Danielle in Nicaragua

Danielle is a family friend.  She’s in Nicaragua.  In a really rural, poor-as-dirt part of Nicaragua.  Danielle is in the Peace Corps.

Danielle graduated from college recently, and she could be doing just about anything a normal twenty-something would want to do.  She’s smart, extremely athletic, musically inclined, has a great personality and is vastly more beautiful than I could ever have been handsome.  She was one of New Hampshire’s top track athletes in high school, highly motivated and successful.  Yet all the things she’s been gifted with left her wanting for something else.

So she did what few of us would ever be willing to do; she left home and for the next two years is going to teach and farm in the lower-class region of a third-world country.  I couldn’t be more proud of her.

I write about Danielle because I want others to read about her.  She does not have it easy.   This is a huge transition and a greater learning experience for her than it is for those she is trying to help; and worse, she’s gone to a part of the world where the spiders are, like, the size of your hand.  She hates spiders.

She started a blog.  It’s called (surprise) Danielle in Nicaragua.  Her writing skills are not necessarily perfect but grammatically and phonetically close enough to get the point across.  What’s neat about her blog is its endearing nature.  It’s a quirky and fun read.  She only gets a chance to write maybe once a week at most – I believe she has to travel to some larger town that has a wi-fi connection – but her letters weave a story vastly different than the stuff we usually read and write about in the world we live in.  Her stories are about how most people on Earth live, not how we live.

Danielle in Nicaragua is worth a visit.  The embedded video above and the one below (which includes musical references to The Godfather and Radiohead) were taken and produced by one of her fellow Peace Corps volunteers; they are funny and educational.  Notice what they do with the few tools and materials they have to work with.

So read her blog and leave an encouragement or two in the comments section.  She’ll appreciate it.

What Jenny Sanford Should Have Said

Well, yet another politician whose brains are in his pants.

It is one thing to preach about the sanctity of marriage, wholly another to practice that sanctity.  My husband, like so many other politicians, lives in a world where egos are stroked at every turn and power is more addictive than cocaine.  He obviously felt that he needed more stroking than I could give him.  The sense of entitlement that comes with political office carried over into the rest of his life, and he failed to keep them separate.

I’m sure his biggest regret is getting caught.

If I were a bit less civil my first reaction would be to Bobbetize him.  Instead, for the sake of our children, I will try to work through this.  But you can bet that he’ll be cut off for a long, long time, maybe for good.  I may love him, but he’s a jerk and like so many other jerks, could not keep a commitment he promised to keep, twenty years ago.

Going forward, Mark’s words will be repeated in the press; but they are just words.  I and others will from now on be vigilant of his actions, and the effect that every one of those actions will have on regaining his trust.

That will take a long time, probably longer than one election cycle.  This is something you too should consider the next time you vote for governor.

Society tends to reflect the morals of its leaders.  Those who decry the loss of family values and the failures of society – especially those in office – should look no further than themselves as the starting point for re-establishment of those values.  This post is not really about Mark Sanford’s failure or the failures of those other high-ranking politicians – God knows they’re only human – it is about the failure of government to adhere to tough ethical standards that have teeth, that hold politicians accountable for immoral or unethical behavior.  Instead, we find ourselves all but disregarding any political rhetoric because the person behind that rhetoric has no credibility.  We are more likely to do as he does – and not do what he says.  We’ll follow our leaders all the way down that amoral pit.

This all leads to the fiasco that is New York State government, a government that has established new lows in ethics, where a political official currently under investigation for fraudulent campaign tactics is one heartbeat removed from the Governor’s mansion.  Whose Legislative Ethics Commission in its 20-year existence has never filed a notice of wrongdoing and whose findings are specifically exempt from the state’s Freedom of Information Law.  Whose Senate is so beholden to the Party that not only can they not conduct the people’s business, they can’t even find cordiality in the same room.

Many of these politicians will be re-elected to office.  They are doing nothing that the majority of Americans have not come to expect of them.  The real failure of our society is our own unwillingness to hold these guys accountable for the very societal standards demanded of us.

It’s been interesting to watch the slow disintegration of my state government and the short-lived furor over national political figures who have strayed.  We’ve been on this slippery slope for a while, and we’ve got only a short distance to go, I hope, before it becomes so revolting that society revolts against the system.

