I still remember September 11th, listening to Amy Goodman on Democracy NOW on WRPI on that clear September day many years ago.
Democracy NOW was followed by Nation Magazine, read by the late Rezin Adam’s every day. The Uber-activist, Albany’s Jane Jacobs. I got to know her towards the end from Save Pine Bush. Ms. Adams, as Erastus Corning addressed in an earlier era, took the bus from Albany to Troy and would read them on radio from The Nation Magazine and other progressive publications from 10 AM to noon day, five days a week. I was always so bummed out when she couldn’t make it, and they played whatever that crap music the college radio station played. 1994 Plymouth Sundance! HVCC! Those were the days.
I met Amy Goodman some years later at Sanctuary for Independent Media. She is very short, for her statue on New York City radio. After all these years, it seems hard to believe she is still is doing her program. The Democracy NOW studios were a few blocks from the World Trade Center, I believe you can hear on the tape archives the building rumble as they collapsed.
I never had a warm embrace for New York City, the big honky, commercial, money-dripping and obnoxious, dirty trash filled city that had recently closed it’s landfill and was trucking it’s garbage upstate while ending it’s recycling program. Especially when us rural upstaters burned ours out back, and saved the cans and bottles for recycling. We put the compost and manure back in the earth, the paper and plastic became carbon which fed the earth. And other stuff became backfill on the farm and homestead.
If anything at the time, I saw September 11th as primarily an excuse for blovating cops and their enablers, right-wing politicians to expand their operations and snare more people just trying to go through their every day life. A lot of wearing the flag lapel on suits and cheap flag decals on sale at K-Mart. Tough looking guys standing at urban public buildings, supposedly to deter terrorists and preform security theater, but mostly to harass every citizens as they went on their business. And to target and harass those who dare criticize the politicans in this day of national unity.
I didn’t follow the 2000 election that closely, as it was before I decided to study Political Science. But I didn’t love George Bush by any means, and I hated how September 11th became a reason to support the President. How dare he exploit some kind of national tragedy to enhance his powers? I wrote my Congressman, the very conservative Democrat Mike McNulty, a Vietnam or Korean War Veteran from the still very conservative former mill city of Green Island, where all the cops and firefighters live – and he responsed back with a letter that said something like “at times like this, we have a national duty to support our President”. He stuck around for a few more terms, but sensing the times were turning against conservatives in 2006, and probably didn’t want to loose in a primary to a liberal like Phil Steck, he tossed in his hat.
Truth is I never got patriotism. There are many good Americans, good people who work hard whether it’s in the public or private sector. And I’m sure September 11th was a tragedy to all those who lost loved ones. But hardly did I fall in love with New York City, the culture of greed and corporate power or the big World Trade Center towers they represented. Plastic that toxic stuff that stinks when you burn it, gloss, fakery, wokeness, was all the World Trade Center ever represented in my mind. So far from the woods and pasture lands of Upstate New York. Or that rural town of Greenville that I grew up in.
That was my reaction to the news yesterday. Maybe I don’t follow politics very carefully, but I don’t think I had much of a knowledge of the name outside of maybe seeing his name mentioned in a news article in passing about some right-wing dark money interest group with a strange name, Turning Point USA.
Truth is there is a lot of money sloshing around in politics, and at least some of it is directed towards grass roots organizing. Activists and other politically motivated citizens get free swag and often things like free lunches and bus rides to attend protests, conferences and other events. Other activists partially pay their way on subsidized events. It happens on both the left and right.
If anything it’s a reminder of the high cost of political involvement. If you don’t get shot and assininated, chances are good that you will have the cops and corporate security tailing your ass. I know I was pretty carefully monitored by Pyramid Corporation and Guilderland Police, for my opposition to Costco and Rapp Road apartment. I am sure they maintained a detailed file on me along with carefully monitoring my blog and taking detailed notes. Your tax dollars at work. And history is rittled with stories of paranoid government employees actively working to take down political opponents, either directly through the criminal code or more devious ways by leaks to press and others who can ruin reputations.
COINTELPro was a real thing. Government is staffed with people with ideological agendas, even the cops have views on issues of the day – and feeling that they must do whatever in their power to defend the institutions they represent. As are assains and others in the political realm. At least in my mind, the safest thing is not to be politically involved if you don’t want to end up behind a jail cell or a bullet. Find what actually matters in your own life, don’t try to save the world. It’s not to say we don’t need political activists but I’m not that interested in getting hit by an assain’s ‘ bullet.
How fast the time goes over the years. Many of my younger colleagues, indeed some of the people I’ve hired over the years weren’t even born on that brilliantly sunny September 11th so many years ago when the World Trade Center was hit by those air planes.
