We were a sponsor of this event through the gallery. And so we had our Hudson Pride flag out along with our usual BeLo3rd Open flag.

Karen was not available to take pictures and make movies, so you have to settle for my photographic efforts.

The parade was notable for its many groups of people with simple banners, paucity of floats, and almost complete avoidance of the usual herds of fire trucks and rescue vehicles. I admit to only being surprised at the large contingent from the Capital Area Pride Bowlers.

I particularly liked the crowd that gathered at the end of Warren and up onto Promenade Hill. Right size space and right size crowd. Still in Hudson instead of visually cut off down in Henry Hudson Park.

You should visit the website for the event, HudsonPride.com, and note the endless list of sponsors.

He claims to be the web author of The 12534. But how are we to know that this is true? The only bit of wit that passed his lips was a retort on spying our platter of ginger snaps, “Oh, I can’t eat any of those, that would be canibalism.”

We were lucky enough to get Mr. Ginger Bread Man to pose with Ms. Wonderful.

Jane Kogan with lobster headdress

Friends and relatives at my table. Apologies for the lack of names.

more friends

Jane chowing down

Jane's birthday cake. It was explained that Jane does the New York Times Crossword puzzles in INK and does not know from whiteout!!

We enjoyed the whole affair despite the bouncy weather on the ferry coming and going to Boston.

PP

Harvey Meyerson

A regular feature:

Gary Spina, a teacher and a writer, has also been a soldier, a sailor, a policeman and an outdoors man, among other things.

(photo by Dith Pran – New York Times used here without permission

This sketch of Gary Spina is really a great read. It gave a good start to my day.

 

 

 

 

On Education
A Teacher’s Adventurous Life, Distilled Into an Unlikely Book

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

Published: March 14, 2007

“The Mountain Man’s Field Guide to Grammar” is the brainchild of a man who loved to write, but hated learning the rules.

Here is a permalink to the article.

The collapse of energy giant Enron over the last six months

The collapse of energy giant Enron over the last six months has produced a surprising level of outrage especially for a cynic like me. As this drama continues to unfold, I have been trying to understand how Enron structured their business and made money. Until just last night I was operating on the belief that the cleverness and sophistication of Enron’s managers simply outstripped my analytical skills. But, as I have been following the writing in the NY Times and Wall St. Journal, slowly it has come to me that they don’t understand the maze of structures and deals employed by Enron for years either.

Massive deceit, deception, and downright criminal activity

Then, last night, on the Jim Lehrer News Hour on PBS, Paul Solman, one of the regular financial reporters, gave his analysis of what has been going on. After listening to Solman’s report, it is clear that Enron has been engaging in massive deceit, deception, and downright criminal activity for years. Now, I must admit to some familiarity with the habits and attitudes of managers. I am used to the aggressive behavior of managers trying to stretch the accounting systems to make the most recent quarter look good. In fact, I have participated in such activities. But, Enron has engaged in a long-term shell game aided and abetted by its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, LLC. The failure of the government (the SEC) and more importantly, the audit companies, to provide oversight, transparency, basic facts, and above all the application simple commonsense ethics to a huge company’s activities is outrageous. It undermines the credibility of the economy. If Arthur Andersen, one of the oldest and most prestigious audit firms can be so blind over so many years, what are we to make of their, and other audit firms’ reliability for oversight of all the other firms so many of us hold in our 401K funds? It will be interesting to see how the government and the financial institutions of capitalism react to this. It is a basic tenant of the capital and equity markets that timely, transparent information is essential not only to the best and highest use of our capital resources, but also to the maintenance of trust in a reasonably fair play space.

You can see the Solman report on the PBS web site (opens in a separate window) And, from Friday January 25, 2002, here is more Solman on Enron (opens in a separate window)