Just in time for the 2010 elections, county comptroller Elliott Auerbach resurrected an old whipping boy, the much-maligned but recently sub-radar Ulster County Resource Recovery Agency. Auerbach, a clever and at times hilarious turner of phrases, dubbed his breathless audit on the RRA “Garbage in…garbage out.” Democrat Auerbach is up for reelection against Republican Fawn Tantillo on November 2. As Auerbach revealed, and this is all public record, county taxpayers have contributed some $3...
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I sat down on my kitchen floor beside a crate of eggplant to try for some inspiration. I got a cabinet knob right in the ol’ spine, adding injury to insult. The insult is to eggplant — a magnificent nightshade, sexy, supple, shiny, purple — a fine food that is failing, for whatever reason, to spark my morning imagination. Nevertheless, I soldier forth. Such are the dangers of writing on deadline. This particular crate holds a half-dozen types of eggplant: royal-purple water balloons; lavend...
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Now that Hurricane Danielle is bringing us the cold and soggy miseries, it’s almost enough to make you nostalgic for the seemingly interminable heat wave that lasted up until just last week. With the temperatures cooling, the big butterflies of midsummer — the swallowtails — will be on their last wings, replaced by a new cast led by that intrepid traveler, the monarch. Joined by less ambitious doppelgangers like the viceroy and the larger fritillaries, these heralds of late summer are appropr...
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Among print, Web and cable, science editors are always looking for a catchy story. They ask themselves: What do most people want to hear about – or be titillated about, in the case of Science and Discovery Channel programs like Through the Wormhole, hosted by Morgan Freeman? Alas, the result is mostly junk. Either the “news” is simple speculation; or else some researcher’s opinion (“God is a hallucination in the left side of the brain, which I can reproduce through magnetism”); or it’s some...
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For residents and visitors from Phoenicia to Pine Hill, a hospital visit doesn’t necessarily mean a trip to Kingston A community hospital is available in Margaretville, a few miles over the Delaware County border. Recent upgrades have made Margaretville Memorial Hospital and its associated nursing home, the Mountainside Residential Care Center, more user-friendly for patients who do not require ultra-high-tech health care. The hospital is part of HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley, operator ...
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Looking around at my fruit trees and bushes, flowers, vegetable beds and ornamental and fruiting vines makes me wish that I had a catchy name for the kind of gardening that I do – a catchy name like, for example, “permaculture,” which is all the craze these days. Everyone loves permaculture. Many budding young as well as experienced permaculturalists have visited my garden to see what I’ve been doing here for the last 25 years. Yes, I have integrated edibles right into the landscape, as do ...
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