Emmett J. Hoops· Minimum wage laws rigidify urban poverty. Picture this: You get $8.50/hr. in a town where you can buy a house for $60,000. You’re middle class, almost. You get $8.50/hr in Brooklyn, where the house next door just sold for $2,000,000 and your rent is going up to $2,000 a month. You’re homeless….
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Talk about a bunch of doggerel: six hundred billion dollars for “defense.” They used to call it the War Department, before 1945; unless there was a war, they didn’t really have all that much to do. But defense? Ah. Everyone’s against war, but nobody can be against defense, or you’re anti-American. Well, the Senate just passed a…
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Pope Francis isn’t a bad fellow at all. I know that today we’re expected to dissect every public figure to find out what isn’t all-good (such as today, the day after Nelson Mandela died, and the first voices reminding the world of Mandela’s cooperation with exploitative capitalists) but I still think this Frankie is okay….
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I am not a big fan of television. I’m not really what one might call a fan of motion pictures, except for the ones that have really had something to say. Das Leben der Anderen (The lives of others) is one that comes to mind. It has what is, for me, the tenderest and most…
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Pine beetles have been destroying the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Of course, they didn’t just recently develop an appetite for pines: they are called pine beetles, after all. Unfortunately, our very love of trees is leading to their destruction. Fire is a natural friend of the forest — and it’s hard for us to imagine…
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Happy Thanksgiving. If you’re a cop, work in an electric power plant, run a radio station, drive a snowplow, work in a hospital, or do any other of the many, many jobs that require you to ignore the ups and downs of the calendar, take heart. Lots of folks will join you, working in WalMart,…
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It has long been my passion to listen to recorded music, especially that recorded between 1900 and 1941. Damn, but there were some good tunes penned then! It seems like everybody acknowledges this, too. Many an aging singer of the present day has contributed their interpretations of songs such as Over the Rainbow, Night and…
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September 14, 2013 Raymond F. Hessinger, Director, Freight & Passenger Rail Bureau, NYS Department of Transportation, 50 Wolf Road, POD 54, Albany, NY 12232. Dear Sir: I strongly support the maintenance of the rail system in the Lake Placid – Remsen travel corridor. The sudden and aggressive nature of the rails-to-trails folks has all the hallmarks of a…
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Government: I believe that government of and by the people is not necessarily government for the people. We don’t usually know much at all about the representatives we choose, and we don’t understand most of the issues they vote on. The language of bills is written by people trained in law; it is not a language most Americans…
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Fran Frey sang 26 sides for George Olsen’s band in the 1920s and early 30s. I got this obit from Ancestry.com; registration is required, so I signed in and downloaded this clip from the Los Angeles Times of December 8, 1962. Note: Fran’s is the second obit of the two.