Italian American Gentleman.

My photo
OHIO, United States
Born Detroit at East Side General Hospital, raised in Ohio & Detroit, Progressive Democrat, Politically Active, an Engaged Citizen of the USA. Italiano Americano have lived and worked in Oregon, Indiana, Chicago, Boston, Vermont, Maryland,New York and a few places in between at times; "for Here we have no lasting city, we seek the one that is to come." (Hebrews 13:14)

Welcome visitors. Stay a while please.

To my friends and family. Here is my web page. I hope you enjoy your visit.

Vermont Farm

Vermont Farm
I lived in Vermont & it is gorgeous

View from my Home in Vermont

View from my Home in Vermont
Bennington Battle Field Monument

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Churches Don't Have Helicopters

Have you ever heard of a church that owns a helicopter? I haven't and I've been to a number of churches in various places in the United States.  Governments, (local, state, federal) own helicopters, not churches. Some private entities own helicopters. Some businesses own helicopters. 

Yet, as we approach the seven year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we need to remember people perched on rooftops waiting for rescues that never got to them.  The response of the Bush administration was that the government wasn't really tasked with doing this type of work, the faith based community was supposed to take care of it.  And they did.  In the aftermath of the hurricane, churches marshaled resources to provide relief in New Orleans. 

Also, FEMA, The Federal Emergency Management Agency, worked admirably during the Clinton Administration. Under Bush, FEMA was "administered" by Brownie, some horse guy that W said was doing a heck of a job.  What is it with Republicans and horses? 

However, good church work, does not let government off the hook. Taxpayers paid for helicopters of the coast guard, national guard and other components of government.  We expect government to appropriately use our resources that we paid for with our tax dollars to assist us our citizens. The same concept applies to all levels of government, like automobiles owned by the City of Schenectady. Paid for by taxpayers, we expect our resources to be used to serve the public, the people that paid for them. 

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The Picture below was taken in Garret County Maryland, Western Maryland, McHenry at the August County Fair 2008.  I was staffing the Democratic Exhibit Booth on the Fairgrounds.


Roma Tomatoes and Russian Kale from my 2012 garden in Niskayuna New York.


I lived in Massachusetts for many years.  This is one spot I returned to time and again.  I never tired of the visual variations of light, weather and time of year that make this scene totally different every time I saw it.
Rockport, Massachusetts "Motif #1"


Peaches picked from my 3 year old Peach Tree grown in my backyard in Grantsville, Maryland.  No pesticides were used, flawless peaches, ripe off the tree.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Ohio's Electorate Problem

" I Know I got Snookered (at the Polls)". "That Weren't Nice"....."Oh, well".......disenfranchised Ohio voter

I was raised in Ohio, in the suburbs on the East side of Cleveland. I went to college in Athens and Columbus and have traveled through the south west area and western areas of Ohio extensively.  I still have family in Cleveland, Akron and Canton, and Cincinnati.  I know this state and I know its people.  When reports come in that voters were disenfranchised, I know the neighborhoods, I lived there. When Mitt Romney has a photo opportunity with coal miners, I know the place and the people.  They were my classmates in school.  I visited their small towns and the mines, even though I was a city boy. When voters were disenfranchised in Ohio back in 2004, I visited Cleveland to spend some time with family. When I told my father about the voting problems downstate, he replied: "We didn't have any problem here" (in the affluent suburbs east of Cleveland).  Sigh. I didn't even try to explain it.  Honest "plain dealers" [Plain Dealer is the Cleveland newspaper] are not wired to believe that dirty tricks can disenfranchise people, especially since they did not have a problem where they live.  They choose to believe smooth sailing prevailed everywhere.  This is the complacency of the Ohio citizen:  "Don't confront with me any truths."

What was even more amazing was that there was absolutely no coverage of the downstate problems in the Cleveland media market.
NONE!

Sunday, August 19, 2012

I LOVE TRAINS - Who is John Galt? Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged

Its Sat.evening, 7:30 & I hear a train going by my home.This gives me hope that goods are being transported & there IS an economy.I sleep better when I hear them throughout the night. It calms me. It tells me there is an economy despite the naysayers and there is at least one guy working.Who is John Galt? (Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand) 

It angers me too that other countries have better trains than we do.

As a boy of 5 years old, I rode the train from Cleveland,Ohio to Detroit, Michigan by myself. My parents put me on in Cleveland & my grandparents met me at the station in Detroit and vice versa. 

The conductor kept an eye on me en route. I usually slept on the large bench lying down. It was a whole lot better than the back seat of my Dad's Pontiac Starchief because I didn't get carsick.

The Lake Shore Limited Amtrak Train making its way along the Hudson River in New York

 


 Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Ohio near Toledo often talks about a resurgence of trains rolling through her congressional district laden with rolled steel headed for a revived auto industry in Detroit, my birthplace.  With all the negatives of air travel, Amtrak from Schenectady to Cleveland on "The Lake Shore Limited" is the way to travel now that gasoline is pushing $4 a gallon again. 

 John Galt is a fictional character in Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged (1957). Although he is not identified by name until the last third of the novel, he is the object of its often-repeated question "Who is John Galt?" and of the quest to discover the answer. Trains, powerful, swift, innovative also are central to this nove.  Its funny the Republicans embrace this book while at the same time refuse to support Amtrak or improve train travel in America. 


 If you haven't read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, "Who is John Galt"? you need to read it to learn why it is so pivotal to the ideologues in this current Presidential election. The movie  Planes Trains and Automobiles with John Candy and Steve Martin, and some great Train Scenes in the movie "Only the Lonely" with John Candy.  I love trains