Not much posting, as we’re enjoying New Year’s in the southern reaches of New York State. I’ve added some photos to the New York City flickr set, so you can see a little of what we’ve been up to.

I wish all of you a very happy, safe, and successful 2007.

WNYMedia.net - 2 legit 2 quit.

Video/Web Sales Associates (full or P/T) - WNY Media Network is seeking experienced sales associates. Media sales background preferred but not necessary. Contact admin@wnymedia.net for more details.

Show Host(s) (P/T) - WNY Media Network is seeking candidates for various local televison and radio shows slated to begin production in early 2007. Must be personable with demonstrated skill in front of a camera or behind a microphone. In depth knowledge of Buffalo and Western New York political, economic, and cultural scene preferred. At least 2 years experience as an on-air personality in news/talk show format prefered but, all applicants will be considered. Send reel and/or resume to admin@wnymedia.net

Interns (3) - WNY Media Network is now taking applications for internships (3) during the 2007 Spring Semester. Must be available at least three days a week for at least 4 hours a day. Our interns won’t be sitting behind a desk, they will learn to write, shoot, edit, and produce radio, television, film, and web content. Must have own transportation. Some web knowledge preferred. For More information please contact admin@wnymedia.net

NYCO posts what she believes to be the top 10 statewide stories of the year.

Adirondack Almanack has the north country’s top 10 stories of the year, and here’s one that’s Syracuse-centric.

By the time you read this, Saddam Hussein and some of his henchmen shall have been hanged.

Although I’m not generally a fan of capital punishment, I think there are certain particularly egregious instances where it’s warranted. Cases involving crimes against humanity and genocide rank up there in my mind.

I don’t think Hussein’s crimes and the punishment therefore warrant any comparatives to what the US is doing anywhere in the world with regard to CIA rendition, torture, etc. Hussein’s crimes stand alone and must be judged alone.

Good riddance to him and his ilk. I hope his victims and their survivors take some small comfort in his fate.

The County has begun the process of finalizing the amendments to the Charter as passed by the legislature, and approved overwhelmingly by the voters last year.

If, as they say, the devil’s in the details, you can read here about some of the demons - small and large - with which the working group tasked with amending the Charter is dealing.

MV - Martha’s Vineyard holla back.

Meh.

I wasn’t particularly impressed with him in 2004, I doubt I’m going to be impressed with him in 2008. Nice guy, nice smile, and nice hair aren’t enough.

My snap judgment is that the economy is humming along well enough that people aren’t up in arms about it. The biggest issue as I see it is the Iraq war and the remainder of our bull-in-china-shop foreign policy. While Obama and Hillary get loads of attention, I’m equally interested in Bill Richardson. He’s the whole package - Democratic Governor of a Southwestern state, Hispanic, former Diplomat (graduate of Tufts’ esteemed Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy), and a former Secretary of Energy (which has become a big issue lately).

So far, the official list of Dems is:

John Edwards
Tom Vilsack
Dennis Kucinich
Mike Gravel

According to Wikipedia, there are no Dems with exploratory committees yet.

The official list of Repubs is:

John Cox (President Cox?)
Michael Charles Smith

Repubs with exploratory committes are:

Sam Brownback
Jeff Lichtenstein
Jim Gilmore
Rudy Giuliani
Duncan Hunter (runs the ominously named “Peace through Strength PAC“)
John McCain
Tommy Thompson

One of the best shows ever.

On Day One, everyone gets heartburn:

Albany, NY - As one of his first official acts as Governor, Elliot Spitzer will pay tribute to New York’s good eats.

From cheese to wine, to the original Buffalo wing, around thirty of New York’s most beloved foods will be served as part of Spitzer’s inaugural lunch Monday.

Brooklyn’s Junior’s Cheesecake made the cut, as did Gus’s Pickles, and Yonah Schimmel Knishes, as well as Anchor Bar Chicken Wings from Buffalo, NY.

Also on the menu: Rochester’s famous “Garbage Plate,” which is served at Nick Tahou Hots restaurants. The signature dish combines macaroni salad, hash browns, and your choice of meat, which is topped with special sauce, which also contains meat.

