The Hudson Valley Chronic

Executive indecision

Steve Hopkins — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 07:22:07 +0000

Whatever happens on November 8, come January at least two of the Mid-Hudson region’s county executive offices will be managed by a relatively young, dark and toothsome gentleman sporting a haircut you can set your watch to. Call it a trend. The greater Hudson Valley, and particularly this region, is becoming renowned for fast-tracking young, ambitious, photogenic political talent. Kirsten Gillibrand catapulted herself through the House of Representatives and into the U.S. Senate in short order, running with the boundless energy and cunning of a real-life Tracy Flick, craftily harnessing her camera-ready blue-eyed blonde dish factor into votes and dinners with D.C. kingmakers.

Then came Mike Hein, flashing his Cheshire Cat grin and effortlessly cruising into office as Ulster County’s first chief executive at age 44. An active and savvy pragmatist, he’s flooded the political and legislative docket with do-able, voter-friendly reforms while cozying up to the state’s Democratic power elite, which has a lot to say about what happens nationally as well. Running unopposed for his second term, he’s on Chuck Schumer’s fast track for bigger stuff, having already been on Mario Cuomo’s shortlist of potential lieutenant governors.

Now the retirement of the once-young-and-hungry Bill Steinhaus has cleared the deck for new blood in the executive office in Dutchess County. And new blood it will be. The Republican contender is New York State Assemblyman Marcus Molinaro, a political old-timer at 36, who cut his pearly whites as America’s youngest mayor (of Tivoli) at age 19. Says he: “I was 18 in 1994 when I was elected to the village board and 19 when I was elected mayor in 1995. So I’ve been around for a little while — 17 years now. Somebody told me … you may be only 36, but it seems like you’ve been around since the Eisenhower administration. I don’t know that that’s a compliment …”

The tireless and preternaturally wonky Molinaro also put in a stint as a Dutchess County legislator, and as an assemblyman has quickly ascended the ladder to the number-two spot in the GOP minority. He was a member of Cuomo’s transition team, and is a notorious bipartisan-minded centrist — every bit as Tracy Flick as is the redoubtable Ms. Gillibrand.

Molinaro’s competition on the Democratic ticket is Beekman Town Supervisor Dan French, 30, who started a bit later in his career but seems hell-bent on making up for lost time by leapfrogging over his relative political elder. Indeed, French is looking at this race as a scrappy underdog, and has been the aggressor, taking shots at Molinaro’s youthful mayoral record and attempting to turn the assemblyman’s easy rapport with the local and regional business and power elite into a liability.

French’s supervisor position is part-time. In July he left his full-time job as Dutchess County’s deputy elections commissioner for the Democratic side, which he held for the past five years. “I resigned that position so I could put my full-time effort into meeting voters and talking about the issues that are important to people,” he says. “My commitment is to this race; I didn’t feel I could run a campaign that was going to win unless I resigned that position. It really freed me up to do a tremendous amount of doors, which is the focus of my campaign — a door-to-door, grass-roots effort.”

He has apparently worn out at least one pair of good shoes on his long safari for votes.

Although he wasn’t focused on a political career early on, French’s tenure in the elections office gave him a front-row seat in the hurly-burly theater of Dutchess County government, and in conversation he seems every bit as wonky and process-driven as Molinaro.

Both men can fill up your tape recorder with dense, 100-words-per-minute policy rants, turn on an intellectual dime and make a strong, well-defined case for their candidacy. Indeed, during a series of long interviews with both, I often felt as if I were talking to, if not the same person, someone remarkably similar to the other. And luckily for you, dear voter, I also came away with the feeling that I’d be comfortable with either of them leading my home county out of the creeping stasis that has marked it through the waning, closed-door Steinhaus years. Both have drive, intelligence, sweeping plans to open up county government and make it more accountable, accessible and shimmering with, as everyone says these days, “greater transparency.” Both see the economy, taxes and jobs as their priority. Both want to end the budget-crippling practice of paying $4 million a year to other counties to house out all the prisoners who can’t fit inside the county’s pitiful old stump of a jail. Both think the state should help out by offering to help retrofit Greenhaven or another state facility to ease the congestion. Both prefer a balanced approach to economic development. Both agree the Resource Recovery Agency (RRA) that runs big deficits managing the county’s chronically under-performing garbage-burning power plant needs an overhaul, and that single-stream recycling of the sort being pioneered down in Beacon by Hudson Baler will go a long way toward making the county a better, cleaner, more environmentally friendly place.

In person, both French and Molinaro are effusive, direct and charming, treating one as a compadre as opposed to a potential mark or an annoying journalist. And, although young, both have faced the sort of life-altering challenges that serve to humanize them, deepen their character, attract the sensitive voter and keep annoying journalists and other potential hurdles in their corner. We won’t go into those challenges here — you can read them on their websites.

Not that there aren’t differences. They are significant in certain areas, most notably with regard to what to do with the RRA and the burn plant (French wants to stop “doubling down” on the thing and close it, exporting garbage as a cheaper interim measure on the way to eventual “zero-waste” management in which all, or nearly all, of our filthy, toxic leavings will be re-employed in some productive manner, providing jobs to a new army of green sanitation specialists. Molinaro thinks that we should stay the course, because we can’t get out of paying for the bonds that funded the emission-scrubbing technology to bring the plant up to snuff a few years ago, and we have a signed multi-year management contract with the operator, Covanta. “It’s not the kind of thing you just walk away from,” says Molinaro.

The two aren’t on the same page — or even in the same chapter — when it comes to a permanent solution for the jail overcrowding problem, which results in Dutchess being responsible for fully one-third of all the inmates housed out in the entire state.

“Clearly there’s something wrong,” says French. “But the question becomes: do we do a bricks-and-mortar approach like Steinhaus wants to do, and presumably my opponent wants to do? Because that would cost from 75 to 100 million dollars, for a full build-out at that jail, when you put the principal and interest into it as well. I mean it’s pretty clear to me that the bricks-and-mortar solution is not the way to go. We need to increase alternatives to incarceration. We need to make sure that we process people in a very efficient and effective way. Because SUNY New Paltz — I have a study right here on my desk — they said that the number of arrests here in Dutchess County has not increased. It’s that the average stay of a prisoner in our jail is overly long. It means they’re not being moved through quickly enough, and that’s costing you and I dollars, every single time. So I would push for a rocket docket system, to get people through the system quicker, more alternatives to incarceration, and then tackling the problem of recidivism, which is something that a local jail and a local community can do. If we can cut the number of people that actually get back into the system, obviously that saves us dollars and improves the quality of life for those people. It gets them back on the right track, toward a productive life.

“The other option would be a regional shared approach, with another county,” continues French. “The county jail has four populations of prisoners: male, female, adult and minor. So if you have an overflow, that every county can identify as an overflow, and then you have a regional jail approach that would house all of that overflow for just one or two of those population groups. That might be a very cost-beneficial approach.

“Which brings me to another thing. Greenhaven; there’s an annex there. This SUNY New Paltz study also says that maybe you can refab that prison annex, which might have up to 70 beds. You can work with the state; maybe share the cost with them. Greenhaven is already off the tax rolls; it’s in my town, and it’s already set up in such a way that it’s prepared to house inmates. There’s also the Mid-Hudson Psych Center, which is closing down as we speak. That might have some opportunities for rehabilitation of some of those buildings into extra beds. It’s these kind of outside-the-box approaches that I bring to the table, and that’s why when I say, ‘It’s a new day,’ it’s more than just a slogan. It’s more about drilling down, taking a fresh approach and having a brand-new perspective on the biggest problems that face our county.”

