Want that pothole fixed on your street? or that vacant property taken care of?

WNYmedia.net is pleased to be WNY’s affiliate of SeeClickFix.com. The application and website was started in New Haven, CT for publicly reporting and watching all non-emergency issues in their community and now comes to Buffalo and WNY to do the same.

At first glance seeclickfix looks like a basic Google my maps app., but it’s so much more.

Anybody can draw an area on the map and receive alerts when an issue is created in that area.

To get started:
1.) Just click on the map at the location you choose to alert people about
2.) Enter all the information you can about the situation
3.) Save your information
4.) WNYmedia.net will make sure the people who need to know about the problem will be alerted.

The price of just about everything has shot up like crazy, and Albany thinks you deserve relief.

Are they proposing lowering taxes and fees across the board? Are they going to spend less to make up the difference? Is there any chance that New York politicians might adopt just a smidgen of their constituents’ frugality in the face of the ever-higher cost of living?

No.

But here’s a C-note, kid. Now scram.

Over 95% of Americans have mothers. The other 5% are sons of bitches.

But seriously…

I want to wish my mom a very Happy Mother’s Day, and I’m sorry we weren’t able to see you today. To my wife, Happy Mother’s Day to you, too. I love you with all my heart, and thank you for Maddy and Mia, who brighten our every day.

And a happy day to all the moms reading this, too.

He’s actually up for re-election this year. How fantastic is that?

The Republican congressman from Staten Island got popped last week for DUI after leaving a bar, and he was bailed out by a woman who lived nearby. Turns out he had an ongoing affair with her, she had a 3-year old daughter by him, and his dad and uncle helped pay the bills for her.

On top of that, he’s a hypocritical and sanctimonious prick:

Fossella banded together last month with a group of lawmakers who demanded HBO apologize for what they called an “offensive anti-Catholic rant” by “Real Time” host Bill Maher. Fossella took HBO to task for “insulting the Pope, mocking the Catholic religion and Catholics.”

Yeah? What’s the Pope’s view on maintaining two families? On adultery? On kids out-of-wedlock? Jerkoff.

He’ll probably resign on Monday.

Will the reason be: I want to spend more time with my families?

Good riddance. Don’t be a moralizing asshole if you can’t back it up.

Burma (Myanmar) has been led by a brutal, genocidal military junta for decades. It was hit by a massive, devastating cyclone last week and hundreds of thousands of people perished.

Now, the world is trying to send aid, but the junta is only allowing some shipments of food into the country - not the aid workers to go with it. As one would expect, this means that the government is not getting the aid to the people, and the devastation is thereby worsened artificially.

Perhaps in the meantime we can offer our aid through intermediary countries that get along better with Burma, like China or India. It’s a terrible shame that this totalitarian dictatorship, chooses political self-interest over the interest of its people - but it’s hardly surprising. That, or maybe they hired Brownie to oversee their relief situation.

You can help at:

US Campaign for Burma
UNICEF / Direct Relief International via Google Checkout
Doctors without Borders
Avaaz

In follow-up to the previous post, wherein I describe the time-wastefulness of the City Council in condemning a private citizen, I present to you this tidbit from Artvoice’s Geoff Kelly.

You see, Mr. Kelly wanted to attend a public hearing yesterday afternoon at City Hall in the City of Buffalo, New York, United States of America. One supposes, given such a moniker, and given such an address, that accommodations would be made for the public to actually attend that hearing.

But hold on - this is the Buffalo of Steve Casey, Byron Brown, and other Pigeonistas - people for whom politics is about power and silence. People who pander to voters during election cycles and then shut them out once power is attained.

What happened? The public hearing for the 2008-2009 proposed budget for the City of Buffalo, which taxpayers were ostensibly invited to attend, and where they were supposedly permitted to speak, took place yesterday at City Hall at 5:30 pm. How progressive that the hearing was held after 5:00 pm, so that people could attend after work.

Problem is - City Hall was locked.

I arrived at 5:40 and found every door to City Hall locked. Seriously. This sucks, I thought. Then: But at least its’s fodder for a column.

So I hung around, pering in the door, ringing the bell that surely does not work, waiting for someone to leave. At about 5:45pm I was joined by a news crew from Channel 4. We tried calling people we knew inside, but everyone was gone for the day — or in Council Chambers, attending the “public” hearing that the public was unable to attend, because all the doors were locked.