Yearning for Those Friendly Skies

I loathe what air travel has become.  Used to be that flying made sense when travel by car would take more than 2 or 3 hours.  After 9/11 it was closer to 4 hours – making trips to Albany, Detroit or Pittsburgh more convenient by car than plane.  This past year, 6 hours’ drive time became my decision radius.

This week I debated if driving 7+ hours to Baltimore would be less stressful (and time-consuming) than arriving at the airport at least an hour before flight time, having my oversized can of shaving cream confiscated at security, waiting through incessant flight delays, being packed like sardines into the aircraft, developing motion sickness on the (very) turbulent flight, getting a lame rental car and driving the remaining distance to my hotel.

Flying to and from Baltimore saved me barely more than an hour in each direction.  And it was way more stressful than driving ever is.

Next time it’s going to be my car, a bunch of CDs, a list of NPR stations along the route and some coffee.  Air travel is too crazy.

“Let’s Just Go Home”

Today’s State Senate quote is courtesy of Senator John Sampson (R, Brooklyn); here’s the link to the whole story.

The rest of the New York population gave up on the State Senate (and the rest of State government) long ago, so it’s not really news that Senators are giving up on themselves.  My advice echoes Senator Sampson’s:  Go home.

I’ll add:  Don’t come back.

I chuckle at the suddenly used and in vogue phrase “the work of the people.”  The Senate long ago stopped doing the work of the people and have been party automatons ever since.  Like robots, they don’t take accountability and don’t do anything they’re not programmed to do.  It is clear that these guys are merely puppets whose balls are being squeezed strings are being pulled by other, more powerful men.

Some court case years ago ruled out the possibility of withholding Senate paychecks (regardless of what Sampson says) over a debacle like this; that’s okay, the pay is a just a zit on skin raked with raging melanoma.  I just hope that we voters remember this past week the next time these half-wits come up for re-election.

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Behold the tree-statue of DeWitt Clinton marking the opening of the Erie Canal.  What’s wrong is the car in the background.  The parking lot is just past the single row of trees, about 20 feet from the sidewalk and adjoining Erie Street.

No matter what direction from which you photograph this and all the other tree-statues (the “Carvings“)  temporarily lining Erie Street as it extends to the end of the Erie Basin Marina, you cannot get away from the asphalt.  You can find plenty of parking and a very nice road that hugs the shoreline, but virtually no grass.  Barely a place to spread out a picnic blanket, set up a tent, hold a party.

No place to avoid engine exhaust.

My last post was about the lack of access to our waterfront.  This post is an example of how development of that access has sacrificed the very reason we go to the water:  To get away from the sights and sounds of urbanization.  In this regard we planned poorly but executed the plan well, leaving us with a jetty that from above looks dull and gray, and from the ground looks wanting for anything green.  I recall while living in Silicon Valley how parking lots were divided by fingers of grass and foliage to break up and hide the proliferation of cars.  Is that design, which sacrifices one in ten parking spots, not feasible out here?

The planned redevelopment of the Waterfront Village – with a newly approved hotel plan – really needs to incorporate natural elements into the design.  So do the existing properties in the Village, the road leading to the marina and the oversized parking lots on it.  My suggestion:  Take out the road beyond the last set of boat docks, and force everyone to walk the final 400 yards to the end of the marina on a grassy and sandy surface.  Barefoot even.

Getting To Buffalo’s Waterfront

Buffalo’s waterfront is a vibrant, ever-changing world of private and public investments, dwarfed only by the length of its shoreline and frustrated by the lack of access to it.

I saw this firsthand today on while on a tour sponsored by the Buffalo Niagara Partnership’s Young Professionals group.  We traveled as far south as the Bethlehem Steel property and north to Squaw Island.  In between there was some amazing development, made even more so by Luke the bus driver’s needle-threading precision maneuvering around roads not ever meant for bus travel.

The Bell Slip, a tranquil cove adjacent to a staging area piled high with stone curbing.  In the calm and soothing natural setting you could almost ignore the deafening bellows of the front loader working on the Route 5 redevelopment nearby.

