Opinion and Commentary since 2003
Someone alerted me to this Twitter status, posted by someone with whom I had argued several months ago. I looked to see if anyone following him had anything to say about it, and no one did – neither positive nor negative.
On what planet is this sort of thing acceptable? Why do people just let this go?
Until now, the only hire of which we were aware was Richard Tobe as Deputy County Executive. Today, the Poloncarz transition team announced a second batch of hires:
· Gale R. Burstein, MD, MPH, FAAP, FSAHM, Commissioner of Health
· Robert W. Keating, Director of Budget and Management
· Daniel Neaverth Jr., Commissioner of Emergency Services
· Michael A. Siragusa, JD, County Attorney
· Maria R. Whyte, Commissioner of Environment and Planning
From the press release, after the jump. Read more
As you watch the hysterical, (as in hysteria, not as in funny), funeral procession of Stalinist lodestar of the 21st century, still-dead Kim Jong-il of North Korea today, take a look at the limo on top of which Kim’s coffin is being carried.
It’s a 1975 Lincoln Continental limousine, held over from Kim’s father, the very dead, but eternal President of North Korea, Kim Il-Sung. Even Kim’s mega-portrait gets a limo.
No one does cult of personality like the North Koreans. They are unsurpassed in history at totalitarianism.
Occupy Buffalo, by Flickr user dhnieman
Each Buffalo Common Council member is allocated a certain budget to hire staffers. Some have two, others have three. North District Councilman Joe Golombek is leading a charge to limit the number to two, citing the legacy costs for a third staffer.
The Council members with three staffers are Kearns, LoCurto, and Rivera, and it’s a longstanding tradition that Councilmembers are free to staff their offices however they see fit. One council staffer tells me that the legacy costs for the three-staffer offices are negligible, since these three staffers share a pot of money in such a way that they are very poorly paid, many of whom work part-time, or are interns, never incurring any legacy costs at all. As to those who do incur legacy costs, it’s not breaking the city’s bank.
The joke of this is, as Mickey Kearns pointed out, that the city budgets for 200 – 250 vacancies every year. The incoming Fontana-led majority, (which I’m told Golombek agreed to join after being assured that he could make an issue out of this no-three-staffers issue), also plans to slash the pay of some key council staffers, and will add a $2,500 stipend to the President pro Tempore.
In other Common Council news, while the members were bickering and nickel-and-diming each other, the council punted again on proposed Food Truck legislation, sending it to the Legislative Committee, which meets next on Wednesday January 4th at 2pm.
www.flickr.com
|
Occupy Buffalo, by Flickr user dhnieman
Each Buffalo Common Council member is allocated a certain budget to hire staffers. Some have two, others have three. North District Councilman Joe Golombek is leading a charge to limit the number to two, citing the legacy costs for a third staffer.
The Council members with three staffers are Kearns, LoCurto, and Rivera, and it’s a longstanding tradition that Councilmembers are free to staff their offices however they see fit. One council staffer tells me that the legacy costs for the three-staffer offices are negligible, since these three staffers share a pot of money in such a way that they are very poorly paid, many of whom work part-time, or are interns, never incurring any legacy costs at all. As to those who do incur legacy costs, it’s not breaking the city’s bank.
The joke of this is, as Mickey Kearns pointed out, that the city budgets for 200 – 250 vacancies every year. The incoming Fontana-led majority, (which I’m told Golombek agreed to join after being assured that he could make an issue out of this no-three-staffers issue), also plans to slash the pay of some key council staffers, and will add a $2,500 stipend to the President pro Tempore.
In other Common Council news, while the members were bickering and nickel-and-diming each other, the council punted again on proposed Food Truck legislation, sending it to the Legislative Committee, which meets next on Wednesday January 4th at 2pm.
//
#flickr_badge_source_txt {padding:0; font: 11px Arial, Helvetica, Sans serif; color:#666666;}
#flickr_badge_icon {display:block !important; margin:0 !important; border: 1px solid rgb(0, 0, 0) !important;}
#flickr_icon_td {padding:0 5px 0 0 !important;}
.flickr_badge_image {text-align:center !important;}
.flickr_badge_image img {border: 1px solid black !important;}
#flickr_www {display:block; text-align:left; padding:0 10px 0 10px !important; font: 11px Arial, Helvetica, Sans serif !important; color:#3993ff !important;}
#flickr_badge_uber_wrapper a:hover,
#flickr_badge_uber_wrapper a:link,
#flickr_badge_uber_wrapper a:active,
#flickr_badge_uber_wrapper a:visited {text-decoration:none !important; background:inherit !important;color:#3993ff;}
#flickr_badge_wrapper {background-color:#ffffff;border: solid 1px #000000}
#flickr_badge_source {padding:0 !important; font: 11px Arial, Helvetica, Sans serif !important; color:#666666 !important;}
www.flickr.com
|
In the current issue of Artvoice, notable locals give their predictions for 2012. I blew the deadline, but I found my predictions from last year, and thought now would be a good time to review them.
In 2011, nothing will change significantly.
