Is this thing on? Testing, 1, 2, 3… Just a quick note that the New York Times has a nice article in its Sunday magazine about canoeing through the ruins of the Erie Canal in the Mohawk Valley. I don’t consider the Beech-Nut factory in Canajoharie a “ruin” – it’s still too recently the workplace [...]

I have blogged a lot here in the past about our local indigenous people, the Haudenosaunee. But I’ve also been interested in considering “indigenousness” as it relates to other peoples living in the same space – Central New York, or upstate New York as a whole – and how people see or don’t see that [...]

…is right twice a day. The state Senate passes a bill supporting an 11-month hydrofracking moratorium. The Assembly will have a crack at it next month. Such are the benefits of Upstate New York being last in line for all the latest innovations. Sometimes, you get to smell the crap coming.

Thoughts on sovereignty for all.

Some time ago, I commented on the ABC special Earth 2100 and how, like other dystopian sci-fi visions, it at the end embraced Upstate New York as some sort of idyllic promised land for people to escape to in the event of asteroids, global warming, nuclear war, etc. Nobody else will be living up here, [...]

You might not have heard, but a couple of tinhorn Utica-area politicians with nothing better to do have, with their mighty and authoritative voices, changed the fate of a region. State officials agreed Sunday to officially rename the Greater Utica area to “Central New York” after retiring the name “Central Leatherstocking Region.” Senator Joseph Griffo [...]

Stepping away from the Twilight Zone of the NYS state parks for a moment, I just had to post these ancient videos of Rod Serling talking about the craft of writing for television. Also: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5… and I think there are 10 parts in all, which you can find [...]

Last week there was a particularly disturbing news story out of the hamlet of Copake, in Columbia County east of the Hudson. A despondent dairy farmer committed suicide, shooting dead 51 of his cows before killing himself. Although the scope of this private tragedy caught the collective breath of nationwide news consumers (for an hour [...]

This unconventional Senate reapportionment map, courtesy of Andrew Sullivan, would divide the U.S. into regions with more or less equal representation by population. As usual, upstate NY gets cut into pieces, but that’s not surprising. CNY is handcuffed to WNY in this scenario, but I suppose worse things could happen. The name seems well chosen [...]

Noticed this at Dmitry Orlov’s website- In all of my experience, communities — of people and animals — form instantaneously and rather effortlessly, based on a commonality of interests and needs. What takes a lot of work is not organizing communities, but preventing them from organizing — through the use of truncheons and tear gas, [...]