My Friend Ian

After a couple of months away from blogging due to the press of other business (like the 100 students and four college courses that I taught and which will be the subject of another blog post soon), I decided that today would be the day to dive back in.  Why today?  Well, today was the funeral of my friend, Ian Arcus (full obituary — http://bit.ly/ZMmF5U).

Ian was lawyer in Albany who was the reason that my family came here.  Let me explain how.

When I was growing up in Rochester, NY, my mother went back to graduate school to get a PhD in political science at the University of Rochester (my dad had a law practice in Rochester, so that was where my mother need to go to graduate school, even though it was a top program in its own right).  In any event, Ian was an undergraduate at the U of R, and he had my mother as a professor (when she was finishing up her graduate degree).  To make a long story short, my mother took a liking to Ian and invited him to come to our house for dinner.  We had decided that we would have fondue for dinner and, as my folks had instructed me (I was 12 at the time) I was to offer the guest the option of starting first.  Ian, who had grown up in modest circumstances in Hudson, NY, had never had fondue in his life and when presented with an array of raw meat and vegetables and a pot of hot oil, was totally flustered by my offer to start first.  We all got a good laugh out of this (especially when my mother said that, “Ian, you haven’t done this before, have you?”), and Ian and I told the story many times over the years to our friends.

However, this doesn’t explain the Albany connection.  After graduating from the U of R, Ian went to Albany Law School and went into private practice.  Part of his practice was to serve as legislative counsel to former Senator Jack Perry from the Rochester area.  When my mother was coordinating the Albany semester program for SUNY Brockport (where she was on the faculty for 27 years in the political science department), she bumped into her former student (and fondue partner!) Ian and rekindled the friendship.  In the late 1980s when my wife and I decided that we wanted to move back to Upstate New York from Washington DC to be closer to friends and family, my mother shared this news with Ian and his lovely wife Lorraine (who coincidentally taught me at my synagogue while she was a student at the U of R before transferring to the University at Albany (SUNY) to be nearer to Ian), who invited us to stay with them in Albany while we job hunted and checked the place out.  Not only did they make us feel really welcome, Ian helped my wife find a job and made several other wonderful suggestions that made us decide that Albany was the place.  After we moved here in 1990, we saw the Arcuses from time to time but traveled in somewhat different circles (they were about 10 years older than we were) for a time.

However, in the last five years, Ian and I reconnected through our love of tennis.  We both were part of the “Morning Glories” tennis group organized by our mutual friend Ava.  The group plays tennis from 7-8 am six mornings a week and you sign up for which days you want to play, and Ava magically coordinates it.  We played indoors in the winter and outdoors in the summer, and then went on with the rest of our days.  I loved playing with Ian, not so much for the tennis (that was fun too) but for the time afterwards when we chatted in the locker room about various and sundry things, ranging from Ian’s work as a law guardian to his service on the board and as chair of the Jewish Family Service to our children and their adventures near and far.  Ian would also talk to me about the books he was reading or listening to on CD as well as other issues of the day.  A couple of years ago we expanded our tennis group to be part of Ian’s Sunday men’s doubles game, which he and his friends had had for many years, and I got to know all of them as well, adding even more richness to my life in the Capital Region.

At his funeral today, the rabbi talked about how Ian was someone who both had a quest for knowledge but also a sense of humor about the world and his place in it.  His Hebrew name was Yitzchak Ezra, which means one who laughs and also one who helps.  I will miss my friend Ian’s sense of humor but also his willingness to help others.

May his memory be for a blessing.

Super Tuesday?

Thought I’d take this opportunity on “Super Tuesday” to put some super and not so super thoughts on the issues of the day, so here goes!