The Outer Harbor Parkway Project, which punches holes into the soon-to-be new Furhmann Boulevard so that traffic will eventually be able to move east/west under Route 5, connecting the outer harbor to South Buffalo, possibly allowing South Buffalonians to flee west.

The Antique Boat Club, nestled inside and behind Nanodynamics, the old Ford Plant.  One would think that the Antique Boat Club area is a perfect spot for a boat launch, inside the breakwall, were it not for the fact that the water is 15 feet below the rusted steel pilings that make up the abrupt and artificial shoreline in that area.

The Old Freezer Queen (cum next condominium, if the economy ever improves and the Outer Harbor starts to take shape) complex, taking up oodles of space on the water, almost directly across Furhmann Boulevard from the Tifft Nature Preserve.  The amazing Buffalo Lakeside Commerce Park, a huge plot of reclaimed brownfields encompassing the Union Ship Canal, parkland and brand new facilities courtesy of Sonwil Distribution, Certainteed, Cobey and a dozen yet to be claimed undeveloped and spooky-being-in-a-city parcels.  The Riverwright complex, which while shockingly ugly and even uglier up close still holds promise as a future biofuel manufacturing center until we Buffalonians litigate it to death or controlled nuclear fusion is realized, whichever comes first.

There’s the cobblestone district, Canal Side and Buffalo Harbor, condos on the lake, LaSalle Park, the Black Rock Channel, Towpath Park, Cotter’s Point and that tiny part of the Erie Canal that sticks out by the Scajaquada and is full of driftwood and old tires.

And there’s a most tortuous trip between really ugly Navy property and the no-man’s land adjacent to the tracks which are adjacent to the I-190, to the West Side Rowing Club and an absolutely spectacular Frank Lloyd Wright designed Fontana Boathouse next door.  I now know how to get to this place but it would be impossible to give someone directions to it.  Frank’s secret is safe with us.

These and other small parks, slips and marinas pepper the waterfront among the ruins of a once booming shipping and transportation center.  What’s lacking is a great many small things.  For instance, there were a total of three restaurants along this 7-mile stretch, one of which was the Hatch which no one in their right mind would consider a restaurant.  There are rusting and crumbling industrial properties looking for a buyer.  There are still huge brownfield areas begging for reclamation dollars.  There’s barbed wire, concrete walls and debris strewn everywhere.

But the big thing that’s lacking is easy access.  Squaw island via a narrow one-lane steel-decked bridge?  The West Side Rowing Club via a snaky drive past some snarky buildings?  Buffalo Harbor via streets that twist and turn under the elevated I-190?  Who dreamt up this road map?

There’s a ton of stuff on the waterfront.  We just can’t get to it.

Fights Behind the School

As I read about the ever-dysfunctional New York State legislature I’m reminded of my youth, growing up in Holland, watching the fights break out among the 12-year-olds who wanted to use the basketball court behind the school.

We were twelve.

We pay our Senators how much to act like this?

Thinking about Next Year’s Ride

Except for a slightly sore butt I feel completely recovered from Saturday’s 100 km Tour de Cure bike ride.  Next year I think I’ll start training just a little earlier, and go for the 100-miler.

To everyone who donated on my behalf or for anyone else, thank you so much for the support.  The Tour de Cure is much more than a fund-raising event; it’s a festival, the first of many festivals held during our wonderful summer months, when the glorious weather brings out the best in us.

Last week was also the Greek Festival and this weekend it’s the Allentown Art Festival; then the Ride for Roswell; and shortly after that the Taste of Buffalo and the Italian Festival and many other great places to gather and celebrate.

Buffalo’s great for that kind of stuff.

Controlled Burn

The Bowmansville volunteer fire department had a heyday this evening when they set a house on fire, for training purposes.  Volunteer fire companies live for this kind of opportunity.

The old brick house on Pavement Road is being torn down.  The fire company would have preferred to burn it to the ground but because the bricks are being salvaged the company was only allowed to put in some smoke pots and other things to make it hot and smokey, good enough for the guys to get some experience with smoke and darkness and hard-to-breathe, smelly places.

There must have been 30 or 40 firefighters at the scene.  I sure hope there are no other fires in Bowmansville right now.