While agreeing with French on the need to involve the state in helping out with Greenhaven and other facilities, Molinaro is firmly in favor of rehabbing and expanding the capacity of the current jail. “Well, we need to expand capacity; we have no choice,” he says. “We need to evaluate retrofitting the existing jail structure. We have a wing of the jail that’s very, very old. It’s high labor intensity with low numbers. Twenty years ago the technology didn’t exist, but today you can gut a jail and install what are called dormitory-style pods, resulting in low labor costs and higher numbers, Then you install some kind of regional overflow capacity. Now, the problem with any regional solution is that, right now Dutchess County and Sullivan County are the only two that need capacity; all the rest have capacity. So convincing Mike Hein that we need to build a regional jail facility when really all he wants is to get our revenue, is going to take a lot of conversation. … The sheriff wants more jail space. The professionals in the field, even those involved with the ATI program, say they need more capacity. And I think that’s the way to go. Now, Dan’s approach is — he said something like: ‘I don’t subscribe to a bricks-and-mortar approach.’ And then he goes on to describe the creation of a regional jail or the rehabbing of Greenhaven or making use of Hudson River Psych. Well, those are bricks-and-mortar approaches. You’re going to have to retrofit them. Not to mention that you’re going to have to have access to Hudson River Psych. It’s in a community neighborhood in the Town of Poughkeepsie, and I’m not sure that’s what they want.

“But they’re all options, and I think that the relationship I have with the state legislative delegation and Governor Cuomo would be very helpful, and the governor has acknowledged that this is an area where there could be relief to counties.”

Molinaro is running on his 17-year record, which is considerable, as well as trying to capitalize on the positive aspects of Steinhaus’s long reign while promising to tackle any negative baggage head-on. “From my perspective, I’ve seen this county and this community really go through some of its best days and some of its most difficult,” he says. “I know it’s not the most politically correct thing to say, but every day of my adult life has been in public service, and I’ve served through a lot. I’ve been involved in a lot of major projects. In Tivoli we did infrastructure projects, parks improvements — we transformed the village. There are very few who would argue with that. It was an amazing recapturing of the village’s spirit. We improved the water system; we invested in a reed-bed sewer system — the first in the county and an example that they used in other municipalities. I’ve worked through major snowstorms; that April Snowbud in 1997 … and we’ve had some very bad days: the rapes in Tivoli Bays, which was an overwhelming challenge for the community and a horrific event for a young woman and her daughter. I just reference that because I almost feel that every day of the last 17 years has prepared me for running for this job now.

“I’m not saying Steinhaus was this way and I’m that way,” continues Molinaro. “He’s leaving Dutchess County with a very strong financial foundation, fiscally speaking. We have among the highest bond ratings in the state. We have the ability to weather minor economic downturns while balancing cash flow in the county. We have a small workforce, we have a lean county government, and we’ve been an example. Dutchess County has been recognized for its alternatives to incarceration, for its parks, for its website and technology, for its response to crime. But I have my own approach, and it is going to be different. My approach has always been consensus-oriented. I have never allowed my party affiliation to affect how we make decisions or with whom we work. I think that in a very difficult economic condition where resources are scarce and people are demanding more from each other, that consensus-oriented decision-making is so much better.

“ I want this county to be an example of accountability and transparency, meaning that department heads will really be encouraged to be out in the community, reach out to the community, have very strong relationships with the not-for-profits whom we partner with, and be really responsive to the taxpayers. I’ve said to both civil service and political appointees: we are public servants. And whether it’s a resident waiting on line for food stamps or someone needing to go to the DMV or to get a sanitary sewer permit, we treat those people with respect, because those are the people who pay our salaries and expect government to serve them without regard for who they are or what their party affiliation or background is.

“And then I’d like to use technology, both through social media and the county’s web capacity, to put information out before the public, to look at ideas and opinions on policymaking, but also to provide average residents, business owners, or anyone who wishes, with basic indicators — benchmarks — for county government. So you can go and evaluate where we are economically, to see what our response has been in particular areas of crime, where we have community projects, and so on. And I’d like residents to go and see the county government — not only how it works, but they’d have the capacity to evaluate the way in which the county government is providing service and responding to incidents.

“It’s always been my approach. When we had power outages and snowstorms, I’d be out on the fire truck announcing to the residents what the situation was. I don’t think we can drive a fire truck with a PA all throughout Dutchess County. We’ll use the traditional and new ways of communicating, to have people understand that residents, taxpayers, voters are part of determining how this county goes in the future.”

French takes the same village mayor record that Molinaro cites and attempts to turn it on its head, explaining that things are different now that flush times are over. “Contrast his record with mine, as supervisor of one of the largest and the fastest growing towns in the county,” says French. “During terrible economic times when we couldn’t rely on the mortgage tax or sales tax, I found a way to balance the budget — without using money from the rainy day fund as was done by my predecessor — with no increase in the tax levy. So before Albany ever told me that I needed to do a tax cap of 2 percent, I already knew that my taxpayers demanded it at zero percent. We’ve done two zero-percent tax increase budgets in a row. That’s my real record, and that’s his real record. I would hope the press and everyone else would make a real discussion out of that. It’s nothing to do with him personally. My problem is that many times over during the campaign he has said he wants to build on the solid foundation that we’ve been given by Bill Steinhaus. In my opinion, that is not a solid foundation. The county government is broken, in many ways. And he is out there defending almost everything that we do wrong. So it would seem to me that if you’re declaring that the county government isn’t broken, then you’re not listening. You’re not talking to the people who are literally impacted on a day-to-day basis by the decisions that have been made by county government. I’ve knocked on 5,000 doors and I’ve heard every story. I’ve heard the same story over and over, sometimes five or six times in a row. How seniors don’t have enough programs. Our youth don’t have enough positive outlets for them to stay out of trouble. Our county jail is a mess. The Resource Recovery Agency is a mess. People don’t have enough jobs locally. So if you’re saying county government’s not broken, then you’re reading the wrong book.”

While both men are cognizant of the manner in which power and influence are conveyed regionally by a handful of well-placed individuals, French takes a more activist approach to the issue. He knows Dutchess County is a place where a single real estate developer can position himself as the decision-maker in what happens with myriad big-ticket public projects: water infrastructure, resource recovery and the community college, among others. “Do you know how many contracts go through those three agencies? A tremendous amount,” he says. “Unfortunately, part of it is the way the system is set up: our campaign finance disclosure laws and the way that you can donate to candidates for public office. It’s a legal way to basically purchase influence.

“Is there a direct link saying that just because you give money to someone they’ll do want you want?” he queries to the four walls of his small Arlington office. “Maybe not, but if you look at the disclosure reports for Bill Steinhaus, it’s the same people — the same business interests, engineers, architects, contractors and vendors — giving him money, year after year. Then all of a sudden six months later those same people pop up getting county contracts. Now if you can look at that and say it’s not a good-old-boy system, then once again you have your eyes closed. What we need is someone who is not answerable to those special interests, but is only answerable to the people. And when I win — if I win — it’s going to be clear. I’m going to win because I have a grass-roots effort, not because I have the most money or have business interests behind me; I don’t. I have the people behind me, and that’s powerful.

