Citizens Watch
My commentary to the Editors of the Press & Sun-Bulletin:
After 40 years away from Northern Tioga County and the Southern Tier (of NY), I am noting how much this area suffers from defunding of police forces here. I recall when there was village police in Newark Valley and a NY State Troopers barracks in Berkshire. No more for either of them. Where is the closest troopers barracks to Northern Tioga County? I don’t even know. Oh, that’s right, don’t find out from the newspaper, just do a dumb thing called “Google it.” Or use your thumb on Facebook. As a member of my own “Citizens Watch,” I wish to make a complaint about how Facebook and social media, Google, and condensing of local investigative reporting and information in news PRINT has destroyed America. With such ideas for “Citizens Watch,” I can also provide evidence which supports what I say.
But without proper policing of the roads here, people go all kinds of speeds and tailgate. They think they can use the shoulder of the roads for speeding (as I have observed) so much that four pedestrians in Northern Tioga have died, just over the past year or so.
Tailgating on NY State Route 38-B is the worst. Going up and down hills and with signs about deer crossings, it is a very dangerous thing for those who want to BREAK THE LAW and speed to do just what they want to do. The only winter accidents I have seen with cars in the ditch were on Route 38-B. They go so damn fast, they sometimes pass on the shoulder of the road. They think, going up a hill, “slower vehicles i right lane” means all those going the speed limit, move aside so the jerks speeding at speed probably approaching 70 MPH or so can plow through – and kill someone. Yes, and one pedestrian has been killed on
route 38-B.
Then, in one area of 38-B in Broome County, there is a hill where they put dotted lines going down the hill. WHAT? So someone who wants to break going down the hill, to maintain the speed limit, has to put up with jerks who pass going down the hill. Maintain the speed limit and these jerks are allowed to pass going down the hill at 70 MPH. Who the hell in the DOT put that damn dotted line there? So, if we simply let it go down the hill and gain a fast momentum, it makes the illegal driver keep having to speed up to pass. Makes so much sense.
Then there is the thought that we should get on the shoulder should there be a tail-gating ass behind us. No. There are so many of them, I would have to travel on the shoulder of the road and give in to so many jerks who are doing this. I refuse to give in and drive on the shoulder, so someone can speed. Thus, the idea of “Citizens Watch.”
There is more. Who in Broome County came up with the idea of 30 MPH in an area heading down to Oakdale Road (on a hill) where the population is less dense than where I live on a 55 MPH state route south of Newark Valley? The area where I live is almost as densely populated as a long stretch of NY State 79 heading west into Ithaca where the speed limits are 40 to 45 MPH. But drivers in front of my home are going such a fast clip that when we pull out of our driveway, we don’t see a vehicle around the bend down the road from us and those jerks are going so fast, they come upon us and then tailgate when we are going the speed limit.
So, “Citizens Watch” and I am likely to be hated. You know what. I don’t give a damn. Because I speak for community, not self and “me, me, me.” I speak for being humane to one another and considering the CONSEQUENCES of behavior. Now there is something which seems weird to many. CONSEQUENCES? As a college professor at the Associates degree level, we often gave students some action and asked them to do library, DATABASES, and INTERNET research (not just the stupid Google alone) to determine cause, effect, consequences. Seems many people ;in the younger generations here have missed to boat in something Thomas J. Watson called, THINK – and THINK about the cause, effect, and consequences. If you teach the kids this, they WILL learn it.
I have more solutions to this problem than just Citizens Watch. But no one wants to hear them, do they? After all, “don’t talk to me about politics.” OH? Politics? Solutions? Politics is MEANT to DISCUSS, not ARGUE solutions and figure out cause, effect, and consequences.
Besides Citizens Watch:
1. Bring back more police protection on the roads. If oncoming traffic thinks it is so BRIGHT to flash lights as a warning to the speeders, then use helicopters AND SPEND THE MONEY ON THEM because it is far more justified than the stupid 60-year war on drugs which has yielded nothing (and rehab costs the government far less than a war on drugs, especially when considering marijuana is non-addictive! THINK about that before you shoot holes in what I say).
2. Bring back more public summer school for students to learn some of the non-academic things in life. Not only swimming and recreation, but also STUDENT DRIVER EDUCATION & SAFETY CLASSES. I recall such classes. I recall seeing the consequences of bad actions on the videos shown in the classes. Really might make our stomach turn, but boy did it teach something about consequences – such as the truck drive who was not able to maneuver a road, ended up in an accident in which the big huge pipes in his load, came crashing into the cab of the truck and squashed the man against the steering wheel. A very gruesome sight to see, but sure did teach something. And maybe while we are at it, teach hunting safety with guns and bows and arrows. We get the vehicular license for automobiles which recently killed four pedestrians here, how about teaching safety about guns and rifles? Teaching that they could be used to hunt, but not on people. It costs, right? Well how much has the money for public schools, like police, been cut in this nation? It is about time for us to take from the military-industrial complex and give to our kids, for the sake of future communities.
