This past October has been one of the rainest and cloudest months in recent memory. I can’t seem to remember such awful weather in a long, long time. Maybe it will break eventually, but for now this dreary weather pattern seems unending.
It just seems to rain and rain. The 7 day forecast just says more rain. No chance to get out and walk, as it’s always pouring. And when it’s not raining, it’s cloudy and damp out.
Normally, I like the October weather, but this year has been awful.
I try to be careful with saving money every week, and putting a little away for a goal. I contribute to my pension plan and a little bit my Roth IRA every week to save towards retirement. That’s fine, but I also like to save a lot more money into my boring old savings account for more immediate goals — within the next couple of years.
The problem is I really don’t have another goal. I am kind of saving for nothing, or actually one of many choices that I really don’t have a solid figure on what I want to do with the money. It also has grown tougher to save money these days, as the interest rates are so low that money doesn’t really grow much in the bank.
I am not a big fan of New York State by any means. I think it’s policies are so dracionian, and it’s urban dominance means that Upstate will forever be governed by absentee landlords from New York City, who develop policies in wine bars high above the strip in trendy Manhattan.
I don’t like the Sullivan Act. I don’t like the burn ban. I don’t liek the Adirondack Park Agency, or just the state’s official dislike of all rural areas. I don’t like the fact the state increasingly nickling and diming working folks just to feed the beast.
But, hey I like the Adirondacks, Catskills, Greens, Taconics, and other amazing places being so close to home. The recession makes it hard to find a job elsewheres, and the reality is any place I would go would certainly involve a massive cut in salary, benefits, and a relearning of how to live.
But some day I do want to move out of state, on to some rural land, have animals, do a little hobby farming, play in the mud, shoot some guns, and burn things. I really dislike state’s open burn ban. But for now, the Adirondack Park and Catskill Park works well enough for me.
I’ve been toying with the idea of going back to college. But it’s so dang expensive. And I really don’t want to sit in class all day, and learn stuff I am not really interested in or could better learn on my own. I struggled through 6 years of college, in and out of school and at work to get my bachelors degree, and I am less then excited about the whole thing.
I would like to go back to school to study GIS map making, and turn my hobby into actually marketable skills. Doing that would allow me to make more money, but more importantly have more flexiability in where I live, so I can live in rural area not run by citidiots.
I have been thinking about getting a snowmobile at the end of winter season for next year. Not something brand new, but something decently reliable that I could use to access the deep back country in winter. It might also be fun for camping in the winter, as I could strap a backpack on with gear.
But it’s also an expensive hobby to say least. Plus, even if I got a snowmobile in the spring time, I would have to store it until the winter before I could really use it for much better. But I figure an end of season special would probably save some real money.
I got to fix the bumper on my truck. It annoys the fuck out me, to put it the way I see it. The way it is bent — the particular angle — is so ugly. Yet, do I want to just fix the parts that are damaged or do I want to get a real bumper for my truck? I know they make heavy duty off-road bumpers.
Which got me thinking — if I replace the rear bumper, shouldn’t I also replace the front bumper with a real bumper, so it at least matches? Or should I wait until I do something stupid and damage it?
Likewise, I want to jack my truck up. It would be fun to ride up higher, would add at least “visual” value to the truck, and make me like it better. Although, maybe I would eventually get tired of jacked up truck. But should I wait until the first set of tires are worn out, before going for the jacked up routine? I don’t know.
I continue to chew over my choices and possibilities. Moving out of NY State — to a nicer state with more sane policies — continues to be a priority of mine, but that has to be balanced by my good paying job that pays the bills, and the proximity to the great Adirondack and Catskill Parks.
Then there are all the toys I could spend my money on. But toys require gasoline, which sure is expensive these days. Certainly having more money in the bank account makes it grow faster. But I also got to have fun, and have an excuse for saving money. So I don’t know.
