Yes, there are still parties to come. For the most part, though, it is OVER!!!
Ben’s graduation was last Friday. His graduation party was last night. I may be exhausted but it is a happy exhaustion. Below are pics – well, not of the party as I never picked the camera up once people started showing up, but of the set up.
Maine-Endwell Central School District graduated the Class of 2009 last night. The past week has been a blur of activity for the senior class as they have gone from prom to senior trips – two day trips – to senior awards night to graduation.
Last evening we heard from five members of the Class of 2009 – four in prepared remarks and one in song. It was a wonderful celebration of the last 13 years of the lives of these young people and a send off to a new beginning.
I have found memories of going to The Cider Mill Playhouse as a child to see Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” The setting is one that most children knew from the field trip to watch the cider being pressed. The performance, while peppered with local talent, may have a star in it – or, as likely, a friend.
Last night, I took my 14 year old son and my mother to The Cider Mill Playhouse. We saw Sherman Edwards’ “1776.” While the show ran about three hours with intermission, it was rivetting.
Last night, the first night of the production’s final weekend, was a full house. There may have been a seat here or there but it was full. The cast was amazing. I cannot imagine where all those male voices were found as they all song wonderfully.
My mother, who lives outside of Palm Springs, was impressed with the production. She said it was wonderful considering it was being done in Endicott. Yes, she did use to live here. My son was enthralled the entire time.
I truly recommend that you all stop by The Cider Mill Playhouse – if not between now and Sunday – for a performance soon.
With the summer solstice having passed this weekend, summer is truly upon us. Here in upstate NY, we are actually getting warm weather and maybe even summer weather by the week’s end. So begins the huge summer cookout season. While my summer cookout season began with a wonderful picnic on Memorial Day weekend, I am out at the grill every night from now until October if I can be. I prefer the grill for my fish, my chicken, my burgers – usually turkey or chicken, and, yes, my hot dogs.
With that in mind, check out the offer below from BallPark Franks and Sara Lee.
Yes, I am sure the money is right. If nothing else is important to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, money is. The bigger question is “is the television contract with NBC good for recruiting new and more hockey fans?”
I would say emphatically NO after the past two days. First off, this year’s Stanley Cup Championship Finals are being aired on both Versus (cable television where the regular season airs) and NBC. This partnership between Comcast and NBC seems perfect except now. Versus does not mind that teams host viewing parties. NBC does.
How does a team recruit new fans? There is the draft a local kid idea but that is hard to do. So, teams cash in on good play. When a team makes the Stanley Cup Finals, that team should be able to draw in as many spectators as possible.
Last night, a critical game six and possibly Detroit’s winning of the Cup, saw NBC screw with both Pittsburgh’s and Detroit’s ability to broadcast the game on large screens. Pittsburgh was told NO to showing game six on the big screen outside Mellon Arena. Detroit was told NO to showing the game on what is known in Hockeytown as “Joe Vision” – a viewing party at Joe Louis arena on the big screens. NBC’s reasoning for these denials – something that was allowed during games three and four at Pittsburgh when the games were televised on Versus – is simple and money oriented. It screws with ratings to have large group viewing parties.
If I were in Buffalo or Niagara Falls, I would protest. I would watch the Stanley Cup Finals on Canadian television. Since I live in the Southern Tier and do not get Canadian channels, I will suffer through making good ratings for NBC for game seven on Friday night. Then, I will go back to not watching things on NBC.
We sit and watch as The Boston Globe and its unions make news daily. Votes take place to see if concessions will keep the Boston institution printing papers. Meanwhile, here in Small Town America, the news is just as bad, if not worse.
Since there is currently only one daily newspaper in my area, I do not know if it will cease publishing any time soon. It, both on its own and with directive from its corporate parent, is tightening its belt as are those who live here and support it. Unfortunately, the majority of its readership probably doesn’t realize that employees at the local Gannett paper have worked one week without pay in the first quarter of this year and are also being forced to take another week without pay in the second quarter. The size of the newsroom at this Gannett publication has shrunk – early retirements, deaths, no new hires. Then, there are normal vacations and furloughs. I am not sure how many people are actually available in the newsroom – this week when a local state senator helped stage a change in the leadership of the state senate, this week when a former major manufacturer in the city sustained a two-alarm fire that may be arson and today is only Tuesday.
On top of furloughs, the parent corporation has shrunk the editorial page staff. In an attempt to cut costs, the three papers owned by Gannett in this general area all have the same editorial page editor now. While this is good in some cases, I truly believe that issues like the local community college and its inability to find an appropriate president are not an issue with the other two papers but with the one here. While the blog aspect of the paper has done a great job in keeping up with the presidential search, the paper itself should have an editorial voice on this that is missing.
The local television news arena is not in much better shape than the local paper. Just last week it was announced that one local station will stop producing newscasts here locally. They let go a good number of their staff – though other television news and the paper are reporting conflicting accounts as to the exact number affected – and will now produce news out of a sister station in a city forty miles away. There will be local bits in that news but it will not be local news.
While we watch as major city newspapers fold, Small Town America is losing its media. Small Town America is losing its own ability to report on what is happening within its borders. This is due to many aspects but will undoubtedly get worse as the recession continues. What will those of us who do not want to live in a major city do when the only news we can get is cable news or network news because it is not profitable to report local news?
Unlike my normal, school day morning, I managed to get up and get myself coffee in time to hear President Obama’s speech in Cairo, Egypt live this morning. While a good speech, it was not the moving speech we heard on his campaign trail last fall.
Many items discussed in the speech made me think that Obama called on his time as a professor to make this speech. He was distinctly trying to teach his audience, both in Cairo and back home in the US, how intricately the worlds of the United States and Muslim nations are intertwined.
President Obama began the speech with a discussion of the “great tensions” between the US and Muslims around the world. He noted that these tensions were fueled by colonialism, a cold war, and the changes that globalization brings which threaten some religious tenets. He also was quick to note that these tensions are being exploited by extremists.
Obama went on to say that as long as religions are defined by differences, they will sow hate. It is time for a new beginning. America and Islam are not mutually exclusive but share common principles. He quoted the Holy Koran – “Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.” – in pointing out that the US will say in public the same things it is saying private and that we must listen to, learn from each other.
Obama, then, listed contributions Muslims have made to the world. He also pointed out that it was a Muslim nation – Morocco – that first recognized the United States as a new country with the Treaty of Tripoli.
After veiled mentions of Pakistan and North Korea – describing what is going on in these countries without mentioning the countries specifically, President Obama indicated that we should not ignore the faces of tension but should face these tenisons squarely. He went on to discuss seven tensions that need to be confronted squarely.
In closing, Obama noted that we have the power to make the world we seek. He also called on the young people of the world, regardless of religion and nationality, to help remake the world as they have the power to do so.
While I found nothing controversial in the words my president had to say this morning, I was a little disturbed by the order in which he chose to point out the specific issues/tensions which need to be confronted. Maybe it is just the slant at which I view the world as a woman but I believe that women’s rights – including that to education – would help with many of the other tensions. Women who are educated take more of an interest in the way they live, in the government of their countries, in the policies of their governments. Making all peoples equal – whether according to gender or according to religion – will make many of the other tensions easier to deal with.
The entire speech will be posted on http://www.whitehouse.gov. Excerpts are currently on the White House’s Facebook page – http://www.facebook.com/WhiteHouse?ref=nf
There has always been debate within many communities that linking teacher pay to student assessments – generally speaking, standardized tests – is a flawed assessment for the teacher. I am beginning to truly believe this to be the case.
NYS recently released state math assessment scores for grades 3-8. While NYS implemented statewide assessments in certain grades prior to NCLB, the testing every year is a result of NCLB. Local education reporter George Basler discussed the most recent results with Dawn Shannon, assistant superintendent for educational support and technology at Broome-Tioga BOCES.
My concerns come when Shannon says “// schools have modified curricula and instruction and “drilled deeper” into data to analyze areas where students need improvement.” To me, this statement means that schools have modified curricula to meet what the test. This is basically a fancy way of saying we “teach to the test.”
So as to not think that this is just in younger grades, let me tell you about a high school situation. My son is a freshman in high school here locally. High school math is again undergoing a massive state revamp. When I went to high school – eons ago, I swear, since my 30th reunion is this summer, math was algebra, geometry, trigonometry and pre-calculus or calculus. Suddenly, as my oldest began high school, math was Math I, Math II, Math III, Math IV and local or AP calculus after that. Somewhere around 2000, State Ed decided Math A and Math B would be implemented. The problems with Math A and B were that the curriculum for the courses was too long for one school year. So, lo and behold, NYS is going back to algebra, geometry, trigonometry.
