Racing In The Street

Nuestro Himno
Published April 26, 2006

Verse 1
Oh say can you see, a la luz de la aurora/Lo que tanto aclamamos la noche al caer? Sus estrellas, sus franjas flotaban ayer/En el fiero combate en senal de victoria,/Fulgor de lucha, al paso de la libertada,/Por la noche decian: “Se va defendiendo!”
Coro: Oh, decid! Despliega aun su hermosura estrellada,/Sobre tierra de libres, la bandera sagrada?

Verse 2
Sus estrellas, sus franjas, la libertad, somos iguales
Somos hermanos, es nuestro himno.
En el fiero combate en senal de victoria,/Fulgor de lucha, al paso de la libertada,/Por la noche decian: “Se va defendiendo!”
Coro: Oh, decid! Despliega aun su hermosura estrellada,/Sobre tierra de libres, la bandera sagrada?

gracias Chicago Tribune

Oro Valley, AZ It's Been Real!

According to US Census bureau reports on migration patterns within the country, Americans are continuing to leave the Northeast and relocate to the Sun Belt. In a CNN story on the trend, a key reason for these migration patterns is the extremely high costs of housing in areas like the Northeast and Far West cities.

Marc Perry, a demographer with the Census Bureau is quoted as saying that "some people are cashing out housing and moving to cheaper areas. Others who don't own homes are moving so they can afford to buy one."

Top 5 outmigration cities: N.Y.C., L.A., Chicago, San Fran. and Boston.

Top 5 inmigration cities: Riverside (CA), Phoenix, Tampa, Atlanta and Dallas

And to all you immigrant wall builders out there: New York State had more people move out of state than any other place in the country, BUT we still had a net population growth thanks to foreign immigration.

As NYCO points out in a recent post, the last gasp solution (for both immigration opponents and our culture as a whole) is to build a wall to keep immigrants out.

Ivan Light, a sociologist at UCLA, points to other ways to manage immigration in a recent LA Times editorial entitled 'How L.A. kept out a million migrants'.

Between 1980 and 2000 the LA metropolitan area went from having 32% of all Mexican immigrants in the U.S. to only 17% of all Mexican immigrants--during a period when Mexican immigration increased by 120%. An estimated 1 million Mexican immigrants bypassed LA and settled elsewhere.

Professor Light cites public policy changes taken in California and Los Angeles that led to this deflection of the migration pattern from Mexico:

1) The state minimum wage was raised significantly during this time period, up to 122% of the federal level by 2000.

2) The city vigorously enforced existing laws on industrial safety and sweatshops after a 1995 case where Thai garment workers were held in virtual slavery.

3) The city also vigorously enforced housing safety and code violations in low income neighborhoods, closing down many unsafe tenement buildings.

Professor Light argues that this is the way metropolitan governments can regulate the flow of immigration, eliminating the fear of being inundated by immigrants fostered by anxious nativists and eliminating the need to do something so stupid as building a wall.

So I left work "to run an errand" at 10 AM and picked up "We Shall Overcome--The Seeger Sessions". I spent a good part of today listening to the CD in my car while driving around, as well as a more serious listen tonight. In addition, the CD is a combination "DualDisc" with a DVD component. The video features a look at the actual recording sessions, including the portion where Bruce urges everyone to have another drink to get the "loose" feel he wants on the background vocals of "Pay Me My Money Down."

I'm not going to attempt a song-by-song exegesis of the album, but I will hazard a couple of comments:

1. For people tired of the earnest Bruce Springsteen of 41 Shots, The Rising and Devils and Dust--this is your album. Even message songs like Mrs. McGrath (an anti-war lament) are offset by the straight-ahead, Irish-reel tune.

2. For people tired of the drier than dust, spare instrumentation of Ghost of Tom Joad and Devils and Dust--this is your album. A 17 piece band including tuba, fiddles, keyboards, trombone, trumpet really let 'er rip!

3. For people tired of musicians afraid to try new musical forms--this is your album. Bluegrass, old-time country, blues, Dixieland, zydeco, celtic--this is folk stew.

My favorite comment about this album was from a critic on Slate.com: "And who knew that Bruce Springsteen would be the one to remind American record buyers they need more tuba in their lives?