• As in every year, Buffalo and Western New York will take two leaps backwards for every tentative step forwards—in all things. Incremental change (or more accurately, window dressing that masquerades as change) will take place here and there as the community’s attention turns to unproductive arguments over the Peace Bridge, the inner and outer harbors, casinos, and other longtime development projects.
• Chris Collins will rudely run roughshod over friend and foe alike in his re-election campaign, and a Democratic challenger will be far more competitive than in 2007. The Legislature will be downsized, and Collins will attempt to dictate the outcome.
• As Carl Paladino’s 15 minutes of fame elongates like Stretch Armstrong’s appendages, he will attempt to generate political buzz every few months by insulting people. A compliant local media will transcribe his every vendetta-fueled outburst and treat it as “news,” whilst asking its readers to weigh in through idiotic online polls. However, without Michael Caputo in charge of messaging, “clever” will be replaced by “disturbing.”
• In late 2011, the Erie County Legislature will again turn into a three-ringed circus whereby local cultural organizations do battle with Republicans over 0.1 percent of the total budget.
• The Statler will become a flashpoint for a civic discussion (re: blood feud) regarding buildings that have outlived their current usefulness, are historically significant, but unreasonably expensive to do anything with. This will become particularly acute when the preservationist conference comes to the renovated-but-still-just-awful Convention Center.
The last two didn’t exactly turn out that way, as Mark Croce pulled together an investment group to save the Statler and begin what appear to be earnest redevelopment efforts, and the 2012 budget didn’t become a circus because Collins lost and let Poloncarz step in with his priorities for funding. The preservationist conference gave Buffalo a boost of self-congratulation, as the local nostalgia industry continues apace.
Other than that, it was pretty damn spot-on.
Read more:
I won’t be posting much over the next several days, except for the AV Photo Daily. (If you haven’t yet, please sign up to post your images to Flickr and join the group, which gives us permission to post them).
The nights of Hannukah continue until December 28th, and Christmas is on Sunday. Kwanzaa begins on December 26th. Many of you are taking next week off completely, and New Year’s Day is next week. Since I have no idea whether you, dear reader, celebrate any of those, all of them, or none of them, and because New Year’s is a second holiday, I will very sincerely wish you and your family Happy Holidays.
Turning again to the Ron Paul newsletter controversy, Reuters uncovered a solicitation letter for that very newsletter, where Paul goes into great detail puffing his strategies for you to survive the “New Money”, his war against the moneyed elites in Washington who are beholden to the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, the coming “race war”, and the “federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS”.
Although the letter is undated, the US issued a dramatically redesigned $100 bill with a watermark in 1996. However, the letter also references “President Bush”, who was not in office at the time, so I am guessing it’s referencing the 1991 redesign which incorporated microprinting and a metallic security strip (THE SPY STRIP!!11!)
This document bears his signature, and is on his own letterhead. He has disavowed nothing and has absolutely not proven that he didn’t write or review the subject matter he was putting out in his own name through his fearmongering little conspiratorial newsletters.
Paul’s explanations and disavowals are too little, too late. This came up in 2008, and it’s coming up again now, and like Paul, I’m afraid too. Not about the new-style currency and tinfoil hat conspiracy theories about it, but about the fact that a conspiratorial freak who wrote this sort of incendiary garbage during the time in American life when gun fetishist militias acted out as racial-fascist domestic terrorists with alarming frequency.
Solicitation 2http://www.scribd.com/embeds/76382333/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-2gpbhn5bwldrdo1ap39v(function() { var scribd = document.createElement(“script”); scribd.type = “text/javascript”; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = “http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js”; var s = document.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(scribd, s); })();
Anyone else think it’s ridiculous that we need congressional legislation to force airlines to give their airline pilots enough rest so as to, for instance, not be too tired safely to fly a plane full of people?
When private industry refuses to police itself, and treats labor more as a commodity than a human being, government has to step in to regulate it.
Oh, and FedEx and UPS are excluded from the law, and their pilots aren’t thrilled with that.
Will this prevent crashes? Nope. Will it hopefully eliminate one of the risk factors that lead to pilot-error crashes? Yep.
On Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 5:00 PM, the Lloyd Taco Truck will pull into Niagara Square to give 75 burritos and beverages to the Occupy Buffalo protesters on behalf of First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo. This goodwill activity is being funded as a mission project by the church.“The Occupy movement is a peaceful movement. This holiday season we aim to share the peace of Christ with all,” said Rev. Dr. Philip S. Gittings, the Interim Pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo.
Formed in 1812, First Presbyterian Church is the city’s oldest congregation, and will celebrate its bicentennial during the next year. First Presbyterian Church is part of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Presbytery of Western New York. The congregation consists of approximately 300 active and inactive members. The church’s architecturally significant building on Symphony Circle features Tiffany-designed stained glass windows, two impressive pipe organs, and a 168-foot tall tower which stands as a beacon of hope on the west side of the city.
Lloyd Taco Trucks, Inc. hit the city streets in 2010 as the region’s first taco truck. Their mission is to bring legitimate street food to Buffalo by offering affordable yet incredibly tasty takes on tacos and burritos.
Follow @1stChurchBflo
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,”script”,”twitter-wjs”);
Follow @whereslloyd
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,”script”,”twitter-wjs”);