Item #1 is of course the mega primaries going on today in 10 states across the country.  I continue to be sadder and sadder that there is no real center right option to President Obama (who is really a center left candidate — see former UAlbany and now Princeton historian Julian Zelizer’s excellent article in CNN.com) and thus no real debate about the crucial issue of 2012, which is the “economy stupid”, and not lots of social issues.  I wish that Mitch Daniels and others of the increasingly disappearing moderate wing of the Republican Party would resurface at some point.  Maybe if the GOP takes a shellacking in the fall, there will be some sense of moving to the center, but I doubt it.

Item #2 is the revelation that former New Orleans defense coordinator Greg Williams gave “bounties” for his players to “take out” opposing players, especially the quarterback.  While my wife was surprised and disgusted by this news, I wasn’t.  The NFL is the most popular pro sports league in the US (see my prior post on this topic), but if continued revelations keep coming out about this sort of thing, they are going to have a real public relations problem, kind of like the one that Rush Limbaugh has right now, but I digress.

Item #3 is the cost of higher education in this country.  Having just paid for four very expensive years for daughter #1 and nearly one for daughter #2 (who despite going to a public university, she is from out of state and thus pays “retail”), I especially feel the pain of this problem.  So what to do about it?  Well, like most problems of this magnitude, it didn’t start quickly and won’t end that way either.  I have a couple of thoughts however.  First and foremost is that we send too many students to college for four years.  While I am not on the same page about this as Rick Santorum, who thinks that students are brainwashed by the liberal elite, I do think that lots of students would benefit from two year focused technical degrees that would make them job-ready for lots of emerging industries (like wind mill or solar panel installer).  I know from teaching undergrads at a mid-level private school that last couple of years that many of them shouldn’t be wasting their parents or their own money getting a bachelors’ degree.  Secondly, there are too many schools, especially public ones.  My own state of New York is a prime example of excess capacity.  Why do we have 64 campuses in the SUNY system?  Wouldn’t it make sense to focus energy and limited resources on a small number of better schools than waste it on several mediocre ones?

Item #4 is a shout out to writer Stephen Dubner and economist Steven Levitt, the brains behind the Freakonomics books and web site and podcasts.  I think what they do brilliant and consistently so.  I may not always agree with their take on things, but they always make me think and I always learn something from them.  I also smile and even laugh aloud when I listen to their stuff.  Check it out.

Superior Donuts and Superior Toys

Just a quick post to let folks know about a play at Cap Rep and an exhibit at the Albany Institute of History of Art that are both worth your time.

The first is the production of “Superior Donuts“, a contemporary drama set in a donut shop in a transitional neighborhood in Chicago.  The play, written by Tracy Letts, the Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of August: Osage County, has a few false notes, but most of the time is a poignant exploration of two characters, the doughnut shop owner, a depressed nearly 60 year old man named Arthur, and his streetwise early 20 something counterman Franco.  While there are a lot of laughs in this production, it is definitely not a comedy and will give you much to think about long after the two and a half production is over.

The second is a new exhibit of modern American toys that gives the history and some context for them.  Everything from the Slinky to Silly Putty to Lincoln Logs to Nerf Balls to Erector sets and more is on display.  There are even opportunities for baby boomers like us to play with the toys of our youth (unfortunately the Etch a Sketch didn’t work too well).  Again definitely worth a visit to learn a little something about the history of the toys that we grew up with.  Who knew that Frank Lloyd Wright’s son Thomas invited Lincoln Logs or that the Pez dispensers were colossal failures when they came to the United States from Germany, until they introduced fruit flavors or that the Slinky and Silly Putty actually had military uses?  All in all, a fun trip down memory lane.

Enjoy!!

Humpty Dumpty

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday I joined 26 other people for a Mohawk Hudson Cycling Club bike ride.  We were doing the annual “Hidden Valley” ride which goes from Bethlehem down to New Baltimore and back along the Hudson River and through beautiful south Albany County farm land.  It is about a 36 mile ride and has a couple of really nice climbs and some lovely vistas.  It was a great day, warm but not too warm, and I felt wonderful riding along at a good pace and climbing the hills in a manner that had the heart rate moving up but not as if I was going to keel over.  I had plenty of water and Gatorade and a couple of mini-Clif bars to sustain me for the three hour ride (including a rest stop in the middle).

