I tutor GED for a community service organization and many of my "kids" are convicted felons.  I was under the impression that everyone was mandated to obtain their GED while in prison if they already did not have one nor their diploma but, I am obviously wrong. 

One of my charges was able to obtain a job with the state working at the State Fair in Syracuse.  I applaud the state for giving this guy a second chance and a job, especially since he has no apparent education.  Actually, this guy, with about 16 arrests for drugs and burglary, is a math wiz.  His skill with numbers is amazing.  The problem is, everything he knows is in the metric system because that is the system drug dealers use on the street.  The examples of Sally using inches and ounces make no sense to him and he has little use for the Imperial system in his line of work. 

So he asked me if I would like any comp passes to the fair and I said that I would.  He asked me how many I wanted and I said that I just needed two.  He pulled out a wad of tickets about half an inch thick.  I didn't ask but I surmised that he purloined this tidy treasure of tickets and while I still applaud the state, this just proves the old adage that sometimes no good deed goes unpunished. 

To make amends for my possibly ill-gotten admission passes, I decided that I would purchase something superfluous valued at twenty dollars from some random vendor at the fair.  I did and I will share that treasure with you later.

There were many pleasant surprises to the NYS Fair.  First, parking was free.  During the drive in, there were no peripheral businesses shutting down for the day in order to make a lucrative profit from their parking lots much like you would find at other fairs such as The Big E.  Parking was plentiful, the attendants were efficient and the lots appeared to be tiered on a hill.  We took the first lot we came to and it was on what appeared to be the third tier.  Much to my surprise, they had shuttle buses running every few minutes to ferry the visitors directly to the front entrance.  The people packing strollers had the option to take a pedestrian walkway high above the freeways of the city. 

On my bus, a couple with three kids decided to haul their stroller and a cooler onto the shuttle where they had difficulty navigating the turn.  While holding up our bus, the driver told them to take the stroller back outside and to the side door where it was a straight line into the bus.  Dad backed out with the stroller only to find that the back of the bus was packed.  The driver said that another shuttle was coming right up behind him.  That left mom alone with the three kids who were bursting with alacrity at the prospect of going to the fair.

At one point one of the children drifted down the aisle a bit and this made mom livid as she openly yelled and threatened the child that she would withhold ice cream, cotton candy and rides.  I felt bad for the kid since he suffered from the ailment of childhood exuberance and I thought that he would probably have been content taking the sky-walk and, it wasn't his fault that his lazy mom and dad decided to attempt taking a bulky stroller and cooler onto a crowded bus. 

That is another thing, you may bring your own food onto the fair grounds.  Good for the state.  This makes it so that people with limited lucre don't have to be at the mercy of the price gouging vendors within the park.  However, even that wasn't necessarily so at this state fair. 

You can often expect to pay three to four dollars for a bottle of water at most fairs.  Not at the NYS Fair.  One vendor was charging $1 and another was asking $1 for two bottles.  Soda:  $1.  Fried dough: $3.  You'd pay five or six dollars for that at other fairs.  A chicken or fish dinner was only $6.95 where at other fairs you would pay at least ten bucks.  Soda not included.

My date and I went to one of the cafeteria eateries where we each had a sausage and pepper sandwich, fries and re-fillable soda.  The total was $15.  That would have cost us about $30 at a fair such as the Big E and other smaller county fairs where gouging the customer is de rigueur. 

There was also a wine tasting tent which sported about fifteen tasting stations where you could try samples from little two ounce cups (I don't know what that is in metrics) to your heart's content.  There was another tent offering free and delicious wine slushies.  These sample stations were advertising NY wine makers and both tents were packed. 

Although they were checking ID's and there were many peripatetic security personnel , this did not deter many teens from drinking at the fair.  Several times I saw kids between tents or around the corners of buildings with a bottle in their hand.  On our shuttle ride back to the car, we suffered the unfortunate malady to be riding with a knot of drunken teenagers and two of the girls were so loud they overpowered the din of the rest of the bus.  Where were their parents?

What was really sad about our day, never have I seen such rude people before (other than in a church parking lot).  While getting on the shuttle to go back to our car, there was a stampede of people as the doors to the buses opened up.  Just in front of us several teens came up the side of the bus and one of them stepped in front of the crowd with his back to us and held up his arms in a cruciform stance.  This blocked the crowd and allowed his friends to slip in ahead of everyone else queued in line.  A woman in front of me ducked under his arm and with her elbow she clocked him in the ribs and then said something of a copulative nature.  The boy doubled over as the crowd quickly overtook him. 

