Vote for Mickey Kearns in the Democratic primary. I can't believe I saw three "Brown for Mayor" signs already posted up in people's lawns on a short drive from Hertel to home. We've got a guy with a Federal case staring down his office - a real case, not some trumped up bullshit allegation with no legal merit - and it's business as usual in Buffalo? The Feds don't get involved unless they know something. Brian Higgins is Brown's political ally. I'm sick of this crap - dump Byron Brown and vote for Kearns if you love your city.

5.4% surtax for those earning $1m or above, ostensibly to help pay for Obamacare.

I support taxing Hollywood limo libs to the absolute hilt, baby, starting with Al Gore and Sean Penn and moving down the line. I can't figure out how CA hasn't managed a wealthy surtax yet - how did CA beat the Feds to the punch again?

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," indeed. At least the Soviet Union managed to dial it back and adhered to the following - "From each according to his ability, to each according to his work."

Sotomayor

I've heard people suggest to me (both personally and via the internet) that Sotomayor is a mainstream judge. Look, anybody that has been overturned 60% of the time by the Supreme Court isn't mainstream. You'll only likely see a higher overturn rate out of the infamous wack job 9th Circuit in San Francisco. She shouldn't be sitting on a court that has overturned her decisions more than half the time, or even 25% of the time. The rest of the discussion is bullshit.

Her humble background doesn't qualify her to be a judge any more than any other American that has managed to crawl from the gutter all the way to the top of the legal profession. Honestly, it's superfluous and not germane to the argument of whether or not she should be on the Supreme Court. She seems to be an exceptional lady but as far as I'm concerned her ghastly reversal rate should disqualify her from sitting on the court; she shouldn't be sitting on the very judicial body that has reversed 60% of her rulings, and that is that - end of story.

Want To Pay Your Neighbor's Mortgage?

The Obama Administration is considering using tax dollars to pay distressed mortgages. I can't imagine this idea will get off the ground. What happens when people on the brink just flat out say, "fuck it - the guy next door is getting his mortgage paid and I'm busting my ass to stay afloat, and for what? Screw this, I'm defaulting." This is the "perverse incentive" the article is referring to. (Good luck creating a framework for this - I can't imagine the 95% of homeowners who are not delinquent, not to mention renters, will enjoy being fiscal prisoners of the 5% delinquent).

I think the far more interesting question to consider is what would happen if this were enacted, as compared to doing nothing. Would the delinquency rate shrink or increase more dramatically with or without mortgage aid? I know where I'd put my money.

Raises for Top NYS Senate Staffers

Holy #*@#. This one makes my blood boil. Rant time. Honestly I can't even believe this - during the past month 11 NYS Senate staffers have been given raises ranging from $10,000 to $32,000 - Not bad work if you can get it, particularly in a state that is absolutely broke. I don't care about the reasons why - this shouldn't have happened.

NYS and its officials are ignorant fools and a laughing stock. Sen. Malcolm Smith claims that these raises were authorized before the power struggle and budget impasse. WHO CARES? They never should have been authorized, particularly when our elected officials have eliminated numerous programs due to dire financial need (and horrifying budgeting for a very long time, but that is another story). These are the very same politicians who have been busy coming up with every single new surcharge and tax they can find to close a budget gap, then they'll turn around and hand a lackey a big, fat $10,000 - $32,000 raise.

ANTOINE THOMPSON AND WILLIAM STACHOWSKI, HEAR ME - I've had it. I suspect after hearing things like this that you've utterly abdicated your responsibility to the taxpayers of your region. You voted for a state budget that you told us was slashed, which is a half-truth - you cut future spending but the budget still increased 9%, which you partially funded with $3.6B in Obama's "stimulus" money meant for economic projects. Yes, that's right - NYS is one of many states that have utterly misappropriated stimulus funds. Your rubber stamp allowed three men in a room to ONCE AGAIN screw taxpayers on both the state and federal level - you merely took the $3.6B and filled the budget gap. No need for hard choices when Uncle Sam can come in and allow you to make the hard choices down the road, right? So, "Senators," what exactly do you do on a daily basis besides think of different ways to screw your constituents and pray daily for a time where they have the means to leave the state?

Antoine Thompson, you are my elected official and what I've heard disgusts me. These activities in the Senate are making me long to live in someone else's district, or even someone else's state. You are, and theoretically will be, a lifetime member of the class that sucks the public teat dry. Only in YOUR universe can people get $10,000 - $32,000 raises, paid for by taxpayers who are losing their jobs ostensibly because people don't want to do business in NYS anymore, due to a punitive and hostile business environment.

Do you laugh at us when you come home to your district? I hope that you didn't forget that you come from one of the poorest places in America. People here are far more horrified with excesses like this, as opposed to your colleagues in the wood-paneled rooms in Albany. Please, for the love of God, justify your elevation to State Senator and actually do something about these problems. Don't go along to get along, like Brian Higgins - I know you're eyeing Louise Slaughter's seat and if you carry this to the federal level our city will further deserve the politicians they elect.