If they had had their druthers, the Common Council would not have voted on Monday to bond for over a million dollars to repair the sewage problem that plagues Fowler High School, causing nauseating fumes to waft into the cafeteria.

The new city schools superintendent bumped the Fowler project to the very top of the school's To Do list. The sordid story of allowing the city's poorest students to face sewage problems in their lunchroom for over 15 years finally got too intolerable for even the school district.

However, the situation was not so intolerable that several Common Councilors publicly wished the project could be postponed ANOTHER year, so the city would not have to bond for the money, instead using part of the $200 million in the upcoming NY State budget being allocated for the first phase of the city's ambitious school renovation plan

Some thoughts on the April 25th GMA coverage of Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band live from Asbury Park, N.J.:

1) Unlike the Today show coverage of a similar launch concert for The Rising, GMA didn't move their whole production down to the Shore. They sent Robin Roberts and their weather guy to do remote spots and crowd interviews.

2) Neither of these folks know a lick about Bruce or his fans.

3) Very superficial coverage, no stories about how this is his first covers album, the switch to folk/acoustic music, how loose this band is: nothing.

4) The segues were ragged and the show often talked over or cut away from Bruce performances--two full songs only. "Jacob's Ladder" and "O Mary Don't You Weep." Both are raucous, New Orleans-style, procession back from the graveyard jazz. Fiddle and horns predominate.

5) This GMA format clearly showed the drawback of this kind of alternative marketing forced on older musicians: Bruce wasn't the focus of the show, just another disposable segment, jammed between the tearful expose on step-parents and the hot new mother & child accessories for this summer. The hardcore fans get a taste, but we cannot dictate the coverage.

6) Mario Cuomo was NYS Governor and seriously considered running for president. Andrew Cuomo was HUD Secretary and current front-runner for NYS Atty. General. Why is Chris Cuomo pitching $2,000 baby strollers on an A.M. magazine show?

Did anyone else catch this? I was watching the documentary 'Rosie's Family Cruise' on HBO. A nice movie about Rosie O'Donnell and her partner's idea to have a gay-friendly cruise ship vacation for gay/lesbian parents and their children. An entertaining and totally inoffensive (unless you're some fundamentalist bluenose) defense of diversity, familial love and tolerance.

Then, right at the end of the movie they start playing a cover version of Randy Newman's song "Sail Away" over a montage of families getting ready to depart the ship. I understand why they wanted to poach the lyrics about taking care of family and the refrain sail away, but did anyone read the rest of the lyrics or stop to figure out their meaning?

Randy Newman may now be known mostly as a composer of film scores to family fare like Finding Nemo, but early in his career he went out of his way to yank peoples chains. He wrote songs like "Rednecks", "Political Science (Let's Drop The Big One)" and "Sail Away"--perhaps the most non-PC song of all time.

The song is essentially a sales pitch made by a slavetrader to an unsuspecting African, extolling the virtues of the New World and asking him to get on board and "we will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay."

Ever started to pass a few minutes by web surfing, hit on a site and then realize you've spent over an hour (or more)? For me that site is Flickr, the photo sharing site. You can put your photos up for free, allowing your friends and relatives to see your newest photos without having to spend an hour downloading them. You can make your photos public or private. There are a gazillion public photos, you can find specific topics or just wander around.

Flickr has two ways to find specific themes of pictures--groups and tags. Some Flickr folks set up specific groups for people posting photos on a specific theme: dogs, cities, parties etc. There are thousands of groups. Here are several links to photos about Syracuse and Central NY.

Also, each individual photo can have a tag attached--any number of descriptive words or phrases to identify the picture. To search for pictures with a tag is just like googling something: go to Flickr's tag page type in a subject, hit search and thousands of pictures of doggies, cities, parties etc. come up.

This Lifehacker article gives you a tip on how to have all the links to photos tagged with say, Syracuse, be delivered automatically into feed readers like Bloglines.

Happy time suckage!

No need to go all the way to Washington, D.C.--just to my front yard!

Don't know the time yet, but Bruce and the Seeger Sessions Band will perform live from the Asbury Park (N.J.) Convention Center on Tuesday morning April 25th on Good Morning America--ABC television.

Run out right afterwords and pick up the new album!

On the day before, Monday April 24th, Bruce will sit for an interview with Good Morning America as well.