The seats on the bus were contoured so each bench could seat two people.  An Asian woman was alone and she sat on the mini hump in the middle of the seat thus, taking up two spaces.  The bus had standing room only and several people were making snide remarks about this woman taking up two spaces.  She completely ignored them.  A woman behind me muttered from the ancient art of the invective, the "Ch" word, the concision of insult to an Asian.

As I was standing, I rotated my body around so that I could see her and I noticed that she was wearing a crucifix around her neck.  The crucifix, a symbol of passion, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, new life and sacrifice was obviously lost on her.  It was merely jewelry or bling.  As the old joke goes, had Jesus been guilty of a felony today, she would have been sporting either a gold plated hypodermic needle or an electric chair around her neck. 

When we got off the bus, as the horde of people dissipated, one of the drunken teens took it upon himself to whip it out and void right there in the open.  His female companion just stood there and waited.  This didn't bother me for as a hiker, this happens all the time on the trails and summits.  When you gotta go you gotta go.  Now, had a child witnessed this henious act this boy could have been arrested and ended up on the sex offender registry where he would be unemployable, probably driven out of his home by an angry mob and would not be able to hand out candy on Halloween.  Ironically, anyone who reads the paper knows that most sex crimes are not committed by strangers but by uncles, grand fathers, step dads, cousins and baby sitters.  Sandusky for instance was not a stranger to his victims but a trusted coach, friend and mentor who passed all his background checks and had parents willing to hand their children over to him for overnight stays.

Regarding the urinating in public, this guy could have been more discreet although my date got a good laugh out of it.  I can't help but wonder, what is the difference between this act and using a mens room?  The fair bathroom was simply a row of exposed urinals.  There was a line of men in there and at one of the porcelain receptacles was an eightish year old boy who leaned forward then cocked his head left and right to inspect the troupes.  Do the police know about this place?

Another moment of rudeness was when we were descending a flight of stairs.  There was an elderly man moving slowly in front of me holding onto the banister with his right hand.  A young woman coming up the stairs was ascending on the wrong side and upon encountering the old man, hugged the wall forcing the elderly man to detach his grip and enter the center fray which was biliously moving in both directions.

At that evening's Lynyrd Skynyrd concert, the crowd was massive.  It spilled out of the concert area into the pedestrian walkway.  Those people held their ground and refused to move as hundreds of people attempted to filter through them in an effort to get from point A to point B.  Many in the crowd thought the pedestrians were rude.

All in all, the fair was well done, a lot of fun, a great bargain and much better than I made it out to sound.  It is just more fun to whine and complain about something.  I highly recommend the state fair over all other fairs.

About my superfluous purchase item, it is a sound activated, lighted tee shirt.  It will come in handy for my next Halloween Organ Recital and the Rye Bread Music Festival next summer.  It responds very well to bass and has several gradations of lighting.  Here in this video which I filmed downstairs in my basement I could dance with an elan one can only do when no one else is looking.  Okay, you are but, the lights are off and you can't really see me.  You'll have to come to Rye Bread and get me drunk in order to see the real thing.  Lucky for me I don't drink . . . temperance movement - Puritan that I am . . .

-Malcolm Kogut.

http://youtu.be/0JnPTNmCe7o

A Turkey Vulture near the Eagle Cliff hiking trail above Humpty Dumpty at Mohonk Preserve. 

I recently attended a wine tasting event which was a fundraiser and promotion for breast cancer awareness. 

One of my sisters died from breast cancer which metastasized to her brain.  After she first discovered a lump she was scared and didn't go to see a doctor for over a year.  She first decided to pray it away.

So ladies, get those things checked.  Don't be embarrassed.  Don't be afraid.  Don't wait and see if it goes away.  Many forms of breast cancer are completely curable if caught early enough. 

For those of you who are religious and wish to pray over it, consider this - maybe God will cure you by sending you to a doctor.  Even Jesus referred people to other experts.  In Luke 17: 12-14 Jesus told ten lepers to go see the priest.  Priests in those days were experts at diagnosing the vast variety of skin ailments since so many people went to them for healing. 

In those days where skin disorders were very common there was a rabid, foaming at the mouth hysteria about leprosy.  Mostly it was the Christians who had skin disorders because they refused to use the public toilets.  Instead, they opted to void in designated fields for purposes of privacy and humility.  They then walked back to the ritual bath area, often barefoot and tracking with them microbes from the fecal infested field.  They then got into a bath that 500 people ritually cleansed themselved in before them.  That germ infested water would go up their noses, in their eyes, mouths, ears and worse yet, into open cuts and scrapes.  It is ironic that the religious zeal for cleanliness was the cause of their many disorders.  Indeed, cleanliness was next to Godliness because it got you closer to God by killing you.

Back to the Ta Ta's.  There is no shame in developing breast cancer.  On the contrary, when you beat it, you will be both a hero and inspiration for others.  If the worse possible diagnosis befalls you, still, don't feel bad or blame yourself or God.   Keep your head up high and tell people not to feel sorry for you.   Feeling sorry for someone is pity, not compassion.  Pity puts one in a stance of looking down upon the sick one.  Compassion (with - suffering) puts one side by side.  The only healing possible in this world of medical miracles is the ability to accept one’s death even as one fights to hang on to life.  With this emotional or spiritual healing comes hope.  With this attitude comes compassion.  With this inner peace comes resurrection of life. 

Have you checked your Ta Ta's today?  If you did, shout it from the roof tops.  Tell your mom, sister, daughter, aunt, neighbor, friend.  Whether you find a lump or not, whether you live or die, you have the power to save many lives.   Be a hero.

Now, men . . .

http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/breast-self-exam

I put together a slide show on healing from tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome.  It can be found on SlideShare:

http://www.slideshare.net/sa/8652ca32b9f25fa5adb94fe916c18599

As many people are aware, Time Warner Cable is increasing their fees and hardware rental charges, once again.  Time Warner Cable is already making a 97 percent margin on their almost comically profitable internet, phone and cable services.  Most Americans have no choice but to deal with TWC because they are the only cable and internet provider out there.  TV Networks are constantly doing battle with them over broadcast rates (Currently CBS in many major cities).

Anyone who has ever been overseas knows that the United States languishes in the middle of the pack of the world’s developed nations in internet access speeds, with average download speeds of just 11megabits per second. In many Asian and European countries who are more poor than we, customers can commonly get affordable service providing hundreds of megabits or more.

Our greedy and corrupt Congress and the FCC won’t make it easier for other companies to compete with TWC because of the cable industry's powerful lobby's and campaign support.

But, look out.  Here comes Google Fiber with a connection speed 100 times faster than TWC's download speeds, crystal clear high definition TV, and endless possibilities.
It's not cable. And it's not just Internet. It's Google Fiber.  Check them out at:

https://fiber.google.com/about

Here are their plans:
Free Internet $0/mo $300 construction fee
Gigabit Internet $70/mo $300 waived construction fee
Gigabit + TV $120/mo $300 waived construction fee

So far it is only available in three cities because the infrastructure doesn't exist.  They have to lay their own fiber cable and that is a long, expensive and arduous task.  The cities are Provo, Austin and Kansas City.  Over 1,100 cities have applied for Google Fiber and Topeka even temporarily changed its name to Google, KS in an effort to woo Google into their city. 

In Kansas City, Missouri, a customer reported that they have at least 50 times faster than their previous internet access speed and a substantially better TV service, all for only $125 a month, tax included.

Imagine simultaneously streaming four high-definition TV shows and recording three of them on the included two-terabyte DVR. You can be running video via Wi-Fi on two smartphones and on two laptops, and also be watching and recording TV shows all at the same time.  It’s a vastly superior service.  And that’s even without touching high-bandwidth Web apps that work seamlessly at super fast speeds, such as 3-D maps of cities that have imperceptible load times.

Currently Google says that it is not yet profitable for them to roll out Fiber to every city.  If they could guarantee that the customer base would be there, that would make it more enticing to them.

Everyone should contact Google and tell them you want Google Fiber in your town or city.  Start online web surveys, create online petitions, blog about it, write your representative and ask them to facilitate inviting Google to your town, email all your friends, make some noise.  You need only one creative person with a lot of time on their hands to shoulder the responsibility, vanguard a group, phalanx an offense or germinate a healthy dose of competition so that the consumer wins and not corporate and political greed.  

Do you dream of a better country?  Then there is no dream, only do.  Congress won't do it for you.