Mother, mother, there's too many of you crying; Brother, brother, brother, there's far too many of you dying. You know we've got to find a way to bring some lovin' here today

NOV. 4, 2009: One guy seemed like Tweedledee and one guy seemed like Tweedledum.

And then there was Dede.

The delicate dance of dips and feints that Republicans perform to keep some semblance of a two-party system in New York was turned into a chicken-fried square dance in which everybody does whatever the caller says. And the caller was far, far away in a radio studio well to the west, but really the right, of New York State.

National conservative talk show hosts lambasted the 11 GOP county chairs who selected Dede Scozzafava as the nominee for the 23rd Congressional seat formerly held by John McHugh.

The chairmen were told they betrayed the party and were out of touch with the common man.

They were lectured by conservative talk show hosts who declared that Doug Hoffman was the true Republican and deserved to be elected, even though his political resume is blank.

They watched as national and state Republicans one by one abandoned Scozzafava and endorsed Hoffman.

They lamented as Scozzafava, the person they believed to be best suited to maintain the GOP hold on this more-purple-than-red district, ended her campaign three days before the vote.

And then they fumed as Scozzafava went nuclear by telling her supporters to vote for the Democrat Bill Owens.

And now?

Does anyone today think Owens, the Democrats' second choice for the job, would have beaten Scozzafava in a two-person race? Does anyone today think that the 23rd Congressional District would belong to a Democrat if Hoffman hadn't decided to run?

North country Republican leaders could have tapped Scozzafava almost two years ago to be their candidate for the special election for the state Senate, but instead they chose Will Barclay. They learned too late that they had made a mistake when Barclay couldn't get enough support in Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties, Scozzafava's turf.

Some thought Scozzafava would bolt the party after that slight, but she stayed loyal. And when another special election came around, this time for Congress, she was rewarded in part for that loyalty. And while a lot of special interest groups declared she failed the litmus test to be a Congressional Republican, those who understand the dance in Northern New York -- pro-union, pro-NRA, pro-choice, pro-military, etc. -- knew she would appeal to that most precious of voting blocs: The one that gives you 51 percent.

Bloggers, commentators, outside agitators, etc. will put their Texas two-step spin on this election as to “what it really means.” Great! Let the dance begin!

But somebody somewhere should note that this sure-bet GOP district is now held by a Democrat because Republicans around the country somehow got it in their heads that to save a village you have to destroy it.

I know I need a small vacation but it don't look like rain; And if it snows that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain.

NOV. 2, 2009: Yes. We know. Our newspaper is being quoted and linked to by every major news organization in America. And yes, they are all asking for quotes. And yes. We don't have time.

What they want to know is if we think the race between Doug “Sarah-Fred-Big&Rich” Hoffman and Bill “Barack-Joe-Dede” Owens is a precursor of what is now going to happen nationally.

And the answer is this: Sometime Tuesday night the 23rd Congressional District we will turn to the rest of the nation and say, “Tag, you're it!”

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Much is being made about the fact that Republican Dede Scozzafava is endoring Democrat Bill Owens, rather than Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman. Hoffman and other Republicans are calling her a variety of things, but we'll use "turncoat" for our more delicate readers.

Ah, let's just remember that Hoffman started all this by endorsing Scozzafava and emailing her a pledge of support before deciding to turn on her. He promised all the party chairs in the 11-county district he would support Scozzafava.

So how do you turn your coat on someone who turned his coat on you?

----

The turnout for Vice President Joe Biden in Watertown today was bad. Like, half-full building. Like, not good. Like, you're kidding me? Like, suppose the Vice President of the Free World came to your town and you couldn't find 400 people to care?

Like, remember in January when it was 6 degrees out and there was four feet of snow on the ground and Gov. David Paterson came to the same building and it was standing room only?

If I were a Democrat, I wouldn't like any of this

-----

All journalists experience a Joe Wilson moment where someone calls you a liar in a room full of other people. But did my moment HAVE to come during Fellowship Hour after church?

Yesterday I was the warm-up act at First Presbyterian Church, providing the greeting and announcements. I began by urging the congregation to “Sit back, relax and enjoy knowing that you are about to experience one hour of a political commercial-free worship service.”

Oh, I liked that joke. And so did the congregation. But while I was shooting my mouth off, supporters of Doug Hoffman were in our church parking lot putting Hoffman fliers in the handles of car doors.

You can imagine the mood of the electorate, having been assured of political commercial freedom only to find they had to remove election fliers to get into their cars.

Several came up to me after church and stuck a flier under my nose as if I was part of some celestial bait and switch.

Hey, look, that's why they call it a “sanctuary.” Inside, you're in the presence of God's mercy. But once you head for home, well, heaven help us all.

-----

During his speech today at the North Side Improvement League, Vice President Biden spent some time saying that a lot of folks, such as former House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas, are swell people, but they just have different views.

It was a nice touch, in contrast to how the Conservative Party has been talking about Dede Scozzafava. But for anyone thinking Biden was just speaking for the moment, he's been saying nice things about the opposition for 20 years..

Several newspapers ago, I attended a luncheon in Washington, D.C. with a group of South Carolina journalists, all of whom had been invited to the Capitol by the late U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond. About 10 Senators showed up for the lunch as well, including Dimenici, Warner, Gramm and Biden.

Each Senator took a turn to stand up and shed some light on the inner workings of D.C., but Biden instead went over to Thurmond and hugged him -- and while still embracing him turned to us and said, “This man has been like a father to me.”

If they ever make a movie, it might go like this:

Thurmond: “I am your father.”

Biden: “No. No. That's not true. That's impossible!”

Thurmond: “Search your feelings, you KNOW it to be true!”

They're gonna put me in the movies; they're gonna make a big star out of me. We'll make a film about a man that's sad and lonely, and all I gotta do is act naturally

OCT. 29, 2009: Like all good love stories, this one begins in Guantanamo.

Last summer the federal government was considering transferring al-Qaida detainees to Fort Leavenworth, Ks. The two U.S. Senators from the Jayhawk State objected. They decided to stymie all of President Obama's nominations, including that of our former congressman, John McHugh, selected June 2 to become Secretary of the Army.

But great news! In late August everyone kissed and made up and McHugh began his new job Sept. 2.

So what's love got to do, got to do with it?

The more than 30-day delay in appointments meant that the special election to replace McHugh was delayed until this coming Tuesday. It could have all been over with last month. But instead, the delay gave every political action group in America more time to plot, plan, raise money, lie and create negative ads to tell us who McHugh's replacement should be.

And just think what they have in store for us during the next five days.

Maybe it's just me but sometimes I think the terrorists have won.

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Despite the national media attention on Northern New York right now, we should all remember that the 23rd Congressional District has no great significance. And neither did Gettysburg. It's just the place where the great armies met.

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According to Democrat Bill Owens, Republican Dede Scozzafava has a lot in common with former President George Bush. According to Conservative Doug Hoffman, Scozzafava has a lot in common with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Since no one thinks Bush and Pelosi had anything in common, is it possible that Scozzafava isn't really a mirror image of either one?

------

Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas was here recently campaigning with Hoffman, which seemed apropos. Early census estimates indicate that New York will lose at least one congressional seat in three years and Texas will pick up at least one.

If Hoffman wins Tuesday, political analysts suggest there could be a 23-skiddoo, and our district might very well morph into the envisioned 33rd District in Texas.

-----

The Watertown Daily Times in its stories and editorials has been trying to suggest there is an actual link between federal and local issues. But instead of learning about water level issues, for instance, Hoffman keeps channeling Ronald Reagan, while Armey says that local issues are “parochial,” and really not what Hoffman should be worrying about.

We still think what happens here is important, but we're not getting any traction with the Hoffman campaign.

OK, let’s try it this way: There are two airports that serve Washington, D.C. One is named after Ronald Reagan and one is named after a guy who grew up in Watertown, N.Y.

Does THAT help?

-----

Much is being made of the recent Times editorial board meeting with Hoffman. Our editorial about how uninformed Hoffman is about the north country has been sent around the world and shows up regularly on cable TV shows.

Some Hoffman supporters are convinced that our publisher, John B. Johnson Jr., ambushed Hoffman and treated him in a way no other candidate would be treated. Not so. Many great working relationships have been built between politicians and the Johnson family after similar “get-to-know-each-other" events, which to the uninformed do indeed resemble nothing more than a bloodletting.

Hoffman did perform poorly. His natural bug-eyed look and nervous leg twitch heightened the drama for all observers.

But the meeting ended amicably with Hoffman saying that when he wins on Tuesday, he is going to be back to discuss how we can all work together to make the north country, the nation -- and no doubt Texas -- stronger.

They headed down to, ooh, old El Paso, that's where they ran into a great big hassle; Billy Joe shot a man while robbing his castle, Bobbie Sue took the money and run

OCT. 23, 2009: Four years ago, you read this in the Watertown Daily Times:

“A long line of police, prosecutors and representatives of victims' rights organizations came Wednesday to Gouverneur Junior/Senior High School in support of legislation that would beef up the monitoring of sex offenders. The Assembly Republican Task Force on Sex Crimes Against Children & Women, chaired by Dierdre K. Scozzafava, R-Gouverneur, is crisscrossing the state gathering information and support.”

Scozzafava's work as a minority member in the Assembly finally bore fruit months later when Democrat Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver finally released -- after a long, long delay -- a bill targeting sexual predators. As we wrote in December 2005, Scozzafava suggested that Silver “had finally given in to public demand for tougher sentencing and civil confinement for violent sexual offenders.”

Fast forward to today and our goofy 23rd Congressional District Race, which includes a Democrat candidate who is not a registered Democrat, and a Conservative candidate who doesn't live in the congressional district.

Here's what I don't get: For the past decade, the Republican Scozzafava has stood up for every women's rights, victims' rights and children's rights legislation in this state. Her fingerprints are everywhere. But now that she is running for Congress, you can't find one member of CASA, CAVA, Darwin, Athena, victims assistance, university women or even one of our myriad Watertown book clubs that will publicly stand up for her.

Amazing.

If you know Scozzafava, you can speculate what's happened. She didn't ask anyone to stand up for her. It's not her style.

And speaking of style: If you don't think style is an issue here, look at what the boys clubs are doing to her in their commercials, hunching her over in a sinister way, darkening her features in some images and blanching them in others, and showing film of her in slow motion, the way TV news people edit a perp walk.

Yes, thank you, we all know. Dede Scozzafava was never asked to participate in the Miss Universe pageant.

That's the treatment you can expect for getting a bachelor's degree from Boston University School of Management and not spending more time at the gym.

That's your reward for earning a master's degree in business administration from Clarkson Graduate School of Management instead of sticking your nose for hours in fashion magazines.

And what about getting married, having two kids, being a stockbroker, a mayor and an assemblywoman who outmaneuvered one of the three most powerful politicians in Albany?

Well, it's one thing to be Wonder Woman, but if you don't look like her, then sister, look out.

Some stories are too long for commercial sound bites. Like this one:

Some 18 years ago, Scozzafava was the mayor of Gouverneur during the infamous, hideous, nauseating Casablanca rape investigation.

You can read all about that story in our archives as well or find a movie with Jodie Foster and a pinball machine to get the general idea.

But here's the gist: After closing hours at the Casablanca restaurant, a woman passes out from drinking too much alcohol. A few days later, friends ask her if she remembers what happened in the bathroom that night because they are hearing talk around town that five men had sex with her.

The woman, who is no stranger to making bad choices, says she didn't sign up for that. And so it begins. She learns the truth and she learns something else. Every guy readily admits to what he did. But 18 years ago the law and the public weren't quite sure what to do with a woman who was too drunk to say “no.”

Some of the gang of five were the sons of business leaders in Governeur. The police chief's son was good friends with some of the suspects. It's a small town where everyone knows everyone, and many people shrugged their shoulders, deciding that “boys will be boys” and “girls should know better.”

So bold where the five men about their actions that one of them on national television told Katie Couric that it wasn't rape but simply a "gang bang,” and he couldn't understand what the hub-bub was.

I won't go through the whole sordid case, but I will say something about Scozzafava's style. Publicly she said little, other than to attempt to protect her community against the national media as it descended on her village to describe it as a town without pity.

But privately she was working with journalists, law officers, state politicians and anyone else who might be able to do anything to put those five SOBs in jail for raping a near comatose woman in her town and then bragging about it.

The polls say Scozzafava is going to lose on Nov. 3. The only question today is whether she will place second or third behind two men who say they are going to successfully unravel and resolve our crisis on the federal government level when neither has ever voted on and then been held accountable for utility improvements, police union contracts, snow removal, etc.

I guess it's like they say, go big or don't go at all.

But the real question that will be asked on Nov. 4 is why all the people whose lives were improved by Dede Scozzafava for the last two decades forgot about that on Election Day.

Looking back on when I was a little nappy headed boy; then my only worry was for Christmas what would be my toy.

OCT. 19, 2009: “Hi, I'm Dede McDougall and I'm ready to be your voice in Congress....”

No, you won't hear that ad on TV, but if there were ever a time for an independently strong woman to use her husband's last name instead of her own, this might be it.

Scozzafava is difficult to spell and pronounce the first time out of the box, making it a less-than-ideal name to campaign on when you are introducing yourself around a region as large as the 23rd Congressional District.

Or as the ads say, “Just call me Dede.”

But now that her last name is hyper-linked to the atrophying of Hacketts, a once highly thought of, all-purpose store, Scozzafava is only too easy to spell and pronounce.

“Hackett siblings sue business's buyer: Scozzafava claims company officials misled him about chain's profitability”

Yes, the headline is referring to Dede's brother, Tom, but for many it is close enough. Dede is an investor of Seaway Valley Capital Corp., her brother's company that now owns Hacketts.

Today, the Scozzafavas likely wish they had followed the game plan years ago when their chain of stores, WiseBuys, was supposed to be bought out by Hacketts, not the other way around. It's been a tragedy of errors ever since. Brother Tom has bought companies here and in Florida and each time the deal soon headed south. Then comes the mantra: They misled me on what their debt load is. Then comes the loss of jobs and investors' money.

Dede, an investment advisor (add irony here), doesn't know for sure what her last name will cost her on election day. She will lose -- but also gain -- votes because she supports gay marriage. She will lose -- but also gain -- votes because her husband is Ron McDougall, president of the Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence Central Trades and Labor Council.

She will just plain lose votes because some people want either a Democrat -- Bill Owens -- or a more socially conservative Conservative -- Doug Hoffman -- in Congress.

A few things are certain. The winner won't be much like us when it comes to their bank accounts. Scozzafava is the piker in the group; Hoffman is a Lake Placid accountant who couldn't reveal all of his financial information right away because he wanted to ensure he did not have to name his well-heeled clients. Owens, a former USAF officer, is a well-connected tax attorney who has pretty much said that if he wins, he'll be taking a pay cut.

But here are a couple of items that the Hoffman and Owens campaigns won't mention:

Before he decided to kick Scozzafava and the GOP in the shins, Hoffman wrote an email that read: "Hi Dede. Congratulations and the best of luck in your candidacy. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. Doug."

