Author: NYCO

The national media seems to have noticed that someone forgot to turn off the snow spigot in upstate New York.  It is interesting how with all the media coverage of the denizens of Oswego County, New York and their valiant struggle against what is now approaching six feet of snow fallen in less than a week, few seem to be discussing the elephant in the room — climate change (or “global warming” as it is popularly known).

Two things:  (1) Large lake effect events in Oswego Co. are not unprecedented.  (2)  Everyone has been waiting for this event, “The Big One,” for several years.  

It’s because heavy lake effect snow is a direct result of increased warming of Great Lakes water.  When December and January passed with springlike temperatures, suddenly everyone realized that all it was going to take to precipitate (no pun intended) “The Big One” was  for the cold air mass from Canada to finally show up.

Lake effect snow is not a mystery:  It’s simply caused when warm lake water evaporates and moistens the atmosphere, and then it hits cold air over land and turns into heavy snow squalls in the form of a narrow, usually diagonal (northwest-southeast) band.  These bands oscillate lazily from north to south and back, dumping snow over the inhabitants below, sometimes not dissipating for days on end.  Imagine a big Nor’easter that can continue (theoretically) indefinitely until spring, never moving.  

Lake Ontario is the smallest Great Lake, but for its small size, it’s relatively very deep.  Unlike Lake Erie, which is very shallow and tends to freeze over (thus cutting off the snow machine), Ontario almost never freezes, and when you have a warm summer, fall and even winter (like this year), all that deep water holds the heat very nicely.  This is why Oswego County (or more specifically, about a 15-square-mile swath of it) gets all the white stuff.  It just happens to be in the ideal location.  

The last “Big Event” was in February 2004, and it looks like this one is just about ready to surpass that one in terms of snow totals.  If average yearly temperatures continue to rise, Oswego’s future is not difficult to predict.  It will continue to experience mega-events like this one until the temperatures finally (in a few decades?) get so warm that the Canadian cold air never arrives and snow never falls on Tug Hill again.  

The national weather mavens ought to be talking about this, but of course they won’t.  In the meantime… you might want to keep your shovel ready.

It’s been a while since I diary-posted here but all of the interesting discussion about online hate-words about women, women bloggers, women on the Internet, etc., make me want to finally post what may be seen as a controversial idea.

I think women, basically, have been trying to use the Internet in a very ineffective way.  In fact I think women who hang around the blogs, or have a blog of their own, could do worse than to adopt gender-neutral handles and to use the marvelous new “blind” medium of the Internet to their fullest advantage.

If the men who run these sites are pissing you off, then “disappear.”  Make them GUESS about who the women are and what they want.  Why should women (and other minorities, for that matter) openly reveal their numbers when they don’t have to, on the Internet?  Screw that, I say.  And in fact there may already be many many minorities online who are doing just that (and people assume they’re white guys).

I actually did not set out to deliberately choose a gender-neutral handle, but it has been interesting to consider the advantages of one.  I have realized that my gender-neutral handle probably has helped me circumvent an unconscious bias that male (perhaps even female) readers have about what a woman has to say.  

So that’s the perhaps controversial kernel of my proposition: That women and minorities should stop trying to be “accepted” by the big bloggers, and instead should use the peculiar advantages of the Internet — it’s a “blind” medium — to their especial and subversive advantage in order to drive discussion of real-world issues to where they should be in this day and age.

Keep them guessing, ladies.  

This is probably going to be an unpopular diary, but here goes…

Isn’t Bird Flu being hyped in the media the same way that WMD’s were being hyped a few years ago?  That doesn’t mean Bird Flu isn’t a legitimate concern, but have we ever asked ourselves why the media is covering it so much?  It’s because Bird Flu — or the specter of any pandemic — scares the rich and powerful.  And Bird Flu is the feared-pandemic of choice.

The truth is that AIDS, TB, malaria, heart disease and malnutrition are bigger health risks (even in our countries), but they aren’t perceived as social risks, and therefore, of little consequence to the people who control our media.  A pandemic moves swiftly and silently and strikes the rich and the poor alike; for that reason, the imagined pandemic is suddenly very newsworthy.  

The rich can’t hide from a pandemic.  Hence, it’s become a major media issue.

Also… for the rest of us… isn’t there a little bit of Rapture-hunting going on here too?  That is to say, isn’t the Bird Flu obsession kind of along the same lines as Peak Oil and the housing bubble?  Everyone seems to be waiting for some big catastrophic thing to happen to change society and “clear away the corruption” – rather than actual organizing or collective social action.