Small Business Week in Buffalo

This past week was Small Business Week in Western New York.

• Monday:  UB’s Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL) annual meeting
• Tuesday:  Small Business Innovative Research grant writing seminar specifically targeted to small businesses and start-ups
• Tuesday Night:  Buffalo Niagara Partnership Endurance All-Stars event.
• Wednesday:  CEL Class of 2009 graduation ceremony
• Thursday:  UB Business Partners Day

Before you say “Small business, so what?  Who gives a crap?” know that small businesses account for half of all employment in the U.S., and since the mid-90s have created 60-80% of net new jobs.  A very recent NPR report cited that small businesses accounted for 100% of all new hiring in 2009 so far.  Small business is Western New York’s future, for God knows that until New York State’s government is overthrown changes we are not going to be attracting any large companies to this area despite the best efforts of the Buffalo Niagara Enterprise and our local politicians.

Some big corporations were represented at most of these events, too:  Moog, National Fuel, Greatbatch, M&T and others are sponsors of many of these programs, in part as a giveback to the community in which they operate.   I am grateful to the big guys who probably get little in return, other than some friendly PR.

UB Business Partners day was an unequivocal success.  Attendance was probably twice last year’s, and it will continue to grow.   UB and the CEL both recognize that entrepreneurialism is the seed by which business will blossom in Western New York.

Songs in Odd Times

Regardless of what Wikipedia says about Radiohead’s Pyramid Song, it is cannot possibly be written in 4/4 time.  If you ignore the first three-and-a-half beats and meter eighth notes then the piano consistently plays in 11/8 while the first measure is 7/8.  Maybe Phil Selway is playing drums in 4/4; with all the syncopation I find it impossible to pick up and hold the beat when the percussion enters halfway into the song.  But listen to the piano and you get a sense for what plays out as consistent 11/8.

Pyramid Song is one of many Radiohead tunes using sophisticated rhythm patterns that are not for the faint of heart.  In the jazz scene there’s Dave Brubeck, who’s always good for one or two oddly-metered pieces per album.  It’s interesting how our minds resist rhythm that is not in 2 or 3 or 4.  I personally love the edginess that weird beat brings to music.

On Thursday, June 11th this radio station will dedicate 2 hours (starting at 2 pm) to rock songs not tied to our natural rhythms.  Should be a great listen, but probably not something you’ll consider dance music.

I Need Help

My closest friends will all tell me that admitting it is the first step.

But this is a different kind of help that I need.  I’m going to bicycle the 100 km Tour de Cure on June 6th; it’s to raise money for the American Diabetes Association, and I’m looking for inspiration to complete the ride. I am not diabetic, but I know lots of people who are.  Chances are you or someone close to you is suffering from and fighting this condition.

Your donations will help inspire me to keep going and ignore the butt pain I’m going to feel by the 50 km mark.

This is not an attempt to get you to empty your wallet; indeed, a few dollars from a lot of people will go a long way.  Donations can be made directly to the Tour de Cure through this link.

Thanks in advance.

The Innovation Center

I got a chance to tour the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus Innovation Center – part of the former Trico complex – to see how progress is being made on turning the building into business and lab space for the fledgling Life Sciences industry in Western New York.

It looks, um, nice.  Inside it will be clean, bright and modern.  I only wish they would have gone for the “Thomas Edison” open laboratory look, but with various tenants doing super-secret bio-science stuff, walls are needed.  It is unclear what the exterior will eventually look like.  The only things apparent were the replacement windows and a bowed-out atrium.

The Innovation Center is a 100,000 square foot, 4-story add-on adjacent to the monstrous half-million square foot, 6-story Trico building that was essentially abandoned by the late Stephen McGarvey when he took ill, but not before he had the roof taken off.  Years of rainwater distributed Trico toxins throughout the building and the cost to clean up the mess means that the Innovation Center may be the only portion of the complex that is ever renovated.  So we’ll have a small, nice-looking building full of state-of-the-art laboratories servicing brilliant medical minds next door to a dilapidated poisoned edifice that is in such bad shape they’ve had to cordon off the sidewalk around it for fear of falling bricks.

Urban renewal comes slowly, in very small increments, to Buffalo.