Lately there has been a fair bit of discussion about the mass-murder shootings, that usually occur in large suburbs, with populations greater then 100,000, located outside of large cities. Not only do these happen in large suburbs, but often the outer rim of the suburbs, towards the rural fringe, where some of the newest suburban housing is located.
Much of the discussion has been over gun control and accessibility of guns in many households. Yet, if gun ownership was the problem, then most mass murders would come from rural households where gun ownership and hunting is far more common on the farm and forest lands. Yet, that’s not where the majority of mass murders come from.
It’s the suburbs. Usually the outer suburbs, usually home to the most politically, and especially socially conservative Americans. The outer suburbs tend to be not only very white and wealthy, but also outspoken on issues of prohibiting gay marriage and abortion. Mega-churches preaching gospel from Walmart sized and styled cathedrals dot the landscape.
Yet, being a social conservative is not what makes one a killer. Plenty of rural folks are conservative after all, yet they don’t kill. Rural churches often preach very conservative views too. Those folks don’t kill much besides deer and turkeys. What does make a killer is living in vast spiritual wasteland known as the mega-suburbs.
Mega-suburbs are basically a mid-size city scaled up to the automobile-size, with private detached houses with yards, on endless sets of cul de sacs and parking lots. Land use is strictly segregated, with housing in one location, retail outlets in another, and office parks in finally another. Everything is massive to accommodate a large population, yet isolating and impersonal.
Life has no style or passion in such locations. It’s all about Keeping Up with the Jones, having the new big house, the new big car, and all things else built with plywood and vinyl siding. It’s about the good paying job to pay for all these expensive things, and try to provide your kids with a “better life” in the suburbs. Life is boring and repulsive.
In these mega-suburbs, typically everything is connected by massive connector roads with 6-8 lanes with endless stoplights, bordered by retail, and often overcrowded but underbuilt 2-lane secondary roads. Folks drive everywhere, greatly cutting down on interaction with one and another. People spend multiple hours a day stuck in traffic and fighting for a parking spot at the shopping center. Never meeting another person through much of days activities, it’s easy to develop hostile feelings towards others you don’t interact with except from within the confines of an automobile.
At same time, mega-suburbs tend be governed draconian governments that try to regulate every part of one’s lives, to keep the “quality” of the community up. Every mega-suburb has very detailed zoning codes that try to keep up appearances of endless vinyl siding houses, and strip malls, over the pretend value that it increases neighbors property values.
With the masses of faceless people driving on crowded but large highways, strict anti-road rage and speeding laws must be strictly enforced by the police. Bored teenagers, wandering the streets, must be strictly disciplined by the police, because there are no parents or neighbors outside to watch out for the kids. Cameras dot the streets of the mega-suburbs, because people are afraid of crime, real or imagined. The police presence is always very noticeable in mega-suburbs.
Life in mega-suburb is a life of government fascism. People in mega-suburbs often have no interaction with their legislative bodies, except maybe to vote to pro-business and pro-growth conservatives in the fall. They feel they need the security provided by an overbearing police force, and complicated home security systems. People are paranoid and scared living in the mega-suburbs, fearing others will take all that they’ve worked so hard to obtain.
Mega-suburbs, while often close to corn fields, farms, and rural areas, have little contact with areas beyond the urban-rural interface. Most suburbanites never go past it, and if anything view the rural folks beyond the urban-rural interface to be little more then under-educated rural idiots.
Mega-suburbs have parks, but they are usually just highly developed recreational areas for use solely by paying and structured High School football and softballs teams. They are not for relaxation or nature enjoyment — but always developed and highly controlled activities. There is no getting away from it all — except in one’s own home — where the stresses of home and feelings of isolation creep in.
Folks who live in mega-suburbs rarely get out of highly controlled environments, where informal interactions are rare. In the mega-suburbs, people don’t pass each other on streets without 2-tons of steel wrapped around them. They don’t interact with people except in office complexes, or at Credit Card checkout lines at mega-Walmarts.