At about 5:50pm, Inspections, Permits and Economic Development Commissioner Rich Tobe exited the building but let the door close behind him before I could shout out to hold it open. “Sorry, I can’t get back in now,” he said. I told him I was trying to attend a public hearing up in Council Chambers. He agreed that locking the doors on the evening of such a hearing was curious. But not, he thought, unusual.

Nor did Deputy Mayor Steve Casey seem to consider it strange that the doors were locked, as the Channel 4 team and I raced to the elevators at 6pm, when we finally slipped in the door behind an exiting bureaucrat. “Hurry up,” he said, “it’s just about over.”

Right he was: In the absence of any “public” in the public hearing, the Council had rolled two hearings into one and wrapped the whole thing up by 6:10pm. Exactly one person had signed up to speak. Everyone in Council Chambers was on the public payroll.

Afterward, Delaware District Councilmember Mike LoCurto summed up the hearing for me: a whole lot of nothing. He too was unsurprised to learn the doors had been locked. They had been locked during the previous day’s public hearing as well, he said.

Democracy is dying in Buffalo. It’s up to the people to fight to get it back.

Hi, Pundits and Pundettes.

A question for you this fine Friday.

Which is dumber?

Carl Paladino saying future expat James Williams only got his job because of he’s black?

or…

Brian Davis helping organize a 5-4 condemnation of that statement in the Buffalo Common Council, punctuating it by saying that Carl Paladino “really needs to be run out of Buffalo?” Evidently, the irony of that comment is lost on Councilman Davis.

Carl Paladino isn’t elected to anything. Don’t we elect legislators to focus on important policy matters, and to uphold the law? So why would they so eagerly rush towards passing something so patently violative of the law.

Or should legislatures take precious time up to debate whenever a private citizen says something stupid? Because in that case, they should be in session 24/7.

UPDATE: Here’s a link to a .pdf of Paladino’s reply to the Council. Looks like they just bought themselves a lawsuit. What a colossal waste of time and resources.

Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me

Oliver Willis calls it the first Democratic bigot eruption. If she wasn’t done with this race yet, she sure is now.

The complete breakdown of civilization on the bus to Wilson whereby a young JV player was sexually assaulted by his erstwhile “teammates” is neither an isolated incident, nor should it have come in any way as any surprise to anyone in charge:

A player on the Wilson high school baseball team was sexually harassed last year by older teammates during a bus ride for an away game.

The boy and his parent complained to a team coach, and for some time after that, one coach rode the bus in front and the other at the back to keep an eye on the players who had been involved in unruly behavior.

The hazing complaint apparently went no further.

But this year, when both coaches were riding at the front of the bus, some of the older players sexually abused two junior varsity players…

…The sources did not want to be identified because they are not authorized to release information, but they came forward because of concern that a pattern has repeated itself in Wilson.

“The kid who complained [last year] was then singled out for the rest of last year by fellow teammates as a ‘narc’ and was punched by other teammates for telling his parent,” one of the sources said.

Equally disturbing is this revelation arising out of the public forum on the issue held last week at Wilson High School:

Many of the 650 people who showed up Thursday for a district-wide meeting voiced support for Baia and Atlas, with only a handful expressing concern for the junior varsity players who were attacked.

The Niagara Falls Reporter corroborates that:

Last week, a town meeting was held in Wilson to discuss the situation, and the place was packed to the rafters. Those expressing any concern or sympathy for the victims in the case were rare. Supporters of Baia and Atlas dominated the session, blaming the alleged perpetrators’ parents, who were not on the bus, the news media, which was not on the bus, and anyone else they could think of.

So, first civilization completely shits the bed on the bus, and next it is further diminished by “concerned citizens” at a public forum. The only - repeat the only individuals worthy of anyone’s sympathy here are the victims themselves. Not the perpetrators. Not their families. Not the coaches. Not anybody else.

And the people of the Town of Wilson really need to get over themselves and their little pity party. The media, and the community-at-large, are appalled that something like this goes on. Even more so now that it emerges as a pattern of which the coaches and the district either knew or should have known about.