My 14 year old took integrated algebra last year and a Regents exam in such. This year, in ninth grade, he has taken geometry. One would logically think that he would take the geometry regents exam on June 16th. No. In the infinite wisdom of my school district – or of its high school math department, this is the first year of the geometry regents. Historically, first year regents as math has changed are horribly difficult and not a fair measure of the student’s knowledge. So, my son will take a local final this year as opposed to the geometry regents. One reason that I am sure played into this decision is that there are no regents to see how the test will be. Consequently, no one can teach to the test but has to teach the subject matter.
Last fall, Governor David A Paterson of New York began talking about a new, bigger, better bottle bill in NYS. The original NY bottle bill has been in effect about 25 years and is only on beer and soda bottles and cans. This bill was an environmental victory as the funds from the bottles and cans that were not returned were applied to environmental causes in the state.
The new, bigger and better bottle bill that Gov Paterson started with was flawed in so many ways. First, Paterson wanted to put additional requirements on the water bottle industry. He wanted a special NY bar code to be put on the water bottles. I fail to see why this is necessary. Not only does add an additional expense for producers, it seems unreasonable that any item in this day and age should be labeled for solely NY sale.
The second major flaw in my mind, and again in my mind the most important issue, was that the monies from bottles that were not returned for the deposit were to go into the NYS general fund. I admit I am sick of increased taxes in NY. I admit that there is a huge deficit looming in NY due to less collection of taxes from large Wall Street firms. I will not, though, admit that monies that could be kept for expanding alternative energies or other environmental items and needs should just automatically go into the state’s general fund.
Despite the second concern, the bigger, better bottle bill passed and approximately $118 million was put in the NYS budget for fiscal year 2009-2010 from such a bill, the monies going into the general fund. The bill was set to take effect on June 1, 2009. April came and went. There was give and take over monies for stores that were going to have to be prepared for the huge additional influx of returns. There was questions as to whether the state would be ready. State legislators toyed with additional legislation in May to push back the start date to July, August or later.
The last week of May brought a preliminary injunction from US District Court Judge Thomas Griesa that the additional bottle deposit could not go into effect on June 1, 2009. Today, June 2, 2009, an additional court order from Judge Griesa states that the bigger, better bottle bill cannot be implemented until June 1, 2010. In his court order, Griesa indicated that NYS only bar codes are not constitutional.
Now comes the bigger problem with the bigger, better bottle bill. I am sure you think there is no problem left. There is a year to get it right. Unfortunately, NYS has a huge problem – a budget gap of $118 million – that will only be able to be taken care of through additional cuts to state spending (something I do not feel that the legislature and governor did enough in the current budget).
Many of my diehard Republican friends were very disappointed with the results of last November’s election. They were, though, happy to hear that President Obama would keep Secretary Gates on as Secretary of Defense. Now, Obama is busy filling those “lesser” positions.
The most recent rumor – being reported by NPR here – is that Obama may possibly name Congressman John McHugh as Secretary of the Army. Why does this surprise anyone? This type of an appointment is political strategy at its best. New York’s congressional delegation has only three Republicans in it. McHugh, one of those three, was re-elected in November with over 65% of the vote in his upstate district. He has been in the House of Representatives for 17 years and is the ranking member on the Armed Services committee.
So, why is this strategic? First, Obama is banking on being able to get a Democrat elected to replace McHugh in a special election for the NY-23rd. The NY-23rd is a huge district, covering most of upstate NY and being over 14,000 square miles in size. Obama has already proven that he can get Democrats elected in NYS by helping virtual unknown Scott Murphy to win a special election for the congressional seat vacated by Kirsten Gillibrand upon her appointment to the US Senate.
By chipping away at the three GOP members in the NY congressional delegation, Obama will create a force to be reckoned with within NYS, possibly strengthening the chances of a democratic governor being elected in 2010. The current Democrat in the governor’s office – David Paterson – was not elected but took over from Eliot Spitzer in March of 2008 and has an extremely low approval rating with NYS voters.
