Seen just off Warren Street, Hudson (NY).
As of 8:30 am this morning, the inverted image at right could be found alongside The Register-Star’s story on alleged political pressure by State Senator Steve Saland on firehouses to which he’d donated. [SCREENSHOT] Is there a photo editor in the house?
The John Mason story, covered in other publications more than a week ago, is twice belated—having managed to miss both Election Day and Halloween.
On a related and more serious note, Carole Osterink made an important point yesterday at GoR, prompted by her discovery of a large trove of old newspapers online... Namely, if some historian a century from now goes back to research Hudson history and finds nothing but old Reg-Star articles, what kinds of mistaken conclusions might that person draw? Carole wrote:
[T]he Register-Star seems a somewhat unreliable chronicler of our history. It can't be counted on to get names right or to quote people accurately, and a recent bit of revisionism, when the Register-Star reported that the Halloween Parade this year was the first ever to take place in Hudson, riled a number of people. [... Its] bare-bones, cost-cutting practices may be the formula for survival in tough economic times, but it doesn't seem to be a very good one for the preservation of local history. A century from now, what reliable primary sources will survive to tell future generations what happened in Hudson in this generation?
For those interested in Hudson’s tumultous politics during the decade of 1998-2007, my piece for the City issue of Our Town is archived here (as a PDF); my blow-by-blow review of the successful battle to stop St. Lawrence Cement’s massive, coal-burning project is similarly archived here (again as a PDF).
In today’s newspapers and newscasts, journalists will often report something like: “Local officials say the recent increase in muggings is very concerning.”
But as this useful and concise site notes, they’re using the word incorrectly. “Concerning” is a preposition synonymous with “about,” not an adjective which means “upsetting”:
People commonly say of things that are a cause for concern that they are “concerning”: “My boyfriend’s affection for his pet rattlesnake is concerning.” This is not standard English. There are many better words that mean the same thing including “worrisome,” “troubling,” and “alarming.”
The more a word is misused, the more people pick it up. (Go to any meeting of a local government body, and you’re almost certain to hear someone describe some worrisome trend as “concerning.”) So in another few years, grammarians who believe that language should be defined descriptively rather than prescriptively no doubt will argue that this incorrect usage should be added to our dictionaries, since that’s the way people have come to use it.
In Politics and the English Language, George Orwell famously (but not famously enough) argued not only that sloppy thinking causes sloppy expression, but also vice versa.
A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.
Listening to the news, reading the papers, and attending political meetings, one can only conclude that there’s a lot of confused thinking out there. And last week’s midterm elections only ratified that conclusion...
The Kingston Daily Freeman’s editor made a telling point on WAMC this morning. Appearing on the Roundtable, he noted that despite Albany devolving over the past two years from mere dysfunction to utter farce, and despite the public supposedly being in a mood to “throw the bums out,” pretty much every incumbent State legislator in our region was re-elected.
The paper wrote:
With the exception of one race that was too close to call, all incumbent state senators and assemblymen who represent the Mid-Hudson, whether Democrat or Republican, were elected to return to Albany, long cast a place where dysfunction rules.
One re-elected legislator, Republican John Bonacic, dismissed this dispiriting degree of political stasis by reflexively pointing a finger toward the Big Apple, as if every mess in Albany can be pinned on New York City (said with a Texas twang, as in that old salsa commercial).
There are at least two more plausible explanations:
(1) that the Albany pork system is very difficult for challengers to overcome, since incumbents do little but dole out their member items (witness Saland’s relationship with fire houses) and arrange press availabilities;
(2) that the quality, funding and organization of challengers is pretty limp. Sending out a few emails, having lunch at a couple of diners, mass-mailing some clunky flyers, and giving away a few signs to hapless committee members does not a campaign make.
In Federal races, incumbents will sometimes lose, though not often enough. This is in part because the general public doesn’t keep much track of who’s really responsible for good and bad legislation in Washington, instead reacting viscerally to mass-media caricatures of national figures.
On the local level, voters tend to know little about their State Senators and Assemblymen, unless maybe they saw a picture in the paper of one giving a check to a local library, firehouse, or VFW. (Photo ops with farmers is another area staple.) These local “leaders’ aren’t really connected to the mess in Albany, even though they are the mess in Albany.
For real change and progess to occur, voters have to be communicated clear, strong reasons why they should change devils, rather than sticking with the devil they already know. They need to be engaged with something more personal than a robo-call or mass-mailer. They need to be drawn into the drama of a fun campaign by friends and colleagues they trust. They need to be motivated and inspired, not just hammered with attack ads from all sides, which can be dismissed as partisan he said/she said persiflage. And in the waning days of the campaign, all effort needs to focus on getting already-identified supporters to vote—the oft-discussed but seldom-executed “GOTV strategy.” (When crunch time rolls around, few campaigns have truly ID’d their voters, and even fewer have drummed up the volunteers necessary to get them to the polls.)
These rudimentary tasks are rarely handled at all, and even more rarely handled well. So the same old schnooks get sent back to Albany again and again. The result is a democracy in name only, where responsiveness to the public and the accountability of leaders is more often an appearance than a reality.
Roy Volkmann is sharing his album of Halloween costumes from last Saturday’s Witches’ Ball, organized by Dini Lamot and Windle Davis (with help from a host of volunteers) to benefit The Valley Alliance. There’s also an album of party pictures here. Roy is selling prints for the very affordable prices of $15 for a 5" x 7", $20 for an 8" x 10... Call (518) 828-2512 for details, or visit his website.