Folk rocks!

George Eccles died at age 84 last week. A loyal SUN member, he and his wife Kay came to our Southside meetings since we organized neighbors 15 years ago to fight off the conversion of the old Enrico's restaurant building into a convenience store/bar.

George was a relatively quiet and private man, often sneaking out of our meetings to have a smoke, yet his demeanor masked a fierce devotion to his family and neighborhood. In an age where people move out of their hometowns, change jobs every few years and families scatter to the winds, George was a throwback. Aside for the time he spent in the Navy during WWII, George was born, lived and died in the same Southside house. George worked for one employer for 40 years and then spent his retirement immersed in the lives of his children and grandkids.

Our neighborhood is a little less stable this week, we've lost an anchor.

Picking up on NYCO’s suggestion, I'm making a litter-ary contribution to the CNY blogosphere: spreading the discussion kicked off by Sean Kirst in his newspaper column and on his blog about how messy our city and environs are this Earth Day.

My substantive suggestion is to copy Oakland, Ca. and their fast food packaging tax. I would try to tweak the law so that companies that demonstrated a reduction in the amount of disposable packaging used in their businesses would get a break on the tax. The money would go directly to fund DPW crews dedicated to cleaning up the city (and perhaps to DIY volunteer groups, as well.)

I don't like the military/police suggestions to crack down on litterbugs through citations and higher fines. I imagine the same phenomenon that occurs in crackdown patrols like Operation Impact would occur in any Operation Litterbug--a disproportionate targeting of poor and minority folks for violations. Yeah, that's where the violations occur, but that's not the way to get people to work together and feel like they are part of a larger whole.

Trash in the inner-city is a reflection of cynicism and fatalism. I was taught to always find a trash can and to recycle and not to litter. But I also felt that I was a valued member of my community and had a reasonably decent expectation of becoming successful in that society. Not everyone in inner-cities believes that.

In one of Sean Kirst's posts on this issue, he mentioned the message that we send to young, low-income minority youths that their lives aren't worth any more than the garbage blowing around their neighborhoods. It's worse than that--more than likely, the youths threw that garbage themselves. This is their self-image.

That's why programs like the Go Green Syracuse recycling initiative in five city elementary schools is so important. To reach young children, every effort needs to be made to give them structured activities that will not only attempt to inculcate good behaviors (don't litter) but also create a love of their natural environment. That is what will, in the long run, lead to cleaner communities.

That's why an idea like NYCO's Sojourn Day may be the most important long run step we can take to reduce trash in our communities. Reconnect with the grass, streams, dirt, paths, parks, trees, bushes, small animals, insects, flowers all around you, the stuff that you drive by every day in your S.U.V. People more in touch with their natural surroundings will be less likely to let fly their Egg Mcmuffin wrapper.

The official Bruce Springsteen website has been updated with lots of material from the upcoming Seeger Sessions album, including detailed historical and musical background on each of the songs on the album. The liner notes were written by definitive Bruce biographer Dave Marsh (and editor of the great journal Rock & Rap Confidential). Check out the notes for "Erie Canal":

"Written in 1905 by Thomas S. Allen as "Low Bridge, Everybody Down," but now as much a folk song as if it had been written anonymously eighty years earlier when the canal was America's most important highway. The Canal, constructed at huge expense from 1817 to 1825 to link New York City and the East with Buffalo and what was then the West, was America's first great national thoroughfare. It remained important until the heyday of the railroad, and after being enlarged from 1903-1918, remains in operation today, although now used mostly for recreation.

Travel was slow, in the early years on barges drawn by horses, and there were also long layoffs that inspired a whole range of recreations, including frog racing, drinking contests and fist fights. An entire genre of canal songs also developed: songs about the canal, songs that were popular at the inns and bars en route, songs sung by canal workers, songs by and for travelers.

By 1905, when Thomas Allen wrote his song, canal traffic was motor-powered and the idea of a mule-drawn barge tapped into nostalgia. "Low Bridge" reflects some knowledge of how the canal actually operated though, because as it passed through cities, the Canal did pass under some very low spans. And fifteen miles would have been a realistic pace for those early days, too.

