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 A
Matter of Equity
by Kim Ellis
When the
time for state tests comes around here in New York, most public schools make
every effort to provide the optimum testing environment for their students.
Certainly the administrators and teachers want to give the students all possible
advantages, which include a quiet workplace with plenty of light and no
interruptions.
Read the entire article.
 I
Hate College?
by Greg
Olear
 The
Electoral College, that is. Out with it. Let me explain. I am, and always have
been, an elitist. Elitism is part of human nature. It’s why communism didn’t
work, why rampant socialism bogs things down, why film critics get bent out
shape when the Julia Robertses of the world take home Best Actress awards.
What
sets Total Immersion apart from traditional swimming? The most important
distinction has less to do with your muscles than with your mind. The
experiences of the most successful TI students strongly suggest that adopting a
spirit of mindful, purposeful practice is more critical to your success and
satisfaction than how many yards you swim.
Read the entire article.
 Let's
have a revolution! Does July 14th Work for You?
by
Anne Lamott
— I'm drawn to almost any piece of writing with the words "divine love" and
"impeachment" in the first sentence. But I know the word "divine" makes many
progressive people run screaming for their cute little lives, and so one
hesitates to use it.
Read the entire article.
 The
DrugCzar Strikes Again
by Rob Robinson
Well the Drug czar is at it again. The Bush administration's point man on drug policy wants random drug testing in every
child's school.
Read the entire article.
Health
Care and Profits Don't Mix
by Greg Olear
Recently, the state of
Maryland passed a law that, in effect, forced Walmart to
pay more towards its employees’ health insurance. While I admire Maryland’s
attempt to redress a glaring problem, the solution they came up with is unfair.
Read the entire article.
 Waxing
Update and the North West Shutdown
by
Erin Quinn
 You
can imagine that the post-waxing growth isn’t a pretty situation. I find myself
rubbing up against hard edges in public places unconsciously. Sometimes it gets
so bad that I have to stick a capped pen into my pants pockets and scratch while
attending meetings.
Read the entire article.
 A
Trip to Bountiful: The Tasty
Challenge of Joining a CSA
by Mala Hoffman
 For
some, becoming a member of a Community Supported Agriculture farm [CSA] is a
chance to enjoy the bounty of the season while participating in the preservation
of an important local resource. For me, it’s a culinary challenge and a race
with time.
Read the entire article.
 My
Friend Bart
by
Jeff
McGowan
Two weeks ago, the best dog I ever
had passed away at the ripe old age of 15. My dog’s name was Bart and he was a
cute little balck pug. I didn’t buy Bart, he came to me through my relationship
with my ex-partner Billiam
Read the entire article
 Is
Climbing Like Sex?
by Susan E.B. Schwartz
 Climbing
is a favorite activity for many in New Paltz, as well as around the world. But
so is sex. To some inquisitive minds, this raises an inevitable and eminently
logical train of thought: Coincidence? Or not?
Read the entire article
Another
Vote for Idol: After Years
Without Television, A Return To Reality by
Mala Hoffman
 In
the six years we’ve lived in this house without it, there’s little on television
that I’ve missed. Shows I’d loved, like “Homicide,” are either long gone or,
like “Law and Order,” have mutated far beyond my original interest. Must-see t.v.
for me, such as the Oscars, I’ve managed to watch through the kindness of
colleagues.
Read the entire article
Bleeped
Into Submission
by Jeff
McGowan
Why is it every time you do
something you are not supposed to do, there is a little beep to remind you to be
a better citizen? If you don’t put on your seat belt, a series of beeps occurs,
until you comply by buckling up.
Read the entire article.
 Getting
Off the Target Tit Part 1
by Melissa Halvorson
 My
business partner (owners of The Year of the Goat yarn and knitting shop) and I
recently made a pact that when the new corporate taco place opens up in the
Ariel space, effectively destroying any dignity that may have been left on that
corner, we will commence to eat all three meals of every day at Mexicali Blue in
peaceful protest.
Read the entire article.
What
More?
by
Greg Olear
When
Bush won the election in 2004, I decided to withdraw from the political
process. The idiot majority who had allowed him to remain in office deserved
what they got, I thought at the time. As for me, I was going to enjoy watching
the wheels fall off.
Read the entire article.
 Everyone's
a Winter by
Rich Gottlieb
 My
motto is, “Everyone’s a winter,” that is, if you want to get in touch with your
arctic side. Packing the car with all the imaginable cold weather gear in my
arsenal and driving up east of Québec City has...
Read the entire article.
 Life
in the shadows...
by Eamon Martin
 I
help publish a small, nonprofit, independent newspaper in western North Carolina
called the Asheville Global Report. We print under-reported news that casts an
often-critical eye on the doings of our government...
Read the entire article.
 Menopausal
Hedgehogs
by Kimberly Quinn Smith
Today
I would like to tell you about our discussion on menopausal hedgehogs. Last
night, I took our oldest daughter to her first 4H meeting. This is my kid that
does her own thing. She is my artist child. She likes art and French. She loves
animals, sometimes more than people. I can’t blame her there. I feel that way
myself sometimes...
Read the entire article.
I
Have Questions!
by Jeff
McGowan
 When
Brokeback Mountain came out, I went to see it on the first day. I, like many
gay people, was excited about the movie and the buzz that its release caused.
Anyone who has seen it, I believe, will acknowledge that it is a finely made
film— with beautiful landscape shots and excellent acting...
Read the entire article.
In teaching Total Immersion
weekend workshops, we have discovered an interesting predictability to one
aspect of our instruction. Although women make up only 30% to 40% of a typical
class, they are chosen nearly 80% of the time when our coaches need to select a
class member to demonstrate fluent, beautiful execution of one of our skill
drills...
Read the entire article.
The Waxing
by Erin Quinn
 One
of the upsides of winter, even a mild winter, is the lack of waxing that needs
to take place on the more sensitive parts of the female anatomy...
Read the entire article.
Not everyone in New Paltz, of
course, is a rock climber. You can look west from Main Street and be perfectly
happy to admire the Shawangunk cliffs . . . from afar.
Bringing up the reasonable
question: Why do people climb?
 Jugs, rack, boobs,
or “mammalian protruberances” as Frank Zappa once called them on his album
“Joe’s Garage,” (also famous for the quote, “anything over a mouthful is
wasted),” whatever you want to call them: breasts are man-bait. They are bags of
flesh designed in an evolutionary way to imitate the ass on an ape according to
Desmond Morris’ classic The Naked Ape to attract a male for reasons of
sexual reproduction once hominids started facing each other and some of them
were too dumb to get it.
How the
hell does one cartoon justify rioting, millions of dollars in damage, and yet
another parade of images depicting wild-eyed bearded men frothing at the mouth?
For the love of god, it’s not as though the cartoonist drew a picture of the
prophet Mohammed having sex (in which case I could see a certain level of pique
being appropriate, something along the lines of a snarky editorial or vigorous
waving of signs in a civilized march followed by a robust snack at a local
café). Rioting? Sorry my dear believers, it is totally inappropriate...
Read the entire article.
The Vice President of the United
States shot a man in the face while hunting. Everyone has something to say about
it. But something is getting lost amid all of the Left's snark and the Right's
blindly loyal defense and denials. Everyone is overlooking a shocking truth at
the core of this perverse incident, because it's so embarrassing, so shameful,
that we as a nation can't confront it... Read the entire article.
How to
improve continuously…no matter how long you swim.
After 40 years
of purposeful swimming (i.e. as opposed to “doing laps”) and 34 years of
coaching and teaching, I think I’ve become one of the best swimmers on earth.
While that claim sounds staggeringly presumptuous, my definition of “best” –
unlike one that applies to, say, Michael Phelps -- doesn’t hinge on how fast I
swim. Instead I mean that, among the billions in the human race, there are
perhaps only a hundred or so swimmers on earth who use their available energy
and power as efficiently as I do, who enjoy every stroke as fully and who
practice effectively enough to keep improving continuously...
Read the
entire article.
 Frey Gone Awry
by
Anne Quinn
I am obsessed with James Frey. I
am obsessed with the man and also with the media frenzy he has provoked. I have
watched Larry King Live, Anderson Cooper on CNN, and I taped James Frey on the
Oprah Show so that I could retraumatize myself at will by watching James sink
like a stone in
front of millions...
Read the entire article.
Pioneer Town
by Melissa Halvorson
Eight
years ago, I left my home in Washington State, bound for New Paltz and a long
sought after sense of community. Quite literally, some friends and I
relocated to the Hudson Valley, with its spotty history of gringo ashrams and
artist communes to form a utopian society.
Read the entire article.
Cold As Ice
by
Rich Gottlieb
Desk size blocks
of ice are piled at the bottom of a vertical 100 foot high, 3 to 6 foot wide ice
climb in a shaded amphitheater nestled in the Catskills. It is the day before
Valentines Day 06 and although winter started out strong in December it has
fizzled ever since, leaving those fallen blocks as evidence of a lame, record
warm, January. Where these monolithic blocks once stood, stuck to the side of a
steep cliff, there is now a thinner more elusive combination of brownish icicles
and stranger frozen globs not quite as stuck to the side of the cliff but never
the less connected and spanning from bottom to top...
Read the entire article.
 Martin Luther King Jr. : My Favorite American
by
Rachel Lagodka
My
favorite American thinker and speaker is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I studied
Jesus when I was an undergrad majoring in Classics and I have to say that I am
more impressed with Dr. King. I could pull a Tristram Shandy and get to the part
about how I ended up crying my eyes out in front of a computer screen while
preparing a lesson on Martin Luther King Jr many chapters later, but I don’t
have time for that, and as far as a compromise between a stilted essay thesis
and a chatty self-indulgent introduction, well, this will have to do. Let’s just
say that I have a great deal of liberal outrage as well as liberal guilt...
Read the entire article.
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