In cities, folks walk down streets, ride public transit, and interact with people at small bodegas and shops. In rural areas, people attend small personable churches, know their neighbors, and shop at places with familiar faces. In contrast, the mega-suburbs lack any kind of personal interaction, without highly regimented rules and government controls.
You often hear commericals on radio that “Subrarus are made in zero landfill factories.” Basically, what they are talking about is their automobile assembly factory, where manufactured components are shipped in reusable containers (to save money), bolted or welded together, and finished up.
They do not include manufacturing of components, or the mining of raw materials to build the cars. Even at zero-landfill assembly factories, some waste is generated, but valuable metal scraps are sent to scrap dealers, and plastic garbage and other wastes are shipped off to municipal trash incinerators, and burned for energy. Zero-landfill Assembly factories typically also have recycling programs in lunch rooms for aluminum cans and recycling for paper in offices, which is fairly common in most industries.
When you read into the claim, you have to be kind of skeptical. Indeed, zero-landfill is much different then zero-waste, or near zero-waste as many environmentalists are persuing. Indeed, much of it’s just certification, rather then any real change in process — as it’s stupid not to reuse shipping containers, scrap waste metals, and do other things that save businesses money.
I don’t generate any trash when I camping that I haul home, and then take to the transfer station for disposal in a landfill. I seperate out the burnable trash from the non-burnable trash, the later which I take home for recycling either for remedemption of the deposit or regular municipal recycling at transfer station. I don’t leave any waste behind, and indeed, I often pick up litter from other persons, including small scraps of paper or plastic people overlook.
I do use styrofoam plates and plastic forks, paper towels, wet whipes, and often camp food comes in more packaging then stuff you get a home, as more stuff is canned or in dry packaging. I don’t use reusable bags when buying camp food, because having lots of plastic bags is handy for camping. It’s a lot easier to burn your trash, then have to wash up a lot of dishes. Food waste is also burned in a hot fire, because one doesn’t want attract bears.
I generate a lot more trash at camp then I do at home. Yet, I don’t want to haul a lot of smelly trash around, so the garbage gets burned at the end of the evening in the campfire. The day’s plastic bag full of burnables gets burned in the hot campfire at the end of day — and is almost instantly incinerated. I like watching trash burn, and I’m not that worried about it compared to what a lot of farmers and rural folks in more rural states burn regularly in their burn barrels and pits.
Tin cans are burned out, to rid of food residue, and tossed in the bin with the aluminim beer and beverage cans. Glass bottles are washed out. Anything that doesn’t burn is hauled home for recycling. I make sure to pick out any aluminum foil or partially burnt trash out of the fire pit. I don’t litter, and there is no trash generated that ever sees a landfill.
To a certain extent I am mocking the concept of zero-landfill manufacturing, that some manufacturers like to brag about it. Are farmers and rural residents who burn their garbage, recycle tin cans and glass, compost, zero-landfill folk? They are keeping their waste out of landfills after all.
But more seriously, it’s not zero-landfill but zero-waste we should be getting to as a society. It’s one things for a country boy out in the boonies to burning his garbage in a fire, it’s another thing for an urban society to be taking steps to reduce it’s waste. All of the country boys, farmers, and rural residents of the world, generate relatively little trash compared to what our big cities generate.
Cities need to find steps to recycle more of their waste, and recover their organics through source-seperated organics composting, biogas, or source-seperate organic biomass energy production. Cities need to find ways to keep their organic waste seperate from toxic technical materials — we got to stop dumping massive quanities of plastics and metals mixed with organics like food waste and brush into massive garbage incinerators and landfills.
One of the consistent thoughts I’ve had in recent months — both before and after buying Big Red — is Big Red-era coming to an end? Big Red, as those who regularly read my blog know is my Chevy Silverado pickup truck, which is my big truck, and primarily my toy for camping.