That knowledge, and the willful failure of the adults to behave as such renders this a much bigger story, and a much larger scandal than the fact of the sexual assault itself. The perpetrators abused young students, and the adults did nothing, and now they can’t say they didn’t know it might happen. Teachers get fired for wearing bikinis on the Howard Stern show, but Wilson can’t be bothered to fire these coaches?

Oh, and one of the 16 year old perpetrators of the sexual assault on the bus? Yeah, he just got popped last night - at 1am (on a school night?!) for possession of a controlled substance.

Wow. Just 16 years old and already has a pending felony charge in Wilson and a pending misdemeanor charge in Porter.

All Things Jennifer has the Artpark summertime Tuesday free concert lineup. Evidently, reality TV star Bret Michaels is scheduled to play, as is ex-Doobie Brother castrato Michael McDonald. She also posted a list of ten things Hillary Clinton could have done instead with the $6.4 million she loaned her campaign.

Buffalo Buffet round-tabled the offerings at Ming Cafe.

Two things from Buffalo Ideas: can government utilize Toyota’s innovation approach? Because our taxes here sure mirror Toyota’s “innovative approach” to options packages. Also, he links to the coolest blog I’ve seen in a long time because I’m a geography nerd - Atlas of Strange Maps.

Buffaloroots is always worth a read because, well, it’s well-written.

Kelly - he loves the memes! He lists 100 pet peeves. One of them:

49. Driving pet peeve: I know I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating that the act of stopping behind a vehicle that is itself stopping at a Stop sign does not count as you stopping at the stop sign.

Well, you did stop didn’t you?

EAL explains how her blog, “Gardening while Intoxicated” got its name.

Jen is blogging from a “go-live” of some software in Philadelphia. She might get drunk and curse, though. So, cave lector.

Congratulations to Derek Punaro on his promotion.

Buffalo Expat posts about the devastation in Burma from a recent cyclone.

Craig at Buffalog posts about Gundersen and thinks a gas tax holiday is a good idea.

Yes, it’s true that New York is one state; geographically and to a degree politically.

Economically, though, there’s a distinct difference between upstate and downstate; between east and west. The upstate economy is saddled with fail. Whether it’s taxes higher than that of neighboring states, regulations that are too onerous, or a general business unfriendliness, there’s really no compelling reason why a company might locate in Utica or Rochester or Buffalo when Erie and Toledo and Columbus are also available.

I’ve said before many times that, to compete, all of upstate should be a massive empire zone. That hasn’t happened. But under former governor Spitzer, at least upstate had a dedicated upstate economic “czar” named Dan Gundersen. Not only that, but his office was going to be based in Buffalo.

Governor Paterson is considering scrapping the downstate/upstate economic czars. Upstate business leaders and the heads of Unshackle Upstate aren’t happy, and they hope that - if this does happen - that Gundersen become the head of the united Empire State Development Corp.

I think that it’s a given that, when forced into competition, downstate interests will prevail over upstate interests, and losing a dedicated advocate for upstate business development is a massive step backwards.

Upstate New York of the 2000s is not unlike the eastern Europe of the 1990s. It needs Sachsian shock therapy. It needs people to fight for it. It needs fundamental change in the way government works.

All I know is that, Albania and Slovakia have more robust economies than Western New York.

UPDATE: Read what In Java, Literally has to say. NYCO notes this Rochester D&C article alleging that Gundersen is very loosey-goosey with his state plastic.

Buffalo Schools Superintendent James Williams?

Yeah, he’s looking.

DEMS: …Hello?

Hillary: Hey baby.

DEMS: C’mon Hillary. Enough with this.

Hillary: Don’t you get it? You NEED me.

DEMS: No, I don’t. It was fun while it lasted but I’m with Barack now. I made my choice, it’s done.

Hillary: You can’t really mean that. How can you say that after all the good times we had?

A blogger imagines Hillary Clinton as a psycho ex-girlfriend.

[UPDATE: This is a post from March that I’m promoting back to the top (with new title to fit this week’s theme) because of the continuing drama in Amherst Town Hall regarding Benderson’s proposed lifestyle center project at Maple near North Forest. A vote earlier this week was pushed off to June 2nd to permit county involvement with traffic mitigation issues. Benderson recently made some changes to the design of the 34-acre, $44 million mixed-use project.

The comments tend to talk about the fakeness of the project versus the authenticity. Given that Amherst actually has no town center - the Vil