Finding Ulysses

Irony can be beautiful sometimes.

Earlier this month, a resident of Ulysses afraid to leave his or her own name posted a comment criticizing Town Board member Don Ellis. There’s nothing wrong with inherently criticizing a member of our local government, of course. The people we elect to represent us in local government should never be allowed to escape our scrutiny.

Some criticism, however, is just plain silly. That includes the criticism offered by the anonymous Ulysses resident using the stuffy pseudonym Phylogeny Pangloss. Pangloss suggests that the experience Don Ellis has with online business makes him less worthwhile in government than town board members without such experience, writing, “Mr. Ferrentino and Mr. Austic have common sense and live in the real world not a virtual one.”

Pangloss is coming to this web site to criticize Don Ellis for working with web sites?

Beautiful, beautiful irony.

When I read the comment from Pangloss, claiming that people who work online don’t live in the real world, I think of a nice conversation I had sitting in Gimme Coffee with Tom Prisloe, a Trumansburg resident who makes and sells classical guitars for a living. Mr. Prisloe makes enough money with his business because he has the intelligence to use the Internet to promote his work.

Mr. Prisloe is not alone as a resident of Ulysses working online. Like him, and Don Ellis, and many others in our community, I make a substantial portion of my income through online work.

People like us could live elsewhere, but we choose to live here, and our income adds to the economic vitality of the area. We bring in money from customers all around the world, and spend it at places like The Falls and Dragon Village. The online sector cannot be dismissed as a merely temporary factor in the local economy. Year after year, the role of local Internet-based professionals is going to become increasingly important.

We need people in our town and village governments who understand the importance of online microenterprise to the local economy. Let people like Phylogeny Pangloss scoff, but by coming here to Finding Ulysses and leaving their negative comments, they’re participating in the very system that they dismiss.

This, to me, is how a winter morning ought to look.

It’s a photograph of Cayuga Street this morning, at 5:35 AM. Early Monday, a fresh snow covering the pavement, without a trace of any car having run across it.

Someone was there shortly before me. The footprints, walking, undisturbed in the street, are not mine.

Where was this person walking to, at such an hour? Where was this person coming from? Anybody care to tell a story?

On Friday January 26th at 7pm, Back to Democracy will have Wayles Brown from Amnesty International, speak to us at the Fire Hall, and then take questions on the Military Commissions Act, Torture, Abu Ghraib, Habeas Corpus, and the Geneva Conventions. Amnesty International has been putting pressure on rogue regimes which violate internationally recognized human rights for 45 years. Unfortunately, our tax dollars now support the world’s preeminent rogue regime, so Amnesty has a tough row to hoe.
The next day, Saturday the 27th, we will protest the escalation of the wars, and the impending war on Iran, in the park on the N side of Rt 96 at the intersection of Rt.96 and 227, across from the old Big M. Please join us. Visit http://backtodemocracy.org/

It would be easy, given the human structures of the village of Trumansburg, to drive right down Main Street and not realize that a creek is there. The Trumansburg Creek has been at the heart of our village’s development, but it has been obscured by development, and is often forgotten, even by residents.

I’m making a conscious decision to pay more attention to Trumansburg Creek. The Creek Mood of the Day, which I’ll be reporting on occasion, is a consequence of that decision.

The weather has finally turned to winter, and the air has been cold enough for several days now for ice to build up on Trumansburg Creek. Down at the falls in the middle of the village, the spray is coating branches and rocks to create interesting shapes.

Even on the falls themselves, water is freezing, so that there are interesting channels, dams, and deltas channelling the water in unusual ways. The resulting complex textures are whipping up the falling water into a bubbling froth in places.

It’s well worth a look. Just watch your step.

Our Back To Democracy film this month was “The Ground Truth” a documentary of the experiences of the soldiers before, during, and after combat in Iraq. It is a very powerful film. From the discussion afterward, it seemed everyone was deeply touched. The film pulls you into their troubled lives. Some of them lost limbs, some lost friends, some of them lost their ability to function back home, and some of them ended their own lives. Imagine if you could connect fully with the tragedy in their lives. Then multiply that out to encompass all of the wounded vets and all of the families of dead soldiers. Then imagine what it would do to your mind if you could really understand the horror of the 650,000 dead Iraqis and the millions of wounded, and the real effects of the depleted uranium. It’s a good thing nobody can make a documentary that could put all that in my head.
Our next meeting is Friday the 16th at the fire hall. Wayles Brown, from Amnesty International will speak about what we can do about Guantanamo Bay and other human rights violations.
Go to backtodemocracy.org/

There was a most appropriate misspelling in the announcement from the Trumansburg Learning Cooperative in the Trumansburg Free Press about the event that was scheduled for Saturday, but which certainly did not take place. The announcement on the cooperative’s web site reads:

“Holiday Party 2pm to Dark

Ski, sled, ice skate, play in the snow at Rice Hill; Please bring a snack
or beverage to share in the warm up lodge. Rain date for inclement weather
is Saturday, Jan 20th”

According to my dictionary, the word inclement describes weather which is “unpleasant in being stormy, rainy, or snowy”.

In the Trumansburg Free Press December 20 edition, the same announcement appears, but with a typographical error. This version reads: “Rain date for inclimate weather is Jan 20.”

Inclimate weather? My dictionary says that there is no such word as inclimate. Maybe there ought to be, though. The definition for this new word would be: Unseasonable weather due to climate change. If this year’s bizarre lack of winter weather continues, it’s a word that could come into quite common usage.

Last night, Don Ellis sent out a political email that began with an short celebration of the Democratic majority in Congress and ends with a kick in the direction of our town’s Republican-Democratic hybrid Supervisor Doug Austic, noting that the position of Supervisor is not designed to carry the kind of power that Austic has exercised to drag us through troubles like the Water District 5 fiasco.

Sandwiched in between these matters was the announcement that Ellis plans to run for re-election to the Ulysses Town Board this year. In the announcement, Ellis talks about working with two of the other board members, Roxanne Marino and Lucia Tyler. Conspicuously missing is any mention of Rod Ferrentino.

Here’s the announcement:

“The Town of Ulysses will elect two members to the Town Board in November this year.

During my three years on the Town Board I have mostly let the public record and the press record communicate what is going on in the Town government. During the first two years Roxanne Marino and I were a distinct minority. We were quite effective, after some struggle, in shaping the new zoning ordinance, but, the real actions, such as the 5 million dollar water district 5 were kept secret from us. So there was little to report.

During the last year with some support from the newly elected, Lucia Tyler, there has been so much to report that I have failed to find time to do it. My resolution for the new year is to report frequently.

In so doing I hope to 1) establish broad “voter’s understanding” of our Town’s governance, 2) support the recruitment of strong new candidates, and 3) garner support for this year’s critical issues. Some of this is will not be great reading, but I will do my best to animate it. Many of you are the folks who helped me to be elected. I am still grateful. It’s mostly not fun, but the small gains are reward enough. I am asking you again to help me do the job I think you want done.”

I am quite happy to save money on my heating bill, and not to wake up with a cold dash to the closet for an extra robe. I don’t miss the chapped lips and parched feet. I like to see the rich green of my lawn without having to mow it. I’ve got extra time to weed out the garlic mustard seedlings that next year would go to seed from my woods, because they yet died back. The phlox ought to be very lush after at least half a winter’s extra light to store up in its roots.

Nonetheless, when it is 1:25 in the morning on January 5, and the temperature outside is 50 degrees, I am unnerved. I look at the radar maps, and see rain, not snow, and it’s coming from the southwest. I haven’t yet shoveled my driveway, and though I rarely look forward to that work, it doesn’t feel right to miss it.

I see that the the Trumansburg Golf Club has been open April through November. I wonder if they are considering extending the season for a couple weeks.

Only a month now until the groundhog looks for his shadow.