OPINION

Columnists, Editorials, Letters, Blogs, Cartoons, and More

The Associated Press

A WOMAN wipes her eyes as Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., addresses the Democratic National Convention Tuesday in Denver.

The suffrage victory we have just won ... proves conclusively that 'labor conquers all things,'" said Miss Harriet May Mills happily. ...

Miss Mills is inclined to think that the effects of the suffrage victory will not really be felt until the next generation. ...

-- Syracuse Herald, Aug. 19, 1920, after Tennessee decisively ratified the 19th Amendment to the Constitution granting women the vote. Mills, of Syracuse, was president of the New York State Woman Suffrage Association and founder of the Onondaga County Women's Democratic Club.

Alice Paul, head of the National Women's party and long a militant suffrage leader, today sounded a new battle cry for women.

"... Whatever new rights the women received they must fight for ... . They can expect nothing from the politicians ... until they stand as a unit in a party of their own ..." Miss Paul said in an exclusive interview. ...

-- Syracuse Herald, Aug. 19, 1920

For Hillary Clinton's legions, it wasn't supposed to end this way.

A prominent role in the Democratic National Convention, even a coveted speaking slot Tuesday night, were poor substitutes for winning the presidential nomination in a year when the Democrats have at least an even shot at regaining the White House.

"My God, this guy is all over the place with really no strategy," observed a political blogger Tuesday, responding to the news that B. Thomas Golisano, the billionaire political junkie from Western New York, has endorsed 47 candidates for the New York state Senate and pledged at least $5 million to help them get elected.

Well, there is a strategy -- sort of. Golisano has a "questionnaire" that invites candidates to support his reform agenda: cut state spending (while boosting Upstate economic aid), restrain property taxes, end off-budget borrowing and unfunded local mandates from Albany, break the leadership stranglehold on legislative business, and improve government transparency.

Interestingly, 39 incumbent state senators are on his "support" list -- including 20 majority Republicans who presumably are part of the problem.

GOP senators hold a one-seat lead over the Democrats. Add up the list of Golisano's Democratic picks -- including the North Country's Darrel J. Aubertine, D-Cape Vincent, and four challengers in Western New York -- and he could help tip the balance of power in Albany.

Interestingly, Golisano's cash can flow because of New York state's laughingly lax campaign finance laws -- which the Rochester-based entrepreneur also wants to reform. If Golisano's chosen candidates win, then outlaw his funding strategy, Machiavelli himself might applaud.

It's baa-ack!

Just when you thought the debate over raising the smoking age to 19 was over, guess what the Onondaga County Legislature has on its plate for a scheduled Tuesday vote: That's right, a bill to raise the smoking age to 19.

The principle behind the law is laudable -- to discourage smoking among teens. Smoking can lead not only to addiction and cancer, but to a huge drain on our health care system. But the measure's potential impact appears minimal because of the ease with which underage teens can obtain cigarettes, law or no law. Meanwhile, the measure's exemption to allow 18-year-olds in the military to smoke while other 18-year-olds cannot is troublesome.

The exemption makes sense on the surface: Because 18-year-olds in the military are out of high school, where they might influence younger teens, they should be free to smoke. But what about the 18-year-olds who are out of school and in the work force? Shouldn't they receive an exemption, too?

If the proposal passes, County Executive Joanie Mahoney is expected to conduct a public hearing before deciding whether to sign it. Such vetting could do this flawed measure some good.

To the Editor:

Three recent letters have taken issue with the demonstration Aug. 6 in downtown Syracuse. This peaceful witness commemorated the massacres of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 63 years ago. The writers seek inclusion of other deadly incidents, like Pearl Harbor, in such an activity.

There surely should be a time to remember the victims of Pearl Harbor, or the lives lost at Dresden, My Lai or Falluja. Certainly all these horrible events need our remembrance.

However, there is no devastation within the past 100 years, or in the past millennium, like the destruction of those two cities, with their unsuspecting civilian populations.

File photo/ David Lassman, June 2008 RECENT AERIAL VIEW shows Carousel Center Mall with construction under way on the new expansion.

To the Editor:

As I read the story about the suicide at the Carousel Center published Aug. 25, I was appalled at the apparent lack of "humanity" of the Carousel Center staff in their response to a dying young man. Reportedly keeping away anyone who may have been of assistance -- a woman who had emergency medical training, those who may have wanted to hold this man's hand as he lay dying or say soothing words or even prayers.

"Business as usual" comes before comfort or care of a dying human being? He was someone's son, brother, grandson. He deserved more dignity than curious shoppers snapping cell-phone pictures.

As a mental health professional for 30 years, I know those who commit suicide want the emotional pain to stop and know no other route at the time. That is why there are signs and a hotline phone over the Tappan Zee Bridge going into New York City and other suicide "hot spots," like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. I hope Carousel Center administrators use this tragedy to change policy.

JupiterImages

How long will it be before New York consumers learn who was behind a power trading scheme that jacked up the price of electricity by hundreds of millions of dollars? Months? Years?

Even the exact cost is a mystery. The state Consumer Protection Board estimates electric customers were gouged by at least $100 million during the first six months of 2008. Others say the cost was closer to $250 million. One energy marketer said the scheme inflated consumer bills by at least $415 million.

The whole episode points up the need for greater transparency in our public utility networks. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is looking into what actually happened, could take the first step by lifting the veil off its secret investigation.

"I don't know what will happen Nov. 4 -- but it will be momentous no matter which way it turns out. And there's another thing that's certain: An African American will run for the presidency again. A woman will run again. A septuagenarian will run again. And it won't be nearly as big a deal as it has been this year.

"This is America. Isn't it just great?"

John Zogby, president and CEO of the Utica-based polling firm Zogby International, writing in the August edition of Campaigns & Elections, a trade magazine for political consultants.