via ENB – Region 3 Notices 12/28/2011 – NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation.

(which runs until Thanksgiving weekend.)

Yeah, it’s tough being the only independent media outlet here in Putnam County but someone has to do it.

1000 readers, 27,877 visits to the website since last year, and 2760 posted articles must have some sort of value as they sure as hell took a lot of time to produce.

Good Wednesday Morning,

Corrections: That’s “baked”, not “backed as in, “But it’s nothing a freshly BAKED loaf of banana bread (w/brown sugar, raisins and sunflower seeds) and enough orange liqueur can’t handle.”

Note: If you have an event coming up this weekend or next week, now is the time to email it to us for inclusion in Friday’s “Things To Do” edition. Plain text messages – please! Those fancy JPG’s and PDF’s will not be hand copied. Thanks.

Corporate Welfare Part Whatever. (It’s hard to keep track anymore!) This evening at 7:30 the Patterson Town Board will meet in regular session. Among the items on the agenda under Supervisor Griffin’s portion of the meeting is this:

8. MICHAEL GRIFFIN

a. 2011 Final Budget Adoption-Resolution
b. Garbage Bids-Discussion/Bid
c. Taggart Subdivision-Zoning Amendment Resolution
d. Taggart Subdivision-open Development Area Resolution
e. Route 311 & Interstate 84 Road Improvements-Follow-up
f. MS4- Legal Fund-Update
g. MS4-Education Grant
h. MS4-DEP FAD Grant
i. Equipment Valuation-Follow-up Discussion
j. Justice Court Relocation Proposal(s)
k. Big Elm Stormwater Pond

Note item “e”. Why are we back here again?

Roger Ailes, Garrison resident and Chairman of FOX NEWS said he thinks President Obama is a “far-left socialist”. One of these days a real, genuine socialist will come on the scene and Roger, along with those who grasp of politics and history is as nimble as a newborn performing open heart surgery, will have their heads explode. I cannot imagine what they’ll do but sign me up for the preview.

Whole chickens are mechanically pressed through a sieve: beaks, bones, eyes, feathers, bones, guts and all until it comes out looking like a giant pile of pink foam.

The whole mess is soaked in ammonia to kill the bacteria that factory chickens are slathered with then reflavored and shaped into your McChicken and your McNuggets and all that frozen microwaveable foods you feed your kids. Ammonia. Yum!

Wikipedia has this to say about it:

Mechanically separated meat (MSM), also known as mechanically recovered/reclaimed meat (MRM) or mechanically deboned meat (MDM) , is a paste-like meat product produced by forcing beef, pork, turkey or chicken bones, with attached edible meat, under high pressure through a sieve  or similar device to separate the bone from the edible meat tissue. For the production of chicken and turkey MSM, most of the time, breast carcasses are used as they still contain parts of breast meat.

Mechanically separated meat has been used in certain meat and meat products since the late 1960s. This product can be contrasted with meat extracted by advanced meat recovery systems. The most common use of MSM is into hot dogs.

And the Fed describes it officially as:

Mechanically separated poultry (i.e., chicken, turkey) is a paste-like and batter-like product produced by forcing the bones and attached edible tissue through a sieve or similar device to separate the bone from the edible poultry tissue. This product is intended for use in the formulation of other poultry products. During this process, it is possible for bones to be crushed or pulverized, resulting in a limited amount of bone particles. Because it may contain some bone particles, any product that has been produced using the mechanical separation process cannot, by definition, be labeled as “poultry.” Instead, it must be labeled appropriately as “mechanically separated chicken” (or turkey) on the product’s label. Mechanically separated chicken and turkey are used in products such as chicken and turkey franks, bologna, nuggets, and patties.

To see the process for making hot dogs, see this video. [Not "just before lunch" safe] The part starting at 2:15 is the best!

There’s some sort of battle going on with Kent resident Tom Maxson on one side and the Kent CAC and others in the community on the other over stewardship of Mt. Nimham, its firetower and the stone chambers scattered across the landscape.

