weeks
12 weeks from now is December 4th when the average high is 40.
12 weeks from December 4th is February 26th when the average high is 38 degrees.
This is a sponsored post by the Southern States Economic Development Council.
I am an American. I’ve always thought of it as a necessary evil but not something to really celebrate. It’s not a terrible thing, and there are definite pros and cons to the American system of government – a fair amount of individual liberty, especially outside of the cities, good gun rights and free speech but not so good when it comes to affordable health care, college education or helping those live in poverty.
While I was sure the events of September 11th were sad to those who had loved ones who died in the attacks, I saw them primarily as a way for greedy power brokers and often very well compensated government workers to expand their often abusive powers over the people. I saw September 11th a way to extract more wealth out of the poorest of Americans, put down and punish dissent, infringe on our gun rights, even if the right to keep and bear arms or speak your mind had nothing to do with September 11th.
It’s not like I ever had warm and fuzzy feelings about many of the people who died on September 11th. New York City of the 1990s exuded the attitude of greed is good, and while many of the people who died on September 11th may have been ordinary folk, many others were extremely wealthy while so many in Upstate NY toiled in the mud and muck literally. New York City had recently closed their landfill to ship trash Upstate and ended their recycling program, while Upstaters harvested a lot of their own food without packaging, had burn barrels and didn’t need the landfill like downstate. Then there was all the flash, marketing and unreality of urban life with its piles of trash every where.
Looking back, 20 years later maybe my analysis of New York City and the September 11th attacks wasn’t quite fair. Politicians did exploit the event for their own advancement and to consolidate power in the hands of government workers but eventually there was a lot of push back and processes were streamlined and worse of government abuses were reined. It had to be tragic to those affected by the attacks, even if they weren’t good people.
It’s hard to argue that the violence or destruction of September 11th was justified. It wasn’t. There are lawful ways to protest, be heard, run and hold office in America, if that’s your thing. Or you can just choose to be a non participant, focus on your own life, your family and land. Government workers rarely go after people who don’t paint targets on themselves. Certainly it would have been a lot better for Osma Bin Laden, the Taliban and the people of Afghanistan had they chosen to focus on making their own country a better rather than attack, kill and damage our America.
I was listening to the BBC News last night and they were discussing the pandemic and it’s impact on suicides across the globe. The conclusion that the depressive nature of pandemic actually caused a reduction of suicides globally, because depressed people lack the energy to kill themselves. And they had then offered the standard boilerplate language about how help is available for anybody with thoughts of self-injury.
However, after the September 11th attacks, I can’t remember a single news report suggesting that mental health services are available, before hijacking an airplane, blowing up a building or killing people. I also can’t think of a crime story, be a murder or shooting, where they suggest to anyone thinking of engaging in murder or terrorism think again — that there are alternatives and that there are people out there willing to listen.
Why don’t they suggest that murders and terrorists step back and think about their actions before committing crime? It is is denialism upon the news media that we are no different from the terrorists, murders and criminals? Is it a belief that suicidal people are like ourselves while criminals are different? I think it would be good if news media would remind perspective terrorists and murders that there is alternative for their lives — to step back from the ledge and look forward to how they could improve their own lives and the world too.
The putrid, toxic plastic smell of the rural burn barrel. The trash fire that consumes most of the waste of the rural household and the farm, allowing them to only haul their unburnable waste to the landfill, trash pit or recycling center once a year or so.
It’s become rare in New York except for the most outlying places due to the burn ban – most people now haul their trash to the transfer station, get a big old dumpster or get weekly service. Some trash gets recycled but in many cases recycling is fairly impractical in rural areas.
But I smelled some burning while I was driving up to camp and thought it might be my brakes dragging as they’ve been a bit noisy from the glaze I got on them the other day. But it was just another trash fire. Yuck.
The Empire Plaza and connected buildings (Alfred E Smith and Capitol) use 111 gigawatt hours of power a year (electricity only, doesn’t include fossil heating or cooling).
To build a solar farm to power the Empire Plaza it would require demolishing 320 acres of buildings in the city of Albany, which is three and third more buildings then had to demolished to build the Empire Plaza itself – figuring 2.8 acres of land needed within the city for every gigawatt hour per year of electricity generated.
That’s roughly the area of the South Mall Arterial to Interstate 787 to the FBI Building to an imaginary line connecting to Eagle Street. 100 percent renewable sounds like a good idea, but it has an enormous environmental impact.
At least that’s what my back of the envelope calculations show.
Lowville rhythms with Cowville.
Now you know how to pronounce it…
Back in the 1960s there was a folk ground known as Peter, Paul and Mary. They sung many folk songs, some quite politically controversial like If I Had A Hammer and This Land is Your Land. Half a century later, it seems almost absurd that these folk songs and the bands that played would have received extensive FBI surveillance.
But the FBI had it’s reasons at the time – these songs were often first sung by socialists, many of whom actively advocated and in some cases engaged to violence including bombings in an attempt to overthrow the American government. Some in the New Left like the Weathermen and the Black Panthers where taking up the mantle of violence against the government even as Peter, Paul and Mary sung their folk songs.
In 1969, Peter, Paul and Mary released a children’s album, Peter, Paul and Mommy. Shortly thereafter, in an attempt to suppress the freedom of speech and break up the music group, the FBI set up a sting operation against Peter Yarrow who was known inside circles to enjoy groupies – young girls brought to the members of popular bands to provide sexual gratification.
As the story goes in 1970, Peter Yarrow was in a bugged motel room when the 14-year old informant who crossed state lines went in, and Mr. Yarrow unbuckled his pants and masterbated in front of the underage girl. He was immediately arrested and ultimately served a few years in prison for transporting an underage girl across state lines for a sexual act. Not an uncommon practice at the time for music groups – lest the term groupie and the arrest of other singers like Jonathan King on similar charges, nevertheless was a serious crime that hurt minors and was justified to be charged and punished for his actions.
Peter Paul and Mary would be broken up, trying their best to downplay the arrest of their member while still selling their children’s record. They would not rejoin together until 1977, a half decade after Yarrow got out of prison and had received extensive mental health treatment. Yarrow went on to become an advocate against childhood bullying and many of the group’s post 1977 songs were for children.
There really is no question that Peter Yarrow committed a serious crime against a child and that he was punished and deserved to be. Ultimately, President Jimmy Carter pardoned him on his way out the door. The evidence suggests that was a sound decision even if it was the only time in American history when the president pardoned a person for a sex offense against a child. Peter Yarrow has done much good since they terrible act a half century ago.
That was fifty years ago. More then two generations prior. Donald Trump’s criminal cases filed against him brings us to today. I think it’s hard to argue that Donald Trump wasn’t targeted by the FBI both during his presidency but especially thereafter post January 6th uprising. A lot of FBI members and police more generally take their roll in protecting the country and it’s democracy very seriously and the former president’s actions most certainly raised alarm in the minds of many lawmen just like Peter, Paul and Mary’s songs did to a prior generation in the FBI.
The FBI, or more likely many members of the FBI felt that Donald Trump was a threat to the country and his actions warranted surveillance. Likewise, the FBI and the federal prosecutor were looking for things to charge the former president with, especially after January 6th. The former president had several chances to return stolen classified, national security documents but failed to and lied to investigators. These are serious offenses, though had the former president voluntarily returned the documents chances are he could have avoided prosecution and it would have been maybe a fine or violation of the law rather than a serious felony.
What the president did was a serious offense and he should be prosecuted and quite possibly sent to jail for a while, and be mandated to pay a significant fine. It’s not like he didn’t have a chance to go down this road, but justice demands he be treated like every other criminal. Donald Trump’s service to the country as president and other good acts over the years should be taken into consideration during his sentencing.
Likewise it should be up to a future president to decide if a pardon is warranted in the sake of justice, weighting both the former president’s actions, his good deeds both before and after his criminal acts, and the way the FBI targeted him. A pardon never erases or undoes a crime but it releases a person from any further punishment and resets the slate going forward. Would such a pardon be justified? Only time will tell.