I noticed at about mile 25 that my front tire was getting soft, so I jumped off the bike and inspected it and put some more air in it from my hand pump.  It was firm but not as firm as I would have gotten it had I pumped it up at home, but it would have to do until I returned home.  I then continued to ride along and even went down a very steep hill with no problems.

I was tired but feeling pretty good and looking forward to a shower and a nice lunch and nap and had about four miles to go when disaster struck.  The soft front tire that had held up so well for the first 32 miles of the ride blew out while I was riding along a busy road (ironically route 32).  Although I fell in what was probably half a second, it felt like it was in slow motion.  I thought as I was falling that I should protect my head and so tried (or so I think) to roll onto my side and not over the handlebars.  I also thought that I should try not to fall into the road and so I bailed out to the side of the road.  Once I fell and was lying on the ground, I had two competing thoughts running through my mind.  The first was anger at the tire and myself for falling.  The second, which quickly replaced the first, was just how hard the road was and how every part of my body hurt.  I looked down and saw that I was bleeding from my right elbow and decided then and there that I shouldn’t move in case there were things broken that moving would make worse.  Then a third thought came into my head, how long am I going to be lying at the side of the road bleeding with lots of potential broken bones and potentially worse.  That thought passed very quickly as I discovered that I actually could move most of my limbs and other than a really sore right hip/glute I actually was not going to be like Humpty Dumpty.

Ironically, two of the first people to come upon my sprawled body were my wife and daughter who were coincidentally on their own bike ride and were about to turn onto the road I was on from another road about a quarter mile away.  They actually got stopped by a motorist who told them that a rider was down and asked if they were part of group riding together.  In the next ten minutes, it was like Grand Central Station on the side of route 32 — a local emergency room doctor who I know was also out riding, a nurse and EMT, a lifeguard with advanced first aid (and a friend of my younger daughter’s), and the leader of our club ride.  All of these people were helping me and comforting my wife and daughter until the EMTs arrived with their truck and took me to the emergency room.

Although it was pretty clear that I was going to be okay and just battered and bruised for awhile, the emergency department spent the next four hours cleaning me up, doing x-rays to make sure there were no hip or elbow fractures, and ultimately stitching up my elbow (only three of them, thank goodness).  The doctor, nurses and techs were incredibly nice and, although I hadn’t really intended to spend the afternoon in the emergency department (nor had my wife, who was great about the whole thing), it could be have been much, much worse.

While I am still really sore in lots of new and different places, I will heal and be back on the bike in relatively short order (need to get it checked out, especially that pesky front tire!) and be thankful that, unlike our friend Humpty Dumpty, I can be put back together again.

Now back to the BarcaLounger and the ice packs, where I will spend Father’s Day reading and dozing and trying not to move too much….

School Spirits — Postscript

Although I don’t think that my prior post had anything to do with this, the leadership at the University at Albany, in response to the outcry over the abysmal student behavior during the “kegs and eggs” incident on March 12, has decided to cancel “Fountain Day”, the annual spring fling event on campus.  It has also decided to change the spring break to coincide with St. Patrick’s Day, hoping that fewer students will be around to be part of any future “festivities”.

While I am not a huge believer in making the entire campus a victim of the behavior of a minority of students (though several hundred is not exactly a small minority), in this case I think that the reputation of the campus would be even more irreparably harmed than it already has been if the Fountain Day event were allowed to go forward.

I applaud the actions of the administrators as well as those of a number of students who participated in clean-up activities in and around the impacted neighborhood where the destruction took place.

It is my hope that this will begin a conversation of how long term changes can be made, so that the students and the permanent residents of this area (many of whom are elderly and have lived there for many years) can co-exist peacefully.

