Baldwinsville Neighbors

Here it is June already, and time for our annual worst tv commercial survey. There are so many to choose from, but mostly the commercials are better fare than the programming. Here's my choice.

Around central new york, the hands-down most obnoxious commercial is anything from Billy HUGE, so we will disqualify him from the start. For my nomination, there is a testimonial for a local comical law firm called A&C (for ambulance chasers?) with a young girl who admits that she was standing in the back of a moving pickup truck, somehow fell out and broke her collarbone, and the boys at A&C got her the huge $$$ she so deserved. Picture that. If she was stupid enough to ride standing in the back of a pickup, a large sum of money is NOT what she deserved. I once saw a young girl in ICU who did the same thing, only she landed on her head. I'm sure she would have settled for a broken collarbone if she could have walked out of the hospital. Of course, if she had survived, she probably would have gone for a large cash settlement too. The laws do not make allowances for foolishness.

The latest word from Washington on the illegal immigrant problem is that we are going to build a 300 mile fence on the 3000 mile Mexican border to keep "those people" where they belong. The same Washington group that has set our country back about 100 years so far, and is headed for the Dark Ages. One would think a Texas rancher would know those fence numbers won't work. And of course such a fence built by the fed will cost about $10 million a mile. But no doubt our old friend Halliburton has a fence-constructing branch in Texas, and, oh yes, well they do employ illegal aliens, but...
I read one quote that this fence is different from the infamous Berlin Wall, as that one was built to keep people IN, and this will be to keep people OUT! Try and explain that to a Mexican: "You understand, Juan, this fence is just to keep you out of the US, not to keep you in Mexico? Si, senor. I will work very hard for you, you see."
I was in Europe fighting the Cold War, and the Germans certainly didn't understand about their wall. And of course now our neighbors to the north, Canada, will want a fence too. Where will that end?
My solution to the immigrant problem is to let them come in. Just require them to serve 2 or 3 years in the US Army before becoming US citizens. That would give them a job to support their families, allow them time to learn to speak our language, and give us a fresh supply of fighting men for our empire building programs. And any army recruiter could tell them about learning a trade and getting a college education and seeing the world. Maybe we could follow the popular trend today, "Outsourcing", and build an all-immigrant army, ready to invade anyplace, anytime. Maybe call it a UN Peacekeeping force. I mean, there is Iran, and Libya, and what about Venezuela? And of course North Korea. We will need the manpower to... Oh, sorry, no oil in North Korea. And then there are many countries in Africa we need to tend. Maybe a fence on all our borders? I am very tired.

Back in March, I took a few pictures of a gray fox in our back yard, near Syracuse, NY, and posted them up on flickr. Now I hear from a college professor in Oklahoma who is writing a book on foxes and wants to feature one of my photos. So now I will be published. Here is what it looks like, in case you see the book some day.

wandering the tug

This is closer to home, but I wander here a lot too. Byrne Dairy plans to build a super gas/dairy/cigarette/beer emporium in our rural residential neighborhood, as a "neighborhood convenience', though the neighbors all oppose it. This was published in the Syracuse papers:

Mightyfine

The exciting news that our far-seeing Lysander Town Planners have rewarded our residential neighborhood with a big shiny new “neighborhood convenience” store has been somewhat clouded by the recent rash of armed robberies of these stores in the Syracuse area. Two in one day. It seems these stores are a “convenience” in more ways than one.

Neighbors in this quiet residential area can hardly wait until the new Byrne Dairy Store opens just down the road. I guess we just have to start locking our doors and keeping the shotgun handy. I would suggest that our town planners plan on doing the same.

What I fail to understand in this deal is that when developers plan stores, malls, or gas stations in other rural areas, such as route 31 in Clay, planners can and do require them to include wider roads, curbing, turn lanes, crosswalks, lowered speed limits, and even traffic signals as part of the construction. On route 370 in Lysander, nothing. What are they thinking? What is wrong with anticipating problems and preventing them? Isn't that what planning is all about?

Anyway, welcome, Byrne Dairy, to the neighborhood. We probably will not be regular customers, but we will wave as we sit in traffic outside your store, waiting to get to route 370.

John Northrup