Say “Yonah Schimmel Knishes” ten times, fast.

According to Random Thoughts, Channel 7 had a story last night saying just that - Griffin is seriously considering a run for County Executive.

Dan’s post prompted quite a back and forth in comments, e.g., perhaps Griffin splits the South Buffalo vote in the Dem primary (vs. Keane), helping Clark. I’d much prefer some fresh blood and fresh thinking in the Rath Building, and Griffin’s time has come and gone; no pining for what Buffalo was, but plans and ideas for what we can achieve in the future.

I concur with Dan and FedUp that it sounds like an excellent 11:00 hour for Hardwick’s show.

Gimme Jimmy? No, thanks.

Jim Allen from the Amherst IDA sent along a link to this report on vacant properties in Buffalo called “Blueprint Buffalo: A Regional Strategy for Reclaiming Abandoned and Vacant Property in Buffalo”. You can check the policy brief here, and the action plan here (both in .pdf).

The report, released before supportive regional and local officials, business leaders, and civic groups, sets forth four leadership and four policy actions to prevent, abate, reclaim, and reuse vacant and abandoned properties within Buffalo and its surrounding first-tier suburbs.

Reynolds, Mohan & Brown, oh my! (.wma audio from WBEN.com)

Did you happen to catch this article on the cover of USA Today?

Slowly, old American cities that have been in a downward population spiral for a half-century or more are reinventing themselves as, well, smaller cities. They’re starting to adopt — many, like Richmond, do it unknowingly — tenets of the burgeoning, European-born “Shrinking Cities” movement. The idea: If cities can grow in a smart way, they can also shrink smartly.

“Everybody’s talking about smart growth, but nobody is talking about smart decline,” says Terry Schwarz, senior planner at Kent State University’s Urban Design Center of Northeast Ohio. The center runs the Shrinking Cities Institute in Cleveland, a city that has lost more than half its population since 1950. “There’s nothing that says that a city that has fewer people in it has to be a bad place.”

Richmond, VA’s version of the Partnership says,

We don’t as a region aspire to be the next Atlanta or the next Charlotte,” he says. “It’s about quality. It’s not about growing for the sake of growing.”

As a country - as a society, we are averse to decline. We reject defeat. We won’t embrace it. Yet, in a way, the shrinking cities people say we need to change that mindset.

Many such cities are starting to capitalize on what they still have rather than what they’ve lost — whether it’s historic neighborhoods, cultural amenities or waterfronts. “Their aspirations should be to build on their strengths and to assume that they’re not going to be as big,” says Eugenie Birch, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has documented the resurgence of downtowns.

“Cities that measure success by population growth have an outdated view of what success is all about,” says Carol Coletta, head of CEOs for Cities, a non-profit alliance of mayors, executives and other urban leaders based in Chicago.

That group’s research has shown that population growth doesn’t always bring cities wealth. Bakersfield, Calif., grew 35% in the 1990s, the second-fastest gainer; per capita income, however, declined 7%. Las Vegas was No. 1 in population growth but 38th in income growth last decade.

Youngstown, OH is one of the former steel cities that has gotten with the shrinking cities program.

Every sixth city in the world is shrinking,” Pallagst says, from Australian mining towns to Korean industrial centers. “Even a city that’s prospering today can be a shrinking city tomorrow.”

“European cities are grappling with how you deal with shrinking cities more forthrightly than we are,” says John Accordino, urban and regional planning professor at Virginia Commonwealth University here. “(U.S. cities) are still trying to figure out how do we get our piece of the metro growth.”

Youngstown, Ohio, is an exception. It has fully embraced its shrinkage. The population, now about 83,000, is less than half what it was when the steel industry collapsed in the 1970s.

“You look at the facts and come up with solutions,” chief planner Anthony Kobak says. “The first step the city has come to terms with is being a small city.”

Youngstown approved a 2010 plan. The goal: “A safe, clean, enjoyable, sustainable, attractive city,” Kobak says.

The city long was better known for gritty steel mills than green space. Now that the mills are gone, there is plenty of space. With the help of a grant, Youngstown preserved 260 acres. It’s targeting neighborhoods and redesigning them with the help of residents who stayed.

