something something blog

Ok so I did something extremely stupid and locked myself out of tumblr on my laptop. I set up 2FA on the account… aaaand I changed my phone number recently but forgot to update it on tumblr…. Shit!!

I’m still logged in on mobile with the old credentials. But I need my laptop to post too, and I’m locked out there…

So fuck it I’m starting a new tumblr:

toshootforthestars.tumblr.com

So I have a hunch Verizon will sell tumblr & flickr, and if/when they do the buyer will either be Amazon (thru its newly acquired subsidiary Twitch), Mozilla Corporation (they recently bought Pocket), Facebook (yeah maybe) OR some third party not yet established (like an investor group led by Karp or something). And the sale def wont be for 1.1 BILLION freakin’ dollars…

The famous image of Einstein’s desk, exactly how he left it, mere hours after his death

Before his passing Einstein had refused the surgery for the internal bleeding that subsequently took his life; saying: “I want to go when I want. It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly”.

As can be seen here with the mountains of shuffled paper and scribbles on the blackboard, Einstein certainly did do his part and worked until the very end.

Here’s background from me on the Geneva Foundry Crisis.

From the FLT report, posted 25 June 2017 (emphasis is mine)…

It was Eddington himself who drew the most attention that evening.

After being vilified in protests, criticized in a local political blog (Geneva Believer) and disparaged at Council meetings, the at-large council member broke his silence over allegations that he failed to tell residents in the former Geneva Foundry area that the soil on their properties was contaminated with toxins that included lead and arsenic.

Eddington, a former city director of public works and project director for the foundry cleanup, said the reason he did not communicate soil-testing data to residents in the foundry area was this:  He was legally bound to remain silent. He cited a state assistance contract related to the contamination cleanup with the state Department of Environmental Conservation that included a clause he said prohibited him and the city as a whole from divulging any information related to soil-testing results.

However, the DEC said Wednesday that Eddington’s reasoning — a stance City Manager Matt Horn defended on Friday — is not what the agency intended in the confidentiality provision included in the state assistance contract.

In response to a phone call and email from the Finger Lakes Times requesting clarification of the confidentiality provision, the DEC said it “cannot comment further due to pending litigation as noted in prior email.”

However, the agency did release this statement:  “The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) does not, and has no authority to, instruct other government entities regarding how to interpret the law. The purpose of the cited provision is to manage the disclosure of sensitive information from individual employees and is intended to limit individual employees from unilaterally disseminating data of a sensitive nature to third parties without DEC knowledge and approval. The provision is not intended to apply to the city or to supersede its obligations under FOIL (Freedom of Information Law).”

The DEC said the clause Eddington cited “was in effect prior to 2013. Substantially similar language was included in Appendix B of the original State Assistance Contract executed by the City of Geneva and the Department in 1999.”

Presented with this information, Eddington, who was contacted by phone and email, continued to maintain that he had no authority to divulge the information, based on his and apparently the city’s interpretation.

Laura Salamendra, who heads the Geneva Women’s Assembly, a social-justice group that has led many of the foundry contamination protests, isn’t buying Eddington’s position.

“Councilor Eddington claims that a contract prevented him from warning residents that they were raising their families and growing their food in poison, but he hasn’t produced any proof,” she said. “The failure of the city of Geneva to keep its residents safe is something that we cannot look past. We cannot move forward without knowing exactly how this happened.

“It is clear we can no longer trust the word of the city. We demand an immediate, independent investigation into all foundry-related matters.”

Eddington said he handled the foundry contamination in the best way he knew how.

From the Geneva Believer blog that I linked to above:

One of the mantras repeated by Eddington and his supporters has been “there are two sides to every story.”  But if Eddington is going to give his side of the story, it needs to be backed up by documented evidence showing that his role in the Foundry disaster is being unfairly portrayed.

Eddington’s claim that he was bound by confidentiality is surprising and sudden. This claim isn’t just “another side to the story,” it’s an assertion that would change the entire context of the Foundry discussion if confirmed. However, the claim is not backed up by currently available documents.

The Geneva Believer blog dug up some shady dealings, re Edddington.

City Councilor Gordon Eddington stated at the January 4th, 2017 Council Meeting that the work he’s done for the City of Geneva since 2011 has been “a volunteer consultant” and that he “did not accept any money” from the City for his services.

Geneva Believer has obtained documents via a recent FOIL request detailing more than $77,000 of invoices paid to Eddington’s company Eddington Environmental between 2011 and 2015. Eddington Environmental was the company founded by Eddington upon his retirement (as DPW chief for the City), specializing in asbestos abatement. It’s apparent that Eddington was not being truthful when he claimed to have been a “volunteer consultant” for the City from 2011 to 2015, when he stopped doing work for the city after winning the At-Large Councilor seat.

