"Once Again Screwed"

Last year's projects were the broadband tower and the geothermal heating/cooling system. Both took longer than expected and required a good deal of griping and fussing from our end, mostly by Paul. Now he reports that the reason the geothermal folks haven't responded to his recent calls is that the company, Gleason, has gone belly up. It is not unexpected; they were (1) horribly overextended; (2) staffed by a bunch of people who, while very nice, seemed not to know what they were doing; and (3) beset by difficulties of one sort or another due to points 1 and 2.

Meanwhile, I did not get Paul's message—"once again screwed"—via email, because our Internet went down at about 10:30, causing me to miss several frantic messages from clients involving an 11:00 conference call. I was working on a project that is entirely online, so I took the opportunity to run some errands, missing the call entirely. When I got back at noon, the Internet was back. So at least Clarity Connect is not on my shit list today. Much.

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Bambi, Beware

The DEC may be stalling on fracking regs, but it's still eagerly coming up with new ways to make walking in the woods inhospitable for a good part of the year. Not only did they extend the bowhunting season, starting it October 1, but they also lowered the bowhunting age to 12 and declared that 14 and 15 year olds can head out with guns over Columbus Day weekend, one hopes without shooting Uncle Bob as he lolls in his tree stand with his bow.

But it gets better. Now a large part of Tompkins County, being inundated with dangerous deer, has been designated a "deer management focus area," which turns out to mean that any hunter who registers (and it's very easy to do) can take two antlerless deer PER DAY during the hunting season and again during a special season in January.

Paul says that nobody asked any of the hunters he knows, all of whom are appalled. He also suggests that disapproving of fracking is meaningless if the natural world you're trying to protect is under siege anyway.

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And Right Next Door

We are hosting a fundraiser for the candidate in the next district over.

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Nate in The Nation

Our own 28-year-old Congressional candidate, Nate Shinagawa, receives mention as one of ten key races in this article in The Nation.

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Community Needs Assessment: Health

One nice thing about being on the board of TCA is the access to tons of data about the area. Every year they put together a comprehensive community needs assessment that contains charts, graphs, and stats on the county as a whole, particularly with regard to poverty. The figures derive from all kinds of places, from the U.S. Census to TCAD to the Housing Coalition. I'll post a few interesting stats from time to time. Here are today's.

In 2009, the number of uninsured persons in Tompkins County was 9,274, or 10.5 percent of the eligible population. That's a little under the 13 percent statewide or the 12 percent nationwide. (Source: U.S. Census Bureau) Births to teens in 2007 were 45, or about 5 percent of live births. (One of O's classmates just posted her sonogram.) Statewide, the percentage was closer to 7. That same year, only one new mother in the county received no prenatal care, and 3 percent received care only in the third trimester, compared to 5 percent statewide.

In Tompkins County, 8,251 people received Medicaid in 2010—about 81 per 1,000 population, or less than half the percentage statewide. As I've always contended, the county has a higher number of mental health professionals per 1,000 persons than the state as a whole (0.33 compared to 0.32), but our number of physicians and assistants lags behind the state average, at 2.68 per 1,000 compared to 3.99 per 1,000. We're behind in dentists and nurses too, but well ahead in physical, occupational, and especially massage therapists.

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Kooky Gary Johnson

He doesn't go to church. He doesn't like big government. He is pro-choice and favors legalizing marijuana. As a two-term governor of New Mexico, he vetoed 750+ bills that would have increased the size of government. And he's on the ballot in 47 states as the Libertarian Party's candidate for President of the United States.

There's really only been one third-party candidate in recent history who made any difference at all, and that was Ross Perot in 1992. He earned 18.9 percent of the popular vote, and if he took that away almost exclusively from GW Bush, it's possible that he handed things to Clinton. In comparison, in 2000, the race was far closer between Bush and Gore, but Ralph Nader took only 2.74 percent of the popular vote. Since Gore won the popular vote but lost by 5 electoral votes, it's not really possible to make a case that Nader blew it for Gore.

Is Gary Johnson any kind of threat? Not really. I'm betting that more people write in Ron Paul than mark an X for Johnson. And it's really unclear where his constituency lies—with liberals who don't like Obama but love a balanced budget? with conservatives who hate taxes but don't mind abortion? He lost my vote when he said "I have smoked marijuana and I have drank alcohol" on NPR. A would-be president should lead the way grammatically.

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NYS Schools by the Numbers

Here's an interesting map from the watchdog Citizens Budget Commission. See how your district measures up.

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