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Pine
Country
To
the Editor:
I
found your article on the Pine Bush [“Beyond the Karner Blue,”
April 20] to be an important call in the ongoing struggle
to preserve this important ecosystem. Being a resident of
the Pine Hills neighborhood, I understand that my backyard
was also once part of a larger Pine Bush, before the spawling
fields of Washington Park, the State Office campus, and SUNY
Albany were tamed by lawn mowers. Today, there are only a
few backyard pines left standing among the apartments, as
living reminders of my neighborhood’s namesake. On the map,
Elberon Place meanders off the grid as a reminder of a stream
that once followed it toward Lake Avenue.
The country in which I was born, Latvia, is densely covered
in pines, so much so that many tourists visit it for the smell
alone. Young survivors of Chernobyl stayed in Latvian resorts,
too. Visiting the Pine Bush reminds me of this unforgettable
experience. Unfortunately, on my trip between Pine Hills and
Pine Bush, I must pass by the trimmed lawns of Harriman and
SUNY, the landfill of Rapp Road, Crossgates, Wal-Mart, and
the western end of Washington Avenue, which feels more like
an airport runway than an avenue. Passing by all this super-size
development makes the experience of visiting the Pine Bush
even more special, knowing that it could all disappear if
no further action is taken.
Sergey
Kadinsky
Albany
In
the Neighborhood
To
the Editor:
After-dinner
conversation on Easter turned to the article on Terra Nova
by Chet Hardin [“Faith No Less,” April 13]. A number of the
Troy residents and regulars who were gathered for Easter dinner
were distressed by the paragraph referring to the Revolution
Hall block of River Street as “rough” and the citing of the
Salvation Army and a “strip club” as typical of the neighborhood.
It sounds to me as though Chet Hardin hasn’t spent any more
time on River Street than he has in church (“It is my first
church service in 19 years”). Thirteen years ago when Brown’s
Taproom (from which Revolution Hall evolved) opened, the description
might have been a little more accurate, but not really. Currently,
the block north of the Green Island Bridge is one of the liveliest
blocks in town. From Ryan’s Wake at the south end, past Jose
Malone’s and Brown’s Taproom to the River Street Café (a well-established
and well-respected restaurant which got a spontaneous rave
from chef Ric Orlando during a recent cooking class), the
block is full of great food and conviviality. Various other
businesses fill out the block, and the Salvation Army office
has been serving the neighborhood for longer than most of
the other establishments. And in summer, the Farmers’ Market
sets up on Saturdays in the parking lot next to the Marina.
“Up-and-coming”—yes, “rough”—no.
The emphasis on the perceived grittiness of the neighborhood
and the incongruity of holding church services in a bar may
just have been for atmospheric effect but do a disservice
to the reader by creating a false impression of a vibrant
neighborhood. Revolution Hall (contiguous to Brown’s Taproom)
is a performance space which has hosted a wide variety of
local and national performers, as well as local charitable
functions. So it’s not so improbable to rent it out on Sunday
morning. If the church members feel more comfortable worshiping
someplace they might also come to hear more secular music,
that’s nice for them.
And, for the record, the so-called “strip club” is a block
away on King Street, not on River Street. I hope the fact-checkers
will be a little more attentive to detail in future.
Pamela
Bentien Troy
Watch
What You Read
To
the Editor:
Lo-lee-ta
is the way Nabokov begins the novel many critics have called
the greatest love story of the 20th century. It might also
be the best way for librarians to currently refer to this
book, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year, should
they ever want to do so in e-mail. Like Miriam Axel-Lute [“Miss
Manners Is Watching, Blindly,” Tech Life, April 6], I too,
after a period of puzzlement, finally hit upon the weird fact
that certain messages containing innocuous content simply
were not being delivered. Apparently, my office was employing
a filter that didn’t like the word Lolita¾presumably
because of its frequent occurrence on porn sites. Lolita
is a famously censored book, film, and movie remake, and there
are legitimate reasons why librarians might want to talk about
it.
A recent thread on a cataloging listserv concerned subject
headings for the words Nigger and Fuck. There
is “literary warrant” for these based on the books Nigger:
The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word by Harvard professor
Randall Kennedy and The F-Word by Oxford English
Dictionary editor Jesse Sheidlower. Messages were bouncing
all over the place during this discussion because of overactive
email applications unable to distinguish proper versus improper
use of these terms. (Learning the meaning of the word context
may be a better thing for them to apply themselves to.)
Another word some filters would gainsay is porn. Considering
that porn filters in public libraries were a major topic of
conversation among librarians during the past decade, thanks
to a flurry of “child protection” legislation (Google turns
up 19,500 hits on “porn filters” and “libraries”), this particular
manifestation of “censorware” is even more regrettable. And
highly ironic. In other words, you cannot debate the use of
porn filters in libraries due to, uh, porn filters in libraries.
This type of word-based blocking has been pretty thoroughly
discredited by now, despite a divided decision upholding the
Children’s Internet Protection Act by the Supreme Court in
United States v. American Library Association (2003).
But as the Association flatly asserted almost 10 years ago,
and has not wavered on since: “The use of filtering software
by libraries to block access to constitutionally protected
speech violates the Library Bill of Rights.”
Carol
Reid
Albany
Correction
In
Loose Ends (Jan. 19), we erroneously reported that Supreme
Court had agreed to review the Tenth Circuit Court ruling
that Albany County had based its Medicaid supplemental needs
trust policy upon [“Breaking the Trust,” Jan. 5]. The Supreme
Court in fact declined to review the ruling.
Metroland
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to:
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