PlanetAlbany

Classic photos at state museum

If you haven't caught the "Seeing Ourselves" exhibit of classic American photographs (from the Eastman collection in Rochester) at the New York State Museum, you have until May 9 before it leaves Albany. Many of the photos, like Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother," are very familiar. Here's a link to the 1936 Lange photo at the top of a review on the Get Visual blog.  The mother's tough, harried, beautiful face is familiar, but I'd forgotten her two children, heads turned toward her and away from the camera.

You notice more on the originals, like the tiny individual trees you can make out on the ridges in the clarity of Ansel Adams' Yosemite. Alfred Stieglitz is represented by two very different photos, "Steerage" showing the poorer passengers on a ship, and a stunning small head shot of painter (and his future wife) Georgia O'Keeffe. Martin Luther King is seen at a political event a few months before his death, listening to Dick Gregory with wide-awake eyes.

There is a remarkable large group portrait of 21 Indian chiefs in 1889, dressed in suits and ties, on the occasion of the ratification of the sale of lands in the Dakotas to the U.S. government. "Americanization" of Native Americans is now deplored on the average college campus, where professors are likely to denounce mission schools and share Sen. Kevin Parker's views about the evils of white supremacy. No doubt they would see the Indians being exploited or selling out. The photograph reminded me of the career of an upstate New Yorker, Ely Parker, who was commissioner of Indian affairs 20 years before, and before that an Army general, the staff officer who drew up the surrender document at Appomattox, an engineer and lawyer -- and a Seneca Indian chief.

Paterson not nuts

Gov. Paterson today waded into World War II history, saying CSEA President Danny Donohue should not be appropriating the one-word response of Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, in command of the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne in 1944, to a German surrender demand. "Nuts" is what McAuliffe said, and Paterson doesn't think Donohue should be using that term in the current labor dispute. (In Stephen Ambrose's book "Band of Brothers," an anonymous lower-ranking soldier in the same division had another memorable response to the German advance in the Ardennes: "They've got us surrounded, the poor bastards.")

As someone with two close relatives in the 101st who will soon be deploying to Kandahar, Afghanistan, I think the governor has a point.

Perp-walk politics

I understand the social utility of inflicting a certain amount of humiliation on a formerly powerful official like ex-Rep. John Sweeney, who is serving 30 days for DWI in the Saratoga County Jail and was photographed at a court appearance last week. A large photo of him appeared on the front page of The Saratogian, where he was very obviously not only handcuffed but leg-shackled -- which was considerably overdoing it on the part of law enforcement. Other papers ran the photos, too. I don't blame them but I do blame whoever put the shackles on. It was not only unnecessary but disgusting, creeped me out. I hope the feds are smart enough not to do that to 81-year-old Joe Bruno next Thursday.

Paterson's reasonable request

"Absent passage of a responsible budget," Gov. Paterson said in a press release today, he "will call on State lawmakers to voluntarily begin five-day sessions next week." Working five days a week does not seem like an excessive burden. That's what the legislative calendar calls for in the last week of March, the idea being they should be hammering out a budget then by the April 1 constitutional deadline. Trouble is, they always miss that deadline, and go back to three days of session a week for April and May, then two four-day weeks in June before adjourning for the rest of the year, unless called back into special session. Pseudo-sophisticated legislators say what's the point of sticking around when they have nothing to do with the budget negotiations? But that's only the case because the Democratic majorities in both houses allow their leaders to flout the budget reform law of 2007 by failing to use conference committees and otherwise involve the rank and file.

The politics of nothing

Democrats from Shelly Silver on down are apparently in a tizzy about Eliot Spitzer's criticisms of Andrew Cuomo, although it's hard to see anyone stopping Cuomo from following in Spitzer's footsteps to the governor's mansion. The Times story that broke this installment of the Spitzer-Cuomo feud is not a trove of substantive scoops. It says the former AG thinks the current one should have appealed the Grasso decision, and didn't like the Troopergate report. There's no hint that the two Democrats have any substantive policy differences -- or that either of them knows how to reverse the state's decline.

There is a persistent myth that as governor Spitzer was a hard-charging reformer undone not just by personal failings but by an inability to compromise high-minded principles and stoop to the petty politics of Albany. In fact, Spitzer's campaigns were as dubiously funded as anyone's, the ethics bill he signed in 2007 was a counterproductive farce, his budget reform law was and has remained a dead letter; and in Troopergate he got down and dirty, then lied to protect himself, leaving aides to take the fall. Maybe he retains some credibility regarding the national financial system, but in Albany his record is, to put it charitably, unimpressive.

What is the point of newspapers?

I happened to be at a breakfast meeting this morning where the guest speaker was an old friend of mine, a longtime newspaper reporter who told the group he conscientiously tries to get all sides of the story, which is what objective reporters do. He's right about that and I know he does it -- so I'll overlook his swipe at bloggers which followed.