3. Officials in government use a little common sense regarding the roads and speed limits. Why is there 30 MPH in such a low density population, but in a higher density population, people can go 70 MPH and never get caught BREAKING THE LAW? Why is there no signal light and only a flashing light at the corner of NY-26 and NY-38B? Why is it the same at the corner of NY-38 and NY-79? STUPIDITY and no one does anything about it. Then there is the corner of NY-38 and NY-38B – NO LIGHT AT ALL. Two times, I have come close to getting struck there by those running the STOP sign. TWO TIMES – not only are people going to damn fast and have never learned the consequences of their actions, but no one seems to realize, as we learned in STUDENT DRIVER EDUCATION, that one comes to a COMPLETE STOP at a stop sign and TAKES THE TIME TO LOOK CAREFULLY IN BOTH DIRECTIONS. With all the stupidity out there, all the more reason to put a signal light at NY-38 and NY-38B.
Perhaps this all explains why there is so much pessimism here in the valley of Northern Tioga County? And with the downgrading of business in this valley, we are FORCED to drive over that NY-38B hill and face the damn tailgaters, because so little can be found here in this area anymore, unlike more than 40 years ago. And who is doing something about this for Northern Tioga County? The Central Southern Tier Foundation? Who? Who is helping to develop this area so it can become more self-sufficient and people don’t have to climb that hill into the next county? Had Amazon built a warehouse on the site of the old factory here in this village, would it have helped? Maybe some. But alas, Amazon chose elsewhere.
I am not a ranter. I am not a bloviator. I am a responsible member of the community who believes in humanity and coming together as community and concerned citizens. We need citizen concern about the things I discuss (plus more). So hate me as a ranter and a bloviator. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. Gee! So many are acting like Scarlett O’Hara!
Tioga Herald 
Fascist Tyranny in America
As a lifetime member of NEA/AFT/UFF, I share this information with you.
We have been told that there is an organization with a great name distributing anti-union, anti-collective bargaining leaflets to union members in Florida. The group calls itself the Freedom Foundation.
Now, let’s get this straight. There is nothing wrong with any group distributing information. Here are two things about this group. (1) Freedom Foundation sounds great. A great name. Everyone wants freedom. (2) the group refuses to reveal its donors.
In other words. A negative group of cowards. Want to remain hidden while trashing unions.
They apparently may be preying in states like Florida which is a “right to work” state. But they are a nationwide group.
All the years I was in Florida, there was a push to maintain “right to work” laws. What it meant was this. Right to work actually means “right to work” as long as you have never belonged to a union. They are scared cowards. There were a number of us who were never hired at St. Petersburg Junior College for full time positions, due to a coward of a president at that college who checked backgrounds of everyone who applied there and if he discovered you once belonged to a union, he refused to hire full time. I was one of them. I had worked in the public schools in New York and was a member of NYEA/NEA here in New York.
What this SOB of a college president did was force me to pick up my family and move, selling a house which, had I been able to remain, I would have paid off in 2018. Instead, I still had a mortgage and have one here in New York. Due to a bastard at St. Petersburg Junior College.
These people are running scared. I did have a wonderful job at Palm Beach Community College, working both full time and night time. St. Petersburg Junior College and I was only able to work part time. But, I worked with some wonderful faculty in Palm Beach as we increased our union membership from 40% to 80%, doubling our membership. I give myself a pat on the back, along with the others there who accomplished this, as a team. In other areas of Florida, colleges have brought in unions, one after the other. DeSantis and company is running scared at this. In fact. I am happy to report that just two years ago, St. Petersburg College (once St. Petersburg Junior College) has now unionized. DeSantis and others are livid. So they are pulling out all the stops for “union busting.” It is more than just anti-gay, anti-black, anti-Jewish, but also anti-union. Sorry to say this, but DeSantis is one hell of a bastard.
The whole idea of these Republicans, since supply-side economics was pushed, is to remove balance in society. Unions provide balance, as long as they don’t push the envelope too far and make it unbalanced in favor of unions. Some might argue that was the problem in the auto industry with the UAW. Perhaps. Perhaps not. But Reagan’s destruction of AT&T was truly about union busting under the guise of “deregulation.” Deregulation is another form of dis-rupting economic balance, as well as supply side economics which is destructive to the demand side of the market. Deregulation causes monopolies and centralized control similar to the centralized commune system in the former Soviet Union.
When the 1% of stockholders in the regulated company for which I worked, were allowed to have “secret” stockholder meetings so as to destroy the company and make it what was good for the wealthiest – with a hatred of Franklin D. Roosevelt who put in place the BALANCES, thousands of us needlessly lost jobs at a corporation which was doing so well, it was considered a “cash cow.” Ripe for the pickings of greedy criminals with the most money. The IBEW at that company was also destroyed in the process, although I was not a member of the IBEW.
Now these Republicans are working to destroy balance in organizations with unions. This is added to the attempts to destroy the very checks and balances built into our democratic form of government, established by our Founding Fathers.
So, I ask everyone to watch out for a bunch of greedy liars and the “Freedom [NOT] Foundation. For they are perverted cowards who hide their money. They would be the first ones to not want money paid to unions hidden. They think they are above the law. This group of traitors to democracy and balance need to be stopped. A vote for a Republican is a vote for fascist tyranny, not “politics.”
Category:
Commentary, Economics, Regulated Capitalism, Commerce, Education, fascism
Tagged with: