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Viewpoints

The Money Shot

by Paul Rapp September 20, 2012

In recent months there has been a flood of federal copyright infringement lawsuits that are having a severe impact on a lot of innocent people. These lawsuits are a variant on the P2P suits brought ...

1 comment

Getting Past Stupid

by Jo Page September 19, 2012

If there’s one thing I understand, after 20 years as an ordained clergy, it’s that faith is irrational. If there’s another thing I understand, it’s that irrationality, while it may provide comfort, insight, inspiration—making art ...

Solidarity With Chicago

by Miriam Axel-Lute September 12, 2012

First of all, if you’re reading this on the day it comes out, and you haven’t voted in the primary yet, put it down, go vote, and then come back. Please and thank you. OK. That ...

Democratic Primary Endorsements

by The Staff September 12, 2012

New York State Assembly District 109: Patricia Fahy Of the six candidates running to fill the Assembly seat of the retiring Jack McEneny, one clearly stands out: former Albany City School Board President Patricia Fahy. Her service ...

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Gone the Way of the Buffalo

by Paul Rapp September 7, 2012

Last week I got an e-mail from a Berkshire Eagle writer who was concerned that my last article could be interpreted as saying that the Eagle ignored the story about the Berkshire blogger being ordered ...

The Grand Tour

by Jo Page September 7, 2012

Just having bought this new-old house—what I’ve come to think of as a piece of history—a real vacation was out of the question this summer. But I wanted some kind of journey to mark the ...

Fracked Memory

by Robert H. Boyle and Bruce Ferguson August 30, 2012

Bradley J. Field has amnesia. Field is the director of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Division of Mineral Resources, the agency responsible for putting together the high-volume-fracking environmental-impact statement that's supposed to protect ...

6 comments

The Privilege of Protest

by Miriam Axel-Lute August 30, 2012

I took some time I didn’t feel like I had on Monday to join the anti-fracking rally and march that gathered in the Corning Preserve by the Hudson River, made a stop at the DEC ...

Albany Riverfront Park

Speaking of Pussy Riot

by Paul Rapp August 23, 2012

Unless you’ve been sequestered under a boulder somewhere, or watch Fox “News” 24/7, you know that the members of the Russian grrrl band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in a Rooskie slammer for ...

Dog Days

by Jo Page August 23, 2012

I’m sitting here in a pool of sunshine, sky as blue as faded denim, tree branches swaying in the lazy summer breeze, June bugs buzzing and squirrels hornily cavorting. Doesn’t that sound bucolic? A real ...

What Government Can Do

by Miriam Axel-Lute August 16, 2012

“Government can’t do anything right.” It’s inevitable that Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan for VP is going to raise all sorts of conversation about Ayn Rand and libertarianism. It is, of course, as many people have ...

Sexing the Classics

by Jo Page August 8, 2012

You’d think with all the sex there is in the world of literature—Poe with his necrophilia, Hawthorne with his adultery, Mailer and Miller and Updike and Roth with all manner of erotic expressiveness—that we wouldn’t ...

No, Really. Read It

by Miriam Axel-Lute August 1, 2012

When people started passing around Bill McKibben’s recent article in Rolling Stone called “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math,” I didn’t click through. Not even when it was my wife recommending it. I wouldn’t be surprised if ...

The Internet, Alcohol and EDM

by Paul Rapp July 26, 2012

Picking up more or less where we left off last time, talking about why David Lowery is so FoS in his damning of the Internet, tech companies, and the generation of music lovers who don’t ...

1 comment

Blameless

by Jo Page July 25, 2012

I was driving, and didn’t catch who was being interviewed on YNN Monday around noontime, but the man was describing how much safer the public would be if more people carried guns. What he said ...

6 Reasons Not To Forget About Housing

by Miriam Axel-Lute July 19, 2012

Housing as an issue has always struggled to be sexy and grab people’s attention. You might think that the housing crash and its continuing repercussions might have changed that, but this is a presidential election ...

Why David Lowery is Full of Shit

by Paul Rapp July 12, 2012

A few weeks ago a short screed by Camper Van Beethoven/Cracker frontman David Lowery about the music acquisition practices of our youth went seriously viral. A surprising number of Facebook music pals reposted it with ...

3 comments

Define and Conquer

by Jo Page July 11, 2012

When Emily Dickinson wrote “Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the Soul” I think she comes closer to a definition of hope than Julian Baggini, a British philosopher, does in his lips-tightly-pressed-together piece, ...

Feed Each Other

by Miriam Axel-Lute July 5, 2012

I am as delighted as the next pragmatist who hopes we eventually get to true national healthcare that the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act. I think everyone should pause and read some of ...

Field of Distortions

by Robert H. Boyle and Bruce Ferguson June 29, 2012

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has repeatedly stated that “science” will determine the fate of high-volume hydraulic fracturing in the state. Science? How about voodoo science? Scientists know that methane, the main constituent of natural gas, is a potent ...

25 comments