I wrote a letter to Brian Higgins recently, blasting him for voting for the cap and trade legislation. (Ok, I wrote him literally after the vote took place). I basically mocked him - I asked him what he'd do when energy prices rise 90%. I asked him if I could come down and collect a check from his office to offset the price of the energy and his vote. I even suggested he could craft legislation and call it an "energy cost payment differential" - something wonky he'd love - and that he could put his name on the bill and make himself famous.

I wasn't really considering that he'd write me back, but interestingly enough he did. I got a form letter on congressional letterhead thanking me for communicating to him; I would bet that 80% of the letter was written by someone within their caucus, or maybe the Administration, to distribute to congressmen who hear from people who object to the bill. I'm going to test this theory by writing to other NY congressmen to see what I receive.

I'm glad that my congressman actually responded to me - although he's dead wrong and I've got a post brewing that will eviscerate the letter, line by line. I wonder to what degree he's willing to be a rubber stamp - he must covet that seat on the Ways and Means Committee. (This is the committee that is writing legislation as we speak to "surtax" individuals and couples to pay for health care, on top of the expiration of Bush's tax cuts). Read here -

FOR THE RECORD: I wrote to Sen. Boxer of California, Sens. Schumer and Gillibrand, and Congressman Brian Higgins recently. Sen. Boxer responded to me first and I'm not even a constituent. Higgins responded to me much later, and I haven't heard from my own senators at all. I can't wait for the Taste of Buffalo - Sen. Schumer is always there. I'm going to introduce myself and ask him why I haven't heard from him yet (I wrote him after I found out that he was among the porkiest of the pigs w/respect to taxpayer funded travel). Read about that here -

This is a topic I could write a novel about despite the fact that I hardly talk about it... it's personal and something that I keep in the recesses of my mind, only to pull out on days where I feel like I need a little lift. Needless to say, no matter how long this journal entry will be it will end up being incomplete.

I look at work as a series of things you have to go through and put up with in order to realize an end goal 30 years down the road. After working your whole life, accumulating, saving, collaborating with all ranges of people, where do you want to end up? This is a question I've asked myself over and over. I took the places I've been and focused on my favorite, then focused even deeper on the places within my favorite that I felt were the most interesting to me.

I'm going to share with you guys my happy place. When I'm done I want to live in a place where I'm at peace and feel inspiration on a daily basis. (A sad admission within an admission - with the life I lead I find myself rarely at peace, so this is really important to me). I need to be around nature - I need the crashing water with mountains rising from endless blue ocean, wildflowers, cypresses, huge and ancient trees, birds.

I love the convenience of urban life but to be honest I mostly feel unhappy and disconnected. I don't want to be around just any old nature; I need something spectacular, something that when you see it for the first time it takes your breath away.

This is the place where I'd pack my bags tomorrow and leave for if I could - Big Sur, in the heart of the central coast of California. This place brings out the melodrama in me. This place is so important to me that when it's on my mind I talk about God, about absolute childlike wonderment with the world and all within it, about how life can be a natural high and a miracle, about the fact that life is both ecstasy and exile at the same time. Here is where I want to sit on a stone slab and grow old with somebody.









Here's an example of a place I'd never leave. I swear I could live here forever and be at peace.



See? My stone slab.











You can read more about my happy place at the wiki page, which yielded an interesting fact - - this place is so untouched that when my grandmother was born in 1928 there were only two homes in the entire region that had electricity, which was locally generated. The fabled Highway 1 was only completed in 1937; prior to that, Big Sur was virtually inaccessible.

Today I was reading an article discussing an Eminem video and I have to give him credit - he did his city proud. In one of his latest videos he used a handful of decrepit buildings of historical significance to the city as a backdrop, which I thought was a truly beautiful concept. You can read the article and see the video here -

The jewel, of course, is the Michigan Central Station, which is a building that must have been jaw-droppingly beautiful in its day.











This terminal was designed by the same firm that designed Grand Central Station. Looking at this picture reminds me our own park system and how we left a work of art designed by Central Park's own, Fredrick Law Olmstead, to rot and be severed by a highway. They are using BHO's federal "stimulus" money to tear this building down. It made me think about how torn I am regarding these issues, and of course what fate may await our own Central Terminal. I'm not for preservation for its own sake; there has to be a purpose and a predictable stream of income to make these projects viable in the modern age. They have a point when they say that the cost to tear it down is minuscule in comparison to the costs of renovation. In a city with a several hundred million dollar shortfall for funding things like schools, firefighters and police, I'm sorry to say that renovating properties with no future use or those that are prohibitively expensive to renovate will be relegated to our history.

