Can’t Afford to Love NY

My friend Carole sent me a link to a website called I Can’t Afford to [Love] NY:

ROFL! Yeah, I hear ya…

The guy sells t-shirts that have this printed on them. The price is very reasonable– $15 for any size. But watch out for the sales tax, that’ll getcha.

What’s Really Going On

Found this great quote from Jean at Yeah, Right. It’s an excellent post with some great videos. Go see!

This is what clear-headed Christians and Upstaters think of American culture and the slothful shift toward government control, these days:

Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny.

A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or rather, apparently, welcomes it.

-The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude
Etienne de la Boetie, 1530-1563

The Telectroscope from NY to London

It’s the stuff movies are made of: a young man stumbles upon his great-grandfather’s old papers and discovers a plan for the wildest and most ingenious invention of Victorian-era engineering.

It’s the Telectroscope, and it’s a “tunnel” that runs from London, England to New York City, New York. But is it for real? Could a tunnel possibly exist beneath the Atlantic Ocean? The story certainly runs like a science-fiction film.

By 1894, Alexander’s diaries had become more and more erratic and it was clear that he was suffering great mental torment. Eventually, the workforce, fearing for their lives, mutinied and forced Alexander to abandon the project and arrange passage back to England. The tunnel and shaft were hastily covered up.

Alexander never recovered from his deep disappointment and the shame of failure. His mental health continued to deteriorate until in 1917 he died, insane, in an asylum in Bethnal Green. His papers remained with his family who spent the next century denying their existence…

…until Paul St George, who clearly shares his great-grandfather’s drive and determination, discovered the plans and set out to complete both the tunnel and the Telectroscope and open this astonishing “device for the suppression of absence” to the general public.

I first heard about it when blogger Lady Banana said she saw New Yorkers in a tunnel, from her London street. I was quite intrigued and did a little researching. My husband was convinced that the Telectroscope is not a tunnel– not a true tunnel– but merely a fiber optic cable at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Mirrors are set in key areas and therefore New Yorkers can view the streets of Londoners, and vice versa. Hmmm. The BBC Online has a brief story filled with skepticism and a short video. Is it real?

Spitzing Mad

I’m not going to contribute much to the already over-reported news about New York’s governor, Eliot Spitzer. I hope he resigns. The whole thing is disgusting. There’s an excellent open thread going on at NYCO’s Blog, if you want to tap into what Upstate New Yorkers are saying.

I never liked Spitzer politically, and I dislike him very much personally. But one question still remains: there’s a “VIP” prostitution ring in New York and no one seems to care?!

Introducing My New New York Travel Map

I am thrilled to announce that I finally figured out how to host my very own personal google map. And not only that, I figured out how to specially design a page template for it. It’s a pretty big map, and I needed a big place to keep it. Wanna see what it looks like?

Click on “New York Travel Map” above my blog header. I love it!

I’m still working on it. I have several dozens of places to inject in the map. I think this will constitute a whole new way of discovering new and great places to visit in New York State.

If you’re wondering how I tinkered with the theme to build my own page for the map, check out a little tutorial I wrote here.

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