And Owens, who needed 60 years to decide he wants to be a Democrat (the paperwork should be coming through any day now!), says he helped create 2,000 jobs around Plattsburgh, when only months ago his own party leaders were saying the number was closer to 500.

(What did Owens do when he was in the Air Force? Based on the media's inability to find him for interviews and debates, there is speculation he was inventing Stealth technology).

In many political races, the winner is the person who is forgiven the most by voters. And since only Scozzafava has been in public life, she may need the most forgiveness.

The other two candidates promise to do much, but if either one is elected it will be because voters have decided they prefer dancing with the devil they don't know.

See my daddy in bed dying; watched his hair been turning gray. He's been working and slaving his life away.

OCT. 9, 2009: As that noted political scientist Alex Karras once wistfully reflected: “Mongo just pawn in game of life.”

Maybe I am taking the movie “Blazing Saddles” out of context here, but substitute “Northern New York” for “Mongo,” and you just about have our political situation summed up.

The resignation of Jim Wright as state senator two years ago and the confirmation of John McHugh as Secretary of the Army just recently have combined to turn our quiet little corner of the world into what appears to be the linchpin region in the board game Risk.

Put up your armies -- who paid for them? Who cares! -- and roll the dice!

But forget the door-to-door, burn some shoe-leather, trench warfare of the past. This is about drones and Predators, launched from miles away and striking at a moment's notice, collateral damage be damned.

Our special elections here have come at critical political moments in which the winners are not just representatives for us, but also key pieces in political power dramas being played out in Albany and Washington, D.C.

Somebody else should be so lucky.

The two major parties dumped millions of advertising dollars into the north country in the pivotal Aubertine-Barclay special election race that helped turn control of the New York State Senate from Republican to Democrat. And the two parties are now dumping even more money into the special election race for the 23rd Congressional District. And some of the attack ads have finally reached the perfect state of Nirvana. The ads only attack; there is no mention of which candidate you should support.

Come Nov. 4, our special election for Congress will become even more special as the national media will cite the outcome as a referendum on President Obama.

“Voters in New York's 23rd Congressional District have shown the first signs that President Obama's agenda is not as popular as once thought as they have rejected Obama's own candidate for Congress....”

“Voters in New York's 23rd Congressional District have given President Obama a huge lift by turning a historic Republican District into another seat held by a Democrat...”

You can hear the voices of Katie Couric, Brian Williams, et al., if you listen long enough.

And if we are patient long enough as well the quiet will resume and we can stop being so special.

Right behind you I see the millions. On you I see the glory. From you I get opinions. From you I get the story.

OCT. 6, 2009: As bad as life has been for newspapers the past two years, it might be actually worse for television stations.

In fact, some stories have been published this year noting that while major networks have produced stories about the demise of the print industry, they have done very few about the demise in their own industry.

It's nasty out there for everyone, and that includes our own TV stations, which are bleeding from the loss of advertising revenue just like newspapers, magazines and any other medium.

It's not always good to be the poster child for such travails, but WWNY Channel 7 shows there is a ray of hope in a story on the Web site of TV News Check.

I've been thinking about Channels 7 and 50 a lot lately because of a recent newspaper story about how major networks are atrophying as their market shares continue to be divided, and more and more Emmy awards are going to the HBOs of the world.

Every TV exec in every market of the country is facing the same question: How do you help an advertiser figure out his demographic market when every viewer is in a never-ending drive to become a demographic of one?

I also thought about our local stations when I read a Time magazine article about Jay Leno, who appears five nights a week on NBC. I realized I hadn't watched one second of his show because I seldom turn the channel during the week from CBS or Fox, preferring to stay near where the local news can be found at specific times.

(At home before 7 a.m. it's Channel 7; on the treadmill at the Y after 7 a.m., however, it's MSNBC's Morning Joe and ESPN).

Among north country mediums, there is always a feverish competition going on for news stories and advertising, which pays the lion's share of the salaries that allow news stories to be reported. So if a few of our local media outlets went belly up, that would be better for the survivors, right?

Yes. Sure. But better for our community? Hardly.

When you add together public and commercial television and radio stations, and almost a dozen daily and weekly newspapers, our region of splendid isolation may have the highest per-capita media saturation in the country.

(Consider this: Hundreds of north country high school students every year get real world public speaking experience because they are relentlessly either being quoted by newspaper reporters or having a microphone put under their noses at the end of some scholastic or athletic achievement.)

But those students are also growing up in a world that seemingly rewards you for a lack of curiosity. Why appropriate valuable time every day to read the newspaper or watch TV news when you've been trained to believe that if a story is really, really, really important, one of your friends will eventually e-mail you the link?

Like me. I think the Channel 7 story was interesting and so here's the link: http://www.tvnewscheck.com/articles/2009/09/22/daily.1/?page=1

Three days since the living room, I realized it's all my fault but couldn't tell you; yesterday you'd forgiven me, but it'll still be two days till I say I'm sorry

SEPT. 22, 2009 A long time ago in a lifetime far away, I wrote several stories about a South Carolina sheriff who did a lot of peculiar things.

For instance, he would let jail trusties wash deputies' cars and then drive them over to the gas station a couple of blocks away to fill 'em up. I wrote an editorial in which I suggested, somewhat strongly, that a prisoner should not be given the keys to a car with flashing lights and a tank full of gas.

The next thing I knew the sheriff was indicted on 38 counts of malfeasance, misfeasance and heaven knows what other kinds of feasance. Gov. Dick Riley suspended the sheriff from office and the state attorney general's office prosecuted him to the full extent of the law.

And after two hung juries, the state gave up and the sheriff was reinstated by the governor.

The fact that this same sheriff years later was convicted of providing cover for a major drug smuggling cartel and eventually died in federal prison may suggest that I was on to something back in 1981. But that is not how my work was often portrayed.

To the state's NAACP chapters, my stories were the work of a racist. The sheriff, you see, was the first black to be elected sheriff in South Carolina since the end of Reconstruction.

So my work was occasionally summed up thusly: White, racist editor, working at the behest of the white political power structure, writes stories to destroy the first black to be elected to lead a law enforcement organization in the state.

It was all racism, pure and simple.

The word racist is getting thrown around a lot these days and just like the Civil War, the first shots have all come out of South Carolina. Rep. Joe Wilson's “You lie!” outburst during a recent address by President Obama is whatever anybody wants to say it is. For former President Jimmy Carter, the outburst was the result of a latent racism that has been fueled by the election of the nation's first African-American.

No one has been dogging Wilson more about his comment than his fellow Carolina colleague, Rep. Jim Clyburn, who is as African-American as they come. But if you're listening for the word “racist” to come out of the mouth of Clyburn, you'll have to keep listening.

Clyburn has said a lot of things about Wilson, including questioning his manhood for writing an apology to the President and not saying “I'm sorry” in person. And while a lot of bloggers and columnists have written that Clyburn's words suggest he is calling Wilson a racist, I haven't been able to find a Clyburn quote that includes the words “Wilson” and “racist.”

Which doesn't surprise me. Before he was elected to Congress, Clyburn was the South Carolina Human Affairs Commissioner. He once explained to me why he never called anyone a racist during 12 years of investigating all sorts of racially tinged goofiness in the Palmetto State. People will accept -- with reluctance -- being called a bigot, he said, but once you call someone a “racist,” it ends discussions.

“You don't get any wiggle room” for further negotiations, he told me.

We all want a microwave world. We all want to cut to the chase. We all want the bottom line. We all want to use language that seals the deal. And in our rush to judgment we all use language that is little more than overstatement, oversimplification and overworked nouns.