According to an internet post, Mr. M kinda, sorta feels that the “stewards” of the mountain [which refers to the KCAC] are either not doing their job or have “covered up crimes” and have an “anything goes” attitude towards vandalism and the activities of a group called KEPRI who believes the stone chambers across the countryside are Celtic ruins. KEPRI is run by a young woman from Brewster by the name of Reneé Fleury and Mr. M takes special issue with her and them.

Last summer, Ms. Fleury and KEPRI (Keltic Energy Paranormal Research and Investigation) gave a talk at the Southeast Museum to a crowd of some 50 people at which Mr. M was in attendance. She subsequently led one of many hikes to the stone chamber at the foot of Mt Nimham, finishing with a trip to the firetower. And, as so many have done in the past including myself, marked their name on the inside of the tower’s cabin in a tradition that stretches back as far as anyone can remember. Every once in a while the interior of the cabin is repainted and the process begins again.

Tom and his son Ryan head up a not-for-profit called, “Highlands Preservation” whose mission statement begins:

Highlands Preservation, Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the hidden historic and prehistoric treasues of the Lower Hudson Valley region of New York.

The opening page of KEPRI’s website begins,

KEPRI is a non-profit organization dedicated to unlocking the mysteries of New England’s stone chambers, so that they may be preserved.

Rather similar, would you not agree?

Seeing that KEPRI had allegedly tagged the tower, Mr. M sent off an email to the chair of the Kent CAC who sent it along to KEPRI with a note that said, ‘cut that out!’ And in the real world that would have been the end of it. But no. Not here in Kent where the DEP was called in, the DEC and allegedly, according to the latest minutes published by Highlands Preservation, the Kent PD. And all this over a small tag in a place where it’s traditional TO tag? Where every teen-aged couple has left their mark? Where we found out that “Rob is Gay”. Where TL LUVS GH? Where RC+AC were ‘here’ in August? HP’s minutes of their October meeting say:

Chairman Tom Maxson has expressed concerns to Town of Kent officials regarding Mr. Baum’s interference with this police investigation, possible evidence tampering, and for alerting the vandals that they were under investigation, which may be viewed as obstructing justice. Mr. Maxson has consulted with HP counsel, who has outlined a number of potential remedies in regard to Mr. Baum and/or the Town of Kent. These options are currently under consideration. The Town is currently reviewing its “email policy” under the guise of dealing with this issue. If the Town decides that Mr. Baum’s actions in forwarding Chairman Maxson’s emails to the vandals were justified, then HP will reciprocate by releasing various emails sent by Mr. Baum, which will prove extremely embarrassing to him and the Town. [Emphasis, mine]

So, Kent’s CAC chair forwarded a complaint on to someone who was being complained about based on a request from Mr. M, asking them to stop being “vandals” and this, somehow, is a scandal? Evidence tampering? Obstructing justice? Potential remedies? And then the not-so-subtle blackmail attempt at the end. Blackmail! If the town agrees that forwarding an email request to remedy a condition was the correct thing to do, then Mr. M will… what? Is he really blackmailing the town?

There must be more going on. But the noise that Mr. M has generated and the blame he’s placed on the KCAC seems to be way out of proportion. I have not heard that Mr. M or Highlands Preservation has gone after Rob or TL or GC or the Pawling Crew, so why just KEPRI and Ms. Fleury? Is he jealous that she can pack the Southeast Museum? Is he afraid others may act on the same preservation issues he thinks he’s at the forefront of and thus his ego will be damaged?