The city may let homeowners buy abandoned lots next door to create gardens. It’s considering relaxing zoning rules to allow small horse farms or apple orchards. It’s offering incentives for people to move out of abandoned areas.

“If you had three or four square blocks that at one time had 40 homes per block and now have maybe five homes total, we could relocate those people across the street and convert the vacant area into a large city park,” Kobak says.Residents would live be living across from a park rather than being surrounded by decrepit homes and lots overgrown with weeds.

In Richmond, VA:

Shells of Greek and Georgian Revival, Queen Anne and Italianate houses, many adorned with elaborate ironwork and cast-iron porches, could be had for $30,000 to $40,000 10 years ago. They’re selling for more than $250,000 today.

Ronald Stallings, a native, is a star player in the revival. His father amassed 140 pieces of real estate before the area declined. His company, Walker Row Partnership Inc., is converting an old insurance company building into lofts, building homes and rehabilitating historic structures. He has renovated 47 properties. Jackson Ward’s population jumped 70% in less than five years, he says. One of his most ambitious goals: Bring the Hippodrome back as an entertainment venue.

“Either older people or younger people are choosing a lifestyle other than cutting grass every Friday evening,” he says. “There are way more housing units. Your population is going down but units are going up. Dual income, no kids isn’t a bad thing.”

Buffalo, I think, is just beginning to realize that the steel and heavy manufacturing heyday is over, and isn’t coming back. We’re also starting to slowly explore what we can do to build on our strengths and attract people. The city should be looking very carefully at the shrinking city movement and begin planning and implementing some of what’s described here.

According to me, natch.

10. State Democratic Convention comes to town. The promises are still being swept off the streets outside the Hyatt. Spitzer’s “Day One” is coined - look for it to be a future punchline.

9. Ralph “Fugitive” Phillips makes his way back to PMITA prison. Nelson Muntz reacts.

8. Tolls come down off the I-190 thanks to Paladino lawsuit. Pols trip over each other to claim credit get in the shot.

7. Old Home Week sees Buffalo’s new grassroots civic pride and turns it into action.

6. Mayor Brown inaugurated. Deputy Mayor Citi M. Stat appointed.

5. Bass Pro “moving foward” towards an “imminent” contract, then it’s off, then pending again with a 30-day deadline. In the meantime, let me introduce you to “Canal Side”

4. The Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority takes its Viagra.

3. October 13, 2006 snowstorm fucked you up, too.

2. Twenty-something Iraqi-born British multimillionaire wunderkind Bashar Issa comes to Buffalo via Manchester, UK to plunge millions into the Statler, and maybe even build something taller than the HSBC tower.

1. Tom Reynolds uses kids as a shield to protect himself from questions about the Mark Foley case.

Barack Obama’s middle name is Hussein. Clarence Page makes a very astute prediction about that fact.

For the record, Obama’s middle name comes from his Muslim grandfather, a Kenyan farmer, and his father, a Kenyan government economist. And, to put the anxieties of Islamophobic bloggers to rest, Obama is a member of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ. In advertising terms, diversity is his brand.

So, in New Hampshire and in a recent meeting with the Chicago Tribune editorial board, he joked about the middle-name thing with just the right tone: astute, self-deprecating humor. His middle name is no big deal, he says, “when you are already starting with “Barack Obama.’ ”

Inspiring people to hate Obama because of his middle name is small potatoes, but speaks volumes.

The country’s only unelected President in history has died.

Ford was House minority leader when President Nixon chose him to replace Spiro Agnew, who resigned, as vice president in 1973. Ford became president on Aug. 9, 1974, when Nixon resigned amid the Watergate scandal.

When Gerald R. Ford took the presidential oath of office, he famously declared, “My fellow Americans, our long, national nightmare is over.”

Ford had been the first vice president chosen under the terms of the 25th Amendment and, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, was succeeding the first President ever to resign.

HT Kos

Are you in Beautiful Buffalo for the holidays?

