Cowboy Diplomacy, Obama-Style

We've watched the developments overseas for several weeks now, first in North Korea and now also in Iran. Tensions ratcheting up, diplomats being sent home, sanctions being passed, threats being made by state-run media. And it occurred to me in the last few days that we are missing one thing that become almost predictable in the past 8 years whenever saber-rattling like this started: outrage from the peaceniks, directed at the U.S. president.

Yeah, they've been strangely silent lately as North Korea threatens to wipe America off the map and Iran warns us not to "meddle" in their affairs. When George W. Bush was president and North Korea started making threats, all we would hear is hysterical peaceniks saying that "cowboy diplomacy" was going to lead us to nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula. Now that we are closer than ever to the specter of such horrific events, not a peep. There have been more angry protests in South Korea over our policy toward the North than there have been in this country.

The last few years of the Bush administration featured constant accusations from liberals and peaceniks alike that Bush, Cheney, & co. were plotting war with Iran. Now that people everywhere are saddened by the video of the death of poor Neda, Iranians are twittering about horrifying actions in the streets to crush protests, and arrested protesters are being tortured, I can't help but wonder what we would be hearing in this country if Bush was still president. To his credit, President Obama has said the right things, deploring the violent response but proclaiming that the U.S. has no desire to meddle in Iranian affairs. Whatever the Republican criticism of his initial response, Obama's in a tough position. We want to support the people seeking freedom in Iran, but we don't want to be seen as wishing to overthrow their government.

Of course, I still recall that no matter what Bush said about Iran when he was president, it was interpreted by the left as "he wants to send us to war in Iran." Apparently, someone else has noticed as well; President Ahmadinejad of Iran. Today, he compared Obama to Bush, saying that our 44th president is saying the same things 43 said. To some extent, it's true. The only difference between Obama's foreign policy so far and that which was derided as "cowboy diplomacy" is the way people have reacted. The message somehow comes off as less threatening to most of the rest of the world, but it's the same message: we support efforts to bring freedom and democracy to places where those ideals are squelched, we do not tolerate the spread of nuclear weapons, and we do not tolerate violations of UN sanctions. Okay, there's another difference: the vice-president isn't jetting all over the world vowing to kick everyone's asses.

But if you ignore Cheney's bluster (which I certainly tried my best to do for the last 8 years), it's the same foreign policy. Only now we're closer to hostilities than ever, and we're not seeing hysterical commentaries, cartoons, and letters to the editor saying that this foreign policy was going to lead to a mushroom cloud over Seoul. And therein lies the double-standard. Apparently if a Democratic president gets tough on foreign agitators, it's okay, but if a Republican president does, it's the end of the world. So it's more about the politics of this country than actually making the world a better or safer place. But in the end, doesn't everything in this country seem to come down to politics?

Okay, Let Me Dumb It Down Even More For You

In a recent study of cities with the most aggressive drivers, New York City took what many would say as its rightful place as number one. Having recently driven in NYC, I can see their point to an extent. On my particular journey, it was a Friday night and I was fortunate to have chosen the upper level of the George Washington Bridge, because had I taken the lower level, I would have wound up in a massive backup... and this was after MIDNIGHT. I mean I know NYC is the "city that never sleeps", but I have never seen a backup like that so late at night. My good fortune continued on the trip home Sunday morning, as there was a motorcycle procession of some sort crossing the bridge in the other direction, meaning they had shut down I-95 to EVERYONE ELSE. Consider that the NYC "metropolitan area" includes insane New Jersey drivers and I guess it makes sense to rank the Big Apple #1.

However, I am still calling shenanigans. I find it an unfair comparison that they only did the 25 biggest metro areas in this study. If they had expanded it out to, oh, about the top 100, the rankings would have to be much different. Syracuse and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre would easily make the top 5, and maybe finish 1-2. The study ranked the cities based on drivers who speed, overreact, tailgate, lay on the horn, and have angry reactions to those around them. Needless to say, I see that quite a lot when I'm driving around the 'Cuse these days.