“And let’s be clear,” concludes French: “The business interests don’t want to lose that cozy relationship. So one of the first fundraisers that my opponent had was held by Bill Steinhaus. All the people who have given thousands of dollars to Steinhaus are now giving money to my opponent. I think people should make their own judgments about whether they want that kind of person in office or not.”

Molinaro acknowledges the issue as one that holds back change and threatens good government. Although he is somewhat more circumspect in his response to the specter of cronyism and possible corruption, he promises that he will be no one’s rubber-stamp patsy. “I guess I would have to say that any time people are involved, you always run the risk of having both corruption and stagnancy,” says Molinaro. “I think that certainly there are some community leaders who have been involved in managing Dutchess County who obviously have a specific interest in making sure that things don’t change too much. But this is the first time in 20 years that we’re going to have a new county executive. And I think that there isn’t anyone who believes that things will remain the same. So if there is this concern for the existence of corruption, or even, not in a nefarious way, the maintaining of advantageous relationships among people in influential positions, I think the people will expect change because we’re going to have a new executive. And I think that a smart county executive will take advantage of the moment. The economic condition, the social demand, and the fact that we will have a new executive, will provide an opportunity to challenge the status quo. But I do think there’s a way you do that. And I’m respectful of the foundation that’s been built; I’m respectful of the fact that there are countless volunteers over the years whose contributions have meant a lot to Dutchess County. But if there is an air of concern over possible wrongdoing, we have to confront it. My policy was always: we establish policy and law to protect ourselves from ourselves. This is why, in the aftermath of the Paroli scandal, we rewrote the county’s ethics law; I was on the county legislature with Jim Hammond when we did it. And then we wrote the nepotism law — and I’ll tell you, everybody follows the nepotism law except the board of elections, which will change if I get elected. I have no tolerance for that kind of thing.”

So there you have it. These two have turned me, a sorely opinionated old curmudgeon, into one of those entities for which I harbor the greatest disdain: an “undecided voter.” It doesn’t help that I came into this liking both of them personally, and that neither did anything to put me off.

If this election seems to be a foregone conclusion, it shouldn’t be. There is a very real choice, and it comes down to this: French is a progressive Democrat through and through, and will try his damnedest to do what a progressive Democrat would do. If that’s your bag, he’s your man, and you should vote for him. Molinaro is a “Republican” — in the manner that Bill Clinton was a “Democrat,” and he won’t be bound by ideology. No matter who you are, if you think you know him, or what he’ll do in a pinch, you’re probably wrong.

Whichever gentleman wins, he can count on hearing a lot from this annoying journalist, who will be watching like a hawk. Good luck, guys, and do us right.

New Paltz FLOOD AID

Scott Patrick Humphrey — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:59:22 +0000

Hurricane Irene tore its way up the East Coast in late August, ravaging local communities in its wake. The Hudson Valley was hit extremely hard by Irene, and many towns, local farms, and individuals’ lives were devastated. The region’s citizens are gathering and offering their help to those who need it most.

Ulster County was ravished by flood waters. As creeks, lakes and rivers crested, many homes, roads, buildings and crops were wiped out. Margaretville, Prattsville and Phoenicia NY were leveled by the hurricane, while local farms in New Paltz had just about everything taken from them.

I was caught off-guard by the videos being posted by my Facebook acquaintances, like Burr Hubbell, who is an avid advocate for working-class issues and has been instrumental in spreading the word on what the scope of the damage really is in light of the cold shoulder that mainstream media has given to the plight of the residents in the Catskill Mountains.

I started to see homes being washed down the street, roads torn apart and crumbling downstream, as well as the public access news report on Taliaferro Farms in New Paltz under some million gallons of water. I knew Pete Taliaferro from interviewing him previously, and when I saw that report I could see the look of devastation, and the reporter’s closing words to come together as a community and help the farmers that feed us sounded off a bell.

Immediately I thought, “Let’s organize a fundraiser.” I know a lot of people in New Paltz who would be ready to help out in any way they could. As it turns out, I was right. My musician friends offered to play for free and support us in putting out the word; local residents were ready for the call.

I got together with Theresa Fall and KT Tobin of New Paltz to begin organizing the event, which we are calling “New Paltz Flood Aid: Farmers, Families, and First Responders.” Our goal is to raise money for those affected by the floods caused by Hurricane Irene. We are suggesting a $20 donation per person. The other way people can help is to volunteer their time on affected farms, or for families who need to gut their homes. People can volunteer a 4-hour or 8-hour work day to assist with cleanup. This along with a $20 donation would be very generous and much appreciated by all who are in need.

The first event is a kickoff for the fundraising on Sunday, October 2 from 4 – 9 p.m. at the Water Street Market off of Main Street in New Paltz; there will be a larger event 2 weeks later in Hasbrouck Park on Sunday, October 16, from 12 noon to 6 p.m. The kickoff event will have 6 local bands playing, and a potluck dinner is planned so everyone can share a true sense of community by preparing something they love to eat and feeding their neighbors. Although it is yet to be confirmed, I believe we will have a raffle as well.

Again, the initial event will be located at the Water Street Market off of Main Street in New Paltz on Sunday, October 2 from 4 – 9 p.m. Please come out and support us!

Magnificent obsession

Steve Hopkins — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 09:04:47 +0000

The Gowns for Greenbacks crew atop Wittenberg Mountain, the third peak in their 35-peak quest. From left to right: Melissa Bean, Tom Rolland, Heather Rolland, Danny Davis, Judy Mann, Suzanne Provenzano and Edward Moran.

The Catskill Mountains, those shadowy blue-green humps that undulate mysteriously across New York State’s pie-shaped lower extremity, have always had a transformational effect on human psychology and behavior. Stories abound of people wandering into the mountains and emerging years later, changed beyond recognition, their outlooks softened and feminized, their facial features calmed and beatific, like they’ve been on an extended acid trip. The Rip Van Winkle legend carries more than a kernel of truth. Spending time in these hills has turned accountants into poets, engineers into painters, suicidal neurotics into moonstruck spiritualists, Wall Street sociopaths into vegetable-eating philanthropists … and recreational weekend hikers into rope-muscled, ball-gown-wearing superheroes.

Indeed, this sort of psychotropic neural re-mapping surely has something to do with the unusual breed of adventurer who obsessively tramps across the dreamy, deceptively treacherous Catskills landscape. After a walk up one of these ancient brooding hills, the formerly casual hiker leaves his or her casualness behind, becoming increasingly wrapped up in a physical and emotional quest to conquer all 35 peaks above 3,500 feet in height. And that’s only the beginning. When that feat is in the bag, the 35-peak quest must be undertaken again and again, in increasingly difficult and inventive ways: In the dead of winter. All 35 each month for a year … 420 mountains in all. Really, really fast. All 35 in a single through-hike. Walking backwards. Walking barefoot. Walking naked. Walking in full-length formal evening wear …

To deal with this, a complex organized subculture has arisen over the years — calling itself the “3500 Club” — through which mountain mania is rewarded with a sew-on patch for each increasingly improbable accomplishment. Heather Rolland, a club member and avid hiker when she’s not wrangling her dogs or working for the county as a psychotherapist in Ellenville, told me all about it, explaining the rigors a would-be 35’er must endure. “Even people who are real hardcore hikers run into trouble in the Catskills, because so many of our 35 that you have to hike to get your patch are un-trailed. There’s no trails; it’s just wilderness. You need to use a map and compass — a goofy sort of geocaching-meets-mountaineering experience — to find a can. There’s actually, I kid you not, a can nailed to a tree on the top of the mountain. You’ve got to find the can — it’s a treasure hunt — and inside the can there’s a notebook and a pencil. You have to sign in. At the end, when you’ve done all these un-trailed peaks, your sign-ins are actually accounted for. It’s all volunteers who do all this, but there’s a guy — the Can Man — who goes around hiking all these peaks, looking at all the notebooks and checking up on everybody.”

