Breathe Deep And Relax (If You Are Able To) For The Next Two Weeks!

It often feels to me like Hudson City Hall may never crawl its way out of 20th century thinking and bad habits if only because no one there is interested in doing so. There is visual evidence all around us, and some of the worst of it we are forced to breathe, too.

Helping to heat up and poison the planet,
3 weeks at a time!

Heavy black smoke is full of particulate matter,
 which helps create lung and brain cancer, as well as 
asthma and COPD, all ugly, horrible ways to suffer
and to die. The people at City Hall don't mind if you and I 
die this way, as long as they can continue to
show their enduring pride in the Olympics.

So many motorists and residents really 
take the time to appreciate this scene!  Some 
even stop their cars and shed a tear or two.

What climate catastrophe?  It's still 1978
here in Hudson!

Some day we will have a city manager who will put an end to this nonsense toxic Olympic torch that maybe two or three people truly care about. We and the entire planet will all be better off without it.

Hudson leads by example about as well as any city out there, that's for sure, showing how to remain ignorant and on the wrong side of history year after year. Perhaps it is time for a referendum on the torch -- keep it or replace it with something that does not cause cancer or climate change. Or get rid of the Olympic monument all together and do something that calms traffic, something without a flame fueled by a petroleum product 24/7.

Consider this: This past holiday season was the first without a real Christmas tree in the 7th Street Park. I never heard an explanation at a council meeting about why this happened or who made it happen.

Last week one morning while in the Hudson Stewart's parking lot, I noticed the DPW garbage truck pull into the lot and park. The crew of three got out and headed to the store, leaving the truck's diesel-guzzling engine idling. Exactly seven minutes later they climbed back in the truck and headed off, not having to start the engine. Of course, they may have had to wait in line for an extra 5 minutes, but that wouldn't have bothered them, their boss Robert Perry or the DPW foreman one bit either. "7 or 12 minutes of a truck unnecessarily idling? So the fuck what? Our boss allows us to idle the engine any time we like and for as long as we like, and that's why we do it. Oh, and also because we are not paying for the fuel. Got a problem with that? Stick it in your ear!"

Robert Perry's DPW, once again with their 
heads in the sand.