Despite my previous attempts to educate the bad-driving public, it appears that I need to go even further because drivers around here are getting progressively worse and rapidly so. Example? Okay... in my first 30 years on this planet, 13 of which have been spent driving in some form or another, I had never seen someone at a red light just decide to say, "Screw it," and go through the light because he couldn't wait for it to turn green. Now, in the past couple of months, I've seen it happen THREE TIMES. In the past week or so, I've seen it TWICE! Last I checked, a red light doesn't just mean stop. It means STAY STOPPED until the light turns green. I can just think of the mindset of these people: "Duh, well I don't see no cop, so I'm gonna go." Well geez, why don't you go hold up a convenience store while you're at it? If there's no cop around, you can get away with it, right? WRONG.

So, to recap, this is the proper procedure at a red light: First of all, STOP. If you can make a right on red, you still have to STOP first. And do not run the light if it's been 30 seconds and it hasn't turned green.

Oh, and when the light turns green, please do not choose THEN to put your turn signal on, thereby pissing off everyone in the lane behind you who assumed that you would go when the light turned green. If you spaced out and forgot you were going to turn there, please do us all a favor and make your turn one block up the road. This will give us a chance to see you are turning and go around you if at all possible. Although I guess I should give the person credit for actually signaling. We all know people aren't the greatest at doing that. Oh, and just putting the turn signal on long enough for it to blink ONCE doesn't count. Take the damn time to put it on ahead of time and leave it on until you are done. Yeah I can hear some of you now: "But what if I leave my blinker on? That's embarrassing." Well yes, but I think you'd take embarrassment over getting flipped off any day of the week.

However, there is one time when you should NEVER put your turn signal on... and that is when you are in a lane that is exiting the highway. Not an off-ramp, mind you, but a lane that is clearly splitting off from the rest of the highway. We already know you're exiting the highway or you wouldn't be in that lane; if you put on your turn signal, I'm gonna assume you are pulling over due to some kind of emergency.

Now let me clarify the whole "passing someone who is going to turn" situation... because this is something I try not to do too often because I'm not one of these types who has to absolutely do whatever it takes to get to his/her destination 10 seconds sooner. My drive home usually involves about a mile-long stretch of a 4-lane main drag through a commercial section of Suburbia. Lots of lights, lots of people turning left or right. If I get stuck behind someone who is turning, these days I just wait... because I don't want to put my life in danger. The people coming up behind me will see an opening and veer right over into it, often without signaling. If you've got your turn signal on, indicating that you wish to move over and take the spot, they don't care... they're going 35, you're not, it's their spot. That's the mentality.

I call this phenomenon "slaloming", like these guys are skiers who are just moving from lane to lane. It's even worse on West Street around 9am because you have people who are late for work... and they do 55 in a 35 because well, it LOOKS like a divided highway (and they're probably thinking, "Duh, I don't see no cop..."), but on my street, it's just as bad. You get to a light, the right lane is backing up, so they jump to the left lane quickly (probably cutting someone off in the process) just to get a couple car lengths ahead. The worst (and most dangerous) thing they do is they see someone in the left lane ahead of them slowing down to turn left so they start to veer into the right lane... but the guy ahead of them has now turned, so they jerk right back into the left lane. God forbid the person who was behind them in the left lane has tried to get up to speed because he might get taken out. After all, our slaloming friend has pretty much laid claim to BOTH LANES at the same time.

