Racing In The Street

Today's Dick Case column in the Post Standard has some follow up about Syracuse's connections to Sen. Joe McCarthy. The second part of his multi-topic column details Syracuse's part in the Red Scare witchhunts:

1) The Post-Standard caved in and published a retraction to an anti-McCarthy piece that ran in the paper.

2) McCarthy's local lawyer in his actions against the newspaper was an ex-mayor of Syracuse,

3) The target of Texas folk-hero John Henry Faulk's lawsuit for redbaiting slander was a prominent Syracuse businessman.

Add to all this the virulent racism of Syracuse sports fans of that era, such as the Chief's ugly trash talking of Jackie Robinson and the brutal atmosphere at the NBA's Nats games and the conclusion is inescapable:

Syracuse sucked in the 1950's!

Millions. Go rent it now.

It was an impulse pick-up at Blockbuster as they were all out of the movies we had originally wanted. I looked at the cover, saw that the director Danny Boyle had also directed Trainspotting, and figured it couldn't be all that bad. I believe I have discovered the movie I will be watching for many holiday seasons to come.

1) The movie has the same visual quirks that made Trainspotting so amazing, this isn't a movie-of-the-week with a bigger budget.

2) Set during the holidays, but also a fictional future time period just before Britain converts its currency to the Euro. People have to convert their money or watch it become worthless overnight. A young boy happens upon a huge stash of currency--225,000 of soon to be extinct pounds. The young boy believes the money comes from God ("who else has so much money?") and wants to give it to the poor. His slightly older brother has more materialistic yearnings.

3) The movie has everything you'd want in a thoughtful holiday movie--the allure of the consumer culture, the existence of spiritual and material poverty, the power of familial love--but it's not sappy or preachy.

Wow--even on DVD this is a great movie. I wish I'd seen it on the big screen.

Interesting piece in the New York Times on NYC's newest bedroom community: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It seems that the Lehigh Valley area has become the hottest market for middle class families in New York that are priced out of the real estate market in the city and traditional Long Island/Ct. suburbs.

"America's newest suburbs are neither the classic towns close to a major city, nor are they distant exurbs built on once-empty farmland. They are aging industrial cities and their environs, on the far periphery of the most expensive metropolitan areas in the northeast and California - places where middle-class parents can still buy homes for their growing families while keeping their big city jobs."

Again, one of the biggest factors (aside from the desire for large McMansions) is the school districts. The houses in the traditional NY suburbs with good public schools are too expensive and the tuition costs for private schools in the city make the cheaper housing costs of even outlying boroughs prohibitive.

This tale comes on the heels of a story last year about attempts to market homes in the Poconos to even lower income New Yorkers (and the huge increase in foreclosures due to fraud on the part of homebuilders and appraisers.)

The cost? Four hours of round-trip commuting; churches, little leagues etc. have a dearth of volunteers because of the punishing work hours of parents, locals being priced out of the housing market by influx of New Yorkers, the yuppification of the town to cater to the tastes of the new residents.

Like a lot of local area bloggers, I have caught the York Staters buzz after several links from NYCO. The writing is amazing and I never fail to take some nugget of wisdom away from their writings. What strikes me the most is the palpable sense of place (and pride in that place) in their writing.

A recent article that the Yorkers link to and comment on is an article from an Elmira journalist on "75 reasons why one lifelong resident wouldn't live anywhere else ".

Like some others, it got me thinking about my own list. I guess it’s in the air this time of year--taking stock of your life and being grateful for the blessings. I tend to be a glass half-empty kind of guy (even worse, I like to throw down and debate why the powers-that-be have actually created the water shortage and are exploiting the increasingly thirsty proletariat!).

But this time I’m going to take a shot at the hopeful side of this theme. I need hopeful this holiday season. Like the writer from Elmira, I love this place because this is where I grew up, where my parents are buried and where I met and fell in love with my wife. It is my home.

Why C.N.Y.? :

1) Walking the trails around Green Lake and Round Lake on a crisp fall day. The color of the water rivals that of the leaves.

2) Syracuse has several restaurants that rival anything I’ve been to in big cities like NY and Chicago: Dinosaur, Eva’s, Munjed’s, Alto Cinco, Heid’s (my old college roommates’ first request whenever he visits).

3) The poppy seed strudel at Harrison Bakery, my reward for sitting through the Polish language mass with my wife and her grandmother at Sacred Heart across the street. The only word I know is amen!

4) Living in one of the lacrosse capitals of the world. Great games from grade school through college.

5) The memories I have of The Works, The Kingsnakes, Little Georgie & The Shuffling Hungarians and Too Hectic are being replicated RIGHT NOW by some younger kid, about some band I’ve never heard of, in some bar I’ve never been to.

6) So much great swimming that my skin is pruning up as I type this--the diving boards at Green Lakes, the frigid cold of Cayuga Lake, sneaking our dogs onto the far end of Southwick Beach on Lake Ontario, lap swimming in the early morning at Thorden Park pool in the summer, walking our dogs up the water trail to the falls at Taughannock.

7) The church of democracy--the benches that look just like pews in the Common Council chambers of City Hall.

8) I live in a conservative, Republican town--a town with scores of progressive groups and people fighting for peace, justice and freedom.

9) The Post Standard newspaper. Honest, look at some of the supermarket circulars masquerading as papers in other upstate cities.

10) Feeding the ducks at Webster Pond on a warm summer night while enjoying a Gannon’s ice cream cone.

11) Walking our dogs up the hill of the Jewish cemetery off Jamesville Ave. for the view of the city and Onondaga Lake.

12) Walking our dogs around the trails in Barry Park formed by the natural stormwater retaining basin. On Sundays you can bike around the park with no car traffic.

13) Lunch at The Welcome Inn, across the street from Skiddy Park. Ukrainian pyrohy, holubchi and borscht in the back room behind the bar.

14) Our community group’s annual picnic at the pavilion overlooking the gazebo and pond in Upper Onondaga Park.

15) My CNY senses: The smell of burning leaves in fall, the sight of a full house at the Carrier Dome, the sound of absolute silence on an early morning after a lake effect snowstorm, the taste of a sausage sandwich at the State Fair, the feel of the sun on my face during a summer afternoon on the beach at Lake Ontario.

Johnny Damon has left the Red Sox and signed as a free agent with the hated Yankees. Johnny: Thank you very much for 2004 and our much cherished World Series championship. The Red Sox Nation is now free to hate you. Yeah, it's a business (where you get paid $52 million over 4 years) and there is no room for sentimentality on either the owners or players side of the equation. BUT THE YANKEES?

Granted, the spirit of the idiots is mostly gone--Pedro Martinez, Derek Lowe, Bill Mueller, Nomar Garciapara, Orlando Cabrera, Dave Roberts, Kevin Millar, Doug Mientkiwicz, Doug Mirabelli, Mark Bellhorn--now Damon. For those of you counting that's 1st Base (two), 2nd Base, Shortstop (two), 3rd base, Centerfield, Starting Pitcher (two), back-up catcher and reserve utility/baserunner. BUT THE YANKEES?

The cupboard is not bare--David Ortiz, Jason Varitek, Manny Ramirez (for now), David Schilling, Bronson Arroyo, Tim Wakefield, Trot Nixon, Keith Foulke, Mike Timlin remain. It remains to be seen how the pick ups from the last two years work out--some have already been discarded. Time to suck it up, because we have to BEAT THE YANKEES!

My favorite response to this development? Blogger Gen X at 40's comment about the thousands of pieces of Johnny Damon memorabilia meant for young Red Sox fans that are being thrown into the garbage, 4 days before Christmas.

Will work for sunshine. Agricultural work sought in a warm climate. Available from now through April

NYCO posted a very intriguing essay entitled On Neighborliness And Space. I wrote some of my first impressions in my prior post, but I still don't feel like I got to the heart of my concerns. I focused on NYCO's comments on neighborliness, contrasted with the ideas of Balogh, another local blogger to whom she was responding. I now realize that I only responded to the first half of her post--hence today's jeremiad on space.

NYCO's post is a spirited defense of the suburbs and their oft-maligned design--blank space, not much common area, geared toward car traffic etc. She ably tweaks the New Urbanist design folks who believe that everyone wants to "live up each others’ noses in perfect harmony." NYCO argues that the suburbs exist because not everyone wants the urban ideal--some people want space, grass, privacy, a sense of upward moblility.

I come at this from the opposite end of the spectrum. I was born and raised in Fayetteville. K-12 in the F-M schools. I fled my hometown to attend college in a big city (Philadelphia). I bemoaned my cloistered background. When I came back home to Syracuse to live, I located in the city. I am committed to the city and would never want to move back to the suburbs.

Syracuse is a city, but it is a city of neighborhoods. Neighborhoods such as Outer Comstock, Bradford Hills, Lyncourt and Eastwood all feature suburban-style houses, larger than average lawns and are practically indistinguishable from their adjoining suburban counterparts. The Sedgewick and Strathmore neighborhoods rival affluent suburbs such as Manlius, Skaneateles and Cazenovia. You can find what you want in the city. Not everyone is forced to live in a five-floor walk-up, concrete jungle.

I still maintain that the urge to flee to the suburbs has more to do with perceived safety and the quality of the public schools. Both of these issues are influenced by race and poverty.

The continual drumbeat in the local media on city crime has contributed to a fear of the city on the part of most suburban residents. Does Channel 3 even stop to think about the message they send by having a pre-produced "CITY CRIME" graphic with a pistol and creepy theme music?

Yes, there are some neighborhoods that face drug crime and increased firearm violence. They are a small percentage of the city and the violence is not random. The violence is either intoxicated domestic disputes or gang turf battles. I work on the Southside, often attending nighttime meetings in the heart of the neighborhoods with the worst crime rates in the city. In 12 years I have suffered one flat tire and one broken windshield. I have never been physically threatened.

The schools are a different issue. Cities are often cited for their diversity, a much more interesting and heterogeneous experience than the sterile suburbs. This might be great for ethnic restarants, movie houses and nightclubs. I don't believe that this is what families are looking for in schools.

School districts that have the resources to educate their kids and minimize the problems that race and poverty bring to a student's life are more successful than those districts that struggle with money and non-academic issues brought on by poverty.

You can meet this challenge in one of two ways. Raleigh, North Carolina created a countywide school system that ensures that no child attends a school with more than 40% of its student body from families living under the poverty line. To do this, Raleigh has extensive busing and incredibly inventive magnet schools. Recent tests show students' scores rising--regardless of race and income.

Or you can just move out to the suburbs. I cannot blame families for making this kind of decision. I received a great education at F-M, untroubled by non-academic distractions in the classroom. I was able to parlay my experience into an Ivy League college education. It is ironic, it was the stifling, cloistered, white bread suburbs that allowed me to mature intellectually and make my way in the great, big and diverse world.

However, I still drive through a lot of the suburbs, see the similar style houses and wonder about these Lost Tribes of Syracuse.

Here's my two cents on the topic that local bloggers NYCO and Balogh are currently kicking around on neighborliness.

Balogh started this with a call to be more neighborly. He reasons, after all, that neighborhoods are the building blocks of our communities. If we want to nourish a sense of community we must start with the grassroots.

NYCO stakes out turf on the "good fences make good neighbors" side of the argument. While she isn't averse to checking out the occasional block party or garage sale, she defends people's right to be left alone. She points out that old-growth suburbs like hers in Fairmount developed precisely because families wanted to get out of the more crowded cities and have a little room. She also points out that there isn't any real structured activity in neatly appointed suburbs that would bring people together to work on a common project.

I fall a little closer to Balogh on this one. In some neighborhoods, people live together for years and don't know anything about each other--and my experiences are in the cheek-by-jowl living space of the city. We have made a point of getting to know our adjacent neighbors, inviting them for dinner etc. I am glad we made the effort because four of the families have changed in the six years we have lived here. Two of the families were older women who passed away after living by themselves for several years. Despite our efforts, we still know only a fraction of our neighbors on our relatively short block.

The interesting part of NYCO's argument is her assertion that we seem disconnected from our neighbors because our harried lives work against our being more neighborly. We work hard and we're tired when we get home. She points out that this kind of lifestyle promotes cocooning--staying home and entertaining ourselves. This has been a big issue in sociolgical circles for many years. Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam documented the fraying of our social capital: ". . .we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbors less, meet with friends less frequently, and even socialize with our families less often. We're even bowling alone. More Americans are bowling than ever before, but they are not bowling in leagues."

