according to a political watchdog group that investigated. No evidence was presented that Degnan had tried to block an inspection or that the apartments are, in fact, substandard. Indeed, his tenants say they are not.
But that has not stopped Assemblyman Greg Ball from throwing about the charge in campaign literature.
What's different this time is that the political watchdog group, the Westchester Fair Campaign Practices Committee, has ruled against Ball.
"To repeat this assertion in 2008 campaign literature perpetuates a misleading statement from a past campaign and compounds the error of an unfair campaign practice today," the committee wrote.
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The Putnam County News and Recorder Under New Ownership It was announced today by Brian O'Donnell, President of PCN&R, Inc. that The Putnam County News and Recorder has been purchased by The Putnam County News & Recorder, LLC, owned by Roger Ailes.
Mr. Ailes said that "we recently built a home in the Cold Spring/Garrison area and we always enjoyed reading the local paper. Brian O'Donnell has done an excellent job making the paper a 'must read' in the Hudson Valley. I've asked him to stay on as senior consultant during the transition. He has agreed and will give us guidance so we can continue to serve the local community."
Mr. O'Donnell said, "After being involved with the paper for almost twenty years, and publisher/owner for the last twelve, I felt it was time for a change. I am pleased that I was able, under my watch, to bring the paper into the 21st century while maintaining its tradition as an invaluable community resource. I'm thrilled that the new owners are experienced media professionals who love the Hudson Valley. I am confident that I have placed the newspaper in good hands."
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Historic Tompkins Corners Church Redefining Itself Preserving 173-year legacy of prayer and music is the goal
by Edward Paul Greiff
The Historic Tompkins Corners Church in Putnam Valley has weathered change since it was built in 1835. Now, after 173 years, it finds it must once again redefine itself while still trying to maintain its legacy of prayer and music.
Gwen Cope, one of the supporters struggling to keep the church alive says, "There has been all kinds of information in the newspapers lately about declining church attendance and membership across the board. We have certainly felt it here. The main concern is to keep the church open. We would like to invite non-profit groups looking for meeting space to avail themselves of the facilities and also to keep our concert series going."
That concert series, The Tompkins Corners Music Festival, started in 1990, was one of the ways the church has redefined itself. Cope related how the idea for concerts in the church got started, "A friend of David Amram got married here and David played at their wedding. He apparently liked the church and asked Reverend Cox if he could have a concert there. The Reverend said yes. And that is actually how the idea for concerts got started."
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Go Green this Summer: Save Water, Save Money By: American Rivers
Save over 25% off the Purchase of a Rain Barrel
CONTACTS:
Kathryn Swartz, American Rivers, 419-936-3759
Joan Freele, New England Rain Barrel, 781-910-9036
View the flyer: www.americanrivers.org/rainbarrels2008 (PDF)
Toledo, OH---For the second time this year, Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan residents have the opportunity to save money and water by purchasing discounted rain barrels, thanks to a partnership between American Rivers, the Toledo Stormwater Program and The New England Rain Barrel Company. Rain barrels are available at the discounted price of $72 -- $27 off the retail price of $99. The rain barrels help residents use water more wisely and reduce pollution in local streams.
“We all need clean water, and it’s important that we use water wisely. Rain barrels are an easy way to catch and store rain for watering gardens, shrubs and trees. They also help prevent stormwater from overwhelming our aging sewer systems or flowing over dirty streets and parking lots and polluting local streams,” said Kathryn Swartz, Conservation Associate for American Rivers. “By catching the rain and reusing it, residents can help the environment and save money at the same time.”
Ninety-two rain barrels were sold through this program in March.
A rain barrel captures and stores rainwater from the roof gutter system of a home for later use. The New Englander is designed for watering flowers, vegetables, shrubs and trees either by connecting a garden hose to the rain barrel or filling a watering can.
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Land Protection: More Is More For Wildlife and Humans Both, The Key Word Is "Contiguous"
When a developer announced plans to build nearly 1,000 homes across 2,200 acres of open space in a rural Hudson Valley town, I asked the conservation biologist at Scenic Hudson, the group I head, to conduct an ecological study. He concluded the project would so fragment the site’s fragile ecosystems that many of its amphibian and reptile species would be wiped out. Our work supplemented and supported a massive and effective effort by a local grass-roots organization opposing the oversized project on roughly a dozen other grounds -- traffic, cost of school expansion, visual impacts, among others. Shortly after these findings were made public, the developer announced it was going back to the drawing board. It has promised to make protection of the site’s natural resources the beginning point and focus of revised plans. Time will tell whether these plans achieve this laudable goal.
Scan the Web site of any land preservation organization and you’re likely to see the word “contiguous” before you read too far. It’s not enough that we safeguard America’s fields and forests, mountains and marshlands; it’s crucial these open spaces be connected. In other words, it’s far better to conserve one 100-acre plot than to protect 50 unlinked two-acre parcels.
Why? For one thing, saving large open spaces protects the local aquifer, the underground layer of rock that stores rainwater and melting snow, and our prime source of drinking water. When we carve land into subdivisions and shopping centers, necessitating the construction of more driveways, parking lots and other impermeable surfaces, less water soaks into the aquifer, yet demand for it keeps rising. (It’s been estimated that each new household consumes 318 million gallons of water per year.) Even worse, the water that does make it underground often is polluted with oil, fertilizer or other toxins.
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Logging and landslides: What went wrong? By Hal Bernton and Justin Mayo
Seattle Times staff reporters
BOISTFORT VALLEY, Lewis County — When Weyerhaeuser began clear-cutting the Douglas firs on the slopes surrounding Little Mill Creek, local water officials were on edge.
Some of these lands had slid decades ago, after an earlier round of logging. They worried new slides could dump sediments into the mountain stream and overwhelm a treatment plant.
Those fears came true last December when a monster storm barreled in from the Pacific, drenching the mountains around the Chehalis River basin and touching off hundreds of landslides. Little Mill Creek, filled with mud and debris, turned dark like chocolate syrup.
More than three months passed before nearly 3,000 valley residents could drink from their taps again.
"I have never seen anything like this before, and I hope I never do again," said Fred Hamilton, who works for the Boistfort Valley Water Corp.
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U.S. still flunks healthcare test, group says Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:40am EDT
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States fails on most measures of health care quality, with Americans waiting longer to see doctors and more likely to die of preventable or treatable illnesses than people in other industrialized countries, a report released on Thursday said.
Americans squander money on wasteful administrative costs, illnesses caused by medical error and inefficient use of time, the report from the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund concluded.
"We lead the world in spending. We should be expecting much more in return," Commonwealth Fund senior vice president Cathy Schoen told reporters.
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