Gas prices are up big time this summer. They are significantly higher then a five or ten years ago. Some analysis suggest that gas prices will only continue to increase, as global petroleum stockpiles decrease — especially the easiest sources of petroleum are tapped. Some peak oil folks are almost in a panic.
At the same time, the signs of Climate Change are becoming more pronounced. We have had a record warm spring time this year, with record temperatures being smashed throughout the spring. We have also seen increasingly violent weather touching many parts of country in the past year.
There are those who advocate more conservation now. We should immediately all take steps to reduce our climate footprint. Indeed, one of the reasons I take public transit around time, is to reduce my carbon footprint (plus driving in town is so annoying).
Yet, I have to ask, why did they get to have their fun when they were young, driving Mustangs and other Big, Fast, and Powerful Cars. while I don’t? Their response is we didn’t know better back then, even though they should have known better.
There are Three Classes of Protected State Public Lands in the New York State Consitution:
The State Forest Preserve, inside of Catskill and Adirondack Parks is defined in Article XIV Section 1:
Article XIV Section 3
The lands of the state, now owned or hereafter acquired, constituting the forest preserve as now fixed by law, shall be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed or destroyed.
[exceptions not included]
This is the strictest classification of public land. No land swaps or non-forest preserve uses are permitted. Trees may not be logged except incidentially as part of maintence of these wild forest lands. This language is often seen as unflexible, and has required 10 admendments to the state consitution in the past 100 years, as no land bank is provided for in consitution.
Article XVI Section 1 Exception 3, passed in 1957, does provide for a limited “Land Bank” allowing for realignment of a limited number of miles of state highways for safety purposes, however it is very limited compared to compared the generous land bank previsions Article XIV Section 3 (State Forests).
… nor from relocating, reconstructing and maintaining a total of not more than fifty miles of existing state highways for the purpose of eliminating the hazards of dangerous curves and grades, provided a total of no more than four hundred acres of forest preserve land shall be used for such purpose and that no single relocated portion of any highway shall exceed one mile in length.
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A lack of a land bank means even for minor non-forest preserve uses of current forest preserve lands, a consitutional admendment must be passed. This means a consitutional admendment must be drafted, passed by two successive legislatures (such as the 2011-2012 and 2013-2014 sessions) and signed into law twice, then approved by a majority of the state’s voters in a general election.A powerline cutting off 1/3rd of an acre of forest preserve, would require this expensive and lengthy procedure.
More flexible is the concept of Wildlife Management Areas (popularly known as “Public Hunting Grounds”), and State Reforestation Areas (popularly known as “State Forests”), as defined in Article XIV Section 3. These were added in the current form to the state consitution under the State Consitutional Convention of 1933.
Article XIV Section 3
1. Forest and wild life conservation are hereby declared to be policies of the state. For the purpose of carrying out such policies the legislature may appropriate moneys for the acquisition by the state of land, outside of the Adirondack and Catskill parks as now fixed by law, for the practice of forest or wild life conservation.
The prohibitions of section 1 of this article shall not apply to any lands heretofore or hereafter acquired or dedicated for such purposes within the forest preserve counties but outside of the Adirondack and Catskill parks as now fixed by law, except that such lands shall not be leased, sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private.
2. As to any other lands of the state, now owned or hereafter acquired, constituting the forest preserve referred to in section one of this article, but outside of the Adirondack and Catskill parks as now fixed by law, and consisting in any case of not more than one hundred contiguous acres entirely separated from any other portion of the forest preserve, the legislature may by appropriate legislation, notwithstanding the provisions of section one of this article, authorize:
(a) the dedication thereof for the practice of forest or wild life conservation; or
(b) the use thereof for public recreational or other state purposes or the sale, exchange or other disposition thereof; provided, however, that all moneys derived from the sale or other disposition of any of such lands shall be paid into a special fund of the treasury and be expended only for the acquisition of additional lands for such forest preserve within either such Adirondack or Catskill park.