"Erie Canal" remains a song most commonly known from parties and in play groups but a few folksingers like Glenn Yarborough and the Weavers have recorded it. The Sons of the Pioneers did a western version. Dan Zanes recently made a version for one of his children's albums, with Suzanne Vega singing lead. Pete's version can be found on several discs, including American Favorite Ballads, Volume 3

The U.S. dates for Bruce Springsteen and his 17-piece "arena-folk" band were announced today. The closest Bruce comes to Syracuse is the Saratoga Performing Arts Center on June 21st. Four charity benefit shows in the Asbury Park Convention Center, a spot in the New Orleans Jazz Festival, several shows in Europe (all of which are selling out within minutes of tickets going on sale) and then 18 shows in the U.S.--a mixture of outdoor amphitheatres and basketball arenas (Madison Sq. Garden in NYC).

From the Springstreen press release: "In addition to Springsteen on vocals, guitar and harmonica, the US tour dates for the Seeger Sessions Band will comprise the following lineup: Sam Bardfeld (violin), Art Baron (tuba), Frank Bruno (guitar), Jeremy Chatzky (upright bass), Larry Eagle (drums), Charles Giordano (accordion, keyboards), Curtis King (vocals), Greg Liszt (banjo), Lisa Lowell (vocals), Eddie Manion (sax), Cindy Mizelle (vocals), Mark Pender (trumpet), Marty Rifkin (pedal steel guitar), Richie "La Bamba" Rosenberg (trombone), Patti Scialfa (vocals), Marc Anthony Thompson (vocals) and Soozie Tyrell (violin)."


Album drops next Tuesday April 25th--believe the hype.

Several months ago, I recall being involved in a spirited conversation with several CNY bloggers about the nature of public school education in CNY, especially the stark difference between the financially challenged city school district and the more affluent suburban districts. Sean Kirst from the Post Standard pointed out that former mayor Tom Young had unofficially proposed setting up a county-wide school system, broken into city/county quadrants. While I supported this idea (and pointed out the real success that Raleigh N.C. has had with its county-wide school district) I also pointed out that suburban school districts and their families would oppose integration tooth and nail. I recall being urged to bring some more idealism to this issue.

Anyway, that brings me to this nugget of white, suburban fear, compounded by black separatist anger. In Omaha, Nebraska an attempt to annex 11 largely white school districts located within city limits, but controlled by adjacent suburban districts, has morphed into a law segregating the Omaha schools into 3 entitites--one white, one black and one hispanic.

E Pluribus Unum? Not if my kids have to go to school with black kids!

Cognitive dissonance is the mind's battle to reconcile two seemingly contradictory thoughts or perceptions.

I recently purchased a new car (well, new to me, a 2002 Honda CR-V). Yep, one of those boxy S.U.V.'s that gobble up gas and threaten to pound the crap out of little puny economy cars. My wife and I bought it because it's roomy (it's a mini-truck after all), Honda's are spectacularly reliable and we'll be able to pack up all three of our doggies for trips.

I'm all kinds of conflicted:
The car's not made by American unionized labor, but I'm atoning for American cultural imperialism and the atom bomb.
I'm not getting as many miles per gallon, but maybe I'll be more circumspect about unnecessary trips.
I'm selling out to American materialism, but dude--dig the 6 CD player!
No car payment balances our household budget, but I can donate the car for a tax deduction and help some charity.

I drove my '97 Ford Escort (bought new after being made by UAW labor in Wayne, Mi.) into the ground. The alternator was shot, necessitating a daily jump-start in the morning. The front driver's seat was like a rocking chair after diving to catch the leash of a dog attempting to escape out an open back door. The AC died two years into our relationship, too expensive to ever consider replacing. The horn died a couple of years later. My mechanic jerry-rigged an alternative horn with a button below the steering wheel because he didn't want to have to go through the airbag to get to the original horn. Too many fast food meals and too few trips to the gas station vacuum probably meant things were alive in the car. The pistons always rattled and made weird noises while struggling up steep grades. The car was green, except for the spots over the wheel wells that were sporting tons of rust. The passenger side window handle was constantly falling off and disappearing under the seats.