It gets better:

Last month the New York Times’ Kevin Flynn wrote a short article on a hike to Hawk Rock with Philip Imbrogno, a man whose belief system is solidly set that places like that hold mystical, if not spiritual, meaning. So, what did Mr. M do? Did he write the Times and thank them for telling people about the wonders of the Town of Kent? Here’s what he wrote in his minutes:

On October 14, 2010, the NY Times published an article regarding Hawk Rock, which HP registered as a prehistoric archaeological site with the NYS OPRHP in 2009, and the stone chambers in that area, which are also registered with New York State. The article was greatly biased by focusing on a discredited theorist, who is associated with KEPRI, and included a link to the KCAC’s maps to Hawk Rock. The following weekend, a group of hikers, enticed by the sensational article, got lost near Hawk Rock at night. This required the efforts of the Lake Carmel Fire Department and Kent Police to locate and rescue them. This not only jeopardized our volunteer firefighters, but also created erosion damage due to the need to deploy emergency vehicles on sensitive trails. Chairman Maxson has written a letter of complaint to the NY Times, and has decried the publication of the KCAC’s maps to the world. We have been joined by other preservationists, such as NEARA, in complaining about these activities. NEARA will also be writing to George Baum complaining about this practice.

Philip Imbrogno is a “discredited theorist, who is associated with KEPRI…” and who took a hike with a NY Times reporter and that’s a bad thing? For the record Mr. Imbrogno is more associated with NEARA, in fact intimately so, but Mr. M seems to like them anyway – but not KEPRI which has only a fleeting relationship with the “discredited theorist” whose theories, it should be noted, are similar to KEPRIs.

Perhaps Mr. M’s reasons for the conflict are over personal beliefs?

The rest of the quote above and its relation to putting emergency crews in danger and damage to “sensitive trails” falls apart when the numerous mountain bikers in the area chew up those same trails day in and day out without condemnation but, I digress into objectivity once again. Sorry.

Other charges against KEPRI keep coming from Mr. M. Charges and hints of actual vandalism and destruction of these rock constructs permeates the chit-chat in town. But to Mr. M’s charges KEPRI responded that they “would do no such thing.” Why,” Ms. Fleury asked in a brief interview, “would we do something like that to something we love so much?”

The minutes penultimately conclude with:

To date, 56 chambers have been identified, making Kent “the stone chamber capital of the United States.” But due to the ongoing vandalism problems in Kent, and the KCAC Chairman’s previous actions in protecting some of these vandals, the information regarding the chambers will be held by HP as proprietary.

Personally, I’d be happy to share what I know about the locations of these things so long as we’re talking about those on public property so ask away.

While it seems the love of our stone chambers by both HP and KEPRI may push into the realm of the extreme, one side needs to take a chill-pill or a long vacation away from here, calm the heck down and be a bit more objective – and perhaps honest – about all of this. Blackmail? That’s way far out there.

Suspected Catholic terrorist being fondled by a TSA employee.

• The Christian Science Monitor reports that George Bush admitted to authorizing waterboarding on three prisoners which he claims “saved lives”. British intelligence is not so sure with MP David Davis saying,“People under torture tell you what you want to hear. You’ll get the wrong information and … apart from being immoral, apart from destroying our standing in the world, and apart from undermining the way of life we’re trying to defend, it actually doesn’t deliver.”But Bush insists that waterboarding is not torture under the law but what he forgot, and his administration forgot, was that we (that’s the US) once tried and convicted Japanese soldiers for using waterboarding US soldiers as… torture.The world sees that kind of hubris, ya know, and the next thing someone kicks us in the cajones… and we never see it coming.

• Ever been stuck on a long flight with a demon of a child aboard the plane? Yeah, me too. And since it’s a tad difficult to open the door and toss them out without being sucked out yourself (which is sometimes the only solution), passengers are now asking airlines to provide for child-free flights or, at very least, a children’s section on airplanes. Amen.

• The Iranians don’t like Facebook. The claim in this video that the ‘atheist Jew’, Mark Zuckerberg, created the website in order to allow spies to operate and to recruit infidels.

• Three men from Ft. Carson, Colorado tried to rob a medical marijuana dispensary in that city. They busted the lock mechanism off the back door expecting to find a mountain of pot once they got inside. But once inside the door locked behind them – the front door bolted and locked from the inside as well. Trapped. And what’s worse? The marijuana was locked away in a vault. Oh, and what’s worse than that? Two city cops were next store. And what’s even worse than that? the dispensary’s security camera’s captured the whole thing on tape.

• Glenn Beck. Again. Oy vey.

• If you live near Sanford, Florida and are in the market for a new truck you can come home with an AK47, gratis, from the dealership. Remember when banks used to give toasters?

1. Economic Benefits of Protected Open Space
2. Neighbors urge East Fishkill to buy water system, fix ‘deplorable’ pipes
3. The American department of groping
4. The ‘Israelification’ of airports: High security, little bother
5. GOP frosh: Where’s my health care?
6. Ahead of Congressional Hearings, Robo-Signer Scrutiny Spreads
7. Budget Deficit Tumbles – You Heard Right!
8. Junk Food Studies Ignore Parent Responsibility
9. Westboro protesters face jeers and slashed tires

Economic Benefits of Protected Open Space

A new report is available on the economic benefits of open space.

Conservation and planning leaders today released a new study demonstrating for the first time that preserved open space throughout southeastern Pennsylvania generates hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefits.

Commissioned by the GreenSpace Alliance and the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, the study quantifies the value of open space in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties. The study – the first of its kind for southeastern Pennsylvania – examines the economic benefits associated with preserved open space in four key areas: property values, the environment, recreation and health, and jobs and revenue.

“Our farms, forests, stream valleys and parks are more than just pretty places,” said Joseph M. Hoeffel, chairman of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. “They are productive assets that generate significant economic value for our region.” Hoeffel, along with Molly K. Morrison, chairwoman of the GreenSpace Alliance Board, announced the findings of the study at a news conference at Valley Forge National Historical Park. They were joined for the announcement by dozens of other elected leaders along with open space proponents and representatives from businesses that have benefited from nearby preserved open space.

Read More

Neighbors urge East Fishkill to buy water system, fix ‘deplorable’ pipes

By Susan Campriello

HOPEWELL JUNCTION — Residents of the Whorley Homes neighborhood want the Town of East Fishkill to buy their water district, which they say has been problematic for more than 20 years.

Resident Sandi Conklin said sediment buildup in system pipes has decreased water pressure in homes. Sediment comes through taps, she said, even though she changes water filters every two weeks.

“The sediment settles at the bottom of our bath tubs, ruins large and small appliances and even destroys the heating coils in our furnaces,” she wrote in an e-mail.

Conklin and other development residents will ask the Town Board on Thursday to consider buying the system from Hopewell Service Corp. and make system-wide repairs. Conklin said she was told by the system’s owner that pipe replacement could cost nearly $750,000, money the owner is not in a position to pay, Conklin said.

Representatives of the system’s owner could not be reached Monday and Tuesday.

Read More

The American department of groping

By Ezra Levant for the Toronto Sun

Surprise! Canadian travellers to the United States are now subject to having high school dropouts touch their breasts, penises and vaginas as part of “airline security.”

Sorry, do the words penis and vagina make you uncomfortable?

They certainly make the U.S. Transportation Security Administration uncomfortable.

The TSA can’t even bring themselves to use those words when describing their new “enhanced pat-down” procedure.

You will find them nowhere on their website, including their section on advice for travellers.

They have pages about how to pack your toothpaste.

But they don’t tell you that you will stand in line while a stranger touches you in places that, if done by anyone else, would lead to sexual assault charges.

Oh, by the way: Their touching of penises and vaginas isn’t limited to adults.

Read More

The ‘Israelification’ of airports: High security, little bother

Cathal Kelly Staff Reporter

While North America’s airports groan under the weight of another sea-change in security protocols, one word keeps popping out of the mouths of experts: Israelification.

That is, how can we make our airports more like Israel’s, which deal with far greater terror threat with far less inconvenience.

“It is mindboggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago,” said Rafi Sela, the president of AR Challenges, a global transportation security consultancy. He’s worked with the RCMP, the U.S. Navy Seals and airports around the world.

“Israelis, unlike Canadians and Americans, don’t take s— from anybody. When the security agency in Israel (the ISA) started to tighten security and we had to wait in line for — not for hours — but 30 or 40 minutes, all hell broke loose here. We said, ‘We’re not going to do this. You’re going to find a way that will take care of security without touching the efficiency of the airport.”

That, in a nutshell is “Israelification” – a system that protects life and limb without annoying you to death.

Read More

GOP frosh: Where’s my health care?

By Glenn Thrush

A conservative Maryland physician elected to Congress on an anti-Obamacare platform surprised fellow freshmen at a Monday orientation session by demanding to know why his government-subsidized health care plan takes a month to kick in.

Republican Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist who defeated freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health care policy would take effect on Feb. 1 – 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in.
Continue Reading

“He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. The benefits session, held behind closed doors, drew about 250 freshman members, staffers and family members to the Capitol Visitors Center auditorium late Monday morning,”.

“Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” added the aide, who was struck by the similarity to Harris’s request and the public option he denounced as a gateway to socialized medicine.

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Ahead of Congressional Hearings, Robo-Signer Scrutiny Spreads

By ProPublica, on November 16th, 2010

This article was first posted at ProPublica: Articles and Investigations by ProPublica.

by Marian Wang

Several recent reports about robo-signers have brought fresh attention to another angle of the foreclosure scandal: Robo-signing didn’t just occur in the foreclosure process. It also occurred in the processing of mortgage assignments. Mortgage assignments are documents showing a loan’s transfer of ownership—transfers that happened over and over when Wall Street firms began buying, bundling, and securitizing these bundles to sell to investors. That’s why assignments are key to establishing who has the right to foreclose.

In videotaped depositions taken and uploaded earlier this month, employees at Florida-based Nationwide Title Clearing testified to signing thousands of documents each day, often as executives of other companies. And sometimes the signing itself really was automated. One employee, Bryan Bly, testified that his signature would be added electronically to documents that he’d never even seen. (Huffington Post pulled together several clips from the taped depositions, and you can watch them here.)

An official from Nationwide Title told Bloomberg News that producing electronic signatures in bulk is common in the industry, and that “the laws are still catching up” with this documentation practice. (Legal aid attorney Gloria Einstein, however, told Bloomberg the problem isn’t that the signature is electronic—it’s that “nobody is responsible for the information and the decisions.”)

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Budget Deficit Tumbles – You Heard Right!

By: Dirk van Dijk, CFA

“Everybody” knows that government spending is out of control, and that is the reason that the budget deficit is soaring out of control. “Everybody” should not be taken seriously.

Yesterday, the Budget Deficit for October — the first month of the 2011 fiscal year — was released. It showed a deficit of $140.43 billion, down $35.93 billion or 20.73% from October of last year. That comes on top of a deficit that fell for all of fiscal year 2010 by $121.6 billion from fiscal year 2009 (see Budget Deficit Falling, Not Rising).

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Junk Food Studies Ignore Parent Responsibility

Analysis by Benjamin Radford

Last week a new report on fast food made national news, the most comprehensive study into fast food nutrition and marketing. It found that only a small fraction of possible kids’ meals combinations were healthy for pre-schoolers, and lambasted advertising to children:

Fast food advertisers spend a staggering amount on media to draw customers into their restaurants to consume this primarily unhealthy fare: more than $4.2 billion in the United States in 2009… As a result, young people viewed enormous amounts of fast food advertising. Every day, the average preschooler saw 2.8 fast food ads on television, the average child saw 3.5, and the average teen saw 4.7. Children were exposed to more than 1,200 traditional fast food ads per year while teens saw and heard more than 2,000.

There are plenty of statistics and facts in the report about childhood obesity and advertising — as well as a glaring oversight. It’s a simple, basic truth that the 137-page report carefully avoids addressing: children don’t buy the food they eat.

Read More

Westboro protesters face jeers and slashed tires

Shortly after finishing their protest at the funeral of Army Sgt. Jason James McCluskey of McAlester, a half-dozen protesters from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., headed to their minivan, only to discover that its front and rear passenger-side tires had been slashed.

To make matters worse, as their minivan slowly hobbled away on two flat tires, with a McAlester police car following behind, the protesters were unable to find anyone in town who would repair their vehicle, according to police.

The minivan finally pulled over several blocks away in a shopping center parking lot, where AAA was called. A flatbed service truck arrived and loaded up the minivan. Assistant Police Chief Darrell Miller said the minivan was taken to Walmart for repairs.

Read More

I have a cold. I’m in a bad mood. But it’s nothing a freshly backed loaf of banana bread (w/brown sugar, raisins and sunflower seeds) and enough orange liqueur can’t handle.

Luckily, I wrote the column below over the weekend.

And it’s not the Anniversary, but we’re close. It’s somewhere around here and so we shall celebrate today anyway!

It’s now more than a decade that News That Matters has been around in one incarnation or another.

Remember back in the olden days when we published at Yahoo and then made the move to Google and then to a comprehensive newsletter published three times a week and a website all our own?

Three websites. Four, actually.

You can find News That Matters at PlanPutnam and at Blogger and Posterous, both as “No Country For Sane Men“. And if you’re on Facebook you can find us there, too.

It’s a little crazy living in the USA right about now and with extremism coming at you from mostly right-angles like a warped isosceles triangle, and you need a source that can dissect the news and get it to you in ways you can genuinely understand. And that’s what we’re here for.

PlanPutnam/News That Matters is also this county’s premiere organizational tool and you know that to be true from the many issues and the many victories we have under our belts. I don’t need to list those successful battles for you know what they are and you know your lives are better for it – and that’s the point.

In case you have forgotten where we’ve been, here, in no particular order, are some reminders culled from the last few years:

The Thirty-Eight Billion Fee

This happens every day to thousands of people across the nation and while Bank of America is the most hideously evil of the lot, many banks play this game and billions of dollars are pulled from the economy and go to subsidize executive bonuses, stock dividends, the purchase of Congressmen and Senators, nifty automated teller machines that work so slowly you have to shave again by the time you’re done using them and which cause traffic tie-ups on Friday evenings that CBS radio reports along with, “…and it’s 40 minutes to The George.”

Chickens, Roads and Highways – A Special Report

As first proposed, the issue was one of safety but the project plans say that PHR is as safe as any other road. Then there was the idea that you’d be able to drive from Kent to Peekskill faster and yet, the accidents that have happened generally did so for people traveling way above the speed limit or tailgating. Then it was planned growth in the project area rated at 2% a year which would by 2029, create traffic and backups similar, I guess, to Route 22′s. But a quick look at a map shows that to be so wrong words cannot describe it.

The Tilly Foster Saga Continues…

What will it cost for taxpayers to cover the utility bills, heating, cooling, electricity, etc., and to maintain the walks and roads in all weather conditions vs. the amount of monies generated from sales taxes? I just don’t believe anyone could raise those kinds of funds through sales taxes alone from the Farm. So why not have a profit sharing arrangement? But that’s not in the contract. While Ann Fanizzi, the contract’s most ardent supporter, dreams that Mr. Whipple will build a bed & breakfast and turn the main lodge into full service restaurant, the county will need to foot the entirety of the utility bills and the maintenance of the roads and walkways leading to and surrounding them. I wish I had such a deal with my landlord!

What Being Sick Costs The Nation

When you are sick and on the job your productivity is down which results in a decline in efficiency. When you are sick and cannot work, especially in a job without paid sick days, the local economy is affected. And what happens when you wait until you simply cannot go on and your illness has advanced? How much money is pulled from the economy then? What of your home and family? Will Verizon or Comcast or NYSEG understand when they don’t get paid because of the cost of dealing with an illness that might have been easily treated at the beginning but that has now gotten out of control? They might. But you’ll be sending smoke signals and watching a blank TV screen by candlelight.Will your town’s tax collector say, “No problem Mrs. Smith, pay us when you can”?

Verizon’s Billing Mysteries

FCC Line Charge. This charge also is known as the Federal Subscriber Line Charge, the Federally-Ordered Subscriber Line Charge, Federal Line Cost Charge, and the FCC Subscriber Line Charge. In reality it’s the missing portion of your basic line charge mentioned above. That $8.79 fee should be, if Verizon were open and honest about their charges, $15.20. But they get to “cheat” to give you the impression your actual costs are lower and that the Fed is responsible for $6.41 of it. They’re misleading you and getting away with it.

Shooting Gazelles – Ball supports “Canned Hunting”

Yet, Assemblyman Greg Ball supports this type of hunting, claiming on the floor of the Assembly that if the New York bans the use of exotic, non-native animals from canned hunts held within the state that the next step is that the state will ban the shooting of white -tailed deer, then the state will take away everyone’s guns and finally we’ll all have chips in our backs. (see the video clip here). He also claims he represents ‘thousands of hunters in his district’ whom, one might assume, has given him their blessing to fight for this abominable practice in their name.

Contractors Ripped Off By Putnam County (NY)

In a previous issue I mentioned that a county Legislator suggested that if I had trouble paying the fee that maybe I shouldn’t be in business. Maybe he’s right. Maybe the economy sucks and those fees amount to a hardship. Or maybe no one should have to pay for the right to earn a living in Putnam County.

News That Matters: The Walkway Edition

Kudos need be sent to the organizers of this event. It’s massive scale and scope must have taken thousands of hours and untold patience. Everything ran so smoothly! Even with tens of thousands of people, thousands of cars, city buses, a dozen marching bands, scores of performers, several parades and assorted marauding clowns, trapeze artists and jugglers, (and yes, you can toss in a bevy of politicians,) there wasn’t a hitch to be seen. In fact, even the weather – which promised rain – cooperated beautifully.

Racists Rear Their Ugly Heads in Putnam Again

The misinformation contained in the copy on the website is astonishing in its one-sided shortsightedness and includes a link to an outside website where, if Mexicans were Jews, would read, “Die Juden sind ünser unglück”. No matter that the Comptroller of the State of Texas, among others of equal high position across the nation claim that undocumented workers contribute more to the system in taxes than they use, and that recent immigrants – legal and illegal – have *created* tens of thousands of new jobs, this linked website continues the same lies, mistruths and…. shit. It’s just pure White Supremacist shit.

Kent’s ‘panhandle’

Early maps show Philipstown being more recatngularish from when it was divvied up among the Philipse Family. The 1892 USGS map shows the current westernmost line of Kent, the line that runs along the Philisptown Pike (Route 301) AND the *old* town line as well. That line is missing from the 1941 map which has the current town lines in position.

Questions:

1) When did Kent acquire Hortowntown and,
2) Why?

[Ed note: this article was posted on October 3, 2006 and has still not been answered!]

Tales from the Trail

Why? Well, I added up all the possible promised blocks of votes and it turns out – at best – they represent about 15% of the voters. That’s right: the special interest groups and the armchair politicians and the folk who are in this only for the [insert turgid reference here] added together leave the remaining %85 of the voters unrepresented. But, for such a small group, they sure are organized! And Loud. And they have money.

A TEA Party on the Hill

For the past several weeks the region had been bombarded by an ever-increasing barrage of signs, snail mails, emails and robocalls announcing an event that was either a “RibFest!”, a People’s Convention, a Free BBQ or a rally for Greg Ball and Steve Katz… it all depended on which signs you saw or which advert you read or which phone call you got as they all had slightly different information and I reported on this confusion several days ago. But that didn’t seem to bother the 300 people who attended on Saturday.

Selecting an ESCO

Over half of NYSEG electricity supply customers who didn’t voice their choice last year don’t know their current supply pricing option. And while that may suck for them, it’s been great for us. We thank those customers for not having degrees in Advanced Rocket Science and praise their inability to figure out what their options are. NYSEG has always firmly believed that offering you the best choice is a simple matter of confusing the heck out of you. We are proud to continue that tradition because, face it, you have no choice!

Corporate Welfare, Putnam Style

If I were a better writer and could match the skills of even the most middling of authors, life in Putnam County would make quite excellent reading. But so few publishers would believe what I had written as genuine they’d have to place my book in the fiction section of bookstores and the fantasy section of libraries. But I can assure you that what we experience here as residents is real and genuine even though it reads – and too often feels – as if we’re living in a 1950′s Central American Banana Republic. In only a very few other places around the world, perhaps in one of those central Asian “stans” no one can pronounce, could we write about the depths of malfeasance that passes for government in our bucolic 240 square miles. If Voltaire or Shalom Aleichem were alive today even they could not have surpassed the fantastical mysteries and ironies that abound in our every day lives. Welcome to Putnam County, New York.

Controversy in Pawling? It Depends

At a meeting on July 2nd, 2008, Supervisor Coursen mentioned, after yet another round of public and pointed criticism from Mr. Carey, that the minutes from a recently held Comprehensive Plan meeting had not yet been posted to the town’s website due to a backlog on the Planning Board clerk’s desk. With the meeting continuing on, Supervisor Coursen rose from the dais to get a glass of water when Mr. Carey met her on the side and offered to come into town hall and post those minutes on his own. While that’s a nice thing to offer, what responsible entity would allow a political enemy, especially – and note this – the chair of a political party, access to a town’s website?

Pulte Homes, Adam Levy and Justice Putnam Style

Pulte Homes, Adam Levy and Justice Putnam Style: For what the Town of Carmel and Putnam County has done over the years to Lori Kemp you’d think agents from the human rights court in the Hague would descend from the heavens and arrest anyone who has ever sat on a board in that town. But that didn’t happen for too seldom do those who deserve justice get actually it.

The Great Tefillin Scare

On a short-haul flight the other day a 17 year old kid put on his tefflin to pray. A flight attendant asked what he was doing, “praying,” he replied. She notified the pilot. In the flight attendant’s description she said “…it had wires running from it and going up to his fingers,” What she didn’t know was that they go directly to God! but, I digress…

Breaking News: Putnam’s Most Out Person Accused of Autophobia

In a stunning revelation, Putnam County’s most ‘out’ political figure was accused by an alleged staffer from the Nan Hayworth campaign of making accusatory slurs against himself based on his sexual orientation.

Remember when…

From the Patterson Crossing Scoping Session: January 2005

A Walk on the new Cornwall Hill DEC property: Summer 2004

Choices for Sustainable Living Conference: November 2005

Putnam Valley Dems Election Night Celebration: November 2005

FrOGS Announces NAWCA Grant: October 2002. Dave Tobias and Mike Griffin.

Croton Watershed Meeting: October 2004

Charlie Silver – Chief Watershed Scientist, Jim Tierney – Watershed Inspector General,
Peter Lehner, Chief Environmental Attorney. All work for the State Attorney General’s Office

And some Pictures of the Day shots: (Click on them – they get bigger!)

Ice Pond

Dean Road DEP property

Bear Mt. Bridge from Anthony’s Nose

Glynwood from Fahnestock State Park

Daniel Nimham Pow Wow

Thunderstorm over eastern Putnam from Shenandoah Mt.

Bull Hill (Mt. Taurus) from Round Hill in Fahnestock Park

The Kent “Cow”

Collaborative Concepts Out door Art Exhibit at Saunders’ Farm

There more. There’s nearly eighteen-thousand articles and posts since we began and that we’ve lasted as long as we have is a testament to my insanity – and your perseverance. Let’s keep that going.

Since July 18, 2000

10637 messages at the old Yahoo site
3508 messages at Google.
3738 messages posted to PlanPutnam/News That Matters

17,883 posts/messages/comments!

You’re going to need me for the next four years.

JmG