Elephant Spokesmen

The most vocal talking heads of the Grand Old Party are Dick Cheney, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh????

That can’t be a very good way to grow the Republican base to a size that can take on the Democrats, and could be disastrous for the Republicans for many elections to come.  A silent Colin Powell and an Eric Cantor who seems afraid to use the word “Republican” might be more statesmanlike choices around which to circle the wagons, but they are either unwilling or unable to take those leadership reins away from the attack dogs.

Maybe Cheney, Limbaugh and Beck are actually liberal-leaning strategists who realize that an adversarial right-wing Republican line that eschews moderates will only expand the Democratic Party’s grip on government.  Maybe that’s the strategy.  It’s certainly one that I can at least rationalize; because when you’re the minority, ostracizing your own and potential party members does not seem to be a reasonable approach to winning more friends.

We are now living the results of almost 8 years of single party dominance.  It stands to reason that 8 more years of a single dominant party will not lead to the rational compromises required to strike the balance that defines good governance.  A single dominant party is also likely to hand even more power to the unelected party bosses; witness, with rare exception, Erie County and the city of Buffalo’s election choices.

Yesterday I participated in a webinar sponsored by the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, in which Trent Lott was the guest speaker.  The webinar was supposed to be on the effects of the new stimulus package but it only superficially covered that topic, wandered into several others and generally did not stray very much out of the wading pool.  Former Senator Lott mentioned the Republican Party’s poor election showing and stated that the Party needed to have a clear voice on the issues of interest to the American people.

So I got to ask Trent Lott a very simple question:  What, in his opinion, is the clear voice that the Republican Party needs to vocalize?  He sidestepped the question entirely, choosing to answer with “The GOP needs to think about the words they choose”.

When virtually every American is decrying the economy, jobs and health care (note:  abortion and immigration aren”t even on the radar), it is clear that the Republican Party needs to put together a platform and a single voice that elevates those very issues, and needs to do so in a manner that is critical but constructive rather than adversarial to those in control.

1,000,000 Would-be Terrorists

The ACLU estimates that there are now over one million names on the nation’s terrorist watch list.  The Inspector General’s estimates are closer to 1.1 million identities.  Many names are duplicates and many are wrong with no systematic way of removing them.  35% of the domestic entries have no known link to terrorist activities.  Hundreds of thousands of foreign citizens were put on the list because they are from Iraq and Afghanistan. The watch list data is significantly peppered by inconsistencies in the way that names were added or not added (”nominated” in IG parlance) to the list.  New information regarding names on the list, either to bolster or eliminate suspicion, was mishandled two-thirds of the time.  The incredibly slow removal of names from the list is in directly violation of policy and has led to problems at border crossings and airport security lines, both in stopping ordinary people with no ties to terrorism from traveling while letting other suspicious individuals through.

I found this report startling for two very different reasons:

• That any list of this size (and growing at upwards of 20,000 entries per month) could be considered useful to agencies trying to use it as a screening filter is absurd.  Anyone who works with large databases recognizes that data accuracy is paramount, and even small errors have great consequences.  An untrusted list is an ineffective list.
• That this list could be grown so quickly to so many is about as Kafkaesque as it gets.

The terrorist watch list is a great example of what happens where paranoia is substituted for rational thought.  The creation of the list and the accumulation of names ranks right up there with the McCarthy communists and Nixon’s enemies. I look back with a historical perspective and am embarrassed by how our government ran itself at the height of the cold war and during the Watergate scandal; twenty years from now the Bush Administration’s creation of the terrorist watch list will end up on the list of historical embarrassments as well.

Gross Incompetence Can Be Tolerated for Only So Long

There’s a fight going on in the Holland Central School district.  It’s the same fight being waged in many schools in Erie County: Too many teachers.

The teachers’ union (with the support of some parents) is resisting attempts by the Holland school board – with the support of other parents – to increase student-teacher ratios, especially in those grades with declining enrollment.  How much decline is there?  Well, the K-12 population of the school is currently 1,258 (last year’s graduating class:  99).  Next year’s kindergarten enrollment is currently estimated to be…less than 50.  Yet there are 6 kindergarten teachers.  Do the math and it is clear that in at least one grade there are probably too many teachers.

