Chaos in Albany

Coming from California, or really anywhere out west, we take the large western states for granted. Back east, here, the states are older, smaller, and different things are taken for granted. New York State is the largest state in the North Atlantic area. This includes New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and sometimes Maryland. I always used to think that NY was in New England, but then I learned I was wrong. New England consists of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. The state of New York is bigger than the combination of those. 

I mention this because Albany, the state capital of New York, sits at the pivot of the streams of population. New York is the biggest state around theses parts, and easily the most populous, seeing as it's third in the nation for population, behind Texas and California. The state is largely rural, and the majority of the cities and their people live along what looks like a mirrored long-division sign, if that makes sense. Coming up from the City, in the Boswash Corridor, up along the Hudson River almost due north, Albany's about 160 miles, and people live all along the way. Many of the towns, like Kingston, have crazy histories that stretch back to the 1690s, and many have old stone fences that were erected 300 years ago to signify old property lines. 

From Albany, facing west, out to Lake Erie, lies Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, many others, and the big-boy, Buffalo, which lives right on the lake. Buffalo and New York City have historically alternated between being the most powerful city in the state...when industry was booming in Buffalo, the City was going bankrupt; and when the City was booming, Buffalo was losing jobs...

Albany, though, benefited any time anyone was doing well, and has the most corrupt and dysfunctional state legislators--besides Illinois--in the nation. Blagojevich was a governor that would make Albany whackos look good, but let's look at Eliot Spitzer. He resigned last year during the prostitute scandal, which angered me. It wasn't the fact the man visited high-class call-girls, I don't think that would really effect his governing. I was angry with the general hypocrisy and hubris that elected officials, Spitzer anyway (and probably all of them), believe that the rules they fight for, and fight hard for, do not apply to them. I like the way Spitzer did business, telling the obstinate republican opposition, "I'm a fucking steamroller," (that's the quote, guys, I didn't add any color); I liked the idea that a politician could be successful in that caustic confrontational manner. I even based a character in one of my novels on that type of governing...and then he gets busted...probably should have seen the risky behavior leading up to something like that.

So, if I haven't turned you off with 700 words of background...

In Albany earlier this week, a rich guy (having been upset with Malcolm Smith, the Majority (Democratic) Leader of the State Senate) flipped two dems, who decided to caucus with the GOP, turning the hard-fought Senate back to republicans. A coup they're calling it around here. The dems held a majority in the state senate for the first time since the fifties...crazy, huh? Now it's 32-30, GOP control, but wait, maybe not, one of the two "flippers" may flip back, evening things up...

Meanwhile, art education (always the first to go) has been chopped from the public school budget, as well as the after-school programs for at-risk teens (the other first to go)(the numbers show that it works).

The rich guy I mentioned is quite progressive, and funds many things that are considered Democratic babies, but he also lobbies to reign in taxes. Maybe he's a Libertarian. But the thing that cheesed him off in the first place, the thing that started this whole orchestration of the coup, the thing that I think really exemplifies New York State legislators, was that when this rich guy finally got into his meeting with Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith, Smith was barely listening and playing on his Blackberry the entire time. 

I say 'playing' when 'working' might be more accurate...working on pissing off the wrong guy, anyway.