Finding Ulysses

This week, Back to Democracy is sponsoring a discussion of the motivation behind political resistance, featuring Mary Loehr from the Ithaca War Tax Resisters and Clare Grady from the St. Patrick’s Day Four. The event will be held at the Trumansburg Fire Hall this Friday, September 29, at 7:00 PM.

The Back to Democracy folks indicate that the discussion will center around questions such as “What gives one the courage to resist? How do we stay active in such disturbing times when it is so easy to become disempowered?”

I think that the contrary questions are really more to the point. Why are so many Americans not resisting?

Yesterday, false moderate Senator John McCain released the text of the legislation he crafted with George W. Bush, and it turns out that in spite of McCain’s promises, the legislation takes away the right of prisoners to appeal for protections from the Geneva Conventions, revokes habeas corpus protections, gives blanket amnesty to war criminals, and legitimizes Bush’s secret system of CIA gulags.

John McCain’s bill amounts to a coup d’etat against the Bill of Rights, folks. So, although some people may criticize me for focusing on the negative, I want to know how so many people can remain inactive.

We haven’t become disempowered - yet. When the disempowerment comes, I fear that Back to Democracy will be right, and it will be an all-too-easy process.

Trying to find Ulysses? Well, one way you might go about that quest is to go look on Google Earth. Oh, if only Ulysses had Google Earth on his boat coming home from Troy, he could have seen he was headed straight for Scylla and Charbydis. On the other hand, he wouldn’t have had his prolonged interlude with Circe…

Well, I’m coming home to Ulysses from Texas today, and damned glad to do it, which is why I’ve even searched for Ulysses and Trumansburg on Google Earth today. I long for home…

…but findinging it fuzzy. In some places, Google Earth can show an astonishing level of focus even on a particular address, so that a person can see if their lawn needs mowing. Not for Trumansburg. In Trumansburg on Google Earth, your entire house might be just a pixel. We just look blobby, at that level of focus.

Zoom out, and you get a different picture.

At the level of Ulysses, the picture looks crisp and clear - although seeing where the boundaries are between Ulysses and the rest of the world is still a little bit tricky.

The town of Ulysses is clear to the world as it saerches in our area. The village of Trumansburg, however, appears only to be mote in the world’s eye.

Is that a crossbow hunter in the Smith Woods?

No, although this picture is from Trumansburg. Well, okay, the picture itself is from Trumansburg, even if the subject of the picture is not set here.

It’s an illustration by Storn Cook, an illustrator who lives here on Main Street, and works creating images for all kinds of clients. I see from his web site that he used to live in Southfield, Michigan, which is where my wife happens to be from, but I swear that Storn and I have no family relation that I know of. There were a lot of cooks in merry old England.

Storn has a gallery of some of his work online, and seems willing to work on commissioned pieces at a pretty reasonable rate, so go check it out.

Storn adds to our already substantial artistic community here, which includes another illustrator, Q. Cassetti, who has recently obtained a portfolio space for herself over at the iSpot. I still adore her blog. In particular, I suggest that you go on over and peek at her work of September 11, entitled: Ongoing Blind Freedom.

I have a request for the year 2010. It looks like, by that time, the Democrats just might be in control of the state legislature, which means that they’ll be able to work on congressional redistricting after the census. So I’m begging, I’m pleading with the New York State Democratic leadership: Please, can you take the town of Ulysses out of congressional district 24?

Right now, 24th district politics is run by the party apparatus in Utica, all the way over in the far corner of the district. Frankly, Utica politics is a dirty mess. We’ve seen that reflected in our congressional election this year, in which the Oneida County Democrats were able to bully their candidate, Mike Arcuri, into the Democratic nomination for Congress before he could be properly scrutinized by the voters.

This summer, we’ve seen that Michael Arcuri is a weak campaigner. Yesterday, we saw that Michael Arcuri is a fool. At a debate that Michael Arcuri agreed to participate in four months ago, and confirmed the specific timing of recently, there was only one candidate there. Republican Ray Meier showed up, but Michael Arcuri never showed up. He sent a message through an aide that he had a “previous commitment”.

Please, I don’t want to be part of the 24th congressional district any more. Ulysses is a strongly progressive, politically active town, and we’re being dragged down by this association with Utica. I’d love to be represented by Maurice Hinchey.

Could we please, with sugar on top, try to arrange that for the 2010 redistricting?

Results are in from yesterday’s primary elections, and the distinctive character of Ulysses Democrats are shown quite clearly in the results. We Ulysses Democrats seem to be a rather progressive and independent bunch. So, even though the contest for the nomination for U.S. Senator between anti-war Democrat Jonathan Tasini and pro-war incumbent Hillary Clinton was not close on a national level, here in Ulysses, Senator Clinton had a more difficult time. She still won, but the results were much more close.

For the entire Town of Ulysses, Jonathan Tasini got 43 percent of the vote, and Hillary Clinton got 56 percent. Statewide, Tasini only got 17 percent of the vote.

Here are the vote tallies by district:

Ulysses District 1 Tasini - 45 Clinton - 66
Ulysses District 2 Tasini - 30 Clinton -41
Ulysses District 3 Tasini - 55 Clinton -62
Ulysses District 4 Tasini - 30 Clinton -40

Thanks to the Big M supermarket here in the village for supporting locally grown foods. I just got an email from Jackie Merwin with the news that, as of this week, you now can get two varieties of apple grown by Black Diamond Farms.

Please reward the Big M for taking this step - by going in a buying some of this good local fruit. It’s a risk for them financially, but we can all help show that it’s a risk with a big payoff. Buying local foods keeps money in the local economy, and that ought to be a benefit for local businesses, as well as us residents.

Plus, as my kids will attest, it’s just plain yummy.