Thus, Joe Wilson is a racist, Barack Obama is a Nazi (or is it communist?) and your local politician is a fill-in-the-blank.

Here's a story about racism. Twenty-one years ago, the white football coach of South Carolina's Conway High School had a black player who expected to play quarterback. But the coach chose a white player to call signals and moved his now very upset former quarterback to cornerback.

Local black leaders, angered by the coach's obvious racism, convinced every black player to boycott the team for the rest of the season. But when Human Affairs Commissioner Jim Clyburn investigated, he learned that three of the previous six Conway quarterbacks had been black. The coach made the quarterback change based not on the player’s color but on the content of his character, which was showing increasingly unstable behavior.

The coach's decision, Clyburn determined, was “as far from racism as anything I've been involved in.”

You'll never guess what word the NAACP used the next day in decrying Clyburn's decision.

Always something greener on the other side of that hill. I was born a wrangler and a rounder and I guess I always will

SEPT. 22, 2009 Thanks to Eyepublius, Ombudsman, neocon and dozens of other writers, our stories, editorials, letters, etc., have received 743 comments as of Tuesday afternoon.

We opened up our Web site to comments just a few months ago and each day we are getting more and more comments from readers.

We've actually had closer to 760 comments, but I've removed a few for various reasons – generally, foul language or a name choice we'd rather not have our company associated with.

But that means that the overwhelming tone and content of our comments have all been along the high road.

Most Web sites have invited comments for years but we wanted to make sure we had a system installed that allowed quick review by editors each day. Comments can go up almost immediately once filed by a reader, and they can come down even more quickly if they violate our policy.

And our policy is pretty simple: don't write something you wouldn't say in to a microphone at a high school assembly attended by your children.

It is no secret that writers become increasingly fearless when they know they can write anonymously. That was our major concern – that by lowering the wall of accountability, we would be inviting the Huns in.

Yes, we have had a few postings that took advantage of the situation. But it has been the minority. Overall, our comments have been a great addition to the mix of information and opinion already on our site.

If you go to our home page next to “Today's top stories” you can also keep up on which stories are generating the most comments.

We've also added several new blogs, including All That Jas, http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/section/blogs06 written by our St. Lawrence County Editor Jeffrey Savitskie, All Politics Is Local, http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/section/blogs09 by Jude Seymour, our Web reporter, and Outside Looking In, http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/section/blogs10 by City Editor Perry White.

Perry's former blog, NNY Follies, was actually started long before we had blogs on our site. We're happy to have his comments about Northern New York government under the watertowndailytimes.com banner.

There's plenty to read -- and comment on -- every day on our Web site.

Someday we'll be together, Yes we will, yes we will

SEPT. 14, 2009: Your honor, I draw the court's attention to a paragraph I wrote in 1996:

Carthage and West Carthage might as well be separated by the Drina River. Who the Serbs and Croats are is anybody's guess, but without much prompting it is easy to get someone on either side of The Great Divide -- also known as the Black River -- to tell you why his village is better run than his neighbor's.”

And if it pleases the court, I also draw attention to a paragraph I wrote in 2001:

Question: Name a government that is isolated, suspicious of progress and threatens its neighbors. North Korea? Nope, but you're getting warm. Try West Carthage.

Your honor, with these two items of evidence before you, I am today asking that these comments be stricken from the record, and that you direct the jury to disregard these paragraphs.

SO ORDERED!

Look, back in the day that was some mighty fine writing. Trying to imagine where our little communities would fit on the world stage is always fun. But that was then, and today “then” seems like decades ago.

In our www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20090913/NEWS03/309139974 story on Sunday, we now find that Carthage and West Carthage are best buds. And thus I find myself obligated to give props where props are due. The twin villages are making government more efficient and less costly by working together.

The most recent example is in law enforcement. I won't bore you with the ugly details of the last decade, but the fact that the villages are actually working together to improve law enforcement is significant.

Much of the credit goes to West Carthage Mayor Scott M. Burto who has been a breath of fresh air, at least when it comes to our coverage of the community. I once thought the contempt former mayors of the village showed toward the Watertown Times was unique to us, but officials from other governments and agencies assured me that West Carthage mayors were equal opportunity abusers.

While former mayors actually threatened to arrest Times photographers if they stepped foot in the village, Burto thinks coverage of what the village is doing is a good thing.

Meanwhile, Carthage President G. Wayne McIlroy has not let the past prevent the new partnership from growing.

So there you have it. West Carthage and Carthage are becoming shining examples of what can happen when we all work together.

And I am looking forward to the first opportunity I get to write about two adjacent governments squabbling so I can throw in the words: “Why can't you guys be more like the twin villages?”

Your honor, I rest my case.

Into this house we're born, into this world we're thrown; Like a dog without a bone, an actor out on loan, riders on the storm

SEPT. 8, 2009: Well, that didn't take long.

Today I assigned reporters to write a story about the speech by President Obama to the nation's public school students. I also wanted a photo to go with the story. But at Case Middle School the answer was: no photos of students' faces.

The reason? The kids don't have signed permission slips from parents allowing their pictures to be taken by the media.

If that sounds good to you, consider the fact we have already printed pictures of kids on their first day of classes at other schools districts where no such restrictions were imposed.

Each school district interprets the law and community standards differently. Some superintendents and principals think every program they have is worth a story. Others figure that no news is good news. (“And maybe they'll forget to write about us when we have a 19 percent levy increase...”)

Out of this comes a hodgepodge of interpretations in which we can take a picture of dozens of students in a school play or a football game, but we have to jump through narrow hoops to show you a picture of a kid telling you what she thought of President Obama's speech.

(Watertown schools are not generally a problem. Last year Sandy Creek officials asked the Times to remove photos of Sandy Creek athletes from our Web site because they didn't have parents' permission to show the public what the members of the girls' basketball team looked like. We declined.)

In a world of porn, child abductions, internet stalking, etc., trying to control the media with regard to kids' pictures will always sound like a great idea to somebody. In a way it is a compliment: when the Times publishes your photo it really means something.

But you already know the irony: today's students have taken and shared far more photos of themselves -- in far less flattering poses -- than our newspaper could ever compete with.

And so here we ago again: Another 180 days of parents wanting more photos of their kids in the paper and schools telling us they don't have parental permission to let us take the photos.

And the choice is up to you 'cause they come in two classes: Rhinestone shades or cheap sunglasses

AUGUST 27, 2009 For Joe Rich, long-time executive director of the Disabled Persons Action Organization, it has been the long good-bye.

For Dan Stern, long-time executive director of the Jefferson Rehabilitation Center, it was 23-skidoo.

Rich announced in November 2007 that he would step down as executive director Dec. 1, 2008. Today, Aug. 27, in the year of our Lord, 2009, he has actually stepped up and is CHIEF executive director. When you go to the DPAO Web, site, www.dpao.org, it’s his face that greets you.

Stern told his board earlier in the year that he would give them another year and a half on the job. Then he walked into the shop a week ago Monday after being on vacation and announced he was walking out for good.

I won’t compare resumes here as I’m not sure there is enough bandwidth to handle the information. I know Rich and Stern, you know them and a slice of the American public knows them as well. Almost every agency in Jefferson County has had one or the other on its board.

But could two people in the same line of work with the same interest in serving the community be so dissimilar in their exit strategies?

For Rich, the answer will always be “That’s Joe being Joe.” He invented DPAO in 1976 and it’s tough letting the creation go.

As for Stern, he showed up 20 years ago when JRC was already 35 years old. It’s not quite the same deal as DPAO. Still, all non-profit executives in the area are scratching their heads over this one. You can only speculate that last last week somebody tried to stick a shiv in somebody at JRC.