Join the Buffalo Old Home Week family at Sidebar, one of North Buffalo’s coolest bars on Wednesday, December 27th at 7:00 p.m. for Happy To Be (Back) Here for the Holidays Happy Hour, the final Happy To Be (Back) Here Hour of the year!

Come share the holiday spirit (and perhaps some spirits!) and celebrate all the ways in which the Buffalo Renaissance has taken wings during 2006.

Grab every Expat, Repat, Transplant and enthusiastic Buffalo Booster that you know and head over to the Sidebar to participate in our on-going celebration of all that is great about Buffalo now and in the New Year!

And if you have a favorite iconic Buffalo item that you’d like to donate, bring it along and we’ll have some fun for a good cause. We’ll raffle off Buffalo books, art, jewelry, clothing, mugs — you name it. Proceeds will go to the Olmsted ReLeaf project to help Buffalo recover its arboreal bounty.

We’ll also be providing a sampling of some of the best food found in the emerging and culturally historic restaurant district of North Buffalo.

These gatherings are a great way to meet others who share your passion for our fair city. There will be plenty of (not Old Buffalo, not New Buffalo, but) Our Buffalo energy. Enjoy the high spirits and rich stories of people who have come from or wandered all over the nation and the world and found that Buffalo is where they want to live.

There will be no shortage of warm and enthusiastic people to meet, so even if you come alone and don’t know a soul, you’ll leave with new friends and new connections. There will be plenty to talk about: what new companies are opening in Buffalo? What’s the latest on the Waterfront? Where are the hot new jobs in the city and region? Who’s seen which shows and what they think about them as the new theater season gets underway. Of course, we’ll also be making some important announcements about upcoming Buffalo Old Home Week events!

This is what Buffalo, does so very well: welcome, entertain, and connect. So whether you’re a Repat, a Transplant from other parts, or an enthusiastic Buffalonian who has never needed to leave to know how great this town is, you are cordially invited to come and be a part of this positive, energetic community.

Courtesy of Bfloblog: this is really, really funny.

UPDATE: And someone did a video of same:

This list from the BBC comes courtesy of Jaq at Byzantium Shores. Some notable entries:

One in 10 Europeans is allegedly conceived in an Ikea bed.

and

The = sign was invented by 16th Century Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde, who was fed up with writing “is equal to” in his equations. He chose the two lines because “noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle”.

and

The name Lego came from two Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”. It also means “I put together” in Latin.

and

C3PO and R2D2 do not speak to each other off-camera because the actors don’t get on.

Buffalo News’ “suburbs dude”, Bruce Andriatch, has a column today that touches on the blogosphere.

Remember this Buffalo Rising story about the teacher who lives near Elmwood but teaches in West Seneca who took his 8th graders on a field trip to Elmwood for some shopping?

As a suburban parent who takes his kids into the city all the time, and has never, ever said a bad word about the city to his kids, I was pretty shocked that some local suburban tweens had never been to Elmwood. I also questioned whether “shopping” was a good subject matter for a school field trip.

Bottom line, turns out it wasn’t a field trip at all.

If you re-read the Buffalo Rising piece, there is little to dissuade anyone of the notion that this was a school field trip - permission slips and bus ride.

Some teachers take their kids on field trips to the zoo, a museum, or a maybe a factory[sic]. West Seneca West Middle School social studies teacher George Olmsted last Saturday took his suburban, mall-dwelling eighth graders - nearly 70 of them - into the heart of the city, the Elmwood Village, for a shopping trip and to get some exposure to the urban vitality of one of Buffalo’s most vibrant and lively neighborhoods.

The one word I missed in my “weak reading” of that paragraph is “Saturday”. I had initially thought we were talking school hours. My bad.

But if you then go and re-read my own post about it, the thing that never ceases to amaze me is that local suburban kids don’t go to the city. Andriatch quotes the teacher as saying that he asked his class,

‘Have any of you ever been there?’ None of their hands went up.

Andriatch then says that the comments at BRO to this “field trip” were pretty positive until some asshole calling himself Buffalo Pundit comes along.

Were those comments positive? It depends. Do you find this to be particularly “positive?”:

It is almost like cutural knowledge of city life has been killed by urban sprawl.