School Spirits?

Last Saturday students from our local state university (The University at Albany aka “SUNY Albany“, where I have taught and been an employee) held an annual pre-St. Patrick’s Day ritual which they affectionately refer to as “kegs and eggs.”  This ritual involves drinking lots of alcohol early in the morning and partying in the streets prior to the city of Albany‘s St. Patrick’s Day parade held that afternoon.  Sounds like harmless fun, huh?  Lots of drunk college students couldn’t do much to misbehave or cause public mayhem, could they?

WRONG!

Not only did these students disrupt a quiet Saturday morning in the Pine Hills neighborhood between the two parts of the campus, they did extensive damage to parked cars and property in the area as well as trying to assault several police officers called in to break up the melee. A number of students were booked on criminal charges, and some of them face felony indictments.

Rather than rant and rave about the “decline of youth in America” or some other high-minded sounding thoughts, I have a few questions to ask.

First and foremost, notwithstanding the powerful influence of alcohol and “group think” to make people do really stupid things, what do the parents of these kids think about their behavior?  Are they proud of it? Are they dismissive of it? Have they stopped caring about it, as they are over 18 and legally adults?

Second, notwithstanding the University president’s public apology and promise of action (suspension of the students, etc), why does this behavior happen “off campus” and why doesn’t the University do anything to prevent it from happening?

Third and most importantly, what’s up with the other students on campus?  Don’t they have something to say about their fellow students behavior?  Why is this tolerated?

Lots of questions and until there are lots of answers, stay tuned for another version of this same behavior down the road.

Sad but true.

Let it snow….

Notwithstanding the time it takes to clear the driveway and the cold, it really is beautiful to see the snow coating the ground, especially from the warmth of the inside.

I hope that wherever you are, you are warm and dry and enjoying the beauty of winter.

What Now?

It’s a cold rainy Thursday in Albany, and despite the weather, I am actually much more upbeat about the election than I thought I would be.  As a self-professed moderate, I am not sure that having split control in Congress and (potentially) Albany is all that bad a result.

Here’s my reasoning:

(1) As I tell my students in the graduate law and policy class that I teach, our system is set up to drive compromise to the middle.   Despite the big swing towards Republicans in this election, the notion that they have a mandate to impose conservative policies is just not the case, just as it was not the case that the Democrats had a mandate in 2008 to impose a liberal mandate.  It could be argued that the reforms that Obama and the Democrats passed were not as liberal as they were characterized, even “Obamacare”, which was not health care reform as much as insurance reform.  Financial reforms and the stimulus package were aimed at the middle, even if the President and the Democrats didn’t do as good a job of promoting them as such.

(2) Forcing the House leadership in Washington and the Senate leadership in Albany to be equal partners at the table will make them have to think about a governing strategy and not just a political strategy.  While making Obama a one-term president and Cuomo a one-term governor will be clearly on their respective agendas, they will need to be mindful that “just saying no” will not carry the day with most voters.  Matt Bai‘s column in the New York Times today is an interesting discussion of this issue (http://nyti.ms/bXvYuG).

(3) Demographic changes (more young people voting and a larger non-white population) will also have a long-term effect on elections going forward.  As my friend, former governor’s counsel and lobbyist, Bruce Gyory would argue, once the white electorate is below 75% the political dynamic changes greatly for both parties.

(4) Finally, despite Fox News’s view to the contrary, I think that the Tea Party does not have legs for the long-term.  Although some of its candidates won (most notably Marco Rubio in the Florida Senate Race), most did not, as a strategy of dumping tea in the harbor is not something that most Americans want long-term.  Just ask Carl Paladino, who got into big trouble when he had to actually talk about what he would do if he were elected governor besides wield a baseball bat.

It will be interesting to see how all this unfolds over the next several months.  I am somewhat hopeful that all of the players in this drama will get with the program, especially in Washington.  I will discuss my view about Albany in a subsequent post.