Among the 39 separate invoices are payments related to asbestos surveys, environmental testing, and asbestos removal at multiple city-owned properties, including 305 Main Street and the old Chamber building. However, a handful of the invoices brought up troubling questions about Eddington’s relationship with the city as a contractor after his retirement.

Four payments totalling $27,600 over four years were made to Eddington to pay for his asbestos removal licenses. Anyone in New York State who does asbestos abatement work is required to be licensed and insured. In fact, contractors of all types are required to pay costly license fees in order to remain in business.

2012 Asbestos License Invoice #1

2012 Asbestos License Invoice #2

2013 Asbestos License Invoice

2015 Asbestos License Invoice

However, for a contractor to have three years of licensing fees paid by taxpayers from the city where he was previously employed appears highly unusual.

In 2014, Eddington Environmental was paid a whopping $12,030 for environmental testing and reporting at the OEO site on South Exchange Street.  This is the site recently targeted for development by Massa Construction with the help of DRI funds.  The $12,030 invoice was for two environmental reports, with soil borings and analytical testing.

Soil boring and analysis is commonly performed by credentialed engineers. Gordon Eddington is not an engineer.

The city has asserted that they are not required to follow a bidding process for certain “professional services,” which implies that a company providing a specialized service would not have to submit competitive bids for those jobs.  But Eddington Environmental specializes in asbestos abatement, and the $12,030 invoice was for two environmental reports with soil borings and analytical testing, work normally done by engineers.

This brings up two important questions:  Why did the city award such a lucrative contract to Eddington Environmental? Did the City of Geneva solicit bids for this contract before awarding it to Eddington?

So Governor Cuomo was in Geneva back on the 16th for a PR thing. 

(Yes, the same Cuomo who runs the MTA and gives zero fucks about the NYC subway, at all, seriously.) 

City Manager Matt Horn was there too, as well as many of the area’s elected leaders.  Pam Helming was there.

The public was barred from the event.  The Foundry Crisis wasn‘t discussed inside the building for the record (and here’s some relevant thoughts on that).

(source, above)

Here’s a secret: it’s not OUR JOB to adapt to the market. It’s not OUR JOB to buy napkins and golf clubs and drive to the mall on the other side of town to make sure it doesn’t go out of business.

Did previous generations kill the horse and wagons after the car was invited? Did those lazy citizens kill the town crier by buying into that newfangled newspaper business?

What people want and are ready to spend their money on will change over time. Today we have different goals and different standards - like I will invite my friends over for dinner and instead of napkins I’ll put a roll of paper towels on the table. And my friends won’t clutch their pearls and hiss “you uncultured swine” at me, because we value that paper towels are cheap and efficient! Napkins may be pretty but some of them end up being unused, and I’ll have to throw them away after the dinner and it’s a fucking waste.

Did your mall end up as an empty husk outside of town because those pesky millennials buy all their clothes online now? You lucky son of a gun. Now you get to use your ~*IMAGINATION*~ and repurpose that ugly windowless box into something actually useful. Why not a nice office space? (x)

Or how about you make the old stores into cute micro apartments? I WOULD LOVE TO LIVE IN ONE OF THESE! (x)

Are the stores fine but the parking lot empty because those cheap hipsters would rather take a bus or bike to the mall instead of buying a car like regular people? Do like they did in Seattle and turn it into a fucking beautiful water treatment facility and park. (x)

This thing collects storm-water runoff to create and provide nutrients to small pools and green areas. It works like a natural creek that ALSO filters out pollutants that would damage the salmon population! AS A MILLENNIAL I CAN SAY THAT THIS IS SO FUCKING UP MY ALLEY YOU HAVE NO IDEA. I WOULD GO TO THAT MALL, BUY A COFFEE AND GO OUT TO LOOK AT THE BIRDS.

Actual fucking plovers. When was the last time a parking lot did something for the environment except gathering upp more roadkill for the scavengers?

I could also go into why no-one is watching shitty sitcoms or boring movies because we have access to so much media that we can filter out the generic stuff that doesn’t appeal to us, but that is an essay in itself. We are extremely capable on spending it on media that speaks to us though (hey this is unrelated but did you know that Wonder Woman has passed 570M$ worldwide?)

TLDR: Market powers are entitled and used to people spending an ever-increasing amount of money on their shitty products. When this trend turns they are too unimaginative and lazy to do something about it so instead they’ll whine about how their former customers are “killing” them.