In a word: obsession. Codified and made socially acceptable, but obsession nonetheless. Which is why Heather described herself as “insane” in claiming responsibility for the recent sightings of ball-gown-clad expeditions tramping exotically through the remote wilderness, ostensibly for the purpose of raising money for the 3500 Club and trail maintenance, but really as a desperate attempt to keep their obsession alive. The organization she created, Gowns for Greenbacks, serves as a conduit for funds pledged to the ball-gown-wearing participants, dauntless debutantes who solicit their own cash sponsorships. The group is currently a few iterations into the difficult but fashionable 35-hike quest, pushing the envelope as to what is possible for a human being to do in a dress.

“We have knives. We have duct tape. There’s no honor involved,” said Heather, whom I met, photographed and interviewed with her initial entourage at the Slide Mountain trailhead as they embarked on their “maiden” trek about a month ago. “The effort is not to keep the dresses intact, necessarily. Just to try and keep them on our bodies.”

She, her friend Melissa Bean and her winter 3500 patch-holding husband Tom — he not technically in a ball gown but prettily turned out nonetheless in Heather’s ankle-length “hippy-dippy” Indian skirt and one of his more girly-looking shirts — were the only participants who knew each other well, although from the group’s instant camaraderie you wouldn’t know it. “Looking forward to my first hike in drag,” said Tom gamely.

"Sports mode" ball gown hiking is a technique in progress.

“I kind of egged her on,” said Melissa, a fellow hiking zealot who works for the New York/New Jersey Trail Conference. Like Heather, hikers Judy Mann, another veteran 35’er, and Suzanne “I’m working on my peaks” Provenzano, looked resplendent and ready to hit the ballroom floor, as did Danny Davis, a geologist with the New York City DEP whom I failed to initially identify as a member of the opposite gender. “I’m not a 35’er, but I will be at the end of this. I have about 12 to go,” he said, a steely telltale glint in his eyes. Edward Moran, not yet ready to surrender his psyche to the mountains’ feminine mystique, was getting into character in top hat and tails to escort the stunning sextet up Slide Mountain, along with a pack of feisty, snarling dogs.

I found myself feeling a tad concerned for them. “This hike today is really going to be about seeing how it’s done,” said Heather breezily, as if she’d not a care in the world. “Because some of the other hikes we’ve got are trail-less peaks, which literally means that we’re going to be smashing through brush and crawling under … you know, some of the conifers are tough to get through; it’s very, very thick. There are vicious stinging nettles to make you lose your mind. I’ll send you a picture of my friend Snickers; it looks like her legs went through a Cuisinart. It’s not for the faint of heart. They’re not tall mountains, but they’re tough, and full of surprises.”

But Heather remained undaunted. “People have been walking up and down the mountains in dresses for years. In the 1800s women wore dresses all the time, for everything.” Then, perhaps having second thoughts: “But those were not fancy dresses. They didn’t have sequins.”

I took pictures and some bad video, and watched the group, all business now, quickly disappear up the mountain and into the forest over a rock scramble. I then turned around and headed over to Overlook with my 6-year-old son, where we and my pal Paul Joffe hiked up a significantly less imposing trail to the old hotel and fire tower, not a ball gown in sight. This act led serendipitously to a significant cul-de-sac in the story, as I literally stumbled into a quest to determine the true history, if any, of long-dress hiking in the Catskills. My curiosity was sparked during a conversation with Rich Griffin, a semi-retired font of information who volunteers part-time with his wife Cathy, occasionally staffing the tiny Overlook Fire Tower museum. The couple is familiar with Catskills-induced obsession: “Both my wife and I are members of the 3500 Club, so we know what you’re talking about,” he said before launching into a long, intriguing and disarmingly obsessive dissertation, full of wonderful digressions I may or may not include further along in this increasingly ungainly piece.

Griffin cited a book he’d been reading about the Catskill Mountain House. “There is a painting in the book, ‘Under the Falls,’ by Winslow Homer, of Kaaterskill Falls in 1872. It’s a double falls, and under the second one there’s sort of a semicircular overhang that you can walk under … it’s actually kind of dangerous … but this picture shows two women in long dresses. They both have hiking sticks, and in the background it looks like there’s a man helping a woman up. It got me thinking about the ladies who are hiking presently in the ball gowns.”

I told him they weren’t just ladies.

“Ah,” said Griffin. “Anyway, they were constantly building footpaths and carriage roads and railroads, all sorts of things, up here in the late 1800s.” He read a passage from the tome: “‘Expansion and improvement of the trails and footpaths continued without abatement through the Gilded Age.’ It says that in 1882, for instance, ‘their variety seems endless, and new pathways are opening on every side.’ So I imagine there were plenty of women in long dresses hiking between all the hotels.”

After lavishing upon me an oral history of trails, roads, railways and competing mountaintop hotels, all of them now sadly gone and three-quarters forgotten, Griffin got to the point I was searching for. “People had a lot of interesting ways back then. But it all came down to what I felt was a feeling of becoming more green and getting away from the cities. They talk about the cooling air. They talk about how it’s more healthy. They thought it was more beneficial to be up high, that the air was much better for you to breathe in. When you think about the 1800s, they were probably heating with coal and had a lot of coal-fired factories. I’m not an expert, but … It seemed like this would be a way to come back to nature, that whole romantic idea of nature being the expression of divinity. And then that whole Hudson River School of painting …”

Exactly. Back on Slide Mountain, a band of modern-day expressionists were painting the Catskills with a traveling bit of performance art, playing to an audience of birds, insects, forest critters and an occasional stunned human being. A couple of non-participating friends, Tom and Alexis, joined them on the first leg, after which human interaction slowed considerably. Laughter was usually the initial reaction — one overly tickled Boy Scout leader apparently nearly peed herself — but a significant number of the hikers they encountered, especially some of the younger ones, averted their eyes and pretended the apparition wasn’t happening.

Meanwhile, Heather and company were connecting with the same basic insight as Rich Griffin had, in real time. “There’s a long history of losing yourself in the Catskills,” said Heather. “My grandparents in the 1920s were Jews escaping the hot summers in Brooklyn who came up to Ellenville, hanging in the Borscht Belt. You’re getting out of the city to get away from cholera and typhoid and tuberculosis. You’ve got to come up to the Catskills and take the air, take the water. We’re honoring their memory and building awareness … not to mention raising a little money.”