But for me, the car's worst feature: for over a year I had been driving with a car radio/cassette volume knob that had snapped off. When the knob came off in my hand the volume was blasting. I quickly shoved the knob back into place and turned furiously. Somehow, I was able to reduce the volume to practically nothing. Of course, I was never again able to adjust the volume, no matter how hard I pressed the knob into the hole and turned. The button would function as an on/off switch, but the volume remained so low that music was inaudible if the engine or defrost was on. No tunes while rolling around the 'hood for work. No Morning Edition or All Things Considered unless I wanted to pull into a parking lot and turn everything off.

I think this is what has allowed me to push through my cognitive dissonance and embrace my S.U.V-ness. Today, I opened the automatic sunroof, cranked up The Who ("Magic Bus" from Live At Leeds) to earbleed level and let the spring warmth wash over me as I ran some errands. Sometimes I overthink things. Life is good.

Sean Kirst wrote a column today on Frank Woolever, the most recent Syracusan to go to jail for protesting the School Of The Americas--the U.S. military school that teaches repressive governments how to kill and torture their citizens who dare to stand up and speak for democracy. Frank will spend the next 3 months in federal prison.

I'm praying tonight for Frank Woolever (and I'm not a praying kind of guy.) Frank is in his seventies and not in perfect health. If there is any justice and karma in this life, Frank will come through his sentence very well. Among the many causes that Frank has invested his time, dedication and love is assistance to the incarcerated and their families.

I met Frank as a VISTA volunteer in 1992, recruiting other volunteers for the educational, counseling and religious programs at Auburn Correctional Facility. Frank had helped put together a local program sponsored by Cornell Cooperative Extension called Family Matters. This was a hardy group of family members with incarcerated relatives. They acted as a support group for each other and pooled resources together for transportation to often far-flung prisons. Frank always seemed to know of a church with a spare van or bus. He was able to keep family members in good spirits, as well as help them deal with the depression, guilt and frustration that was never far away. I was invited to one of their meetings and just kept coming back every month. They were one of the few rays of hope I saw during my 18 month tenure in the correctional system.

In later years, Frank helped to bring the Altamont Program to Syracuse. This very successful program started in Albany and its goal is to help ex-cons returning to their communities avoid returning to jail. Combining addiction counseling, housing and employment this program has helped hundreds of inmates become contributing members of their community. Locally, the group purchased and manages the Lemoyne Manor in Liverpool--training for jobs in the hospitality and restaurant industries.

Anyway, Frank Woolever is a genuinely decent man, I am privileged to know him. Our community is richer for his contributions and we need to listen intently to the rationale for his great sacrifice. We owe Frank that much.

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has released a report titled "Fake TV News: Widespread and Undisclosed" on the increasing practice of television news programs repackaging slick PR pieces by corporations and passing off these video news releases as the work of the station's reporters.

The report identifies two instances where WSYR-TV 9 and medical reporter Carrie Lazarus acted as shills for drug companies, while passing themselves off as objective reporters.

On December 26, 2005 Channel 9 aired a video news release created for the maker of an arthritis drug. The piece was not identified as prepared public relations and touted the drug as a "major health breakthrough". The CMD report points out that a simple web search would have turned up statements from the National Institutes of Health stating that the drug was not any more effective than placebos in a recent trial.

On December 12, 2005 Channel 9 aired a video news release touting a cream to relieve symptoms of eczema. Again, the station made the piece look like it was created by the news team and not a public relations firm. The FDA requires all commercials, and even these pseudo-news video news releases, to include warnings about potentially harmful side effects. News reports about the drugs aren't held to that standard. Channel 9 edited the warnings section out of the video news release before broadcast.

In a recent post I ruminated over the amazing local popularity of Gerry McNamara, a hero worship that I think is fueled by the overwhelmingly white S.U. fan base pining for a star of their own.

Now comes word that G-Mac has been awarded the 2006 Chip Hilton Award. The award goes to the athlete who best exemplifies the traits of Chip Hilton, a fictional high school sports star featured in a series of books for young adults written by former college basketball coach Claire Bee in the 1960's.

What was Chip Hilton like? According to Ken Garfield, the religion editor at The Charlotte Observer:
" He was the straight-A, high school sports star who hit the homer, dated the homecoming queen and valued sportsmanship at all times. He was a hero to kids with stars in their eyes. He was the guy we wished we could be. And even though he was fictional, he was as real as the hope we carried in our heart. Play fair, work hard and listen to your parents and you, too, could grow up to be as straight and tall and happy as Chip Hilton."