(Maureen Cean, JRC's director of habilitative services, also resigned the same day as Stern. Her resignation was unrelated to Stern’s departure, according to a JRC official. Yes. OK. I’m sure that was the case. Just coincidence. Nothing to see here. Let’s move on...)

But before we do indeed move on, let me suggest something that will also be interpreted as a shiv: Shouldn’t somebody take this interesting moment in time and determine if the two agencies should become one?

Yes, DPAO’s 125 employees help 500 families in Jefferson and Lewis counties care for disabled persons at home. Yes, JRC’s 650 staff members serve more than 800 individuals, training many to become employable in janitorial services and other industries.

But there is overlap in the services they ultimately provide to our community.

Here are the mission statements of JRC and DPAO:

“The mission of the Jefferson Rehabilitation Center is to enhance the quality of life and maximize the potential of persons with disabilities.”

“It is the mission of the Disabled Persons Action Organization to provide quality and effective individualized services to mentally retarded and developmentally disabled children and adults in Jefferson and Lewis counties.”

I know this is an uncomfortable subject. And someone is right now saying, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But as federal and state funds dry up and as competition for the remaining funds intensifies, it might be a good time to order an MRI, CAT scan, some barium sulfate, whatever, and take a look under the hood of these two agencies.

Maybe an evaluation of services will suggest there should actually be three agencies that provide services to the developmentally disabled here. But probably not. And if the answer is one agency, this is the time to make that happen.

How many times can a man turn his head, and pretend that he just doesn't see, The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind.

AUG. 21, 2009: Like Brigadoon, they suddenly appear out of nowhere. Well, actually they appear out of Canada. And it’s not just once a year -- it is several times a week.

The wind turbines on Wolfe Island in the St. Lawrence River are 27 to 32 miles away from Thompson Park in Watertown. But there they are, big as life when the sun goes down and the air is clear.

While the turbines have been there for months, they had a coming out party July 6 during the Syracuse Symphony and fireworks show at Thompson Park. Thousands of people sat on the hill enjoying the music and watching the sun go down when -- ta da -- there they were.

Much will be made about this picture, and not all of it good. We occasionally are accused by anonymous bloggers on fly-by-night Web sites of doctoring photos showing wind turbines. So the following is a public service announcement for those who know what an f-stop is:

This image was taken by our staff photographer Colleen White at approximately 7:45 p.m., just seconds after sunset on Wednesday. She shot it using a Nikon D2H with a 300mm lens. Aperture at 2.8, shutter 1/1500 at ISO 200.

The fact that you can see turbines from 30 miles away is no reason to support or oppose such utilities, or whatever they are being called in Cape Vincent these days.

Instead, it should be a reminder that the issue isn’t one that should be decided by as few people as possible.

The scene from Thompson Park can’t be any clearer: we are all in this together.

When you've got worries, all the noise and the hurry seems to help, I know, downtown

AUG. 14, 2009: A story by our Washington Correspondent Marc Heller was quoted yesterday on the Web site of The Atlantic. Within a few hours several hundred people from around the country had come to our Web site to read it.

Our story on a lawsuit involving a rower and Clarkson University is on the Web site row2K.com and 995 people who started on that Web site then came to our site.

Several of Staff Writer Jude Seymour’s political stories are on the Web sites of the Albany Times Union (2,214 hits in the last 30 days) and the New York Daily News (1,471).

Every day I take a look to see where our Web readers are coming from and with each day more of our stories are being linked on more sites. Politico.com, Syracuse.com, dairyline.com are constantly linking to our stories, for instance. Many of our Fort Drum stories end up on the Early Bird, the Pentagon’s all-you-need-to-know site for the military.

Of course, those site totals pale in comparison to the aggregator sites, such as northcountrynow.com out of St. Lawrence County. We’ve had 148,175 hits to our site directly from there the past month. Google hits were at 91,382.

None of this should be a surprise. Newspaper Web sites collectively are the number one source of information in this country. But now that we have your attention, we will soon be asking for your money.

Within the next year, several newspaper Web sites are going to become subscription or pay-per-article sites. What does that mean?

Among many things, it means that aggregator sites will soon have to pay to pass on the content that was developed by living, breathing, mortgage-paying reporters.

Question: Who will the aggregators pass the cost on to, their advertisers, their readers or both?

Answer: I don’t care, it’s not my problem.

But I do care about newspapers’ ability to collectively provide to readers all world, national and state news through wire services and syndicates.

Just like the Associated Press for newspapers, we are going to have to develop a collective method to, say, allow you to buy an on-line subscription to the Watertown Daily Times that also gives you access to the New York Times, Washington Post, Albany Times Union, etc.

It will take a while to figure out, but our industry is moving in the right direction to ensure that content providers are still in business for years to come.

Yes, I know. Paid Web sites that tell you about the latest effort to put wind turbines in your community will always get fewer hits than a free youtube video of some guy neutering himself while going down a handrail on a skateboard.

But at some point you will need to know something about the events that affect your life. And we’ll be there waiting for you.

Fire all of the guns at once and explode into space.

AUG. 5, 2009: A Fort Drum soldier was killed in battle the other day. Or was it the week before? Maybe I have him confused with another soldier who died with his three buddies during an explosion. Or was it just two other soldiers?

And so it goes. The U.S. is losing soldiers at such a rapid clip in Afghanistan that names and faces of 10th Mountain Division soldiers are flashing by us, giving little time to reflect on the collective sacrifice being made by these individuals.

Most news mediums, and certainly this newspaper, attempt to give equal weight to each death of each soldier. But at the numbers grow, the task has become impossible.

On some occasions, we discover the death after it is reported on the Defense Department’s Web site. Other times a story of a dead soldier is found on the Web site of a hometown newspaper. Only the latter has quotes from family members.

Sometimes the death is announced early in the day, giving us plenty of time for research. Sometimes it is discovered just before deadline, restricting information to the bare essentials.

Sometimes there is a photo with the story. Sometimes the photo arrives by email after the story is published. Sometimes the dead soldier has lived in our community for several years and his kids go to our schools. We can find neighbors and friends for quotes. Sometimes the dead soldier arrived at Fort Drum just in time to hop a plane to deploy, having never met one civilian here. There are no quotes to be found.

It all makes it difficult to produce the same amount of information for each casualty.

Years ago we printed a quarter page of photos of soldiers killed in battle after a nasty spike of deaths in Iraq. The other day we printed 12 faces to show how many soldiers have been killed in the last six weeks. Are 12 deaths in six weeks more significant than one death in four weeks?

Some soldiers die in a firefight. Some die in a vehicle that is blown up. Should one get more attention than the other? The father of one dead 10th Mountain Division soldier was recently called by President Obama who said his son will be a Medal of Honor recipient. Was that soldier’s death more significant than another? His late son would likely say, “I was just doing my job. I know others who did things just as important and courageous. Why me? Why not them?”

How do you give equal attention to the death of each 10th Mountain Division soldier?

I often review our previous stories and look for balance, tone and perspective. And no matter what we produced on the deaths of Fort Drum soldiers, I know it was not enough.

Our reporters work to ensure these are not unknown soldiers, even if they were not known to anyone in our community. But in the end these soldiers, who gave the last full measure of devotion, are never known enough.

Mama, put my guns in the ground, I can't shoot them anymore. That long black cloud is comin' down. I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door.

JULY 31, 2009

Hunter Horton, Course Superintendent, Ives Hill Country Club

Dear Hunter:

Congratulations on another great season of providing a finely manicured golf course to our community. I really love playing at Ives Hill.