They were also building on their instant camaraderie, forming what Heather called a “trauma bond.” “Between all of the things that are happening today … I have written about hydraulic fracturing and the marriage equality bill — it’s not gay marriage; I take offense to that. Are you having lunch or are you having straight lunch? With everything else going on, it seems a little bit goofy and absurd to be running around in the woods in a ball gown. But truly, all of us who are out there, we forget that we’re wearing ball gowns and we’re talking about real issues. This was a bunch of strangers who went up that mountain … but we talked while we hiked, and got to know each other. … Seriously, although many of the gang had hiked with at least one other participant before, the synergy of this particular group was perhaps the most magical part of the day. … We were talking about drilling. We were asking Danny, who was the scientist on board: ‘Tell us about fracturing, what does it really mean? What’s going to happen? What’s the impact on the Catskills if that Belleayre Spa nightmare happens?’ All of the issues were totally present. We all live here, we all love the Cats. We’re all trying to figure out how to make our lives make sense here.”

The dresses fared almost as well as their wearers. With less help from knives and duct tape than Heather had expected, they made it more or less intact through the first round, which was actually a three-peak hike (Slide, Wittenberg and Cornell). “We looked all right; we looked like we were doing pretty well,” said Heather. “My dress had a slit in the back; that tripled in size by the end of the hike. Susanne’s dress had this tulle material to make it stand out real pouf-y; that shredded and turned into a bow in her hair by late in the day. We were calling her a Disney princess; she looked like something on top of a cake.” She said Danny, the DEP geologist, was “a hoot. He was fully convertible; he had a ‘sports mode’ all organized.”

The group took notes during the post-hike dinner, and is working on dress performance improvements. Meanwhile, Heather scored a minor coup in locating a cache of used ball gowns to lend out to prospective participants who don’t own one (not everyone does, you know). “Tomorrow I’m running up to Albany to pick up 40 used prom dresses. If people say ‘I don’t know what to wear,’ I have an answer for them. Another member of the 3500 Club put the word out at a high school. They’ve been doing a clothes closet for years, and the closet teacher wanted to clean out and get rid of the stuff, and this is her donation.”

As of this writing, varying permutations of the Gowns for Greenbacks crew have completed two additional hikes: Balsam Lake on July 3 and Indian Head/Twin on July 9. The rest of the tentative and subject-to-change July schedule is thus: Saturday July 16 they’re heading up Plateau and Sugarloaf; Saturday July 23, Rocky and Lone; and Sunday July 31, Panther.

Heather writes engagingly of the group’s exploits here:
http://gowns4greenbacks.wordpress.com/ … and there’s additional information on the site as well.
A nugget from Heather’s report on the thrilling July 9 hike, which started in Platte Clove, one of my favorite places in the world: “We met the hiking legend Ted Ripley Duggan and he might have said the single funniest thing to us all day. He suggested that if we could catch the attention of the right journalist and get out story out there, that we might get a mention in The New York Times. ‘After all,’ he lowered his voice a touch, catching our eye, ‘what you are doing is sufficiently eccentric.’ We howled with delight at that gorgeous Britishism: sufficiently eccentric. That’s us!”

That’s you, Heather. Keep up the good work, and hope the right journalist comes along soon …

(Note: another, probably better edited version of this story appears at the fabulous Watershed Post (http://www.watershedpost.com/2011/magnificent-obsession-intrepid-hikers-scale-catskills-highest-peaks-ba), a fabulous bastion of real, necessary regional journalism that covers the Catskills like a special ops assault team.)

Fracking our lives away

Scott Patrick Humphrey — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 04:27:29 +0000

A rally at the state capitol in early May brought a few hundred people. It was not nearly enough of a crowd to make its voice heard.

Whether anyone has heard of it or not, there exists unequivocal proof concerning the environmental and human health risks associated with horizontal hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking). The study on horizontal “Hydro-Fracking” by the Center on Global Change at Duke University outlines all of the contamination of well water from methane and other chemicals that occurred within the parameters of the study.

The Duke study can be viewed here: http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/cgc/. There are four links on that page, and I recommend them all; but for clarity’s sake, I recommend starting with the “WhitePaper” link.

The following passage from the white paper epitomizes what environmental advocates mean when we say how dangerous this process actually is: “During the first month of drilling and production alone, a single well can produce a million or more gallons of waste water that can contain pollutants in concentrations far exceeding those considered safe for drinking water and for release into the environment. These pollutants sometimes include formaldehyde, boric acid, methanol, hydrochloric acid, and isopropanol, which can damage the brain, eyes, skin, and nervous system on direct contact. Another potential type of contamination comes from naturally occurring salts, metals, and radioactive chemicals found deep underground. After hydraulic fracturing, fracking fluids and deep waters flow through the well to the surface along with the shale gas.”

The industry claims that water aquifers and wells are not contaminated by fracking wells, yet the Duke study shows with certainty that this contamination exists to an alarming degree. The oil and gas industry is lying about contamination they know to exist, and they are lying on a national level every time you see a commercial that presents natural gas as the “energy of the future” and the answer to the impending energy crisis. I would also like to note that the “foreign oil” we so desperately need to break away from as a way to combat terrorism mostly comes from Canada, to the tune of 2 million barrels a day; not the Middle East as is often stated by elected officials.

That sort of strategic rhetoric is used in a national propaganda campaign to sway public opinion in support of whatever it is the business interests want to achieve. The commercials that appear on CNN contain flat out lies concerning the economic gains to be had for states that allow hydraulic fracturing to occur. While there may indeed be economic gains made (see this recent New York Times article for a strong argument to the contrary), those profits will be headed to straight to the bank accounts of the upper echelons of the oil and gas corporate elite. This projected profit has been estimated by the oil and gas industry as close to one trillion dollars. That’s one trillion dollars.

Even if this turns out to be yet another giant Ponzi scheme, it’s not hard to see the motivation for the fossil industry’s honchos to use all resources at their disposal to achieve their personal economic goals. The compensation for management and ownership is tremendous, just for the fact of having had a controlling interest in the game long enough for it to become a bubble.

One of those resources is money for advertising, as in a series of ExxonMobil commercials that run on CNN an average of five times a day, saturating the public mind space with corporate newspeak. The premise of one of these commercials is that shale deposits such as the Marcellus formation along the Allegheny Plateau in New York State will produce 100 years of economic sustainability and job creation. The truth tells a much different story. According to www.geology.com: “As recently as 2002 the United States Geological Survey in its Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the Appalachian Basin Province, calculated that the Marcellus Shale contained an estimated undiscovered resource of about 1.9 trillion cubic feet of gas. [1] That’s a lot of gas but spread over the enormous geographic extent of the Marcellus it was not that much per acre.”

The process to extract 1.9 trillion cubic feet of gas would most likely not last any longer than five years at most. At that point the well production would be drastically reduced, and extraction phased out, leaving only the effects of the environmental damage to be dealt with by the local residents. Residents who believed they would be fairly compensated for their personal costs, who believed industry claims that their property would be safe from environmental hazards, would be left holding the empty (except for noxious odors, mounting health problems and slashed property values) bag. These people would have believed hydrofracking to be the answer to the state’s economic woes and the country’s energy crisis. In fact the exact opposite is true of this widely publicized and federally supported propaganda campaign for the monopoly of the fossil fuel industry to continue while actively suppressing the expansion and development of alternative energy.