You can't make this stuff up.

My favorite blogs by Central NY’ers actually writing about C.N.Y.

Baloghblog: It started with peak oil (when reserves are more than half gone it will become cost prohibitive to extract the oil), leading to discussions on how to live a more localized and sustainable life and resulted in a sister blog Geddesblog dealing with economic development of his corner of C.N.Y. Unfortunately, Balogh seems to have thrown most of his recent efforts into a group environmental blog out of Ithaca--C’mon, think local, Balogh! Once peak oil hits Ithaca may as well be on the moon.

bethquick: Written by a newly minted Methodist minister (preacher, pastor?), this blog touches on a wide variety of topics--practical discussions on the vocation of ministry, the ethical background of political issues and her quest to read 52 books (one a week) during this year. I would recommend all who equate religion with both political and cultural conservatism to read this blog, liberals can believe too!

blogJosh: Personal blog by a multi-talented writer, musician and web person. The blog also touches on a number of subjects, veering from poetry to defense of abortion rights to a beautiful description of the camraderie of strangers all rooting for the SU basketball team in a downtown bar. The only drawback--I hate the neon font on the black background!

CNY ecoBlog: provides the links to scientific evidence that more fully explain news stories that the local media has dumbed down for its scientifically-challenged readers (such as myself.) Of particular interest was the recent debunking of a lead article in a recent Sunday Post-Standard on “Dead Zones” in Oneida Lake, something that is quite routine and known to scientists as Seasonal Lake Stratification. He also provided a link to a 1938 academic paper on midwinter crow distribution in NY State to show that the current kerfluffle over crows is largely one huge Stupid Human Trick, unlikely to change unless we blow the place up or succumb to peak oil.

Cookin' in the 'Cuse: written by the rector at Grace Episcopal about her passion for food. Not just about recipes and restaurants, the posts often deal with issues of local production and consumption, food co-ops, organics and the nascent slow food movement. However, there are great recipes and restaurant reviews. The photographs accompanying the recipes can only be described as food porn--if the Internet was only scratch, sniff and eat!

Sean Kirst: written by one of the columnists for the Post-Standard, this weblog is a great addition to his columns, giving him space to print additional material that couldn’t fit in the paper, reprint old columns that touch on a current issue or to ruminate on what it’s like to be a parent, city-dweller, sports fan etc. in C.N.Y. The clunky format used by the paper forces comments into a separate forum, but it has helped spur some fairly in-depth discussions on issues such as local economic development and urban planning (or lack thereof) in C.N.Y.
AND he’s the guy who wrote the front page P-S story on the photographer who shot Bruce’s Born to Run album cover.

LuceLu in Liverpool: a personal blog that has followed the trying times facing a family attempting to survive the crumbling upstate economy. The current era of this blog is ending as the blogger’s husband has given up trying to find unionized electrician jobs in town and the entire family is moving South. Reading the archives of this blog is like reading the untold history of our community. Good luck and godspeed, Lucelu.

NYCO’s Blog: As Balogh once commented, this is the “Mack Daddy” of CNY Blogs. NYCO covers NY State government and politics (the dysfunction beat), life in upstate communities and has especially sharp commentary on Native American history and its impact on our area. Her writing is insightful and elegant, without being overly formal. My favorite example is a post on the Cheney gun shot fiasco that summed up the liberal critique of the Bush Administration in under 100 words. If there are conversations to be had in this CNY blogosphere, they usually happen here--witness the recent flurry of comments posted on the topic of immigration and the Minutemen in the North Country. The only drawback--the demise of her Upstate Living magazine, mock front covers of a glossy magazine devoted to upstate. Every time a new cover appeared there would be several comments wishing that the magazine actually existed.

York Staters: Although its editorial team is based in Johnson City and somewhere downstate, this blog writes often and eloquently about Central N.Y. The term York Stater was an historical reference, an attempt to forge an identity that isn’t based on pointing out that we’re not from N.Y.C. The posts are long, well-researched and give current ideas and issues historical context. If you read York Staters, you know how Penn Yan got its name, the continuing cult of personality in Johnson City of the head of Endicott-Johnson Shoes and background on the Sagamore Great Camp in the Adirondacks. (You also get the skinny on upstate foods, books and famous citizens.)