And I really love what you did to the course this year. It was sheer genius to allow the grass to grow and grow along various holes and behind the 16th green.

Who would have thought that you could enhance the character of a golf course -- and save a few bucks on mowing -- but letting portions of the course become simply wild?

Yes, I’ve lost a few balls this year that I likely would have found under last year's course conditions. And you know that berm in front of the green on Number 14 where you’ve let the grass grow three feet high? Wow, I’ve never lost a ball hitting it down the middle of a fairway before. I know, I know; it’s my fault. A good golfer doesn’t eliminate his hook and slice, he learns how to control them. I shouldn’t have hit the ball straight at that moment

Or something like that.

But that is not the point. The point is that Ives provides an interesting challenge to all golfers, no matter their skill level. If fact, from what I understand, you have really leveled the playing field, so to speak. It seems everybody, regardless of handicap, at some point this season has lost a ball or two or three or four in the tall grass.

It’s sort of like social security and universal health care... everybody ends up with the same level of care. Or indifference.

But I digress.

I just want you to know that no matter what anybody has told you about losing golf balls this year, you have done a magnificent job. Don’t listen to these whiners. They are just spoiled sports.

By the way, I was wondering if you might like some advice about ensuring that the course continues to be well groomed. I was thinking that maybe one day in the fall, say Oct. 1, at some point in time, say 6 a.m., you might have the mowers go out and do some early prep work for next year.

Most people in the lawn care industry will tell you that at some point during the year you have to prune, to cut back, to allow the sun to really get down to ground level. A deep cut can make the grass grow back thicker and more lush next year.

Since this is about the quality of the grass and not lost golf balls, I suggest we keep this matter just between the two of us. Can you imagine what would happen if word of this clear-cutting got out? Ives Hill that day would look like an Easter egg hunt for adults.

We don’t want that.

So, what do you think? Will Oct. 1 at 6 a.m. work for you? It will for me. I would sure love to see this grooming tip come to fruition. And if by chance, since I am up so early, that I again see my 11 Calloways, 14 Titleists, 9 Nikes, 2 Srixons, 21 Top Flights and 5 Ultras, well, that would be nice, too. But it's not important. What's really important is the care of the grass. The grass comes first. It's all about the grass. Which needs to be cut.

Thanks for your attention to this. Have a great day!

Bob

A hustle here and a hustle there, New York City's the place where they say, "Hey, babe, take a walk on the wild side."

JULY 24, 2009: There is no such thing as a corporate “good old days.”

Take the early 1960s, please. Here were your choices:

A) “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet”

B) “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

If your reflection on the 1960s first conjures up an image of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., behind bars, then you most likely prefer living in the present.

Those good old days of racial division meant that even in the 1970s you could go into a courtroom -- as I can attest -- and hear a witness without hesitation offer testimony that would include the word “nigger.” But had that testimony also included the mother of all swear words, the same witness -- so as not to offend anyone -- would turn toward the jury and semi-whisper, “he used the f-word.”

Today, it’s reversed. Nigger has been replaced by “the n-word” and the f-word is, well, you now hear mothers use it even around their five-year-olds.

Which makes the remark by Rep. Carolyn Mahoney last week so rare. As the punch line to a complaint she received about U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s stand on using English in Puerto Rico, Mahoney quoted a constituent who allegedly said, “It was like saying nigger to a Puerto Rican.”

http://www.ny1.com/content/news_beats/politics/102633/maloney-apologizes-for-using-racial-slur-in-interview/Default.aspx

You can go years without hearing a white politician -- in a public setting -- say the word “nigger.” The last, best example came in 2001 during a television interview when U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia used the term “white niggers.”

Here in the great white north country, we don’t have to worry about such things. OK, you’re right, there was that Ku Klux Klan rally attended by 2,000 people in Adams in 1925, and the 1926 rally in Watertown attended by 5,000 Kluxers.

From our trusty Times’ files, “During that time period, crosses were discovered burned at Thompson Park, outside Cape Vincent, near Potsdam and between Theresa and Alexandria Bay. A bomb believed related to a Klan demonstration was set off outside Chaumont.”

Anything more recent? Well, in 1994 an Alexandria school board member told his colleagues that where he works it is so hot, “I sweat more than a nigger at a Ku Klux Klan meeting.”

In 2005 the state’s judicial conduct commission removed a Jefferson County justice from the bench for several goofy decisions, including a ruling involving a black soldier from Fort Drum, who got upset in court when his accuser referred to him as "that colored man."

The judge dismissed the soldier’s objections and later convicted him.

"You know," the justice said, " "I could understand it if he would have called you a Negro or a nigger, that would be racial. For years we had no colored people here; with the influx of Fort Drum, now we do."

We probably still have a few people running around the north country using the words “niggers” and “colored people.” And now that we have a candidate running for Congress who refers to state Assemblywoman Dierdre K. Scozzafava as a “girl,” http://watertowndailytimes.com/article/20090724/NEWS02/307249948 we probably have a few people being creative with the use of the word “boy” as well.

You're pushin' too hard, pushin' on me, you're pushin' too hard, on what you want me to be... you're pushin' too hard on me

JULY 14, 2009: How much money do taxpayers have to pay school superintendents before they take the time to read the State’s Open Meetings Law?

It seems $125,000 isn’t enough. What if we make it $200,000?

In my 35 years in journalism I can’t begin to count the number of times I have watched public officials, and particularly school officials, ignore state law because they feared that the action they might take would... would... would... oh, who knows?

Actually, I do know. Public officials in general, and school boards in particular, will go into executive session anytime they have no idea what they are going to decide.

Not knowing the outcome of a debate is not an acceptable reason to kick the public out of a meeting.

Monday night it was the Carthage School Board. They ALMOST went into executive session because they don’t know what to do with their colleague, the peculiar Christopher J. Kamide, who has attended only one meeting in two years but won’t quit the board.

(For perspective, every board of every agency -- Hospice, YMCA, Children’s Home, you name it, has written policies about board attendance and thus, would have given the boot to Kamide a year ago).

Only our reporter’s protest prevented Carthage from violating state law once again Monday night.

Over the years Times’ reporters have handed public officials pamphlets that explain the law in simple terms. The state is trying to make it even more simple. You can go to the Web site http://www.dos.state.ny.us/video/coog.html for an overview. Or for a primer, you can watch a video by Robert Freeman, the executive director of the Committee on Open Government.

http://www.dos.state.ny.us/ermweb/action/viewer/powerstream?view=asset&id=2526b6de-062a-11dd-9ba2-0a42007e0000&player=null

There are no more excuses for public officials not to know. But pressure from the newspaper is not enough. If voters don’t care to know what their elected officials are doing -- and how they arrived at their conclusions -- nothing will change.

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time, you understand now why you came this way

JULY 10, 2009: Fifteen years ago when I arrived at the Watertown Daily Times I was surprised to find that this newspaper printed anonymous letters to the editor.

Maybe you remember them. Many of the authors identified themselves as “Disgusted in Dexter,” “Angry in Antwerp,” and “Miffed in Massena.”

Why did we allow them in the first place?

The owners of the Times, the Johnson family, believed the newspaper was the one place where the little guy could get a fair hearing. Eighty years ago, someone might lose a job over a letter to the editor. The Johnsons thought the only way to hold everybody’s feet to the fire was to allow unfettered access to the opinion pages.

We eventually dropped anonymous letters as they were increasingly coming closer each year to libel. And if you don’t think that was the direction we were headed, I invite you to read the anonymous postings on most Web sites today.

It is remarkable how courageous -- and disingenuous -- a writer can be once you remove accountability.

