Month: August 2016

Western New York: Seneca nation

Governor Cuomo announced an agreement between New York State and the Seneca Nation of Indians that resolved a multi-year dispute between the State and the Nation.

Seneca nationA striking phenomenon was that twice on our vacation, we left the country, kind of. The green highway signs we saw along Route 17/Interstate 86, for a time, were in both English and in the language of the Seneca.

Check out the timeline of the dispute between the Indian tribe and the federal and state governments. A key turning point is described here:

“In the 1990s, the Senecas won a prolonged court battle to assume ownership of all land on their reservation, including that owned by private non-Seneca. (This was particularly contentious in Salamanca, where non-Native landownership had been tolerated for decades. State and local officials said that this is the only United States city located on Indian reservation land; under the recognized law of the time, the underlying land remained Seneca owned, but “improvements” on that land were not subject to lease and were still privately owned.) The city had been developed under a 99-year federal lease arrangement with the Seneca Nation. It had provided land to railroads to encourage development, which the railroad developed for workers and their families, and related businesses. This arrangement was confirmed by acts of Congress in 1875, 1890 and 1990.”

The Seneca became exempt from taxes on their lands, notably the money from their successful casinos, but it’s all remained a negotiation. Back in 2011, it was a highway fight over who was responsible for repairs. In 2013, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced an agreement between New York State and the Seneca Nation of Indians “that resolved a multi-year dispute between the State and the Nation.”

two_wampum
“The State of New York recognizes and reconfirms the exclusivity of Seneca casino operations in the Western New York region, and the Seneca Nation agrees to resume payments and to make pro-rated repayments for past amounts that were in dispute.”

On the return trip, when we took a more northerly route, off the major highway, the signs were more interesting. These purple road signs implore people to drive carefully but have a more folksy feel than your usual directives. More than one said “Drive safely for our children. Drive safely for our elders.” This one is the only one I could find a visual for online, alas.

Here’s a factoid for you: Although the population is small – 8,000 enrolled members – the Seneca Nation has become the fifth-largest public employer in Western New York.

Is it down for everyone or just me?

down-or-just-meOccasionally, my web page has gone down. It was annoying, not so much because I couldn’t have my purple prose seen, but because, almost always, I was trying to write some NEW ramblings.

I know the vendor, in fixing the last problem, suspended someone’s user account “for CPU overage,” whatever THAT means.

And I can’t always tell whether it’s a problem with my Internet at home – which has also failed me – or the blog itself. So I email a list of trusted folks and ask them, re my site, “Is it down for everyone or just me?” Unfortunately, almost always, it’s down for everyone.

I do back up my blog every month, or three, but still, it’s a pain.

As it turns out, I noticed that another website was down recently. I wrote on the closed Facebook discussion page, “Is it down for everyone or just me?” Someone wrote This is always a handy check and pointed to down for everyone or just me.com. There are similar sites, such as Is It Down Right Now.

Oddly, when I went to Is It Down, when a blogger I know was down in May, it showed: “[URL] is not down. (it took me 0.02 seconds to check, if it is down for you, go shout at your IT support or ISP). BTW: The status code I got was 502, which means that there is something wrong with URL or site.” To me, that means the site is not working.

At least the first two sites will be, I’m afraid, quite useful in the future.

Music Throwback Saturday: Come On Down To My Boat

Every Mother’s Son did have three other Top 100 songs in the US, two from their second, less successful collection, the imaginatively-named Every Mother’s Son’s Back

Every Mother's SonThe band Every Mother’s Son was likely, depending on how you define it, a one-hit wonder. Come On Down To My Boat was the only Top 40 Billboard hit for the New York group, comprised of brothers Dennis Larden (vocals) and Larry Larden (guitar), who had originally performed as a folk duo, plus Bruce Milner (keyboards), Christopher Augustine (drums), and Schuyler Larsen (bass).

The #6 hit on the Billboard charts was originally recorded by a group called The Rare Breed, which apparently was one iteration of a group called the Ohio Express, but that lineage is too complicated to go into here.

The latter version of Come On Down To My Boat appears on Every Mother’s Son’s eponymous first album, which got to #117 on the Billboard album charts. The single went to #3 in Canada and #26 in Australia.

From the Wikipedia: “Because the group was signed to MGM Records, MGM Television… decided to feature the group in a two-part episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., ‘The Karate Killers (The Five Daughters Affair),’ singing the song in a nightclub as a fight breaks out.”

But Every Mother’s Son did have three other Top 100 songs in the US, two from their second, less successful collection, the imaginatively named Every Mother’s Son’s Back, which failed to dent the Top 200 album charts. Put Your Mind At Ease, which has a riff that reminds one of Pleasant Valley Sunday by The Monkees that had come out earlier in 1967, got to #46 in the US, though made it to #8 in Canada. Pony with the Golden Mane only got to #93 US, #41 in Canada.

No One Knows, apparently, a non-album cut from 1968, only got to #98.