I woke early, around 3:30 or so and listened to podcasts and the radio until 5 AM when I got up to get the beans and bread baking. I had the windows closed last night, and that makes always for tough sleeping. The oven not been on in months stunk, so I rushed to pull down the smoke detector lest it go off and kept an eye on stove burner so it wouldn’t catch fire or have other problems as I boiled down the beans and made eggs and coffee. Everything like usual had a lot of zucchini involved that I got from the farmers market yesterday. Because I was up so early this morning, things are a bit of a haze.
Last night I rode straight home on my bike loaded down with those giant zucchuni. Fried some of them up with onions and then it was out to the Elm Avenue Town Park for a while. But it got dark quickly, especially with me going home first for a quick dinner. I sat down at the park well until dark, before riding home. Charging the lights on my bike today, pretty sure I will go to Five Rivers one last time after work and sit or maybe a hike a bit until dark. With the fully charged lights I can probably stay until 7:30 PM or so especially in the back part of the preserve without anybody trying to kick me out. Then ride back home, get some of those kidney beans out of the fridge and some of the bread. Both the cornmeal bread and the zucchini bread I made were pretty good, the small slices I had earlier.
I was listening to Democracy NOW on the bike ride in this morning. Just a perfect September morning, so much like that one 24 years ago when I was in college. Seems hard to believe so much time passed, it seems like just yesterday was the 10th anniversary of September 11th. I remember going to that commemoration that had in well of Legislative Office Building. I am amazed that Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales still do this program after all these years, their alternative view points are important as they give more of a full coverage with some spin on the events of the day. I tell you with the light north breeze and temperature inversion though that sewage sludge incinerator that rains down PFOAs was pretty stinky this morning. Still I can believe how the time has passed.
Still looking at Vermont for the weekend, but I’m not set on it as Sunday either looks like showers or a good soaker and it’s a long trip to Vermont. And I keep seeing all the produce that Shauls currently has, and that pulls on my heart strings. Mine Kill Pool is done for the year, but its probably too cool to swim at this point, and who knows how much water is left in the Schoharie Creek near Towpath Mountain. Rensselearville State Forest is another option. though I’m thinking more about that the following weekend. I guess I don’t have to pick a destination for sure before leaving the office tomorrow.
Can the police police themselves? How often do they look out for their own when officers are caught drinking and driving?
The answers suggested by articles published this morning are troubling.
The articles, published by The New York Times and the nonprofit news site New York Focus, show that officers don’t always face criminal charges after drinking and driving. The articles were based on a review of more than 10,000 once-secret disciplinary files from more than half the law enforcement agencies in New York State.
Quarter to eight and it’s completely dark at the park. Came particularly early tonight as I rode straight home rather then going out to Five Rivers as I had all those zucchuni and tomatoes from the Farmers Market today to unpack and I was hungry for dinner.
Autumn and winter is coming. It seems too soon, maybe in part because I don’t have a lot planned for the autumn with my eye surgery and creaky old truck. No big West Virginia trip. Or how late my summer vacation was out in the Finger Lakes.
Winter will be fine, once I figure out how to make it through it. I guess the new windows upstairs in my apartment is an approvement, still it seems like many dark and cold nights ahead with my heat kept at 50 degrees and lights dimmed early as I hide out under the cover.
I don’t have a plan when it’s too dark to ride home once the time changes as the bus is no more. But maybe I’ll take the local, but that is very slow – getting out at 5 PM but not arriving home until 6:15 PM due to delay between the shuttle and local bus transfer – seems so slow even if it does give me a chance to walk laps in the Plaza. Or when the bike trail is icy and snow covered. I’m not going to beat the shit out of my bike riding on hard ice all winter long, or slogging through the deep snow on the bike path just to save a few bucks on a bus fare or gasoline.
I continue to have dreams off the off-grid cabin, that homestead, the land. And I keep reading and studying. But I don’t like any of the options out there, when the best they can seem to offer me is a very standard large suburbanite house out in the sticks that smells like cow shit. I just hate how big, expensive, fancy and modern today’s houses are – especially the ones showcased off in the magazines. Really, I like the rustic, maybe a bit run down small cabin. Rather have a bigger barn and more land then a house that does more then keep me dry and warm by wood in cold and damp of winter and snow.
It’s not that I need to save money, if not for that dream of that simple way of living. And while I envision a life in little more then a hunting cabin, I also don’t know quite what that looks like in my own life, even if I do backcountry camp a lot on remote dirt roads in wilderness. I’m not desperate, I am a professional with 18-years experience at my career and going on two-years overseeing my unit have made significant improvement to targeting and digital media capacities. I make good money, especially in world when there are many people who would be happy making $75k or even just a flat $100k. Still, I’m very tied to my job and to New York State and it’s not clear in my mind that’s the place I want to build my homestead with the burn ban and gun laws.
