The not-so-great midterm election season is over, and everybody’s still angry, including me. A few tea-partiers chipped away at the hated (and pretty much mythical) Liberazi firmament, while the Democratic faux-populists who remain are as committed as ever to the maintenance of our soul-crushing corporatocracy. This piece was originally melded into the Hudson Valley Chronic’s [...]
Nobody’s Business
The Green Tea Manifesto
A bid to forge a way forward through the Left/Right divide
Steve Hopkins • January 27th, 2011
The Unbelievable Truth
Steve Hopkins • April 1st, 2010
“It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.” —Thomas Paine “It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.” —H.L. Mencken “There is a terrific disadvantage in not having the abrasive quality of the press applied [...]
Damned if I do; damned if I don’t
Steve Hopkins • December 1st, 2009
I know it’s the holidays and everything, so you’ll have to forgive me, o Lord, for failing to believe in you. If you indeed created me and my ilk, then you probably have some understanding of the dilemma that led to this impasse. For what was created when I hit the bedpan was a hard-wired [...]
No Room at the Inn
Kingston mayor cries foul as hotel chain denies lodging to local residents
Steve Hopkins • November 1st, 2009
Greater Kingston’s newest hotel, the Hampton Inn, is situated at the rear of a crowded business complex off Ulster Avenue in the Town of Ulster, squatting like an out-of-place Egyptian temple behind a CVS and a Dunkin’ Donuts. Printed on the back of the business card of Denise Laneuville, the inn’s general manager, is the [...]
Bridge To the Past, Bridge To the Future
Steve Hopkins • August 1st, 2009
For all the comments I get from people about how they’re jealous of my seeming to have done just about whatever I wanted and lived a pretty interesting and varied life compared to their more settled, responsible paths, I still feel sometimes like I missed the experiential boat. Truth be told, the first thing I [...]
Soggy Farmers Need Your Love
Steve Hopkins • July 1st, 2009
Greetings, fellow food lovers! In deciding to launch the Hudson Valley Chronic at the dawn of the Great Recession as the local journalism firmament was crumbling around me, I had to make some hard choices. Number one, in order to give the paper a fighting chance, I had to commit to resisting the impetus to [...]
Yellow (Lab) Journalism
Steve Hopkins • April 1st, 2009
As a publisher, one must choose one’s battles carefully, and try not to alienate the entire region you’re attempting to serve. As a reporter and writer, you strive to get at the truth, whether it be literal or something deeper and more complex. In that respect, I’ve historically erred on the side of incaution, more [...]
My Kind of Town, Take 2
Steve Hopkins • March 1st, 2009
Mark Greene has an Emmy, one of the better looking of the big gold-tinted statuettes that can make the difference between an expensive hobby and a career. His company, Pecos Design, won the 2007 Broadband Public Service Emmy Award for the animation “Big Fun With Global Warming” which it created for the Sierra Club. Mark [...]
With a Whimper, Taconic Press Bites the Dust
Steve Hopkins • February 1st, 2009
It was a cold day in the fall of 1997 when I first crossed the threshold of the slate blue Victorian mansion in Millbrook, looking for a change of life and career. Thanks to the myopic bear of an executive editor, Bob Lomicky, I was given the chance to fake my way into a part-time [...]
Kill the Property Tax Before It Kills Us
Steve Hopkins • December 1st, 2008
So there I was, hanging out at The Men’s Room barbershop in Poughkeepsie, waiting for a trim and sweating the ebullient, highly opinionated and always personable owner, Manny Drivas, for the ad you see below. While not exactly a soft touch, Manny has as finely-tuned a bullshit meter as I do, and the first time [...]