Today is Veterans Day; also known as Armistice Day.  It is also the anniversary of a notable day in early U.S. history: the 211th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Canandaigua.

Americans tune out Native American history, I think, because a lot of it is so depressing.  We know what happened when Natives were pushed off their land, we know about the forked tongues, the racism and wars of extermination.  Why should we want to think about it?  Saying “what’s done is done” blunts the depressing aspects, and distracts from the pressing need to outmaneuver each other politically over issues like casinos.

However, the Canandaigua treaty is a rare bright spot in the sad history of immigrant Americans and native Americans.   It was one of the first treaties with a sovereign nation entered into by the U.S. under its new Constitution.  This treaty negotiated here in upstate New York which is (in the opinion of many, and in my opinion) a living treaty, and one almost as old as our own Constitution; and so perhaps one of America’s most important unsung documents.  

Fifteen years earlier, in the throes of the Revolution, George Washington had ordered the Iroquois homeland razed out of existence via a military expedition of destruction that would later be echoed in Sherman’s famous march to the sea.  For this, he was given the name Honedagayus, or Town Destroyer, by the Iroquois (known today as the Haudenosaunee).  (In fact, all subsequent U.S. presidents still bear this Iroquois “title” to this day.)

But in 1794, the truth was that the early United States was a tottering mess; the Treaty of Canandaigua exists because George Washington had a clear grasp of reality and knew that a political solution in the nation’s then-northwest frontier was of the essence to keep the young nation out of new wars it could not afford.  He needed peace, and he needed the Iroquois.

The meeting at Canandaigua was an international summit in every sense of the word (with even a rogue British agent crashing the party), with the same kind of drama and intrigue that you’d have found at a Cold War summit.   Far from most people’s conception of Indian treaties as merely white men perfunctorily throwing trinkets at simple-minded natives, this was a truly tricky negotiation in every sense, where the outcome was never assured until the last moment.  

This last and strongest treaty between the United States and the Iroquois confederacy has been whittled away year after year… but not completely.  As even Gen. Henry B. Carrington, co-author of an official U.S. report, The Six Nations (1892), put it, “The alleged absurdity of the Six Nations of New York being a ‘nation within a nation’ does not change the fact or nullify the sequence of actual history.”  (Not that the U.S., apparently, heeded its own report — although our government still invokes Article 7 of the Treaty of Canandaigua when it is convenient for them – as recently as 1990; and it still compensates the Haudenosaunee under the terms of Article 6, each year.)

At Canandaigua in 1794, a Quaker observer, William Savery was privately visited by the Seneca orator Red Jacket, who wanted to run a key Haudenosaunee concession by Savery in secret.  Red Jacket said to the Quakers,

Brothers, we hope you will make your minds easy.  We who are now here are but children, the ancients being deceased.  We know that your fathers and ours transacted business together, and that you look up to the Great Spirit for his direction and assistance, and take no part in war.  We expect that you were all born on this island, and consider you as brethren.  Your ancestors came over the great water, and ours were born here; this ought to be no impediment to our considering each other as brethren.

The generations that have succeeded them have been dealing with the aftermath of the United States’ failure to defend this treaty from illegal actions by the state of New York, through controversies over land claims, casino deals, and so forth.  However, for many decades, every November 11, people – Haudenosaunee, other Native Americans, and non-Native Americans – come to the town of Canandaigua, New York for a hopeful celebration  of the signing of this treaty, and this year was no different. (The bicentennial celebration in 1994 drew thousands of people, as well as representatives of the U.S. government.)  

November 11 is a day of peace throughout the world, and here intimately at home for Americans as well.

An unfortunate lesson that many people learn too late in their careers is that “who you know” is sometimes — or often — more important than “what you know.” This lesson comes painfully, and often at just the wrong time, for people who aren’t schmoozers by nature and who were raised to believe that if you work hard, remain loyal and play by the rules, you’ll get ahead. We live in a society that pretends to be largely a meritocracy. About the only concession we make to the reality of schmoozing is what we tell college students: Network, network, network. Most ambitious students do this dutifully; but I’m not sure they understand why they must, or that they have to keep doing it, not just to initially get a job, but to survive on-the-job politics.

In the workplace, this isn’t a reality we can easily escape. But it’s also possible to get too cynical about it based on your experience in one environment. It is possible to be in a workplace where the veneer of meritocracy has completely broken down, and has been replaced by a great deal of excessive chumminess or even nepotism (sometimes in the name of very high goals). In such situations, there’s not much you can do if you’re on the thin end of the political stick except seek employment elsewhere, or “wait for the thud” from upstairs.