I’m getting away this weekend, even if Sunday turns to rain. I have windshield wipers. Saturday still looks like a beautiful early autumn day. I should hike or ride, or at least spend it in the woods. Probably Vermont but Schoharie is also a possibility. I’m not sure. I need more time in woods, even if the nights are now long and chilly as autumn gets underway. It’s just hard living in city, especially in a rundown apartment that is renting for the same rate that County rents out discount motel rooms for those truly down on their luck who can’t find a market rate apartment in the era of rent far higher then my own. I do wonder when the landlord is going to fix the window screen he broke on installation and install molding around the windows.
Some of the cabins, trailers, and rural houses I idealized about are truly run-down. But in many cases they are real. While there are perfectly landscaped, modern dairies and farms out there, what I really love are those less then perfect places up on the hills where people struggle or at least appear to be on the edge. Junk cars, hogs, cattle, bales of hay on driveway. I want my land to smell like a farm, because I’m producing my own meat. Maybe like in Pennsylvania with a burn barrel out back and freedom to own whatever firearms you want without special government permission. Or the vast mid-west and west, far beyond my imagination. I do look so forward to seeing Ohio, Michigan and maybe Wisconsin to learn what more of America is like outside of New England and New York.
I better get to bed. Zucchuni and cornmeal pans of bread dough is rising in the oven and kidney beans are soaking in the fridge. At 5 AM those beans need to start boiling so they are ready by the time I head off to work on my mountain bike at quarter after 8. I’m tired, I need rest, darkness has taken over the land and it will be dark when I awake in the morning. Then tomorrow night, it’s packing for Vermont or Schoharie or wherever God and Big Red take me Friday after work. Good night!
On summer vacation I bought a bag of shrimp and cooked it up with a few meals during the mid-week. Fried up with onions and zucchini it’s wonderful! I didn’t start glowing at night and the risk was basically zero. We are constantly being bombarded with radioactivity from space and radon is constantly seeping from the ground around here. Radioactivity is an invisible force and in that sense it’s scary, but let’s be realistic only 60 years ago the world was testing nuclear bombs above ground, and milk and ice cream had significant amounts of Cesium-137 in it.
It’s not to say we should go out of our way expose ourselves to radioactivity or that Cesium-137 in ice cream and milk is desirable. But whatever. There are far less healthy things to eat besides slightly radioactive shrimp, namely most of the processed food and sweets that are all over these days. Frozen pre-cooked shrimp are one of the most inexpensive and convenient sources of protein to add to a dish and are quite tasty to. If you eat processed food, then why are you concerned about radioactive shrimp?
until 5 AM when I got up to get the beans and bread baking. I had the windows closed last night, and that makes always for tough sleeping. The oven not been on in months stunk, so I rushed to pull down the smoke detector lest it go off and kept an eye on stove burner so it wouldn’t catch fire or have other problems as I boiled down the beans and made eggs 
and coffee. 
Everything like usual had a lot of zucchini 
involved that I got from the farmers market yesterday. Because I was up so early this morning, things are a bit of a haze.
Fried some of them up with onions and then it was out to the Elm Avenue Town Park for a while. But it got dark quickly, especially with me going home first for a quick dinner. 
I sat down at the park well until dark, before riding home. Charging the lights on my bike today, pretty sure I will go to Five Rivers one last time after work and sit or maybe a hike a bit until dark. 
With the fully charged lights I can probably stay until 7:30 PM or so especially in the back part of the preserve without anybody trying to kick me out. 
Then ride back home, get some of those kidney beans out of the fridge and some of the bread. 
Both the cornmeal bread and the zucchini bread I made were pretty good, the small slices I had earlier.
on the bike ride in this morning. 
Just a perfect September morning, so much like that one 24 years ago when I was in college. Seems hard to believe so much time passed, it seems like just yesterday was the 10th anniversary of September 11th. I remember going to that commemoration that had in well of Legislative Office Building. I am amazed that Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales still do this program after all these years, their alternative view points are important as they give more of a full coverage with some spin on the events of the day. 
I tell you with the light north breeze and temperature inversion though that sewage sludge incinerator that rains down PFOAs was pretty stinky this morning. Still I can believe how the time has passed.
but I’m not set on it as Sunday either looks like showers or a good soaker and it’s a long trip to Vermont. And I keep seeing all the produce that Shauls currently has, and that pulls on my heart strings. 
Mine Kill Pool is done for the year, but its probably too cool to swim at this point, and who knows how much water is left in the Schoharie Creek near Towpath Mountain. Rensselearville State Forest is another option. though I’m thinking more about that the following weekend. I guess I don’t have to pick a destination for sure before leaving the office tomorrow. 