In Holland, this is a big issue.  It’s not even a blip on the Buffalo Public Schools radar.  In a bloated administrative system with an entrenched, uncooperative teachers union, a sense of victimization, isolation and systemic underachievement at all levels, the prospects for even incremental improvement to Buffalo’s public education seem remote.  Certainly, the examples set by union/administration feuding do not lend themselves to motivating students; and really, in the long run motivation is what it’s all about:  Motivated students will learn under any circumstances.

Holland is one of the most rural towns in Erie County and will spend $13,000 per student and graduate nearly all of them.  Buffalo on the other hand, spends upwards of $24,000 per student and will graduate less than half.  Holland’s board and the teachers will eventually reach some compromise.  Phil Rumore and James Williams will not.

What a tragedy for this area.  Most small businesses cannot offer jobs to those with such limited skills and worse, with little or no motivation.  The same local businesses starve for prospects because there are not enough skilled workers to go around.  And big businesses looking to possibly expand into the region?  Well, an educational system ranked at the bottom of the state drives one more nail into that coffin.

Our community’s future is being pissed away by a collectively incompetent group of professionals (and I use that word sarcastically) who appear intent on cutting the throats of the community around them.  It has taken us 50 years to get here, and we are guaranteeing at least 20 more years of another uneducated lost generation.

I get tired of watching so much money being thrown down a sewer; and greatly saddened that my analogy seems so appropriate.

Not Riding the Bus

A couple weeks ago my wife and I were returning from an evening party at the Buffalo Convention Center to our car, parked in the Convention Parking Ramp one block away.  During that very brief walk we watched four NFTA buses go by.  There were two passengers, total.

Running a regional bus service like this does not appear to be very cost effective.  But with all the available surface parking in Buffalo, maybe there’s no other way.

I wonder if the decentralization of the bus system – doing away with the hub-and-spoke model that forces every bus to the central bus terminal, and replacing it with smaller, more localized shuttles – would make more sense.  It’s hard to believe that 50-person buses only filled to 2% capacity could ever be profitable.

Where are the Four Corners, Really?

This article, recently heard on NPR and read on Fark, indicates that while the U.S. officially regards the Four Corners monument as the point where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah share a corner, the actual intersection is not there.  The monument is placed too far east by 1,800 feet.

The surveying error occurred a long time ago, and I frankly wouldn’t care exact that my son and I recently drove 20 hours one day to stand on that spot.  The wrong spot.

It’s an interesting place, really in the middle of nowhere, a point where four states, two sovereign Indian nations and the U.S share a single point.  The area looks very poor.  There is literally nothing around it but a few small towns, and lots of rugged beauty.

Somewhere, while looking west, I probably gazed out where the four states actually do share a common corner.  I’ll bet that the Navajo (or maybe Ute?) nation will soon make a trail to that spot, maybe charge a few bucks to walk to it.

The Next GM Pension Plan

Because of its long term pension liabilities, GM is worth more dead than alive.  I doubt any automaker or wealthy investor (other than the U.S. Government) will touch it prior to its evenutal bankruptcy.

The company’s crazy pension commitments are just crazy.   As of last year they were costing the company $1,300 per car.  With GM sales down something ridiculous – over 50% in February from the year prior – pension costs this year will cost over $2,000 per vehicle.

What’s a GM pensioner to do?  Well, nothing, really.  The pensioner can sit on his or her ass all he or she wants and will still collect until the company is sucked dry.  After that, who knows?  For some reason I think I’ll be helping to pick up the tab.

Here’s my suggestion after the bankruptcy:  Offer up a pension amount fixed at some amount per car.  Let’s say the company agrees to put $1,000 per car into the pension account.  Take the total car sales for the year, multiply by $1,000 and divide by the number of pensioners; that’s the amount each pensioner will get the following year.

This has some real advantages over the current scheme, mainly that pensioners could make out really well in good years, and they have an incentive to help GM make sure it has good years.  And I won’t have to subsidize them through some government support package.

Just a thought.

Strange Dreams

Why is this?

Sure didn’t seem like a dream while I was dreaming it.

And I dream this, regularly.