Finger Lakes

In this day and age of space-age electronics, high-crime and MTV, there's something to be said for young people taking a moment to re-evaluate themselves and opting to incorporate some tradition into their lives. And when we consider all the possible negative paths young people have to choose from today, as a community, we should applaud it when a young couple chooses something as radically different, archaic and simple as marriage.

Capote, like Broke Back Mountain before it, is another one of Hollywood's desperate attempts at pandering to a specific audience. The film industry has already lost a third of its market share in Europe and it's on its way to losing that amount or more in the U.S. as well.

An Associated Press writer (Daniel Connolly) wrote an article featuring Eleazar Paula Mendez as having suffered from depression while living in De Queen, Arkansas. She was recently charged with killing her 3 children. The article mentions that there are no Spanish speaking mental health workers in De Queen. The Hispanic population in that area (as in many small rural areas) is growing so quickly that there isn't time for the local infrastructure to catch up with the growth.

Mendez did ask her priest for spiritual counseling but he wasn't able to refer her to a Spanish speaking mental health professional. It is an unfortunate set of circumstances that we're seeing across the country. The tragedy is to be expected if small rural towns that do not have the means to hire bi-lingual professionals have their case loads doubled and trippled by non English speaking clients in need of all sorts of services.

My recommendation to the established bi-lingual Hispanic community already settled in the United States, is that if this case, and others like it, offends them, that they take it upon themselves to call their local Social Service and Red Cross Centers and offer free translation services rather than sitting around feeling indignant about the lack of bi-lingual services.

I too am a bi-lingual Hispanic American citizen and when I moved from what is referred to in these parts as "the city," to the rural town I now call "home," I contributed what I could - free computer training. Many other bi-lingual professionals in the town where I live do likewise. They offer translation, driving, teaching and all sorts of other hands on community involvement.

When I originally came to this town, there was a case at a local health facility where a young Hispanic male was using a hand gesture, that in Latin America merely means, "I've met my level of frustration." It's the stroking of or wiping of one's hand across one's neck as the point where one has met their level of frustration. It's a form of measurement meaning, "I've had it up to here."

Some people wipe their hand across their forehead, some wipe their hand across their neck. In some regional and cultural circles the gesture means "I'm going to cut my throat" but when you say in Spanish, "I've had it up to here" or say, "estoy harto" while drawing an imaginary line across some part of your neck or forehead, it just means, "I'm fed up."

In our rural community of upstate New York, the young man was merely saying that he was tired of waiting for his turn to be interviewed at a local Social Service office and was giving up and wished to return to his room at the local hotel where he'd been housed because he was "fed up." The social service workers flew into a panic and called the police thinking he was threatening to kill himself.

Nothing could be further from the truth - he was just tired of waiting his turn. This young man should have been working somewhere but he had been encouraged by a local activist to behave as though he had some kind of entitlement to services.

If you want to help your town out financially, assume some responsibility for wasted funds. If you know of someone that is accepting community funds (be it from Social Services, the Red Cross or even from Social Security) illegally or that the person is for whatever reason, undeserving of those funds, call it in!

Many people immigrate from other parts of the world into financially strapped, rural areas bringing with them a sense of entitlement. And community activists aren't always as forthcoming about who deserves to be helped and who doesn't. They themselves are often so anti-establishment that they feel that every person they can get on the dole in their communities is another "win" in their war against the system.

Small town's coffers can't handle the additional cost of hiring bi-lingual personnel. Are you Hispanic and not happy with the current state of affairs? Swallow the indignity and pitch in. Volunteer some of your time. That's the long and short of it.

Between cable and satellite television being accessible in the home, there really is no reason for any of us to go to the movies anymore. The lost market share experienced by movie theaters is in the billions. As a result, gay themed cinema and television have become the entertainment industry's "sacred cow."

The industry is counting on bringing in the gay contingent because the rest of society simply doesn't need to go to the movies anymore. I use Time Warner where I can actually rewind what I'm watching in case I miss a word or two or simply want to see something again. I can also pause the system for a moment and go make myself a sandwich, go to the bathroom and come back to whatever I was watching and continue where I left off. No such possibility at the movies.

I saw Brokeback Mountain. The movie features a pair of selfish cowboys that discover they've got the hots for each other while herding cows and sheep. The romance stretches a span of supposedly 20 years time, during which each of them marries a heterosexual woman and raises a family. There lies the rub.

The movie is not about romance as the promo implies nor do you forget its about two men. It's all too obvious that they are each "married" men that have involved innocent women into their selfish charade. Neither tell their wives they're "dating' a feller." Naturally, both marriages wind up on the heap trash.

It was a total waste of time and money. The only thing I learned for certain from this movie is that the movie industry is absolutely desperate for market share.

All people have the right to a decent standard of housing. Adequate housing fulfills the physical security of having a roof over one's head and protection from the elements. It also fulfills the psychological need of having ones own personal space and in the case of responsible adults – privacy.

And while people may have rights to standards of living and adequate housing, there is no universal law dictating what standards governments must provide if any at all. Sometimes it's left up to us in the community to fill in that need because we are our brother's keeper...

Mary Jo Namaste’ of California, recently purchased the old Habersham Country Inn located at 6124 Routes 5 & 20 in Canandaigua, New York. Namaste converted the old Inn to a hospice for homeless men when she purchased the 11 acre property sight unseen from her ex-husband and his current wife.

Matthew Strickland, 25, had been staying as a guest at the converted Bed & Breakfast. Authorities report that he attacked Steven Becker, 23, in one of the property's main rooms. When Namaste' heard the commotion, she came into the room and Strickland turned on her. 

Namaste had to be flown to Strong Hospital in Rochester, New York where she had to have emergency surgery and remains in critical condition. A psychiatric evaluation is pending on the suspect now being held at the Ontario County Jail in Hopewell, New York. 

Namaste has dedicated her life to helping the homeless and needy from coast to coast. Strickland was charged with attempted murder.

   Tookie Williams was finally executed and it didn't happen soon enough for the relatives of thousands who lay dead at his hands. The children's books he wrote do not excuse the reality that he founded one of the most notorious criminal enterprises in U.S. history. And his legacy, "The Crips Gang" continues to kill people as of this writing. 
   

  Don't like your neighbor? Don't shoot him. Simply keep vicious dogs in your house and turn them loose when the neighbor borrows the hose without permission again. In Thorndale, Texas, Lillian Lorraine Stiles, was mauled to death by her neighbor's six dogs. 

Ms. Stiles was 76 years old. She had just gotten off her lawn mower when she was confronted by the pack of pit bull-rottweiler mixed breeds as she went into her house. Stiles had severe bites over her entire body, and a man who tried to help her was bitten on one leg, authorities said. Her neighbor, Jose Hernandez clearly owns the dogs, but the sheriff's department has to send its investigation findings to the Milam County District Attorney's Office, "first" so they can decide if any criminal charges will be filed against Hernandez at all.

In the year 2005, why do local authorities still have to go through so many legal steps and procedures when people are killed by vicious animals? Why does this sheriff have to send the D.A.'s office any findings at all? The neighbors all reported that the dogs are vicious and it's not "a" dog Hernandez keeps but "a pack" of dogs.

Vicious pets that kill people are a very effective method of neighbor removal or rather, getting away with murder. If Hernandez had shot the 76 year old, he would have been arrested immediately. Not so if he kills her with his dogs. Current pet laws were written in the fifties and sixties when people kept "pets." It's time for local laws to catch up with current day vicious monstrosities bred to kill.