For once, history doesn’t repeat itself

Steve Hopkins — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 09:54:22 +0000

Supporters erupt in victory Friday as the Marriage Equality bill passes the New York State Senate. (Photo by Paul Joffe)

Last fall when I loudly endorsed State Sen. Steve Saland’s opponent, Didi Barrett, and subsequently publicized my failure to vote for him in his landslide victory, I had no idea that he was a changed man. I had no idea that he was going to have a soul transplant a few months later and use what may be his last term in office to buck the rising tide of knee-jerk conservativism. I was wrong. Yesterday Sen. Saland loudly, courageously and eloquently responded to his inner Steve-ness and, as one of two Republicans crossing great divide (the other being Sen. Mark Grisanti of Buffalo), voted with the Democratic minority in passing New York State’s game-changing Marriage Equality Bill. The turncoat (two years ago he voted against a similar bill) then assured the everlasting enmity of his more socially ossified supporters by delivering one of the most satisfyingly emotional speeches ever to grace the state Senate. “My intellectual and emotional journey has ended here today, and I have to find doing the right thing as treating all persons with equality, and that equality includes within the definition of marriage,” said Saland, inciting a flood of tears from the supporting galleries and ensuring himself national media coverage as the hero/villain of the day, depending on the market. “And I fear that to do otherwise would fly in the face of my upbringing.” In this particular market, Steve, you’re a hero, perhaps even a saint. Sorry to have doubted you. While you’re on a roll, how about helping deal a death blow to chemically-dependent hydrofracking? By the way, I know a really great, historic and beautiful church in downtown Kingston, which stands ready with open doors to perform same-sex marriages. Here’s more from the historic goings-on from our on-the-spot video journalist, Paul Joffe:

The Weiner vs. the Tornado

Steve Hopkins — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 20:13:22 +0000

It’s been a very bad year for tornadoes, and nothing this year can compare to the devastation in Joplin, Missouri, an event that was covered extensively by the national press as it was happening. But on June 1, 2011, almost the entire East Coast of the U.S. was under a tornado watch, including NYC and Boston. Tornadoes are not like earthquakes, in that they can be seen forming in advance on Doppler radar. While a tornado was forming over Massachusetts, CNN was busy airing an “exclusive interview” with Anthony Weiner, complete with an 8×10 photo of him in his underwear.

Wolf Blitzer was in New York with Representative Weiner, while in the Atlanta studios of CNN their very competent meteorologist, Chad Meyers, was being bumped. It’s a sign of the mission at CNN that they didn’t break into the interview to warn the people of Springfield, Massachusetts when they could have. The deaths of four people in Massachusetts put into perspective the kind of scandal that the national news focuses on at the expense of important stories every day. If only they had treated the Iraq war with such vigor, sarcasm and righteous doubt. After the Press, a fine news/journalism/media criticism site based in Kingston NY, has got the goods:

After the Press CNN Weiner Tornado video on YouTube

After the Press CNN Weiner Tornado video on After the Press website

Visit the After the Press website for more great stories and sharp criticism.

The Weiner vs. The Tornado

Riverkeeper: Hudson River Water Quality Report

John Lipscomb — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 17:51:16 +0000

The good folks at Riverkeeper (http://www.riverkeeper.org/), New York State’s vigilant clean water advocate, have been patrolling the waters of the Hudson River this spring, and have some interesting results to present. They’ve kindly agreed to let the Chronic post these results here.

Highlights:

This month our sampling patrol was carried out aboard “Launch 5” while Riverkeeper’s boat was in final stages of a major rebuild. Many thanks to Greg Porteus, owner of “Launch 5.”

Our May patrol was rainy, wet and nasty. It rained between 1.2 and 2.5 inches during and before our patrol (with local heavy rain every day as we worked north) and, as a result, we found more unacceptable water quality than ever before. Not one sample site north of Poughkeepsie was “acceptable.” This is stunning. I’ve never been on a patrol like this one. Read on to see how the Hudson River can be regularly and dramatically compromised by sewage releases triggered by something as simple as a few inches of rain.

Of 74 sampling locations:

59 (80%) were “unacceptable”

7 (9%) were “possible risk”

8 (11%) were “acceptable”

Carol Knudson (Columbia U) and yours truly approaching mouth of Furnace Brook on east side of Haverstraw Bay to collect a water sample.

Rain events often lead to sewage overflows and more untreated sewage in the Hudson (which we detect as higher Entero counts). While we find unacceptable levels of sewage indicators at some locations and times even in dry weather, the water quality at most of our sampling locations degrades during and after rain. Sometimes the entire river is affected. Why? Because rainfall causes many sewer systems to overload and discharge raw sewage into the Hudson and its tributaries. The solution? We know it and, in some places, are already doing it: we need to build new sewage treatment infrastructure and repair/upgrade existing plants and systems. First, we have to reduce and then fully treat our wastewater.

Take your time looking at the data figures below; we won’t see too many patrols like this one… I hope.

Some Observations

NY Harbor (day 1): All sites were either “unacceptable” or “possible risk”. Note that one of the lowest cell counts we found was right in the upwelling effluent at the massive North River sewer plant near 125th street. Take away: once the sewage reaches the plant it is pretty effectively treated. In NYC the problem isn’t with the plants; it’s with all the pipes delivering the combined sewage and rain TO the 14 NYC sewer plants. The plumbing can’t handle the flow so the city has built (and NYS permits) about 480 Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) to release the overburden of sewage and rain during wet weather events into the River and Harbor – around 30 billion gallons a year. Yes, billion, no typo.

Yonkers to Peekskill (day 2): The Westchester sewer plant at Yonkers tested “acceptable,” another example of a plant doing its job pretty well. Money invested in wastewater treatment makes water quality better, it’s simple. However, all the other near shore sites in this section of river were “unacceptable.” Several of our sampling sites recorded their highest Entero counts so far since 2006 when we started measuring Entero in this section of the River.

But look at the data and you’ll see that all our “mid-River” sample sites in this area had much lower Entero counts compared to the near shore sites. The data clearly shows that the contamination originates at the shore, where humans are, and the middle of the deep water river is buffered by the massive volume of water in the Hudson. Still, it’s impressive to note that even the middle of the River (where it’s two to three miles wide) was impacted to some degree by sewage contamination when we sampled on May 17^th. It takes a whole lot of poop to do that.

Bear Mountain to Port Ewen (day 3): Bravo to Cold Spring and Little Stony Point, both sample sites were “acceptable”. That’s no small feat for this month’s survey! Note also that Poughkeepsie ramp and the deep-water site at the Poughkeepsie drinking water intake had low counts compared to our samples for the rest of the estuary this month. So nice going Poughkeepsie as well.

The drinking water intake at Port Ewen, a couple miles south of Rondout Creek, didn’t fare so well. The Entero count was 199. The highest we’ve measured there was 1733 in July 2009 (a really rainy summer). So the drinking water intake is withdrawing water that the EPA says you shouldn’t swim in. Let’s hope the disinfection systems are up to the job.

Rondout Creek/Kingston to Waterford (day 4): My guess is that the sewage contamination arriving at Port Ewen is from the Rondout. The tide was ebbing when we sampled this time. Look at the data for the Rondout sites below (Eddyville, Kingston public dock, Kingston sewage treatment plant outfall). But please don’t rush to put all the blame on Kingston. Note that the Entero count at Eddyville (upstream from Kingston) was higher than our system can measure in fresh water, >2420 cells/100ml. That’s higher (we just don’t know how much) than the sample I took right next to one of the Kingston Combined Sewer Overflows at the Kingston Public Dock. So, that day, the water entering the tidal portion of the Rondout from the upper Rondout watershed had more Entero. Kingston is clearly not the only problem affecting water quality on the tidal portion of Rondout Creek.

You may notice that at the very northern end of the survey area Entero counts started to come down. That’s because the last heavy rain in that area took place the night before. So the “relatively” less contaminated water coming in from the Upper Hudson and the Mohawk was pushing the plug of contamination (released earlier by the CSOs and sewer plants in the Capitol District) south. Check the cell counts for Bethlehem, Castleton, Coeymans and Coxsackie. My bet is that some, maybe most, of the Entero we measured at those communities on 5/19 came down from the Capitol District. We’ve seen this pattern before when we sample within 48 hours after a heavy rain event in the Albany area.

Until next month,

John Lipscomb
Riverkeeper patrol boat “R. Ian Fletcher”

Together with our science partners from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Queens College, Riverkeeper samples for Enterococcus (an indicator of untreated sewage) at our 74 standard sampling locations from May through October.

If you would like to be added to our Water Quality email list, send your contact information to us at info1@riverkeeper.org.

View sampling data sorted historically by individual sampling location.

View archived monthly water quality reports from May 2010 to the present.

May 2011 Sampling Data

For River Mile 0 to River Mile 44, the following standards apply:

For River Mile 45 north, the following standards apply:

To learn more about Riverkeeper’s Water Quality Program, and to view historic sampling data, please visit www.riverkeeper.org/water-quality/hudson.

View sampling data sorted historically by individual sampling location.

View archived monthly water quality reports from May 2010 to the present.

More Than Just a Bad Headache

Harrison Barritt — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:48:43 +0000

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom

—Isaac Asimov

Just yesterday (May 31, 2011), the World Health Organization publicly acknowledged something I’ve known about for years: the use of cell phones can cause cancer. This overdue revelation was made by a team of 31 scientists from 14 countries including the U.S., who looked at many of the same peer-reviewed studies I’ve been looking at.

I am more sensitive to the radiation coming from wireless technology than most people, which means I can’t use a cordless phone, a cell phone, or be too close to a Wi-Fi router. It gives me head pain within minutes. I was an average cell phone user before my sensitivity manifested about seven years ago. The nebulous task of tracing one’s health condition is often compounded when several doctors can offer no assistance, other than to say, “I have heard of this.”

In my case, I finally discovered the source of my pain by noticing what I was doing just before and during the head pain. Voila. Wireless radiation: my cell phone, and being around wireless routers. Luckily these things emit a field that, thanks to a meter I purchased, I can stay clear of when I’m in doubt. It’s a field of non-ionizing radiation that is produced by any communications device not plugged into a wall. It turns out there are several million people with this condition, called Electro Hyper Sensitivity or EHS — a number that is growing all the time. The World Health Organization is currently discussing adding Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) and Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS) to the International Classification of Diseases ICD10 code list.

These electromagnetic fields affect all people, not just those who are hypersensitive. In my case, I pay right away for any exposure I get. For those of you not lucky enough to be blessed with an early warning system, you also pay for any exposure you get — let’s say, on credit.

I discovered hundreds of peer-reviewed, solid studies, both nationally and internationally, linking our normal exposure to non-ionizing radiation, exactly the same kind coming from cell phones and cell towers, with single- and double-strand DNA breaks, loss of melatonin and subsequent chronic exhaustion, concentration disorders, headaches, connective tissue pains, extreme fluctuations in blood pressure, arrhythmias, and two cancerous afflictions: leukemia and brain tumors. Astrocytomas are the tumors we’re seeing more and more of in people exposed to EMFs after only five years.

How could this be? Why wouldn’t this have come out in a much bigger way before now? Simple: this information is fighting to get to you. The telecommunications industry has hired legions of PR spin doctors who dissect studies showing biological harm from its products, be it through Wi-Fi, cell phones or cell towers. These middlemen argue vehemently against any negative findings, so much so that most journalists covering this ongoing saga will accept the idea that “more studies are needed,” or swallow the dubious “inconclusive evidence” tactic that industry has sold the public on. Further strategies include flooding the Web with thousands of industry-funded studies, all of which reveal no harmful effects from cellular technology. But how many of us follow the money trails of these studies?

Think about where you get your information from. You probably rely on a popular stream of information coming through major media and community. That’s not good enough with any issue, but particularly this one. You have to read the science before it gets doctored, examine the studies not funded by the telecommunications industry, the volumes of epidemiological studies reporting scores of symptoms from living near towers and using cell phones. And if you don’t look at this range of original research, you are in the hands of a series of corporations with an insatiable appetite for growth, capital and dominance without the slightest conscience for their customers’ well-being.

The cellular communication industry generates billions in profit and in revenue for the government. It is linked to retirement funds, media, banking giants, entertainment industries, the educational market, the music industry and medicine. If enough news stories broke, and significant doubt in citizens replaced their complacent routine use of cell phones, the industry would be forced to redesign wireless technology for safety, and not just with more bells and whistles. But this kind of redesigning, akin to a recall in the automotive industry, would leave the wireless industry in the precarious position of tacitly admitting that millions have been at risk for years with dangerous exposure levels. They could face a potential avalanche of personal and class action lawsuits. Back in April of 1999, The London Observer reported that a leading Lloyds of London underwriter decided against insuring cell phone manufacturers due to the “concern about the safety of mobile phones … [and] the risk of damage to users’ health… [and] fears that mobile phones will be linked to illnesses such as cancer and Alzheimer’s (Ryle, The London Observer, 1999).

So who’s protecting us? The FCC? The FDA? The World Heath Organization? Nope. All on the payroll, so to speak. They all have revolving doors to the telecommunications industry. So their message is clear: “Carry on everyone. It’s all good.” And this is precisely why you haven’t heard or read about this before in any sustained way from any major media. It’s a titanic. It’s too big and unsinkable. Well, for now anyway.

Listen, I know how sickening it is to hear yet another toxin we have to watch out for. It’s exhausting. You want to just be able to live your life and not have to dodge bullets left and right. But have you seen that bumper sticker? “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” And I’m sorry in a way to tell you this, but your cell phone and naturally the cell tower it gets its signal from are breaking down your immune system by presenting it with a chronic source of inflammation.

There’s a simple rule regarding radiation, called the three D’s: distance, degree and duration. The distance you are from the source of radiation, the degree of the radiation and the duration of the radiation all directly affect the harm that radiation does to you. In the case of a cell tower, we have methodical and scientific proof that a dose response relationship exists for people living within 400 meters of a cell tower. Dose response means: the closer residents were to a tower, the greater the dose of radiation and the greater their negative biological response was. A German study by a team of local medical doctors, with data from over 10 years, discovered a threefold increase in new malignancies in people living up to 400 meters from a tower after five years exposure when compared to people living further away in the same town (The Naila Study, 2004). A report in 2006 by the head of The Cancer Registry in Berlin, Roland Stabenow, informed the residents that there is an increase of sevenfold in breast cancer in their area with cellular towers. A small study by General Practitioners at the Kaplan Medical Centre, Israel, discovered a fourfold increase in cancer within 350 meters after long-term exposure to a cell tower and a tenfold increase, specifically in women (Journal of Cancer Prevention 1-2, April 2004). On a positive note, the Athens Appeals Court ruled in 2006 that ten cell towers be ordered for removal, as they were considered to pose a threat to public health.

Other countries like France, which removed WiFi from the National Library of Paris after workers reported chronic health symptoms, or Germany, whose Health Commission recommended the removal of all Wi-Fi from schools, are way ahead of us in terms of seeing the double-edged sword of wireless technology.

Locally, here in Ulster County, there’s a proposal for two new towers to go up in Gardiner: one on the town hall, and one on South Mountain Road. The town board dismissed my health concerns, as did many of the folks at the meeting several months ago. One of the board members stated their main drive in erecting these things is the revenue that they hope to get for the town, as well as the increased coverage area for a better signal. And this is the problem. What is the true price we pay for a full signal, in our homes? We’re not only up against an industry willing to sacrifice us for profit, but also, our own deeply conditioned beliefs that we’re in good hands. The fact that hundreds of people protest cell towers in cities around the country and all over the world, even taking the law into their own hands and ripping them down in some cases, completely eludes us. In fact most folks don’t even know it’s a controversial issue.

You don’t live near a cell tower? That’s good. But what do you think your wireless router is? It’s a miniature cell tower. And it radiates the same hazardous field of approximately 800-1200 millivolts per meter as a tower could, at 300 meters. Amazing, right? And this thing is in your house! In some cases, your bedroom. Worse yet, close to your kids’ bedroom. Your cell phone puts out a near-field plume of non-ionizing radiation. So apply the Three D’s to folks living close to a tower, the router in your home, and of course your phone. Not good. Remember, distance from the source, the degree of radiation and the duration you are exposing yourself.

There’s little the regulatory agencies can or will do to protect you. In 1996, the telecommunications industry spent millions lobbying Congress and got an act passed making it impossible for citizens or groups to protest the construction of cell towers in their communities on the basis of health issues. No one is looking out for you with this. By the time it becomes painfully obvious that the current exposure levels on your cell phone and router and the towers dotting our landscape cause a myriad of diseases, including cancer, you, your family and friends will have accumulated that many more years of radiation, which you will have been paying for all along, whether you felt it or not.

WiFi and cell phone radiation

The elephant in the room is us (as in U.S.)

Harry Seitz — Fri, 27 May 2011 16:48:12 +0000

There’s been speculation in the media that China will soon overtake the United States and have the largest economy in the world, thus becoming the world’s dominant superpower. Economists refer to a simplistic view of history, citing Britain’s former economic and world dominance and their subsequent loss of first the former and then the latter to the U.S. Younger economists warn that a pump and dump by the U.S., or an intentional inflation of our currency to the point that is nearly worthless before using it to pay off our previously massive debts would be catastrophic to our global credit rating. Older economists counter that this has been our modus operandi for at least the last 50 years, and that other countries are insane to lend us money. Others point out that China’s economy is growing largely due to the fact that they are a rapidly developing nation building modern new cities and infrastructure, while the U.S. and other more developed countries are dealing with the equally costly but less stimulating prospect of repairing infrastructure. Yet others speculate that China may be subject to the same reversals that the U.S. economy has recently experienced, but the two elephants in the room have largely been ignored.

China exported approximately 1.5 trillion (USD) of goods to the U.S. in 2010, responsible for approximately 14% of China’s GDP. The proposition has been put forth that 60% of China’s GDP is generated internally by industry such as mining, manufacturing and construction, and that China’s reliance on exports in general and exports to the U.S. in particular has been exaggerated. Still, one would have to be obtuse not to realize that these two sources of revenue are deeply reliant upon each other. If the U.S. goes broke and can no longer import 1.5 trillion in goods from China, the demand for mining, manufacturing, and construction in China would be severely reduced as well. In short, if the U.S. goes broke, China will go broke, too.

More importantly, while the U.S. military appears to be running haphazardly from one expensive and incompetently run war to the next, anyone who is familiar with the game of risk should see that despite all of our missteps and blunders, there is an ultimate objective in mind.

GDP is one of many ways of measuring a country’s economy, and as made clear earlier, there is still a lot of debate and confusion as to what all of this means and what the future holds. The problem with economists who look to history as a template is that their focus is removed from the economic and military realities of today. Their perspective is limited by their focus on the economy. Money is a social contract, and one that is easily manipulated and broken. It is a reality of the world only to the extent that it is stable and respected, neither of which appears to be the case. A gargantuan military force spanning the globe in order to dominate shipping lanes and the production and transportation of oil is a reality no one can escape.

U.S. control of Kuwait and Iraq secures U.S. access to the Persian Gulf, which leads to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. The U.S. also currently has troops in Yemen, a seemingly minor oil-producing country in the Middle East, but by securing Yemen, the U.S. would secure entrance to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. This would give the U.S. Navy dominion over the only two shipping lanes between the Middle East and China and the rest of Asia. The U.S. would effectively have the power to regulate the amount of oil China is able to import to run its industries, as well China’s ability to freely export goods through the Indian Ocean. This serves as a strong reminder to China that regardless of what the bank ledger reads, the economic success of China is reliant upon both the economic success and goodwill of the U.S.

The U.S. is a hegemonic oligarchy, but it meets its basic obligations to the majority of its populace. As long as most American citizens have food, electricity, cars, and the internet, they will be placated. Like well suckled children, they won’t question the actions of their parents too vigorously. The U.S. also relies on a largely unspoken belief that is held by even the most adamant left wingers. The U.S.’s question to us is whether we as Americans would feel safer with China or the Middle East dominating the world. How do we think they would behave if they had the power the U.S. has? Would they be fairer and more just, or more ruthless and brutal? Which world do you think would be better, one that was more like the U.S., or one that was more like China? The third option of attempting to deal with these countries fairly and diplomatically is rarely mentioned.

To the vast majority of Americans and human beings in general, the prospect of any major change is always frightening. To Americans, whether they are ready to admit it or not, the idea of living in a world run by China is terrifying and humiliating. This is when we begin to become grateful for all of those aircraft carriers and nuclear warheads. The world might not be more brutal and ruthless if China was in charge, but it would be more ruthless and brutal toward us. These options leave Americans in an ethical quandary. Would we rather be fairer and better or more comfortable? Our ideals speak to the former, but the way we actually live our lives speaks to the latter. And in our comfort and empty complaints we are complicit in all that we secretly accept as repressive but necessary. Most of us are willfully and happily ignorant.

An ancient Chinese philosopher once said that he did not think it was possible to change the world. The world is perfect. It is and always will be exactly the way it is meant to be. But that doesn’t mean we have to close our eyes to it or be complacent. If we want the world to be a better, more rational place, we are going to have to take personal responsibility for own appetites and lifestyles and stop living lives full of empty idealisms and hypocrisies. After all, you are a part of the world, too. It is difficult but possible to at least change yourself. Will that change U.S. policy? Probably not. But in order for us to have any hope of positive change, we have to acknowledge the fear and paranoia within ourselves that is helping to drive U.S. policy. We also have to acknowledge this fear in others across the world, and the need to counter it not with our own suspicions and recriminations, but with openness and at least a willingness to really listen, and we better do it fast, while we are still in a position that affords us the opportunity to take such a stance.

Harry Seitz knows of which he speaks. As an American graduate student of Chinese/Jewish extraction, he has since birth been waging geopolitical power struggles for control of his soul, some of which have resulted in jail time.

U.S.-China

Hudson Valley Chronic Poll #1

Steve Hopkins — Wed, 25 May 2011 12:55:15 +0000

Hudson Valley Chronic