I could imagine all the suburban parents worried that their kids would run into trouble in the city.

Andriatch continues,

In the blogosphere, everyone can hear you scream. So Pundit’s mini-diatribe began drawing responses, pro and con. Some kids wrote in to defend Olmsted. Pundit posted an item about this on his blog and people posted comments there as well. On the extremes, the argument breaks down into two camps: The city is a crime-ridden cesspool versus The suburbs are a soulless haven of big lawns and eight-lane highways. Leave your nuance at the door.

There is plenty of nuance. The beauty of weblogs is that I can write something very subjective and angry, and people can tell me to can it, or get over it. By the same token, I can get loads of nuance. Look at this comment. Or this one. I never pretend to be absolutely right about everything, and posting my opinions here opens me up to hearing and absorbing other points of view.

The story isn’t the suburban/urban divide.

In my email exchange with Andriatch, I wrote that I didn’t want to throw any more logs on this particular fire. I expressed bewilderment that a teacher has to get kids to come to Elmwood for shopping - you don’t have to tell a kid from Lexington that Newbury Street has nice shops any more than you have to tell a Rye tween that 5th Avenue has lots of tony boutiques, or that the area within several blocks of Broadway south of Union Square has lots of funky shops.

Contrary to what Andriatch writes, I don’t see my reaction to the Olmsted trip to Elmwood to have anything to do with a suburb/urb battle. Instead, I think Pauldub hit the nail on the head by commenting,

Spoken like a true parent.

I think that’s a big part of my objection to the trip. That and the fact that Elmwood is not the great unknown to me or my kids.

I also thought there was an irony to a teacher who readily acknowledges that “Teenagers are the largest consumer targets” taking them shopping. Kids are constantly bombarded with commercials and pleas to consume. Buffalo Fleece or EMS - they both want my kid’s allowance.

If you go back and look at some newer comments on the BRO thread, the kids really loved the trip (who wouldn’t?) I had earlier suggested to one kid to ask her parents why they never took her to Elmwood. Check this out:

buffalo pundit, maybe an doesnt want to ask her parents, so leave her alone. i think she is trying to make a point that maybe the kids are tired of going to “farms, theater” etc. maybe the kids want a change. whatever the trip is, your right it should be educational, but fun at the same time. whats REALLY fun about that, looking at cows that are in 2 months going to be on our plates. mmm FUN! they did learn something from this. they learned that look ferther into your world around you, don’t stay in a corner, get out there! into the world. i mean these kids have been brainwashed into thinking that unless you go to a different country, they will be shopping at malls forever. farms and theaters are things i did in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade.

There is so much material in that, I wouldn’t know where to begin. Brainwashed?! By whom?

And

So Buffalo Pundit when you tell ask to ask our parents why they never brought us down to elmwood well i have the answer for you, it is because they themselves have never been exposed to this area as kids either, and if there is any other reason it is a matter of opinion. Mr. Olmsted made this experince welcome to anyone. Some parents even joined their kids during this expierience. I can’t even explain how great and wonerful this expierence was it was really an eye-opener.

So the answer is that parents won’t take their kids somewhere that they haven’t experienced themselves. In that case, I should be doing most my shopping on Mamaroneck Avenue in White Plains.

I guess, in the end, I just can’t fathom people living somewhere all their lives and not exploring it. Also, when BRO says something is a field trip, but it isn’t a field trip, you’ll get garbage out.

UPDATE: My email to Bruce Andriatch appears after the jump. He got the knickers quote wrong. Read the rest of this entry »

From the Daily News:

With the usual trickle of investigations and indictments in state government threatening to turn into a flood, one historian suggested that the problem with Albany is that … it’s in Albany.

The argument: The small northern city is simply too far from the commercial and media capital of the state to get the kind of scrutiny it deserves, with both watchdog groups and media organizations maintaining small staffs relative to the size and scope of state government.

“It may be that there aren’t as many watchdogs there because it’s an inconvenient location,” said Christopher McKnight Nichols, a historian at the University of Virginia. “There was another viable option [for the state capital]: New York City.”