What can eat away at the stability of companies can also be seen eating away at governments. We are not so naive not to sense that our democracy, like meritocracy in the workplace, is more of an ideal than a bedrock principle. Replace “meritocracy” with “democracy,” and then step back and take a look at what’s happening to the Bush Administration (and what we know has been happening in Albany). The opposite, the enemy of democracy is not communism, socialism, terrorism or any particular religious worldview. The opposite of democracy is cronyism.

Cronyism used to be the way the world’s great powers were run, as instituted in feudalism and monarchies. The European brand grew out of the fall of the Roman empire, which used to be a sort of democracy. In the 18th century, leaders in America decided to kill the overt European-style cronyism and foster a new attitude toward government. It was now not quite so important who you KNEW, but it was more important who you WERE – a common man, a citizen – the Declaration of Independence being a declaration of the inherit merit of all men. Later, our constitution enumerated certain rights of all men, and gave a legal framework by which people could control their own destiny without having to be One of the Family.

Cronyism, however, is back and better than ever in American government, and unfortunately the crony-riddled Bush Administration is just an endgame. We now live in the age of “political dynasties” of Clintons and Bushes; the annual selection of the Cabinetry is a big guessing game about which “Friends of So-and-So” will be rewarded in each new administration. So we end up with incompetent chums in high places, like Michael Brown at FEMA, and the ill-regarded Harriet Miers on the verge of joining the highest court in the land for the rest of her life. (I firmly believe that FEMA handled Hurricane Katrina so incompetently not because of a lack of experience, but because of too many contacts in the White House and a lack of contacts on the ground; again, Brown’s appointment to this position being just the endgame.)

Our participation in government has become nothing but a spectator sport as we ponder which dynasties will win the next battle. Cronyism is not a game that the vast majority of citizens are in a position to play, and even less so now that we work so hard for so little. Exhortations to “get more involved in civic life” tend to ring hollow. If you don’t have connections to the ruling class by blood or marriage, you have limited choices if you wish to join the club: you can pony up a lot of cash, like any number of aspiring politicos – or aspiring blogger/organizers — or you can become a social climbing journalist, like Judith Miller and most of the Washington press corps.

Eventually — as we are now apparently seeing with the Bush Administration — cronyism eats itself. The latest buzz is that the White House is beginning to turn on itself over the Valerie Plame case, the war in Iraq, and all the Harriet Miers stuff. The buddy system, in the end, doesn’t last. Unfortunately, it often leaves a wrecked meritocracy/democracy behind, where genuinely good public servants, burned out, have long since retired to other pursuits or private life. (Sadly, this happens to companies as well.) Who’s left to clean up the mess? Another crowd of doers — who, whatever their laudable aspirations, are also forced to operate on the crony system because the public servants have all disappeared. And thus the decay perpetuates itself, even if it has an ideological face that we might like.

What is someone to do when they realize they are in the cellar of a crony system? Unfortunately, most of the people at the bottom — average citizens like you and me — don’t have too many options (and there are many people who have even less options than I do). You can attempt escape, but that usually takes a lot of financial resources that few have. You can hope for things to get better, “file your nails and wait for the thud,” and hope the new boss isn’t the same as the old boss. Or, you can start your own group of friends, with the sincere hope that when the thud happens, you can move in and take over and not be as destructively chummy-wummy as the previous regime.

A fourth option might be preferable, but I don’t know if it exists. In any case, I believe America at large is stuck on options 1 and 2 and largely failing at them. The third option means revolution, and it’s the option that the people who started American democracy took. They did a damn good job, all things considered, but they knew they were not starting a thousand-year Reich, and in fact they stressed the conditional: “A democracy, IF you can keep it.”

Beware of people who talk too incessantly about glowing sweeping thousand-year visions for the future. They may be spending a little too much time around their friends.

Suffolk County on Long Island is on the verge of passing a law to force big-box retailers like Wal-Mart, BJ’s and K-Mart to contribute to their workers’ health coverage. The vote, by the Republican-controlled county legislature, was 17 to 1.

Labor organizers have had retailers like Wal-Mart in their sights, accusing the company and other giant retailers of keeping wages low while not offering health insurance or requiring employees to pay large portions of the premiums. That forces many workers to turn to Medicaid or other county-funded programs in an already overburdened public health care system, said one of the bill’s cosponsors, William J. Lindsay, a Democrat.

Paul J. Tonna, a Republican, said that as a result, “Wal-Mart has profited off the public sector to the tune of billions of dollars.”

The operative word in this Republican-led decision is “Medicaid.”  The county costs of New York’s Medicaid program is a huge issue in state politics and a pet issue of conservatives in particular.  It is nice to see someone from New York, regardless of party, clearly articulating how companies like Wal-Mart are growing fat at taxpayers’ expense.

[From the diaries by susanhu. So practical, FEMA could have written it.]

With the hurricane season not even quite half over, it’s possible that another catastrophic storm might hit the Gulf Coast area.

From Ready.gov, below are some tips on survival:

Before a predicted storm hits, check that you have proper skin color.

If you see exploding oil company profits ahead, pull over immediately.  Do not investigate.

Don’t scream for help.  No one gives a fuck.

If your throat is parched from lack of water, think warm thoughts of colorful Mardi Gras.  Remember – find a happy place!

Do not steal food from stores.  Free food will be available and plentiful.

Communication devices are for white people only.

Do not burn property in your neighborhood.  The government will do this for you.

As you grow weaker and more exhausted, assume a fetal position.  Cry.

Avoid breathing in the stench of your rotting neighbors.

Hey you, boy!  Where do you think you’re going?  Do not attempt egress into white neighborhoods.

Do not hide from the police inside your home.  They love you and are here to help you.

If you should escape to higher ground, don’t get comfortable.  They really don’t want you.

If you are the President of the United States, take shelter until disastrous political fallout ceases…

…stare blankly, then wash your hands.

Even if there was no Iraq war, even on the basis of his government’s handling of this catastrophe alone, Bush should resign. And I sincerely hope that in the coming months, the American people call for his resignation. It would be the civilized thing to do.

His political capital is dwindling and is just about gone. Can you imagine three more years of this administration? Cheney would be preferable (even though we know Cheney has been pulling most of the strings anyway).

We can’t bring these people back and we can’t give them back their homes and we can’t erase this suffering out of their memories, but we can at least — finally — demonstrate our sense of collective responsibility by holding our leadership responsible. To have a president resign is deeply embarrassing and indicative of failure… that failure has occurred. It is time for us to admit it to the world and set that admission into motion.

This is not about Bush, this is about us. He’s got to go.

The (heartbreaking) spectacle of a major American city crippled, falling apart and now being virtually abandoned by the authorities is what really emboldens whatever terrorist enemies we have.  This sort of thing is what makes us vulnerable.  Looking at what is happening in New Orleans, what terrorist wouldn’t feel encouraged to mount an actual strike on a major city?  We have no National Guard — they’re over in Iraq.  We have no leadership — everyone is running around in circles, or on vacation.  If I were Osama Bin Laden (remember him?), I’d be rubbing my hands together and calling the boys over for a beer and a brainstorming session!

This needs to be shoved in the face — HARD — of anyone who dares mouth the platitudes about the war in Iraq making us safer.  An absolute and total lie, and now, a dangerous lie.

For all the talk about oil as America’s most vital commodity, the fact is that there is one commodity that is far more valuable, one that people get far more hot and bothered over, and one which can’t be piped in from Saudi Arabia.

And the fighting over America’s huge supply of fresh water, the Great Lakes, has already started.  Today’s New York Times details a “local” spat between the city of Waukesha and the state of Wisconsin over access rights to Lake Michigan water, but the national, and perhaps even international, implications are huge.  (And perhaps one day, political implications.)

In the last 25 years, ideas have been suggested to build a slurry pipe that would send Great Lakes water to help Wyoming mines and to build a 400-mile canal between the Missouri River in South Dakota and Lake Superior. New York City has raised the possibility of using Lake Erie water to ease droughts…

(More)

Some politicians in Milwaukee, where the population fell by 8.9 percent in the 1990’s, are loath to sell the city’s Lake Michigan water to suburbs that have been draining away their businesses and wealthier residents, and their tax base.

Waukesha County “supports widening roads to allow for more transportation on the roadways to get more access out to that community, rather than try to limit the sprawl out there,” said Michael Murphy, a Milwaukee alderman. “Their solution to the problem is not the conservation of their limited resources, but looking to Lake Michigan.”

What’s that slurping sound you hear?  It’s America’s exurbs in the warm, dried-out climes of the near and far West, sucking up the Great Lakes with a straw.  

Oil for their SUVs isn’t the only resource they’re sucking up.

The Rust Belt is poor in jobs, poor in weather (well, for candy-asses I guess), and, if you don’t have electoral votes for anyone, the politicians don’t find you of much interest either.  But boy, it sure seems everyone wants all that water, though.