I have a couple days off from work and since the weather is not cooperating, I’m getting started on painting my bedroom. This means moving bookcases and books around. I have a lot of books I don’t ever read and really don’t need, so I’m starting a donation box, which will probably sit […]

From Friday’s Post-Standard courts column:
Onondaga County DA Bill Fitzpatrick may not like criticism, but he doesn’t turn a deaf ear or a blind eye to it…At last week’s annual luncheon of the District Attorney’s Advisory Council… Fitzpatrick took note of a recent letter to the editor in this newspaper. The writer questioned why Fitzpatrick, […]

Trucking companies are, understandably, quite angry about this week’s announced crackdown on garbage haulers using back roads in the Finger Lakes to get to upstate landfills. Will the downstate municipal garbage authorities ever figure out that it might be cheaper (if slower) to haul trash to Seneca Falls via the Erie Canal system? […]

Up the Creek!, the blog project about Onondaga Creek, has made some self-guided walks available. You can download an MP3 file, put it into your player, and take a tour of the creek.
Sharon Wager, a Camillus real estate agent, has a blog. I’ve linked to it because she has some occasional personal observations […]

This video from CNN about a foreclosure-plagued gated community near Las Vegas (75% of the houses are now empty) is a strange expression of the American dream. (Or maybe a disturbing suppuration of it.) Watching the homeowner featured in this report reminds me that one person’s idea of heaven can certainly be another […]

In an election year where Americans are analyzed in terms of demographics (black or white, young or old, “educated” or “uneducated”), with candidates choosing which ones “matter,” depersonalization seems to be the spirit of the times. In Myanmar, the government is pretending that hundreds of thousands of its cyclone-hit people are not really there, […]

One of my favorite childhood books was Richard Adams’ Watership Down. His follow-up novel, Shardik, was very different (and less popular; I can’t remember if I finished it, to be honest). It was set in a fantasy world where the central figure of worship was a giant bear, whose mysterious appearance and journey […]

Recently I came across the following comment by an observer commenting on how young “netroots activists” he’s met are using — or not using — the Internet:
They are not specifically computer literate. They have a facile ability with games, IM, vanity websites, P2P, etc., but not much skill at digging into information, data mining […]

Black Bear on the loose in Geddes
And he’s really pissed off about The Noise!
No idea if this is really for real, but if this dude managed to get across West Genesee Street, watch out, Westvale and Taunton.
Updated: Apparently the bear did get across WG Street… Possibly a false alarm about a bear on […]

The Noise from the Suez plant is back, but in a different form. Here are some new sound clips, recorded by a resident of Sherwood Knolls in the wee hours of Wednesday, May 7: Clip 1 and Clip 2 (ugh). It has been back for about a week.
It’s no […]