Listen to

Come On Down To My Boat – Rare Breed HERE

Beg Borrow or Steal – Rare Breed HERE

Come On Down To My Boat – Every Mother’s Son HERE or HERE

Put Your Mind At Ease – Every Mother’s Son HERE or HERE

Pony with the Golden Mane – Every Mother’s Son HERE or HERE

No One Knows – Every Mother’s Son HERE

Typo Nazis

Angry people need to get there sines write.

science.it There’s an article about how only jerks bother pointing out typos. It used a harsher word, actually, to describe typo Nazis.

“Researchers concluded that ‘less agreeable people are more sensitive to grammatical errors, while more conscientious and less open people are sensitive to typos.’

“Overall, extroverts were more forgiving of both types of errors, and introverts were especially harsh about messages that contained typos. ” Not incidentally, the article is intentionally filled with typos.

Surely, science has proven I must be both disagreeable AND introverted. The very day I read the article, someone wrote on Facebook, in response to a politician he did not like, “Looser!” What he MEANT was “Loser” and I KNEW that, but I felt a bit dismissive of the comment, perhaps because a single invective isn’t very insightful.

I groan, rather than chuckle, when I see the protest signs demanding that immigrants know English, but spell moron “morans.” Go to Google images and type in misspelled tea party protest signs. Here’s an example.

“Previous studies have shown that we tend to judge people who make writing errors as ‘less conscientious, intelligent, and trustworthy.'” True enough; angry people need to get their sines write; I mean, their signs write.

Ah, The Guardian says correcting grammar is racist and is an expression of white privilege I will take that under advisement.

I’ve noticed more errors of fact in online newspapers. Speed gets in the way of accuracy. A story mentioned the “six minutes between 11:49 a.m. and noon.” I wrote to an editor I know personally to get it fixed, not as a taunt, but because it’s good to get it correct. Still, it DID hurt my head, but only slightly.

I’m much more patient with bloggers who produce regularly. Having my own problem with typos is a function of my brain operating faster than my fingers. I have learned to try to have the word NOT in any sentence, because I’m most likely to leave it out, totally changing the meaning.

If someone has written about the American Civil War and writes 1683 – this actually happened recently – I KNOW the guy KNOWS the actual date of 1863, and correct him, privately.

I am comforted by this: I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why.

What am I to make of the fact that someone emailed me this article?

See also: It’s not “homocide” or “genicide”…

Slightly off topic:

Why Does English Have So Many Words That Have Twins?

From a window

Bless them, The Wife and The Daughter had slept through this incident.

????????????????????????
Window

It’s 3 a.m., and I’ve been awake for about a half-hour. My general pattern is that I get up for about an hour, go to the office, read my emails, visit other blogs, maybe check Facebook, then go back to bed.

I hear a BAM! but can’t tell if it’s inside or outside, or really, from what direction. BAM! what the heck is that? BAM! I get up to investigate.

I ascertain that something, or someone, is banging on the window in the second-floor apartment directly across from our bathroom, a distance of about my height, six feet.

CRASH! The distinct sound of breaking glass. I throw on a pair of pants, and go outside, looking down the alley. CRASH! Someone is breaking the window from the inside.

I call 911. There is a non-emergency number, but at this hour, I worry that 1) there is a fire, and someone has to try to get out; 2) there’s domestic violence taking place; 3) there’s a crazy person who’s going to next break OUR window less than a couple of meters away; or 4) who knows what?

The police arrive quickly, but by this time the window breaking has stopped. I alert one officer to where the activity had been. They go in, but she, and her roommates, had gone outside. Some of the other tenants are also outside; at least one of them had been listening to music through his headphones, and was oblivious to the breakage, but heard the cops come in.

Sitting on my porch, I can’t catch much of the conversation, but I do clearly the young woman in question say to one of the policemen, “It’s illegal to break your own window?” Well, 1) it’s really not your window, it’s your landlord’s, and 2) you are, at minimum, disturbing the peace. Specifically, mine.

After ascertaining that no one is imperiled, the cops depart. No one was arrested, as far as I know. Now I’m so adrenalized that I can’t get back to sleep until about 6 a.m.

In the morning, when I can see better, I find large chunks of glass in the common alleyway. One piece, about the size of a standard magazine, was wedged vertically into the ground. This means that if a stray animal had wandered by, it could have been killed.

The implement of destruction was a plastic fan, one the face diameter of a dinner plate. The plastic frame was in the alley, but the motor was wedged between two layers of glass. The screen had been shredded as well. This was a very inefficient weapon to use to smash a window.

At 8 a.m., I called the absentee landlord and relayed the story. He seemed calm but based on arguments we’ve heard him have with his tenants in the past, the meeting with the offending tenant will be loud. He cleaned up the mess before I got home from work Monday night.

It wasn’t until I had hung up with him that I noticed that there are at least three cut marks on the aluminum siding of our house that had not been there before.

Bless them, The Wife and The Daughter had slept through this incident. The previous building owners, who lived there, sold the house to a guy who has subdivided it into student housing, featuring a rolling number of people I cannot keep track of.

Ever since, the Wife has had a dream to buy that house and rent it to model tenants. I have no desire to be a landlord myself, and, best I can tell, the building is not for sale anyway. Oh, and we can’t afford to buy and renovate it anyway.

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial