COLUMNIST SEAN KIRST

News and Views from Syracuse and Central New York

Transitions toward autumn

by Sean Kirst

Thursday August 28, 2008, 11:05 AM

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Nick Lisi/The Post-StandardAutumn a year ago, in the Adirondacks

My column for our "Autumntime" section addresses the way powerful way in which the scents and sights of fall can generate intense memories. How about you? What do you find most evocative about the season?

You can respond here, at skirst@syracuse.com or on the forum Continue reading "Transitions toward autumn" »

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Fair price

by Sean Kirst

Wednesday August 27, 2008, 7:28 PM

Al Campanie/The Post-StandardFile art of the midway at the New York State Fair: A one-time admission charge could only help attendance - and overall revenues.

(A request to those responding to this post: Please read it before flying off the handle. Nowhere in here do I talk about getting on rides at the fair for free; my point is the different rationale behind admission prices at theme parks. My question: Would it make sense to charge a one-time admission fee of $10 that would get you in the door for the entire fair? The argument would be that a relatively low one-time admission price would increase the number of trips people make to the fair, especially the demographic - teenagers to young adults - most liable to a spend a lot of money on food, souvenirs and rides on the midway).

As usual, we went out and bought a few discount admission tickets for the state fair before it opened, which knocked the $10 admission charge for each of us down to six bucks. Our problem becomes our 14-year-old, who is abruptly at that age where he wants to wander the midway with his buddies, and has decided to go out there as much as possible, and all of a sudden he has to come up with $10 a pop, every time (except for the one day when kids under 16 get in free).

That $10 isn't that much, maybe, when you consider the cost of admission to Darien Lake or any theme park. But the difference is that admission to those parks gets you onto the rides for free - unlike the fair, in a big way. Indeed, for the most part - especially for kids - the fair is asking for your money at the gate in return for the privilege of taking more of your money at every turn once you're inside (Look at it this way: Since parking now goes for anywhere from five to 10 bucks, a family of five - even with discounted tickets - is looking at $35 or $40 to walk in the door, before even hitting the midway or food stands).

My simple suggestion: Keep admission at $10, but make it a one-shot-for-the-entire-event deal. Once you buy your admission ticket, it'll get you in free for the duration of the fair. What'll happen, of course, is that the $10 that would have been spent at the door would get spent every night inside the fairgrounds, anyway - and total revenues would probably go up, because the money people spend once they smell sausage and cotton candy is going to be a hell of a lot more than the $10 that now keeps them away from going more than once.

That's my take, anyway. How about yours?

- Sean
respond here, at skirst@syracuse.com or on the forum

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Civic hopes and dreams revisited

by skirst

Monday August 25, 2008, 12:00 AM

More than a year ago, a correspondent on the forum called on readers to suggest one improvement for change they'd like to see in Onondaga County, and wondered if I'd take that question to the general readership. In the way these things go, it took me 18 months or so to get around to it, but that question became the focus of my time Sunday at the New York State Fair - and turned into my column for today. If you've got suggestions of your own, please feel free to add them here, on the forum, or by e-mailing me at skirst@syracuse.com.

A correspondent on the forum asks readers to suggest one civic improvement they'd love to see happen in 2007. I can think of plenty, from a groundbreaking for the proposed Pioneer-O'Brien & Gere complex downtown, to something as simple as the landmark State Tower Building being illuminated in the way that it was when it was built.

Still, if I had to choose one easy and immediate improvement that would match the passion of countless thousands of citizens in this town, I'd love to see a citizens' beautification committee with real clout, made up of volunteers from Syracuse and across Onondaga County, who had the ear and support of those in power.

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Locked on the Olympics

by Sean Kirst

Friday August 22, 2008, 7:17 PM

When I was a kid, I would plant myself in front of the television just before the summer Olympics began, then come back every night, pretty much until the end. My family and friends basically did the same thing. I particularly remember an intense focus on the games during the tumult of Mexico City and the nightmare of Munich.

My interest dwindled over the years, but these Olympics have been a kind of throwback. My family was locked onto the screen for the Phelps medal parade, and for the incredible performance of the 'Lightning Bolt' in the 100 and 200, and for the terrific compeitition in the women's gymnastics, and even for beach volleyball, for Pete's sake.

Seems to me that an awful lot of people, night after night, have been doing the same thing. I have my theories on that, but before I lay them out, let me ask you if you've gone through the same thing - and, if so, wh?

- Sean
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Travelalities

by Sean Kirst

Friday August 22, 2008, 10:58 AM

Well, that's supposed to be a cross of 'traveling' and reality.' But here's my point:

As mentioned earlier, my 14-year-old and I went to New York for a couple of days this week to catch a Mets game. I love going to the city, but I can't stand driving there and much prefer to get around by subway. If possible, I would have made Mayor Mike Bloomberg happy by taking the train to Gotham and leaving our car behind.

This was the deal: Two round-trip train tickets on Amtrak would have cost $228, total. Even with gas running from $3.50 to $3.90 a gallon - depending on where you were - it cost us about $70-$75 in gas to drive back and forth in our Neon from Syracuse to the little hotel where we stayed in Flushing, and another $30 or so in tolls, and $18 to park the car overnight.

In other words, driving - even now - was the least expensive option, by at least $100. That's a lot of savings. That's why we drove.

