Syracuse 2006

Over at NYCO’s Blog, the “mack daddy” of CNY blogs opines on the top N.Y. State stories of the year, gives links for similar lists from bloggers in Buffalo and the Adirondacks–and basically throws down the gauntlet for us local folks to come up with the Syracuse list. Here goes:

1) Matt Driscoll’s shameful end-run around the Common Council veto of the Destiny mall project. While former Development Commissioner Sciscioli likened it to a fistfight between Jefferson and Hamilton, Post-Standard humor columnist Jeff Kramer had the right adjective: “Nixonian”.

2) U.S. Rep. Jim Walsh lost the vote in the City of Syracuse and Onondaga County–but still kept his seat. Was he gracious in near-defeat? No, he whined about the city’s ingratitude after all he’d done for us poor slobs.

3) Sewage had another big year in 2006. Hidden cost overruns at the Midland Ave. plant project proved neighborhood activists correct–underground storage of storm discharges (and ultimate piping to the Metro facility) was a cheaper alternative–too bad no one listened when County Executive Nick Pirro lied. Opposition to another facility in Armory Square has seemingly disappeared in the face of continued County intransigence. The only successful battle was the final victory over sewage seepage at Fowler High School’s cafeteria–it only took 15 years to fix that problem.

4) Destiny honcho Bob Congel wins a lawsuit against his own tenants at the Carousel Mall, effectively taking back the lease rights he had freely negotiated years earlier. I thought that business-folks held the philosophy of contracts to be sacred? As BlogJosh has pointed out, what self-respecting business owner would want to sign a lease with this bozo now?

5) Eli Hadad–developer, slumlord, mobster–was run out of town on a rail, leaving a trail of decaying buildings, angry tenants and red-faced politicians who had seen him as a savior not too long ago.

6) However, real development downtown is coming in on Hadad’s heels: the 40 Below folks are actually doing something–fixing up the old Wilson Building to serve as a gateway between Salina St. and Armory Square, O’Brien & Gere announced plans to move their headquarters downtown and Centro unveiled plans for a new bus terminal at the corners of Salina, Adams and Warren St.

7) The battle over the the Project Labor Agreement for the biggest public works project this town has ever seen: the rehabbing of every city school district building. Still under the radar, but union folks and builders groups are pouring money into media and consultants. One to watch in 2007.

There’s no freakin’ parking downtown–politicians have to come up with deals for businesses threatening to leave without more spots for their downtown workers, tenants in the hot market-rate loft apartments in places like Armory and Hanover Squares collect traffic tickets for illegal overnight parking.

9) No one won in the case of the tragic death of state trooper Craig Todeschini in the high speed chase of motorcyclist James Carncross. The motorcyclist was speeding, the trooper didn’t follow proper procedures for high speed chases, D.A. Fitzpatrick was again a raving, red-faced, vein-bulging, spittle- flecked ASSHOLE. Speed kills.

10) Person Of The Year: S.U. Chancellor Nancy Cantor. “They like us, they really like us!” Town/gown relations are at an all-time high. The Warehouse building downtown, the entrepreneurship center on the Southside, the work of the community geographer. The Connective Corridor is on the drawing board (with a potential ally in the fight to tear down Rt. 81 in the city). Now if she would just change the name to the Ernie Davis Dome. . .

Go Pawsox, beat the Syracuse Bigots!

I’ve always been passionate about political and sociological issues. Growing up, it got to the point where my father and I could only safely discuss sports and the weather without devolving into a heated argument.

As I’ve matured (or at least gotten older) I tend to see things more in shades of grey rather than in black and white. HOWEVER, if you want a glimpse of the younger, more doctrinaire me, start discussing the use of Native-American imagery for sports mascots.

Our local AAA baseball franchise, the Syracuse Skychiefs, recently announced that they are reverting to their Chiefs nickname. The original Chiefs nickname was coined in 1934, the standard offensive stereotypical use of Native Americans as a sports mascot in the guise of “honoring” the area’s glorious heritage.

The new nickname supposedly is about trains and our area’s glorious heritage of railroading (just like the Skychiefs were about our area’s glorious heritage of air travel.) That’s B.S.
The white, middle class fans of the team have always called the team Chiefs, that’s what this little marketing gimmick is trying to legitimize.

When the team and fans are called on this issue they immediately cry “politically correct”. (See the debate raging on columnist Sean Kirst’s weblog forum over at the Post Standard web site.) The retort is meant to short circuit all debate, since the P.C. label is the modern Scarlet Letter. All to whom it is affixed are prejudged to be intolerant, self-righteous and out of touch with “everyday” folks.

Why do sports fans need to have reprehensible caricature logos like Chief Wahoo for the Cleveland Indians? Why do fans of the University of Illinois need a Chief Illiniwek: a white frat boy dressed up in faux Indian regalia, dancing around the sidelines? Why does the Washington NFL team use a slur word as its nickname, a word so hateful that it is exactly synonymous with the “n” word for African-Americans?

This issue is especially important for Syracuse. Our town has a very nasty history of intolerant and racist behavior surrounding our professional sports franchises. Jackie Robinson also integrated AAA baseball, playing for the Montreal Royals. The racist taunting and rough treatment on the field that he received from Chiefs fans and players are documented to be amongst the worst he received. Fans of the Syracuse Nats NBA franchise were notorious for flying projectiles aimed at African-American players, deemed by most players the worst place to play in the league.

Why is the Syracuse AAA team bucking the trend toward respecting Native Americans by not trivializing their culture and disrespecting their traditions?

I love sports. Why do sports fans feel they need to demean and stereotype other people, for something so inconsequential as their favorite sports team’s nickname and logo?

I’m glad that I am not a fan of the local club–as a die hard Red Sox fan I go out to Alliance Stadium only when Pawtucket is in town. And I root, root, root AGAINST the home team. Go Pawsox, beat the Syracuse Bigots!

Shpilkes In The Mosh Pit

As the holiday of Hannukah starts on Friday, I would like to give a shout out to the Jewish faith for a surprising contribution to our society–punk rock. I’m not Jewish (in fact, Episcopalian may be as far from Jewish as one can get), but I’m a devout follower of bands such as The Clash, Ramones, Rancid and numerous others.

A recent book review caught my attention. In “The Heebie Jeebies at CBGB’s”, Steven Lee Beeber argues in the very first line that “Punk is Jewish.”

“Punk reflects the whole Jewish history of oppression and uncertainty, flight and wandering, belonging and not belonging, always being divided, being both in and out, good and bad, part and apart. The shpilkes, the nervous energy, of punk is Jewish.”

Mazel tov and pass the power chords.

Oh My God, A Springsteen Advertisement

Glancing through the December 14th, 2006 issue of Rolling Stone, my jaw hit the floor when I saw page 31: Bruce Springsteen in an advertisement for Fender guitars. He is shown in the hall outside a recording studio playing his beat up Fender Telecaster. The headline says “Happy Birthday Fender” and then features Bruce’s autograph. The bottom of the ad promotes a contest to win a vintage ‘52 Telecaster and the URL to enter the contest is www.fender.com/springsteen.

OK, it’s the company’s 60th anniversary and Fenders have been a large part of his sound–but what the hell happened to Bruce’s commitment to not commercializing his art? Promote yourself: sell records, videos, tickets and souvenir merch at concerts–but don’t allow yourself to be used by someone else to sell something.

I guess the rationale is that he is not using any of the music and the product is something he uses and believes in. Still. . . SHIT!!!! I still get nightmares when I see freaking Pepsi cans jumping around tothe Ramones or the Clash used to sell jeans.

SHIT!!!!

A Little Pork Roast For The Holiday

Courtesy of the Daily Politics blog.

A reader of Ben Smith’s politics blog for the NY Daily News sent him an elegant, searchable Excel spreadsheet for all NY State Assembly member items (aka pork barrel spending) since the 2003-04 fiscal year. Unlike in the past, each item is labeled with the assembly member responsible for the cash.

The data was released due to the efforts of the Albany Times Union newspaper in the courts. while the assembly’s data was released in a monstrous format running thousands of pages, the senate’s data was released in an even worse format. The anonymous tech savvy reader who created the Assembly spreadheet told Daily Politics that creating the same spreadheet for the Senate will be harder.

Now, as for our local hog butchers Magnarelli and Christensen:

1) Not apologizing for backing the doomed Bragman coup is still hurting Ms. Christensen. In the four year period covered, Magnarelli brought back $1.625 million in pork from Albany. Christensen brought back $340,000 in the same time period.

2) Christensen and Magnarelli teamed up for $250,000 to rebuild Nottingham HS athletic fields.

3) Magnarelli and Christensen teamed up with other CNY Democratic Assembly Hog Butchers to bring back $1.39 million in pork for various school districts, fire departments and non-profit agencies. ($515,750 of that total went into the districts represented by Magnarelli and Christensen).

4) Magnarelli can well be described as the Metropolitan Development Association’s go-to guy. In the four years covered by this data, Magnarelli helped steer $1.535 million to the development group. $535,000 of that money was done in tandem with Assembly leader Shelly Silver.

5) Magnarelli also helped Speaker Silver steer $172,000 in operating expenses to the New York State chapter of NARAL–National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League.

Adaptive Re-Use

Adaptive Re-Use

Originally uploaded by Phil At Sun.

I should send this over to Balogh and Groovy Green–a resource gulping deskside fan in the summer, a DIY hat rack in the winter!