Now every so often, the idiotic traits of drivers will draw a flurry of letters to the Sub-Standard, errrr... Post-Standard. A recent letter complained that people sit in the passing lane doing 55 in a 55 and not trying to actually do any passing. I get that, and yeah that does kinda suck, but most of the time when I'm in the passing lane and not actually passing someone, it's because the car I was passing suddenly decided to speed up... as if he/she was offended by the fact that I was going to pass. Here's how it's supposed to work: you stay in the lane you need to be in, unless you're passing someone, then you go into the passing lane. You don't go into the passing lane and stay there until it's time to exit, at which point you shoot across three lanes to get to the off-ramp. You also don't go in the slow lane until a left exit comes up and shoot across two lanes to go into the NEW slow lane.

So what do I blame all this horrible driving on? Well, as is the case with a lot of America's problems, I blame NASCAR. People watch that and decide to go imitating it and see if they can replicate the thrill of weaving from lane to lane, passing the cars, and if you get hit, well, rubbin's racin', right?

On the other hand, that wouldn't explain the issues we have when there are festivals downtown and they change the traffic patterns. About a block away from Clinton Square, you have a sign that says "left lane closed ahead". So people start moving from the left lane into the right, thus tying everything up... except they don't realize that once they get to the block in question, it's not the lane they just left that is closed. It's the left-turn lane. Then we clear that intersection and a new sign says "form two lanes". Except there are of course no lane lines, so people don't know HOW to form two lanes, especially because they're still flustered from the "left lane" that wasn't closed. By this point, we've gotten to another intersection, one with a left-turn arrow, but people are so flustered from the ordeal they put themselves through the last two blocks that they have actually STOPPED at the green arrow and turned AFTER the arrow went away into oncoming traffic.

I think people have just become so accustomed to not doing something until they have to react and not thinking things through that these things happen. But you're not gonna change people's instincts overnight. So we have to live with it. Unless I have now paralyzed you with fear of other drivers so much that you now just wish to stay home. Sorry about that...

Average Syracusan Strikes Back

Well I have to say that it's been a banner week for Average Syracusan. I'm sure he/she is sitting in his/her easy chair, enjoying a hearty laugh and celebrating recent victories and advances in the battle to make sure nothing new or exciting ever happens in this town.

If you're not familiar with Average Syracusan, here's a description: Average Syracusan is at least 50 years of age (but most likely over 70), has lived here his/her entire life, and lives to stop progress. Average Syracusan sees the mass exodus of young, productive, middle-class people from this area as no big deal; in fact, he/she is glad they left because they clearly don't understand how things are supposed to (not) happen around here. At the same time, he/she also complains about his/her high taxes while failing to see that the exodus of young, productive, middle-class people from this area MAY have been the reason. Average Syracusan loves SU sports but hates Jim Boeheim and thinks he should have been fired years ago; he/she hasn't formed an opinion on Doug Marrone yet but will likely hate him as well, probably by the 4th quarter of the Penn State game this September (He/she has already told Greg Paulus he's not welcome back in his hometown because he originally left to play basketball at Duke).

Also, Average Syracusan wishes the ugly, blighted oil tanks were still up where Carousel Mall is now (because at least blight pays taxes), thought the Chiefs didn't need to build a new stadium to replace crumbling Big Mac (then insisted it be built on the north side instead of downtown), and pretty much thinks that Syracuse's best days are behind her and why try to reverse this downhill slide? Oh, and despite his/her love for SU sports, Average Syracusan despises Syracuse University because they don't pay taxes and their students allegedly cause problems for the few University Hill residents who aren't SU students. If Average Syracusan had an official website, it would be this. The author longs for the good old days of the 1950s and 1960s when downtown was bustling, thinks those days are long gone, and has also pronounced anything proposed or built in the last 30 years a failure. In true Average Syracusan fashion, the author has also not updated the site in several years.

So now that you know who Average Syracusan is, why is he/she celebrating? Well, most recently it's because work has stalled on the first phase of the Destiny project, just weeks from completion. Average Syracusan has been against this project from the start, because he/she doesn't want to see a local businessman accomplish his dream of making Syracuse a tourist attraction, and an environmentally-sustainable one at that. Average Syracusan resents the fact that Bob Congel got a tax deal from the city to build the project, and has set about trashing the project at every possible opportunity. Well now, thanks to the recession and the lending crunch, Citigroup has stopped giving the project money, again just weeks before it was set to be done. Citigroup is using one of Average Syracusan's favorite ugly rumors about the project -- that it has no tenants and will just be a giant empty building -- as its reasoning.

