my sometimes-skeptical social commentary

Archive for the ‘news’ Category

Gary Coleman has died at age 42. He was just a little bit older than me, and I grew up watching him grow up on TV. He wasn’t a great actor, and he had a lot of personal problems, from what I’ve read in the news and seen on the web, he seemed like he was always trying to do better.

I read the news today, oh boy…

When I heard that Floyd Landis‘s 2006 Tour de France win was negated because of doping, I was incredulous.  The guy was raised Mennonite, which I thought meant he would have retained the values of that church and be above doping. Also, the details didn’t sound right (the test results showed he had elevated levels of testosterone, which would be something a doper would use during training, not necessarily during the middle of a multi-day race). And, in the long run, Landis fought the decision in court, so I my incredulity lasted. Even though he had lost in court, I still had some hope there was a mistake in the test.

Until I read in the news that he admitted doping. What a letdown.

Landis says that Lance Armstrong was doping, too, which is an allegation that has been around ever since Armstrong won the first of his 7 Tour de France victories, but which has never been proven. I’ll be really let down if someday Armstrong admits doping, or his old blood and urine samples are somehow shown to contain performance-enhancing drugs.

Feeling let down by a star in one of my favorite sports reminds me of other letdowns by public figures. Some are athletes (Barry Bonds, for example), some are politicians (former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, for example).

Eliot Spitzer was New York’s Attorney General before he was elected governor, and he showed a lot of promise as a governor. Here’s what a New York Times editorial says about him in 2006:

If voters elect Mr. Spitzer with the kind of mandate the polls are predicting, he will have the political influence to press for priorities he has been stressing throughout the campaign — improving access to health care, reforming Medicaid and expanding education financing. He must offer hope for more job creation upstate and spur development at ground zero and other sites in the city. He should make sure that the court system is finally revamped and consolidated, if necessary through a constitutional amendment.

After Spitzer resigned office when his affairs with prostitutes was revealed, we were stuck with (then-lieutenant governor) David Paterson, who immediately admitted having used drugs and cheated on his wife. And we’re left with New York’s legislature still un-reformed, still dysfunctional, and still unresponsive to the needs of their constituents. What a letdown.

Public letdowns are one thing, personal letdowns are another. I’ve been let down by friends and loved ones (but this is not a post about that–I’m not pointing anyone in particular out). And I’ve let people down, too. The scale of the disappointment a person feels is not diminished by the private nature of it. When I promised the boys I would take them fishing, and then found that I couldn’t, I disappointed them (even though I had no choice but to cancel those plans). It’s a terrible feeling. And it makes me want to never again make a promise that there’s a chance I can’t keep.

I’ve announced on my facebook page that I’m leaving facebook’s privacy problems behind. Rather than re-write the arguments that persuaded me, I’ll just link to them in this post. (Each link opens in a new window.)

• first, here’s a bunch of news articles related to the problems people are having with facebook: Google News Search
• Electronic Frontier Foundation: Six Things You Need to Know About Facebook Connections
• New York Times: Facebook Glitch Brings New Privacy Worries
• C|Net News: Five hidden dangers of Facebook

Leaving facebook means that I have to figure out how to communicate with the people I’m connected to there who don’t have my phone number, email address, this web site address, and whose contact info I might not have. I’m letting my facebook “friends” know in advance, so hopefully I can make the transition without losing those connections. If you don’t think I have your contact info already, would you send me an email? thomas@woodswebdesign.com

I’ve considered that there are “real life” friends of mine who aren’t even using facebook, and I’ve managed to stay connected to them, using the old-fashioned methods like phone calls, and going to see them in person. I know that’s not possible for everyone on my facebook friends list, but facebook has been bugging me for a while, and it’s time to make the break.

Today’s Buffalo News has an editorial encouraging readers to make a comment on the latest stage of the planning process of a new Peace Bridge. I’m commenting on the Peace Bridge web site, but I’m also encouraging people to consider the following.

I’m still waiting for someone to explain why Buffalo would want a new Peace Bridge. The reasons that I’ve heard so far are unconvincing. Here are a few:

1. More traffic. Buffalo will benefit from having more trucks drive through it.
2. More tourists. Buffalo needs another architectural feature to draw people to its West Side.
3. More jobs. Buffalo needs the jobs that would be created for construction workers.

Let’s start with the last one, jobs. Who gets these jobs, residents of Buffalo? I don’t think so. Bridge construction is a specialized field, so the men and women working on a new bridge won’t be from Buffalo. And won’t half of the workers be Canadians?

Next up, tourists. From what I’ve seen of the plans, a new bridge will only be able to be seen from the highway–the already chopped up Front Park will lose even more of its space. There won’t be any place to park near it and take photos. Also, let’s say that there were a nice place to stand and take photos of the bridge. Can anyone point out how that would be a positive impact, economically? Are they seriously expecting a huge increase in postcard sales?

Lastly, more traffic? Seriously, who thinks that would be a good idea? More trucks means more pollution. More asthma for the residents of that neighborhood. More accidents. More noise. Fewer homes. I’ve heard people say that those trucks will stop and buy stuff as they pass through Buffalo. How can people really think that? A trucker who just spent a couple hours waiting to get through customs is not going to find the nearest coffee shop and take a break. Not going to gas up, either. Show me the statistics of how many truckers are currently stopping for gas or coffee once they cross the Peace Bridge.

So, WHY is a new Peace Bridge needed?

The mid-Atlantic is getting a lot of snow, and we want it. They are not capable of handling snow like we are, they don’t want it, they can’t do anything with it, and it’s way more dangerous to people in the Washington DC-area who have no clue how to drive on snowy roads than it is to people here in WNY who have 8 months of the year to practice our snowy-road driving.

Who among us Western New Yorkers doesn’t recall with fondness when we got 6 feet of snow in only 3 days? And wasn’t the October Storm, for all its semi-benign destruction of power lines and cable TV wires, the most calm and relaxing week-long natural disaster in history?

So, it seems odd to those of us who lived through those snowstorms to have to sit back and watch the weather radar, with that distinct line of clouds that just sits right below our border with Pennsylvania. And the constant updates on facebook from our friends in Virginia, the Washington-DC area, and eastern PA–bragging to us about how much snow they’re getting, and how much more is forecast to fall before the storm is over.

And here we are, with some snow on the ground, but without full coverage. Because some of our snow has melted or blown off our lawns, we’re literally green with envy.