Category Archive for 'history'

A Day Trip to the City and Basketball

Posted in "Art", NYC, family, history on Mar 7th, 2010

Museums Continue to Surprise
Karen and I got off to an earlier than usual departure from Hudson yesterday and made it into Harlem by 11 am. After some pauses to chase the various children around, we went off to The Museum of the City of NY at 103rd and 5th Ave. It was a warm day [...]

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How Did We Come To Consider Corporations to Be Natural Persons? – What To Do Next?

Posted in economy, health, history, politics on Jan 25th, 2010

This week’s decision by the US Supreme Court to allow corporations, including unions, to hold full rights to free speech and political action under the First Amendment to the Constitution once again reminds me of the strange practical and ethical relationship we have with corporations. In the 1886 ruling, Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific [...]

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Remarks on President Obama’s Speech on Accepting The Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo 12/10/2009

Posted in history, politics on Dec 13th, 2009

President Obama’s speech on accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 2009 has generally been reviewed in the US with much glow about its rhetorical heights and appreciation of its depth of thought. I did not watch Obama give this speech. Instead, I turned to the text which I could read at my leisure [...]

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New York State Museum, Fitchburg MA, Simonds Saw & Steel, Nuclear Waste, and Family Connections

Posted in economy, family, health, history on Dec 10th, 2009

Karen and I went on a one of our mid-week jaunts to Albany and the NYS Museum. The museum is quite large with more than one visit’s worth of exhibitions about NY and its history. As a longtime New Englander with a somewhat Boston-centric view of history, it is obvious that I need to do [...]

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Diamond Street Hudson, New York – the story of the little town with the big red light district by Bruce Edward Hall

Posted in Hudson, anecdotes, book reviews, history, politics on Nov 19th, 2009

Bruce Edward Hall’s Diamond Street Hudson, New York – The Story of the Little Town with the Big Red Light District1 is every new resident’s introduction to a part of the history of Hudson missing from conventional touristics materials. Turns out that Hudson has depended on weekend traffic far longer than the current economy of Manhattanites (and others) coming [...]

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Whither the American Empire?

Posted in history, politics on Oct 1st, 2009

Americans do not like to use the word “empire” in reference to the country’s role in the world. Our Presidents uniformly role out rhetoric that sounds just like Obama’s. Here is a paragraph from his Inaugural speech:
And so, to all the other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the [...]

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Stumbling on a Piece of American History and Americana

Posted in Hudson, anecdotes, history on Sep 17th, 2009

Karen and I were off on an errand to Radio Shack yesterday about noontime. In the parking lot was an armada of motorcycles. There were lots of big round middle-aged and older men (predominantly) dressed in motorcycle regalia huddled around one person who was speaking to them. We ventured over and asked a woman at [...]

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Hudson in the NY Times

Posted in Hudson, history on Jun 15th, 2009

Peter Applebome penned an interesting piece in today’s New York Times about two Hudsons, the Hudson River and the City of Hudson:
June 15, 2009
OUR TOWNS
Two Rebirths, Miraculous but Unfinished
All week long, the grand flotilla, led by a replica of Henry Hudson’s Half Moon, has made its way up the river. It sailed under the Rip [...]

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