dougabaird@earthlink.net

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Cornithaca County is so corrupt . . .” 2

There are no real public meetings in Tompkins County – no meaningful public participation in the decision making process. In the rare instances where questions from the public are allowed – they are deflected with irrelevant, partial or unresponsive answers.

There is never any discussion or deliberation – the voting follows without a minute’s pause – exactly as planned – for the benefit of the county’s rich and powerful interests.

They’re not even called “meetings” they’re called “hearings” – it’s an event where members of the public can sign in, and talk for 2-minutes [timed] – to a group of authorities who have already made up their minds and are merely waiting for you to stop talking. People who don’t attend are labeled as “not wishing to participate.”

It’s the kind of government that’s sweeping the country — and sweeping away anything that stands in its path.

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Sweat Equity” Bumper sticker

I thought of a number of things to say; but I don’t think I could make the point any clearer.

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Evil Recycles” Logos

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – not exactly the place you would expect to find Evil – but then, while waste breaks the conservation circle; evil is always coming back around – evil is composed of 100% post evil actions; but also 100% post good intentions – and every empty container for good can be filled with evil for reuse.

Evil is everywhere — even the recycle bins.

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – New Disorders

New Disorders

Due to the upswing in the psychiatric healthcare market; a number of new disorders have been identified:

Bi-telemarketer: a “boiler room” disorder characterized by periods of making annoying telephone calls, and periods of killing co-workers.

Bi-furcated: a complex and heretofore unrecognized disorder researchers describe as “six of one, half a dozen of the other.”

Bi-Postal: in this “mood swing on steroids,” the victim’s behavior alternates between killing fellow workers, and killing customers.

Bi-bye: a Criminal Justice disorder in which the negative outlook on life created by incarceration causes felons to murder when paroled.

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Seek and you will find – You will find inevitably what you are looking for if you go about it in the right way. Politicians know the truth of this – You will always find enough work to mandate a new bureaucracy; even if you have to create it.

I had a number of learning disabilities in school; but I didn’t know it — my papers would come back with “careless” in big letters. I thought they were just problems to overcome and move forward. It was no big deal. Many problems in life are just part of the fine print.

Not everything comes out of the same box. Not everything comes out of a box. Not everything.

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Fuel efficient vehicles” Bumper sticker

Being owed the right to do bad has always been one of the strangest aspects of entitlement. These days it’s gone mainstream.

Liberals embracing profiling and discrimination have become everything they once claimed to despise. The “60’s child” was about loving and giving; today it’s all about hating and taking.

Our leaders have become the very beast that they claimed to be protecting us from . . . and it’s hungry.

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Everything is gray” Bumper sticker

How do you take it? Some people will associate with “gray areas” – in which it is difficult to judge what is right and what is wrong.

[Ironically; these are same people who embrace divisive and incisive solutions – clear cut solutions that can cut principles in half, and denude the human landscape of centuries of societal growth.]

Or maybe it’s the gray steps of a treadmill – the gray corridors of our Kafkaesque-Soviet bureaucracy – the gray of hopelessness that crowds our streets — because many people are preparing for a winter that will outlast all preparations – “Not with a bang but a whimper.”

Maybe it’s the gray of a fog: that hides an unimaginable future. Maybe.

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Everything’s transparent on the surface” Bumper sticker

Tompkins County’s pretense of transparent government is as thin as the smile on a billboard. Its inner workings are as opaque to citizen oversight; as its intransigent decision making is to citizen opinion.

Impassive faces and utterances of sound Doctrine echo the fears of the oppressed – while downcast eyes and conformity are the price of economic survival.

If you think this is melodramatic: then why are people scared to speak out?

“Tompkins County and Tammany Hall” – Zone Alone

ZONE ALONE

03/18/2015 – Local Law Amended

APPENDIX II: ADULT ENTERTAINMENT ORDINANCE

1) INTENT

“It is the intent of this local law to regulate sexually-oriented businesses, to promote the health, safety, morals and general welfare of the citizens of the Town of Lansing and to establish reasonable and uniform regulations to monitor the location and concentration of sexually oriented businesses within the town of Lansing.”

“A sexually oriented business, as defined herein, may be operated only within a rural agricultural district in the TOWN OF LANSING”

Adult arcades, Adult bookstores/Adult video stores; including Instruments, devices or paraphernalia which are designed for use in connection with “specified sexual activities” – Adult nightclubs and bars, Adult theaters, Massage parlors, Escort agencies, and Sexual encounter centers.

Instead of placing this Adult Entertainment in a well-trafficked and lit commercial district; this “reasonable” law restricts all sexually-oriented businesses to an area where the families are poorer and more isolated, there is little traffic, no street lights, and no deputy’s patrols — the perfect hunting ground for the kind of sexual predators these unmonitored and out of sight businesses would draw.

Why? Because, I was told by the Town Supervisor: “People in the other parts of town would get upset if it was allowed near where they lived or could be seen.” No reasons for how this decision promotes “the health, safety, morals and general welfare” of rural families have ever been given.

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Tompkins County’s attack on the rural community goes far beyond a passive and stony gaze in the face of poverty and need – Ithaca’s expanding resettlement government uses a high maintenance, urban sprawl bedroom community policy to increase taxes beyond what the original residents can afford; while choking off services and bombarding the stubborn with iniquitous laws to speed up their “constructive eviction.”

“All Roads Lead to Cornithaca” – “Hard-wired for Hate” Bumper sticker

Love is for everyone — so it’s a good thing for today’s bigots that hate is all around. Not a straight forward in-your-face hate; but a mealy-mouthed, pussyfooting hate – the kind of hate that whispers in your ear; what you deserve, what you are owed. A hate that can be used. A hate that can be targeted – against this one, and that one. The kind of hate that gives up all for its desires. A hate held too close and secret to think about.

And when you find [as is always true in these tales] that you didn’t get what you thought you had bargained for; it’s too late — Your hate can’t touch them; for you have given them all power — the power to teach your children . . . to hate you.

Then you wake from this dream: to a world of love and compassion. [That’s my dream.]