All State Forests and Wildlife Management Areas are Consitutionally Protected but with a state-use land bank. Small portions of State Forests and Wildlife Management Areas (under 100 acres) may be traded for other areas of the land nearby. Alternatively, small areas of land may be sold for purchase of new Forest Preserve within the Adirondack or Catskill Parks. This allows the state the flexibility to re-route highways and build other needed state facilities, as long as the amount of public land is not reduced. The Consitution has never been admended for State Forests or Wildlife Management Areas.
While one could argue that the Adirondack and Catskill Forest Preserve should include similiar flexibility, not including a land bank for Forest Preserve means that large parcels are ensured never to be subdivided by roads, power lines, or other troublesome breaks of wilderness.
The important thing to note is that State Forests and Wildlife Management Areas can not be alienated in whole without a Consitutional Admendment. There will never be a net decrease in State Forest and Wildlife Management lands outside of the Forest Preserve, even if boundaries may change slightly due to public needs. To change State Forest and Wildlife Management Area boundaries, such as for re-routing of a state highway or constructing of a state facility, a bill of alienation with a home rule message must pass to successive legislatures, however no consitutional admendment is required as long as the bill of alienation involves less then 100 acres.
The State Nature and Historic Preserve came out of the New York State Consitutional Convention of 1967. It was approved by the People of New York State in the General Election of November 1969. It finally gave public parks limited consitutional protection, at least those parks maintained by the State of New York, and officially designated as “State Nature and Historic Preserve”.
Article XIV Section 4 (relevant sections)
… The legislature shall further provide for the acquisition of lands and waters, including improvements thereon and any interest therein, outside the forest preserve counties, and the dedication of properties so acquired or now owned, which because of their natural beauty, wilderness character, or geological, ecological or historical significance, shall be preserved and administered for the use and enjoyment of the people.
Properties so dedicated shall constitute the state nature and historical preserve and they shall not be taken or otherwise disposed of except by law enacted by two successive regular sessions of the legislature.
The State Nature and Historic Preserve was a good concept. Yet, before passage, it was well established in Case and Statutory Law under the Alienation Doctrine and clarified through 50 years of case law, most notably Williams v. Gallatin (229 N.Y. 248, 253). It didn’t make any real changes to the policy of state, and left land vunerable to alienation by two sucessive the state legislatures. Traditionally the State legislature has been resistant to abuse the Alienation Power, usually deferring to the opinion of local environmental groups, and acting consitent to statutory law. Most alienations exist as a land swaps and generally involve a de minis amount of land. Yet, that is no guarantee for the future.
The State Nature and Historic Preserve should be strenghtened to have the consitutional protections afforded to State Forests and Wildlife Mangement Areas. There should be a consitutional bar for all large alienations, e.g. those larger then 100 acres. Large scale alienations of all public lands should require a consitituional admendment, not just those designated Forest Preserve, State Forest, or Wildlife Management Area.
Moreover, the DEC and the Office of Parks and Historic Preserve, should be compelled to add all lands it owns and maintains to the State Nature and Historic Preserve. Right now, it is not viewed as priority for most state agencies, as the State Nature and Historic Preserve offers no additional protections over the traditional parks.
I have in the past made maps up of New York State’s population, divided by population density or actual population per municipality. I almost always have to distort that maps for Upstate to show any detail, because of the extreme population concentration downstate, specifically in New York City.
Simply said, there is nothing in Upstate New York at all like downstate. There simply are not the concentrations of people or dense urban core. Our Upstate cities are dense compared to the surrounding countryside — often as much as 100 times more dense (e.g. 100 times more people per mile), but Manhattan is 9 times more dense then even our most dense upstate cities.
New York is truly a metropolitian area, unlike any other in New York State, and like few in America. I welds immense power not just over itself but the more rural parts upstate, and the surrounding countryside that seems — at least to the city folk — so unimportant compared to their extremely dense and complicated living arrangements.