Balogh is very concerned about this trend: "Will we continue to try to build in all of the conveniences of the outside world into our home - movie theatres? home offices? work out rooms? craft and sewing rooms?"

While the personal approach doesn't get at the big picture problems and may be treating the symptoms instead of the disease in NYCO's opinion--but it is all we can really do. If NYCO is right and we're all too stressed out and tired to interact with our neighbors, how are we going to summon up the energy to change the sociological trends involving increased work hours, consumption and sprawl--the intertwined pathologies of modern-day life? Baby steps. Bring a coffeecake to the neighbor. Shovel the elderly homeowner's walk. Do what you can do.

The likely winner of the upcoming Presidential election in Chile is Michelle Bachelet, a divorced mother of three who is an atheist and a member of the Socialist Party.

In America, we must keep a close watch on our military, CIA, and political leaders. The last time a person like this won election in Chile, the U.S. had him murdered. The GW Bushies have shown themselves to be just as ruthless and bloodthirsty as the Kissinger/Nixon thugs.

More Born To Run 30th Anniversary news:

The front page of Saturday's Post-Standard sported the iconic photo of Bruce and Clarence from the BTR cover. The photographer was Eric Meola, a Syracuse native. Sean Kirst's column "Springsteen on the verge" explores how a local kid just graduated from S.U. created one of the most memorable covers in rock 'n' roll history. Mr. Meola has gone on to a very successful photography career, far from the rock 'n' roll that gave him his first exposure.

The paper saved some of the best stuff for online readers: more interviews with Eric Meola, art director John Berg and some alternative takes from the same photo shoot.

Think Springsteen has lost his relevance? The lead article in the paper that same day: "Hundreds of rotating layoffs set for New Process Gear."

Sean Kirst, a columnist for the Post-Standard, had a great December 1, 2005 post on his blog about going to an S.U. basketball game. The overtime game was exciting and SU won--a great night. What unnerved him was how some of the fans were so vocal with criticism of Louie McCroskey, an S.U. player recently benched for inconsistent play.

Sean stated that "I can never fathom how some fans respond in such an incredibly angry way to the struggles of a college ballplayer" and that the "the level of venom dripping from some fans is just bizarre." I agree with Sean, but this problem didn't occur overnight. It's been a problem since S.U. moved it's games to the Dome and the Big East made us a "big-time" program.

I used to have season tickets to basketball, but I gave them up due to cost and a growing lack of interest. I had been going to S.U. hoops games with my dad since there was a raised wooden floor at Manley and with high school friends at the Dome.
In the late 1990's, my dad retired and moved away, my high school friends drifted away and I got married. Suddenly the games didn't seem as important.

I will not miss the coarse and bitter nature of a significant part of the fans in attendance. Fans scream insults at our own players! Fans feel entitled to victories and they bitch and moan when the current crop of TEENAGERS fails to provide them with what they feel is their due.

I believe there are several reasons for this shift from fan frenzy to barely contained fan angst:

1) The percentage of the crowd that is made up of students is smaller than in Manley days (and moved far away from the court.)

2) Paying absurdly high ticket prices gives the casual fan the idea that he is entitled to something more than just rooting for the home team.

3) The pedestal that SU hoops players are put on in this town contributes to the idea that they are somehow required to contribute something more than hard work on the court and progress towards a degree in the classroom.

4) The fans are predominately older, white and suburban; the players are predominately young, African-American and urban. It's easier to criticize people you don't understand and can't relate with.

5) The media (sorry, Sean!) feed a lot of the fans' sense of entitlement. The absolute worst example of sports journalism in Syracuse history was an "open letter" written by Bob Snyder to Derrick Coleman. He took Derrick to task for his grief over the gang shooting/murder of his best friend during a summer break in Detroit. This grief was effecting his play on the court, you see. We have our priorities here in Syracuse.

Go Louie, Go Orange! Forgive us fans (and sportswriters) for we know not what we do!