Well if you clicked on the link, you can see what I'm talking about, as wave upon wave of Destiny naysayers has gleefully reacted to this unfortunate news. It's going to turn out even better for them than they'd ever hoped... the Carousel mall expansion won't just be a giant empty building, it will be a giant, UNFINISHED, empty building. A monument to why no developer should ever be allowed to dream big in this town and do anything to bring people here.

Also, recently, we learned that this doesn't just apply to developers, it also applies to sports team owners with similar big dreams. The Syracuse Crunch (our minor-league hockey team) wanted to play an outdoor hockey game this December at Alliance Bank Stadium, the aforementioned home of the Chiefs. Outdoor games have been huge for Buffalo and Chicago the last two NHL seasons, and having the first outdoor AHL game would no doubt bring a lot of people and attention to the area. Well, you-know-who immediately found a problem with that... that and the $350K that owner Howard Dolgon was asking for from the county to help him put this spectacle on. The money would come from room occupancy taxes which are mostly paid by out-of-town guests to our local hotels... but Average Syracusan immediately started fear-mongering that it was "our taxes" that were going to pay for the game. The county legislature, which has already shot down funding for much-needed repairs and improvements to the Crunch's home arena, nixed this one as well. When Crunch fans and the more forward-thinking among us lamented that Dolgon may well take his puck and leave, Average Syracusan responded with typical bile toward the out-of-towner Dolgon: "Let him go, we don't need him or his hockey team here!"

Now, Average Syracusan is focusing on another upcoming battle: what to do about Interstate 81. The elevated highway cuts right through the city's south side (it's the only urban area where 81 goes through the city instead of around it) and is seen as a physical and psychological barrier. It's ugly, it's under construction every other year, and it cannot stay up much longer, so New York State is looking for input as to what to do next. The highway was originally built back in the 1960s, when city leaders saw a chance to get a lot of federal dollars and wipe out a troubled neighborhood all in one shot. The most popular plan that is being suggested is to tear down 81, reroute it around the city (on the already-existing 481), and build a nice divided four-lane, tree-lined boulevard that will provide a much nicer entrance to the city from the south, and reconnect these divided neighborhoods.

As you can well imagine, Average Syracusan will have none of it. There has been letter after letter over the past week or so, all of them complaining that it will take forever to get from the south end of town to downtown or Carousel on Route 11 once 81 is gone. ALL of these letter-writers obviously missed two things: 1) the fact that 81 is getting replaced with ANOTHER ROAD that can handle the traffic (oh wait, you'll still have stop lights, oh the agony); and 2) even if they just replace the elevated highway with a new one (which is the only other option), you'll STILL have to bottleneck your way up South Salina Street when they're replacing the highway! The public debate on this one will be happening soon, and expect it to be heated.

All of this is just the preliminaries for the real fun: the upcoming mayoral election, where Average Syracusan hopes to sweep his/her hero Stephanie Miner (the leader of the opposition to Congel and so many other recent project developers) into City Hall with a mandate to change... absolutely NOTHING. That's right. They're hoping Miner will grind this city to a halt. No new projects (unless they fork over the tax money), nothing that will bring people to this fading city. Looks like I may be getting out of here at the right time... well here as in this area AND this state. Paul Krugman called the wrong state a "banana republic"; if anything, New York is now a banana republic, complete with TV footage of lawmakers fighting to break down the door to take over control of the state Senate.

Oh wait, I can hear Average Syracusan now... "Go ahead and leave, we don't need you here!" You're gonna need SOMEBODY here when you all start dying soon...