Then I read today's Times Union, which has a story headlined "Group says abortion law needs to be updated" with the drophed "Planned Parenthood leader says state law legalizing abortion needs strengthening". The story (not by my friend) has one source, a Planned Parenthood vice president, whose every word the reporter apparently accepts as gospel. There is no mention of any opposition to the legislation, no hint that, for example, the New York State Catholic Conference calls it a "radical bill that would raise abortion to a status equal to freedom of speech or religion." There is, in other words, not even the pretense of objectivity.

Republicans make impact in Senate

Republicans joined with three upstate Democrats (Aubertine, Stachowski and Valesky) this evening to defeat one of a package of Earth Day bills put forward by the New York State Senate Democratic majority leadership. The bill, S1635, would have made it easier to bring environmental lawsuits, and was opposed by business groups including Unshackle Upstate. Democratic leaders laid aside another measure, S3777A, and passed four others, S6141B, S5119, S3593B and S4983C. Aubertine and Valesky also voted with Republicans in committee today to kill a farmworkers rights measure supported by many Democrats.

An LCA rehearsal broke up at the Capitol around 8:45 and the Senate was still in session, so I dropped in despite my garb of sneakers and no tie. I caught the debate on the last measure, which "prohibits the use of certain toxic chemicals for lawn and grounds maintenance." (The state School Boards Association called it an unfunded mandate, and 22 Republicans agreed; supporters said it would protect the health of children.)

While GOP Sen. Carl Marcellino was grilling Democratic sponsor Sen. Brian Foley, Democratic Sen. Tom Duane kept popping up and demanding the floor, only to be refused by the chairman, Sen. Neil Breslin of Albany. When Duane, who backed the bill, finally did get to speak, I forgave him his showmanship because he asked Foley, with good comic timing, "Does the sponsor of this legislation care about children?" Maybe he should do a rebuttal at the  LCA show, which is coming up May 8 at the Crowne Plaza, with a public dress rehearsal May 7. (Call 455-2388 for ticket info.)

Worst Republican talking point ever

A normally savvy Republican friend writes: "Today, 47% of Americans pay ZERO federal income tax.  Obama and Pelosi want to get that number up into the 50s.  If the majority of Americans are getting freebies and they aren't paying any of the bill -- the Dems figure they will have a electoral lock."

That 47 percent number has become a staple of right-wing talk radio and this (Monday) morning was taken up by USA Today's editorial page. But the 47 percent pay other taxes, from Social Security and Medicare to sales and property, and included in their number are most of the U.S. soldiers whose "skin in the game" is not a matter of finances. Why would it make sense for the anti-tax Republican party to demand that these voters pay higher taxes -- especially when wealthy New Yorkers are as likely as not to be socially liberal Democrats? Is the GOP just determined to screw up its electoral prospects?

Young not sold on medical marijuana bill

 

Father Peter Young, volunteer CEO of Peter Young Housing, Industries and Treatment, and a pioneer of statewide drug treatment and rehabilitation initiatives, is not persuaded that legalizing medical marijuana is a good idea.

 

Young said in an email that he thinks the the New York Legislature is on the verge of passing the bill, and state leaders told him "they are doing it for the benefit of the income they will get from the tax on medical marijuana." The bill passed the Assembly Health Committee earlier this year.

 

But Young questioned whether passing the bill without what he deems adequate information or preparation will cost the state more than it raises, and "can only lead to untold problems." Those problems, he said, involve a potential increase in substance abuse. "My worry is that medical marijuana will go quickly into the streets for sale and distribution without the necessary services and controls for it to be successful."

 

Finding a pulse on ethics bill

Gov. Paterson and Sen. Eric Schneiderman, deputy majority leader for policy and chairman of the Codes Committee, have been discussing a compromise ethics bill in the wake of the governor's veto of an ethics measure a couple of months ago.

"I talk to the governor all the time," Schneiderman told me this evening when I asked him about a potential ethics compromise. "I honestly think," he continued, "we will come up with something before we leave here this year. I really do."

I caught up with Paterson later at the same event (Somos El Futuro at the Crowne Plaza in Albany), and asked him whether he had been discussing a possible ethics compromise with Schneiderman or others. "Yes actually I have, and we're going to continue to talk," the governor replied. He said he would like to see a bill enacted this year, and his main concern is that it provide for the appearance of independent investigation of public officials, including legislators. Just before this, Paterson had been lauding Schneiderman as "a dear friend" who "has always distinguished himself."

Immediately following Paterson's veto and the failed effort to override it in the Senate, Schneiderman, who had been a prominent supporter of the bill, introduced compromise legislation. (Those links are from the Brennan Center for Justice, which supported Paterson's veto but also liked Schneiderman's proposed compromise.)

Schneiderman said he thinks Senate Democratic Conference leader John Sampson is open to compromise, but there is no indication yet that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is on board. A key issue in dispute is whether lawyer-legislators would have to reveal their clients and income, which Paterson supported but Sampson and Silver opposed, and which Schneiderman's compromise addresses.