Still, having a conversation with the community is a good thing. And while our doors have always been open, our telephone and email addresses published, etc., we all recognize that many people would make far more comments if we allowed easy access to our stories on our Web site.

Starting next week, we are doing just that.

We have been developing our system for the past year to ensure a couple of things. To comment on our stories, you must first register so that we have a way of contacting you -- or blocking your comments -- if necessary. While we are encouraging writers to use their own names, it won’t be necessary. However, we have installed filter and search methods that allow us to find and delete objectionable comments.

We also will allow reporters to answer germane questions about their stories.

Someone somewhere will attempt to post a contemptible comment. Yeah, well we have had people submit false obits and other news for the paper. All villages have more than one idiot.

But we expect that we will all benefit from hearing more voices commenting directly about stories on our Web site.

Does anyone know if Disgusted in Dexter is still in town?

And I really ain't bothered what you think of me 'cos all I want of you is just a let me be. I don't care anymore.

JUNE 7, 2009: I was leaving a meeting at the county courthouse that included Channel 7's Brian Ashley and Channel 10's Ron Lombard, and Jefferson County's election commissioners, Sean Hennessey and Jerry Eaton. We had been discussing media coverage for the next election. Everything was fairly kosher, but as usual, I couldn't leave well enough alone.

I turned to Hennessey and said, "You know, there's a difference between 10 people seeing you have one beer and one person seeing you have 10 beers."

The reference was 20 years old. In 1989 the late John Tower was prevented from becoming Secretary of Defense by his fellow U.S. Senators, some of whom spent a lot of trying to determine if some people saw him drink a lot or a lot of people saw him drink some.

But for Hennessey, the reference was less than 20 hours old. That's because the day before our meeting his image - with drink in hand -- appeared in the New York Daily News with a story bemoaning the amount of money county election commissions spent to hold a conference in the Finger Lakes region the previous week.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/06/29/2009-06-29_with_albany_in_chaos_board_of_elections_staff_live_it_up_in_finger_lakes.html#ixzz0KE1cIHKg&D

In the world of politics, a picture is worth a thousand slights and so Democrat Hennessey became the poster child on right-leaning blogs for rampant excess at a time when the state is short on money. Funny thing, though, is that those bloggers didn't mention that the Republican Eaton was there as well. ("I was under the table," Eaton jokingly said.)

Hennessey is a big boy and can take the flak, and, well, as the chairman of the annual Irish Festival in Watertown it might be a wee bit sacrilegious if he were photographed at a reception and WASN'T holding a drink

But he noted that the photo was clearly taken at night -- long after the day's business events were over. Eaton added that he didn't think he was on the clock after 10 p.m. That was in response to the Daily News story's not-so-subtle contention that the event was little more than a frat party.

(For the record, Eaton had another beer last night around 10:30 p.m. after spending five and half hours helping "Dining With Dean" Gillan grill hot dogs, sausages and hamburgers to feed the masses during the concert at Thompson Park.)

The take by local bloggers is a reminder how news is being increasingly manipulated to score partisan points. Someone starts out with a story about alleged government waste and excess and the next person takes the story and strips out everything but the potshot against one particular person who is a member of one particular political party.

There is a scandal about money and county elections commission, but it has to do with elected officials ordering the latest in elections equipment while trying to make sure change doesn’t occur too quickly. Some 18 counties are going to provide voters in November with two sets of election equipment -- the old lever machines and the not-yet-certified new machines that meet federal standards for voters who have accessibility needs.

That could have happened in the north country as well but election commissioners in the region were able to convince county legislatures that the cost of maintaining and setting up two systems for election day was a waste of money.

Meanwhile, Hennessey and Eaton have been consolidating polling sites -- with continued sniping by elected officials -- to again cut the cost of local elections.

Don’t bother toasting these guys, however. Somebody might take a picture.

There'll be shoutin' from the mountains on out to sea, No two ways about it, people have to be free; Ask me my opinion, my opinion will be it's a natural situation for a man to be free

JUNE 29, 2009: Every week I get at least one e-mailed press release about an event happening in Wisconsin.

I dutifully reply and suggest the sender really ought to send the e-mail to the editor of the Watertown Daily Times, located in the city of Watertown, in the county of Jefferson and the state of Wisconsin.

E-mail makes the world small and our mistakes big, I suppose.

But as easy as I am to find -- even mistakenly -- on the Internet, I can’t figure out how to get my name and address in a phone book that serves Jefferson County, N.Y.

Yes, many people would prefer having my alleged dilemma. It’s just that we here at the Times sort of pride ourselves on being easy to find.

I used to be in the phone book: 140 Bowers Ave, 785-5413. I've had that number for 15 years. And I used to get calls at home that were newspaper related from people I didn't know but who found my number in the phone book.

But several years ago I decided to move my service from Verizon to Time Warner (I still have my cell phone, 276-8450, with Verizon so everyone is still getting some money here.)

And that’s when it happened. Verizon dropped me from the phone book. The Yellow Book doesn’t have me listed either.

I have tried to find someone within the bowels of the telecommunications industry to add me back to the family of man. But no such luck. Which makes me wonder how many other people who switched to Time Warner service suddenly became unlisted.

Well, I only wonder so much. I don’t need to hear from everyone right this minute. But if somebody can call and tell me how to get my phone number back in the phone book, I would appreciate it.

You hear the door slam and realize there's nowhere left to run; You feel the cold hand and wonder if you'll ever see the sun

JUNE 26, 2009: It’s about time the city of Watertown stopped taking crap from the town of Watertown.

So to speak.

For those just catching up, the city has a sewage treatment plant. The town doesn’t. The town pumps its effluent to the city for treatment. In return the town gets a bill from the city.

But for years, the town has approved so much development along outer Arsenal Street that the sewer line which leads to the plant is too small to handle the capacity being generated.

And now the city can’t allow more construction -- including two hotels within the city limits -- along Arsenal Street. Think of it: The whole country is in an economic freefall and Watertown is telling a hotel chain, “Sorry, you and the millions of dollars in construction materials, building fees, salaries, etc., can’t come here.”

The town has no choice but to also nix any more development along outer Arsenal Street. Well, actually it DOES have a choice -- it can pay to install a connector line from the vicinity of the Salmon Run Mall to the sewer line that runs down Coffeen Street.

But here is the rub. Town Supervisor Joel “No Town Taxes” Bartlett for years has shown an uncanny ability to approve anything that pays and nothing that costs. All politicians worship at this altar but few have been able to “walk the walk” like Bartlett.

You say New York wants to reduce congestion on outer Arsenal Street by consolidating egress points? Bartlett approved a small shopping plaza -- featuring a now defunct car wash -- that adds two more egress points along the newly refurbished road.

You say Jefferson County wants the town to put in an access road to connect the mall and Walmart in an effort to, once again, relieve congestion on outer Arsenal Street? Bartlett won’t budge because he would have to eat the cost or foist it off on his tax-paying friends at the mall and Walmart, and where is the payback for that?

You say regional interests want to build apartments that straddle the city limits and have all utility services come from the city? Bartlett tried to block the Summit Woods project because he wanted to put an additional road into the project from the town side of outer Washington Street -- man, does this guy LOVE egress! Then he balked again until he could connect half the project to a town water line to ensure half of the residents pay a utility fee to the town and not the city.

(This became an "oops" moment for the town when its water line was determined to be too small to serve the additional customers. Bartlett's Folly cost the town $185,000 to blast through rock to put in a larger line).

