Required Reading

It's not short, and it's not sweet, but it is unbelievably important. If you can't read it here, buy the magazine.

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Sequestration

Sequestration, when it doesn't have to do with juries or chemistry, is defined by Webster's as "the taking and holding of property pending resolution of a legal dispute." I'm not entirely sure how that applies to our current situation, except in the intimation of confiscation. I happen to be on the boards of two organizations that will be grossly and immediately affected by sequestration, no matter how many Tea Partiers get on TV to say that it's "simply slowing future growth" or whatever their latest sound bite might be. In the case of TC Action, we could lost 30 percent of Head Start and 50 percent of Community Block Grants. That seems like a lot to me. In the case of BOCES, here's what I wrote our Congressman:

Dear Congressman Reed: The sequestration that is about to hit March 1 will have a real and immediate impact on BOCES through funding cuts to IDEA, Rural Education, Special Ed Grants to States, School Improvement State Grants, CTE State Grants, and Adult Basic and Literacy Education Grants. Please support the negotiation of a thoughtful compromise that does less to damage our children's education.

His office wrote back:

I am a strong supporter of cutting excessive government spending, but I am concerned about the indiscriminate nature of these particular spending cuts. The House has voted twice to realign these cuts and protect vital government programs whose funding is endangered as a result of Sequestration, but neither of those plans were acted upon by the Senate. Regarding cuts to life-saving medical research and payments to Medicare providers, Specific sequestration spending cut decisions are made by the President. Until our government has found a solution to the threat of Sequestration, I will remain attentive to this issue.

I like the capitalization of Sequestration, which makes it far more menacing. And I guess it's all the fault of the Senate and the President. I should have known.

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TRS Hits the Iceberg

Here, in a nutshell, is why NYS schools are in so much trouble. Colleges, too. It's the elephant in the room at all budget meetings.

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Dumb Like Mom and Dad

Honestly, I have always thought of the Texas GOP as the dregs of American society (and madly applauded any move on their part to secede from the Union), but Krugman points out that their ignorance-based ravings are now endorsed by the leadership in DC.

The Texas GOP, as WaPo blogger Valerie Strauss points out, opposes early childhood education, sex education, and multicultural education, but the part Krugman is pointing to is their dislike of "Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority." The Party has tried to backtrack from this position after being ridiculed, most notably by Stephen Colbert, but that's not even the dumbest part of their education platform.

As Colbert would say, "The minds of our young people are being poisoned by knowledge..."

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Inviting the Viper

One can only hope that they eject Ted Nugent at the door. It's a sign of the times that someone thinks this is a good idea.

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R.I.P.

For better or worse, he was my mayor. I lived in NYC for 13 years, and he was mayor for 12 of them. I still remember "Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo," a slogan that caused me to oppose Mario when he first ran for governor (I later repented—Mario was better than a lot of folks, including his own offspring). And I doubt there was anyone in NYC at that time who didn't get a handshake and a "How'm I doing?" on the way to the subway. You were doing okay, Ed. Not great, not entirely ethical, but not bad, considering where we've been since then.

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A New Preserve, Around the Corner

DZ (GRAVID) AT PARADISE, 1991

When I first bought the blue house in 1991, Dave Takacs informed me that I was living right around the corner from his favorite swimming hole in the county, a place called Paradise. Over the years, that piece of land off Irish Settlement became a place to walk the dogs, to bring the baby in a backpack, and to brave the ice cold water on hot summer days. The Baldwins, who owned most of the land, had cut a deal with the Finger Lakes Land Trust the year I moved here that kept the land wild yet allowed public access, at least for those of us in the know. Someone, perhaps Mr. Baldwin, mowed random paths that were lovely for dog walking.

Then, a few years back, Roy Park's daughter acquired the parcel and sold it to the land trust. Suddenly, more people knew about the land, a parking area sprang up, and a more formal trail was built. This tells more about the new Roy H. Park Preserve, including the history of the pine trees, which were apparently part of a sixth-grade project back in 1980. The last time we walked there, around Thanksgiving, there was a sign discouraging us from walking down to the swimming hole, which apparently is not part of the preserve itself.

Today, the land trust is working on a handicapped-accessible boardwalk just north of Paradise, which will allow people to view the wetlands close up in addition to walking the simple field loop. The good news is that the land will be preserved in all its glory. The bad news is that it's now a bona fide destination and not a neighborhood gem.

WALKING IN THE PRESERVE, 2012

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