I remember, just before the Sept. 11 attacks, there was serious talk of a high-speed train that would have connected the big Upstate cities with Manhattan. I'll tell you what: If a train ticket was available to NYC for $60, I'd do it every time, and I'd go there a heck of a lot more than I do now - because you could do day trips without the fatigue and stress of driving or riding the bus.

But for the moment, even with the awful price of gas, common sense still says: If you're going downstate, drive.

- Sean
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'Beyond diplomacy'

by Sean Kirst

Thursday August 21, 2008, 8:16 AM

I'm driving back Wednesday with my youngest son, from New York City. We're taking turns with the radio; he listens to his music when he's not dozing, I listen to mine while we're locked down by stalled traffic on I-81, near Scranton. So we're bouncing from station to station, listening to happy dj's chattering about new TV shows and a Jonas Brothers promotion - 'We took the shirt right off their backs, and we've got it for you!' - and state fairs and on and on, as if there are no worries in the world on this warm, sweet August day ...

Finally, I happen into a public radio station that's carrying a BBC broadcast, and they're talking about something that no one seems to be thinking about at all on American radio: They're talking about how the Russians are now threatening to go 'beyond diplomacy' if Poland moves forward with its intention to become part of our big missile shield, and my son - suddenly alert, moved somehow by the tenor of this somber British voice - starts asking pointed questions about the Russians, and why they're angry, and who has nuclear weapons, and who doesn't, and exactly what is going on over there, and exactly how it could involve us ...

And I try to explain what that voice has touched off in my gut. I try to explain in a matter-of-fact way that for the millions of us who've spent a lifetime conscious of the chance of full-blown conflict with Russia, how these words are as volatile as anything we've ever heard. That backs up into trying to explain the Soviert collapse, and that incredible moment of hope for a fragile democracy in the early 1990s, and the Russian descent into chaos and organized crime, and the rise of Putin and resurgent state control, accompanied by a sense of stability and prosperity and fierce nationalism, and how all of this has abruptly led into the kind of international minefield I think all of us hoped we'd never walk again ...

My son listens quietly, taking it in, wondering about the right thing to do, and in that worry assuming the mantle of full citizen. It took a voice from overseas to bring that out in him, and it struck me that there was a time in the United States when we had our own voices of gravity, someone like a Cronkite or a Sevaraid, or maybe it was just that we had people ready to hear them (a generation that had witnessed superpowers at war, and understood what it meant, and understood just how easily, at any time, it could happen).

Still, these are beautiful summer days, and a new season of TV is about to begin, and gas prices have taken a nice dip, and what the heck is going on, anyway, with Brad and Angie and those twins? Easier as a nation to hit a button and switch stations, and to move as far as possible 'beyond diplomacy.'

With all that said, let me put the same question to you that I put to my son: How should our government respond?

- Sean
respond here, at skirst@syracuse.com or on the forum

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The Lost Boys: Climbing Olympus

by Sean Kirst

Monday August 18, 2008, 9:55 AM

My column today focused on Julius Wani, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan who resettled in Syracuse. Wani became friends with Olympic runner Lopez Lomong when they were together in a refugee camp in Kenya.

Wani's own situation was unbearably traumatic, yet he somehow emerged with the philosophy common to so many of these young men from Sudan: He remains hungry for knowledge, and he makes a conscious effort - both because he is a devout Christian, he said, and in order to maintain his mental health - to avoid feeling the need to avenge the harm done to his family.

That carries into Syracuse, where Wani counsels city children from difficult backgrounds. He offers simple advice, and within it is a level of humanity that we are fortunate to ever encounter in our lives:

"I tell them I do not believe in money. I believe in accomplishment. Money can be stolen. Your house can be burned down. The only thing that cannot be taken from you is knowledge.

"In the summer, I work and I take classes. I do not want to be idle. If you are idle, you might be drinking or doing other things that cause you to forget what you want to do with your life.These children I work with, they speak their minds so freely. They speak their minds so liberally. I see them, sometimes, the way they speak to their teachers ... That is freedom, but you do not want to abuse your freedom."

To Wali, the best therapy for neglect or abuse is to remain focused on the glimmer of opportunity, to allow that quest for learning to become your ticket out. He spoke of a patience almost impossible for us to understand, of checking a list in the camp every week - for years - to see if it was finally his turn to leave for the United States. He spoke of living in the day, and setting aside the cruelties endured "yesterday." He spoke primarily of those who had offered him kindness, and how each achievement by any Lost Boy becomes a means of thanking those who gave them help.

Lopez Lomong, he said, brought that 'thank you' to the Olympics.

- Sean
respond here, at skirst@syracuse.com or on the forum

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Late summer rituals

by Sean Kirst

Monday August 18, 2008, 8:36 AM

Mike Greenlar/The Post-StandardSunset in Oswego: It's worth the drive to catch it one last time in late summer.

As we roll into the golden season known in Syracuse as "State fair time" (which this year comes with considerable discontent), the season when the summer sunlight looks especially rich on downtown brick, correspondent Joe Bass has a question:

"I need some ideas of things to do before the (gasp!) summer is over with. I'm hopefully making a trip out to the Adirondacks next month, so I can check that off the list. and I might be doing a wine tour around cayuga lake soon. anything else i should do closer to home? Anyplace around here that serves great ice cream? Stuff like that."

What do you think? Respond here, at skirst@syracuse.com or on the forum.

- Sean

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