For more than 20 years, Esau, I mean the city has been selling water and sewer services to the town and in return has been given a box to live in. Town residents add to the wear and tear of city streets driving to and from their jobs, and they freely use all the services in the city, such as Flower Memorial Library. And if there is a fire at the mall or the Ramada Inn, whose firefighters do you think will be doing the heavy lifting?

But if you ask the town to pay for city bus service to Target and Kohl’s, or clean snow off the sidewalks over the new I-81 bridge that links 30,000 city residents to all those businesses the butter the town’s bread, Bartlett changes the subject.

And don’t get city officials started about the Empire Zone partnership between the city and town. When the town couldn’t hog all the Empire Zone acreage to give away to the owners of the Salmon Run Mall, Bartlett simply cut the town’s share of funding, saying there was little benefit to the program.

In a perverse way, you have to admire Bartlett. Nobody works harder trying to make sure his town gets everything, every time, on someone else’s dime. But in a world of partnerships, cooperation, consolidation and the erasing of 200-year-old borders, his act is getting tiresome.

And now it is costing all of us.

If you wanna see an angel you got to find it where it fell; If you wanna get to heaven you gotta raise a little hell

JUNE 11, 2009: Several people have contacted the Greater Watertown-North Country Chamber of Commerce to demand that Eric Dunk be thrown out of the organization for posting “Obama are you kidding? We're not Muslim. You are not Christian!!" on the spiffy electronic sign at his Iron Block Harley-Davidson dealership in Adams Center.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20090611/NEWS03/306119932

Yes, the message Dunk posted was stupid. Yes, it was intellectually dishonest. Yes, nobody wants Eric Dunk deciding who’s going to heaven, although if somebody wants to ride off to hell on a Harley, there’s no reason why Dunk shouldn’t make a few bucks from the decision.

While many sensibilities have been offended, there are a whole lot of other people around here who are just shrugging their shoulders at Dunk being Dunk.

Considering Dunk’s track record, the anti-Obama sign is tame stuff. There are few businessmen who can have the words “cocaine,” “vandalism” and “four dead in apartment fire” in the same sentence with their name over the last 20 years and still be in business and in good standing with the chamber.

Dunk’s efforts to clean up his act were noted in a Times story in 2001 http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20010225/NEWS03/906119984 and he has become a frequent donor to many north country charities. Depending on what day of the week it is and who you are talking to, you might think Dunk should be nominated for the Shapiro Citizenship Award.

Harley-Davidson’s corporate office has told Dunk to deep-six the political-religious stuff and so there’s your basic market correction lesson for the day. And it’s pretty basic: An American company trying to fight its way into India, China and everywhere else some non-Christian might want to buy a Hog doesn’t need a minor player near Adams -- also home of Arbor Day and the Dewey Decimal System! -- offending an entire market share.

So there you have it. Harley has taken care of its minor business problem, Jefferson County continues to live and let live with Eric Dunk and President Obama is still Christian.

But if the president ever converts to Islam, well, don't say you weren't warned!!

One child grows up to be Somebody that just loves to learn; And another child grows up to be Somebody you'd just love to burn

JUNE 8, 2009: If you want to make an omelet, you have to crack a few eggs. And sometimes if you want to say something nice, you have to open a can of worms.

I want to say something nice. I want to say that I think the fact that the Watertown girls lacrosse team is in the state Final 4 tournament this weekend http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20090607/SPORTS02/306079925/-1/SPORTS is actually one of the most significant sports stories of the year.

You go girls!

But what makes this story significant is the can-of-worms part.

It wasn’t that long ago that the Watertown school district was doing as little as possible to add girls’ lacrosse to its varsity roster. It wasn’t that long ago that the wonderful new field promised the girls team – the one in front of Case Middle School -- turned out to be too small for varsity games. And if wasn’t too long ago the former girls lacrosse coach was railing against the athletic department to anyone who would listen regarding the lack of support she was getting.

It also wasn’t that long ago when some of these same girls – then playing junior varsity soccer – were the subject of baseless accusations of religious bigotry made by anonymous loons on the Jefferson County Web Board.

Let’s just say that for many of these young athletes and their families, it has been an interesting ride.

WHS in the “Final 4”? When is the last time a WHS team has been to the Final 4 in any sport? Smaller north country schools in smaller classifications have done it and several have won state championships. And if you think the girls at Watertown were not keeping track of the success of the girls’ soccer and basketball teams at IHC and South Jeff the past decade, well, you may know girls, but you don’t know THESE girls. Finally, girls from Watertown can say they have measured up to becoming one of the best teams in the state.

If you are curious as to who is on the team you can see their names and faces on our Web site. http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/section/hssportsresults?site=jnc&tp=wdt&tpl=team&SearchType=Teams&School=2&TeamID=348&Sport=26&yr=2009 You can view their stats. You can read stories about their march through the tournament. In short, you can quickly catch up to a story that has been building not just for a season, but for a decade.

And if you see one of these young ladies around town, you should give them a pat on the back for becoming a team our community can be proud of.

There's battle lines being drawn, Nobody's right if everybody's wrong, Young people speaking their minds, Getting so much resistance from behind

JUNE 3, 2009: The ascendancy of John McHugh from nine-term Congressman to being nominated by President Obama as Secretary of the Army is many things to many people. But first, is it actually an ascendancy?

In the great maw of Washington government, secretaries for the service branches serve best by serving anonymously. Quick, take the following test: name the secretaries of the Navy, Air Force and Marines (and give yourself five bonus points if you know there is NO Secretary of the Marines….)

With great fanfare and pride, the north country is saluting McHugh’s nomination, but a year from now he will be a very distant government wonk, not the guy who shows up at the north country’s Labor Day parades and massive government and military groundbreakings.

But as of right now, there is a great casting of lots to divide his garments. As good as an example as any is this from Jonathan Martin, of the web site Politico, who writes that “In tapping McHugh, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Obama sidelines yet another senior GOP lawmaker.”

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/23225.html#ixzz0HNiwijQ5&B

In other words, the selection of McHugh is about power politics and the Obama plan to eviscerate the Republican Party in a way Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson could only dream of.

OK, fine. But as four towns in America this week prepare to bury Fort Drum soldiers recently killed in Afghanistan, is it too much to ask that bloggers and columnists take a moment to consider whether the McHugh appointment is in the best national security interest of our country?

McHugh’s knowledge of the military can best be understood by looking at what has happened at Fort Drum during the last 16 years. New barracks, housing, recreation buildings and runway.

Was the buildup of Fort Drum just McHugh funneling money to his district? Fine, believe that too. But there is a reason the 10th Mountain is the Army’s most deployed division: it has the training facilities – and leadership – that ensure its soldiers can handle any mission.

With McHugh’s input, the base has become one-stop shopping for every branch of the service: The Air Force uses its bombing range. And over the years Marines have trained tank-riding National Guardsmen there and the Navy has showed up to train its people on handling ordnance.

McHugh has also been on the forefront of directing the Army to better serve its soldiers suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. His vision is the reason the Fort Drum Regional Health Planning Organization exists today.

You say you would prefer talking about who will be the next congressman? Again, fine. But I am more interested in whether McHugh will ensure the Army is always ready to fight the next war, while ensuring there is never another scandal at Walter Reed hospital or Abu Ghraib prison.

To parse the McHugh appointment into simple political mathematics – which is the most simple of mental acts – suggests that the heavy lifting – and death -- going on in Iraq and Afghanistan today had no role in what President Obama did Tuesday. And that would mean McHugh was a party to such callousness.

This wasn’t about callousness. This was about a track record of success that can be thrown at a growing crisis regarding Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea and countless thugs plotting in caves around the world.

This is about John McHugh disappearing into the maw to ensure our nation and its military are well served.

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