In other words, we're watching these buildings die a slow, irreversible death. We're watching irreplaceable aspects of our history slip through our fingers! I'd love to see a visionary repurpose buildings like this, but the pragmatist in me knows that there is no chance without a sustainable plan and a ton of cash behind it.

So, kudos to Marshall Mathers for having the desire to preserve these buildings, if not materially. Every time I pass by the expansion on the Canisius High School campus it strikes me how in 100 years time our heirs will scold us for watching these monuments erode and leave nothing for them to admire. I'm sure you've heard the phrase "if walls could talk" - the non-pragmatist, batty dreamer in me thinks that these buildings have a soul, and the buildings we're leaving behind lack EVERYTHING that these older buildings simply ooze. If we're going to watch this happen, we should at least do our heirs a favor when we replace these forgotten buildings and build things worthy of admiration in their own right.

Carry on. (Great tune by CSN, by the way).

In my last entry (e:carey) mentioned the thought about not realizing or understanding those things that might make someone feel like the lil' ol' hypothetical me is hard to approach. I can't get my head around that, I've never really considered these things before. I'm painfully shy with ladies and I'm usually prone to scurrying off.

OH SHIT. Sly & Family Stone - Thank You just came on Sirius - fuck my blog. Nite guys!

I must be horny - lately I've been fixated on discussing what my boundaries are in terms of attraction to the opposite sex. The "mistaken lesbian unrequited love" entry that I posted yesterday is one thing, but I think this next tidbit may be controversial. Maybe not so much with the lesbian contingent, but we'll see.

Women with shaved heads. Yes or no? I'm not talking about Bic razor shaved, but your normal clipper style. I say yes!

Yesterday while driving home I saw a girl that completely blew me away but I don't think a single one of my friends would consider dating her. She was wearing a tight, slinky black dress, curvy, in my eyes mega attractive, and the way she walked just oozed sexy confidence. Really pretty smile, black Ray-Bans, and a shaved head. Allow me to be a typical guy and use a crude analogy - for some this is like being presented with a 5-star, world class dessert topped with something funky you haven't tasted before. This is where the world of "to each, his own" really kicks in, but for me this was another Cupid moment. Based on my track record and what I revealed in my last post, any takers on whether or not she's "off the market to me" so to speak? Maybe Cupid hates me? Really though, I was totally struck with how beautiful I thought she was.

Based on a very unscientific survey I think you'll find some of what my guy friends had to say surprising. A co-worker told me that he'd date a girl with a full tattoo sleeve before dating a girl with a shaved head. Hmm. Another spoke about the challenges of bringing home a girl with a different outlook on personal expression to meet grandma, which maybe isn't so surprising. (Yes, some of us are actually honest with mostly decent intentions!).

I say sexy is sexy, and personally I'm not going to be stopped because a girl I thought was an utter knockout has hair a little shorter than mine.

This is more direct and will probably be more controversial, but I suspect that it might start an interesting conversation. Or not. This time I'm not admitting something I don't like about myself but rather something maybe a little more unusual. I bet I'm not alone on this one either.

More than once I've found myself attracted to a girl that I found out later was a lesbian. Actually, this might be my least favorite thing about the pride parade - almost every year I see a fine lady and Cupid plays a cruel and unusual joke on me. I'll see a girl that gets my heart pounding, then a second later she'll be holding hands with another girl, and then a minute later they're kissing. SON OF A! Off the market, move along soldier. I love girls regardless of their own sexuality, apparently!

I have to laugh at myself. I'm sure this has happened to everybody (a lesbian attracted to a straight girl, etc.). I love you girls anyway - ALL of you!

I've kept my blog relatively light-hearted for a while, but today I wanted to share with you guys something that really bugs me about myself. This is about an aspect of my personality that I dislike and would like to work on and change a bit.

I know myself and where I stand with my friends fairly well. I'm secure with myself more or less, although there are things that I wish were different, which is a statement that I think most people would make. I know that amongst my friends I'm broadly well-liked and amongst the more popular ones, even when I've been kind of reclusive. People do like me and I don't know why... but I'm thankful!

There is something about my personality that I hate and I feel like at times it betrays that sentiment from my friends and colleagues. Once in a while a pet peeve of mine will be in front of me, my thought process halts and a swift rush of annoyance hits me, and I'll stop what I'm doing and do whatever I can to stop that pet peeve. I'll even be vicious about it if I feel like someone is being annoying to me or a friend. Then, on occasion, I'll realize after the fact that I should have taken a different approach because my instant reaction to the pet peeve that I just described clouded my judgment, making me take too heavy handed an approach to begin with. Then I'll apologize, because I thought about it for a minute and realized that I was horrified with how I reacted.

I'm betraying myself when I do that. What it comes down to is that I am not giving people the benefit of the doubt at times, and I need to do that more because it is all that I would ask of anyone else to do for me if I were misunderstood or misinterpreted.